Third International Conference on Communication & Media Studies

Abstract

The Syrian revolution and civil war, which entered its eighth year, is one of the most reported conflicts of the last decades. The quality of this report, however, is still to be verified, as there is not a large number of studies about it. To what degree has the media succeeded in explaining the multiple causes and players involved in this complex war? To what extent has the American media, more specifically the NYT, produced and reproduced frames that reflect the conversation occurring within the American establishment about how to deal with such a humanitarian crisis? This article draws on the analysis of a number of The New York Times Op-Ed articles during March-April 2011 (the beginning of the conflict) and July-August 2014 (the emergence of ISIL) to address these and other questions. The results point out that the media coverage of the Syrian conflict is far from being impartial or objective and that the frames presented reflect the views shared by the American political elite. Likewise, they contain Orientalist misconceptions of the Middle East that are still widely present in the discourses produced in the West about the region. The idea that the US has a distinctive role to play in the democratization of Arab countries or that the conflict is mainly rooted in sectarian divisions, among others, can be found in the pieces analyzed.