Assignment

Assignment - Mission 6: Media's coverage

Brief: You have now played the last mission in Global Conflicts: Palestine, and are expected to discuss and reflect on the experiences. Below you will first find questions related to the game and then questions of a more general nature. Finally, you can write an article drawing on the game experience and the additional material on this website.

To answer the questions in this worksheet use your experiences from the game and refer to the material on this website.

1. Game review:

a). Please provide a short factual resume of the mission.

b). Please explain the motivations, actions and perception of the key people you ran into (one line each).

Khaled:  
Nabil:  
Shakil:
Baz:
Roi:
Omar:

c). Please give your own explanation of what happened in the game mission.

d). How would you have acted as an Israeli or Palestinian?

e). How does Khaled perceive the media?

f). Describe, analyze and discuss the actions, perceptions and choices of Nabil, Shakil or Baz throughout the game. In your work you should include the areas of history, culture, religion, society, personality/identity, group dynamics and family? How would you have acted? Could you have gone to the same extremes?

g). Describe, analyze and discuss the actions, perceptions and choices of Roi and Omri throughout the game. In your work you should include the areas of history, culture, religion, society, personality/identity, group dynamics and family? How would you feel when serving in the IDF? What consequences would that have for your life?

2. Beyond the game

You may have a hard time answering the questions below if you were a sloppy and superficial journalist. Luckily, you can either go back and play the game or use some of the material on the website /.

a). What role does the media play in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Consider whether the Palestinians and Israelis may act differently based on media exposure. In what instances and why? Does the media help to solve the conflict or can they also be an obstacle? Explain when, why and how.

b). What advantages/disadvantages do you see with the journalist involvement in the game mission? Would you have acted differently? Try to consider the implications of different approaches: Neutral, balanced, involved, objective and subjective. What is a realistic description of the journalistic approach? What does this mean for our use of the media to inform us on critical issues?

c). The concept of source criticism and bias are crucial concepts to understand for a journalist. Why is this so? Take as your starting point the different sources you have encountered in the game. What role did their agendas play for the information you got? Would you say they were biased?  

d). Try to compare different newspaper coverage of events (see companion website for material). Consider how they use specific words, pictures, headlines, adjectives, and may weight different elements in the story. (For example: BBC, Ynet news, Al Jazeera).

e). Examine the criticism of the media's portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by a different organization. You can use material from the website or from the Internet. Why are the mistakes made? What are the implications of the criticism? What is the agenda of the critics? What different forms of bias are there? (For example: Photo bias, popular culture perception of Arabs and discrepancy in reporting deaths).  

3). Write a better story

In the game you have a limited amount of time for writing and researching the story with access to only a few sources. Now you have a chance to pursue an even better researched story by using sources on our website and from other places. In general there are three different types of stories you can choose from: news story, feature story & opinion story. 

Use one of the three templates to help you make the best story. Remember you can use quotes, pictures and sources from this website.  

a). Palestine Today: How is the typical media coverage skewed towards the Israeli side. Why do the Palestinians have a harder time getting into the media?

b). Global News: They want you to explore how the media plays a role in forming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by focusing on specific areas.

c). The Israeli Post: They are interested in covering how the Israelis are misrepresented in the media. Why are the Israelis often represented as the aggressors and strong part when surrounded by larger enemies?