Luke Peterson

Palestine in the American Mind: the Discourse on Palestine in the Contemporary United States Luke Peterson

This study offers a framework for approaching an analysis of the discourse on Palestine in the contemporary United States by conducting a close investigation of print news contributions to that discourse. Relevant theoretical frameworks are applied in order to interpret definitions of discourse, processes of discourse formation, and in particular contributions from the news media to contemporary discourse in the United States. This study argues that contemporary discourse constructs Palestine as an other opposed to contemporary conceptions of a national self. This assertion is made according to relevant theoretical approaches considering the formation of individual and group identities. This study further seeks to delineate the characteristics of the self and the other through an analysis of relevant examples from news media discourse. Aspects of the contemporary American identity are thereby examined, and through this investigation, the dynamic relationship between conceptions of the American "self" and constructions of the Palestinian "other" is elucidated.