Professor Rush Rehm of Stanford University finishes a series of seminars at An-Najah National University.
26 March 2005
Prof. Rush Rehm, Drama and Classics Professors at Stanford University and Director of Stanford summer Theater, has finished his series of Seminars and workshops that he has given at the university for students of the English, Journalism and Political Science Departments. He talked about different topics such as literature and methods of teaching and writing the English language, the American Media and Framing the Palestinian struggle.
The Framing of the Palestinian struggle seminar was, in particular, extremely important; Prof. Rehm addressed the students and Professors of An-Najah and explained the methods used by the American corporate media to manipulate images and words and to make victims become offenders. On this regard he concentrated on some important points; the framing of the Palestinian issue and struggle, the institutional analysis of corporate media which sees big profit companies and corporations have a large impact on what is being broadcasted. He spoke of different sources in the media, especially the Pentagon and the White house that can through their nature of press releases decide what can be published or said. How the Palestinian issue has been framed through Bush's 'visions' of peace by fighting “terrorism” and “fundamentalism.” He also explained the schematic view of this framing which basically includes ignoring historical events, demonizing the Palestinians, and keeping human rights and political activists away so that they don’t report on the realities in conflict.
He finished by speaking about how the Palestinians can reframe the media and challenge stereotypes. This can be achieved by highlighting the history of the conflict, discussing definitions of terrorism, challenging anti-semiticism, taking the moral high ground and fighting on a political level instead of a militant one. He added that there was hope for the future in contemporary media as long as Palestine challenges the status quo and becomes increasingly active in the media.