A Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis of the Demonization of pro-Palestinian Protests on the BBC News Online

Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis

The critical characteristic of multimodal critical discourse analysis indicates the validity of the multimodal methodology to investigate the critical concepts of discourse, such as ideology, discrimination, and racism in the press, social media, and television news. In the light of the previous, the standard definition of the analytical field is:

An approach to investigate how semiotic resources like language, images, and photographs work together to create meaning. It is an intersection of multimodality studies, which focuses on the meaning making of verbal and nonverbal resources and critical studies, which emphasize revealing the ideological and power relations behind certain linguistic and visual strategies (Tan, Zhang, and Dai, 2025, p.40)

 

Multimodal Ideology and Power

The major theoretical foundations of multimodal critical discourse analysis approach; namely, the critical discourse studies approaches and the visual discourse studies, share a common perspective concerning ideology and power. For the critical discourse analysts, the embedding of hegemonic identity narratives and portraying discourse through a specific aspect, with the disability of the receivers to refute, comment, react, note, or evaluate this aspect; due to the control of access or the subtle process of embedding, are examples of the unequal power relations (Fairclough, 2006). 

The analysts observe power as a symmetric relationship between the social actors relating to the difference in social positions and the nature of the relationships with the social group. Ideology is the motivation behind the disseminating of the discursive unequal power relations. Ideology is a one-sided perspective and it encompasses "a worldview, a system composed of related mental representations, convictions, opinions, attitudes, and evaluations which are shared by members of a special social group" (Wodak & Reisigl, 2016, p.26).

Kress and Van Leeuwen (2021, p.44) view the ideological dimensions in visual images also as a one-sided view. For them, the relationship between ideology and visual images takes up a domain because there is an intended perspective to call the others upon and behave according to it. Furthermore, the power relationship of an image also intends to make the viewers as passive participants. There are dimensions that can practice particular power relations with the viewer. One can argue that power is an abstract concept, and this is true, but there are concrete and tangible practices, such as hegemony, where the powerful person can reflect this through many relations such as coercion, consent and formation. (Buckely, 2013, p. 137).

Principles of Multimodal Approach

Machin and Mayr (2012, pp: 9-10) state that multimodal critical discourse analysis has a number of principles. Multimodal critical discourse analysts investigate effectiveness of the visuals, the images, photographs, and diagrams, in adding meanings where the verbal components do not mention them. The image can foreground particular information while the text seeks to conceal them. They study the participation, which results from the common labour between the visual and verbal sources because they can come together to produce meanings. The critical multimodal practitioners seek to denaturalise representations on other modes of communication. They aim to reveal the kinds of ideas, absences and taken-for-granted assumptions in the images as well as in the texts that will also serve the ends of revealing the kinds of power interests buried in them.

Demonization

Franklin (2024, p.61) institutionalizes demonization as one of media tools, "the term demonization is used metaphorically to refer to propaganda or moral panic directed against any individual or group". As a propagandistic tool, the demonizing group depends on deploying the conspiracy theory or what David Brion Davis called "demonization of the establishment"," With this attitude, which can be seen in conspiracy paranoia, is not only is the demonized individual evil or degenerate, he is part of an all-powerful secret organization" (Taylor, 1992, p.52).

Some writers refer to demonization as a practice to justify violence, as a struggle between the demonizing group and the demonized one, and as a source for instilling fear from the other, but also as a multimodal practice, which employs the verbal, visual, and the other symbolic means:

Demonization refers to the use of language, symbols and images which depict a group as aggressive, physically menacing and threatening to the values and norms of the demonizing group, which instil fear and create negative emotions, and which therefore legitimate any action, internal or external, to protect the demonizing group from the demonized (1991, p112).   

 

Demonizing and Demonized

The extension of the practical side of the demonization is under the behaviour of a demonizing group towards a demonized one. The demonizing group does not concentrate on stripping the human capacities and features from the demonized group, but sees evil as the motivation for which these capacities and features work.  The demonizing group works on a demonized representation of the essence and intentions of the demonized group. It grounds demonization in the religious, cultural, and political beliefs of the demonized group. It puts the religion and the political beliefs of the demonized group in an inferior position. It also sees the demonized group capable and its danger is more acute (Giner-Sorolla et al, 2012, pp.169-171).

 

Palestinian Cause and the BBC

Critical discursive studies pursue prominent institutions, such as the well-known media agencies worldwide, to examine the insightful techniques of communication that contribute in transmitting the goals of the underlying ideologies. The BBC is a news channel with the highest viewing and listening ranks in the UK and is internationally famous. It also spends hours to cover the Palestinian cause from its own perspective. Overwhelmingly, the BBC legitimizes the Israeli occupation through interdiscursivity. It uses religious expressions with meanings carrying more importance to the Jews than the Muslims and Christians, for instance, using the Temple Mount instead of Haram al-Sharif. Concerning the lexicalization, the BBC avoids using 'occupation' to describe the Israeli settlements in the territories of the Palestinian Authority and only uses it if it is in a direct statement quoting the Palestinian officials. It also uses 'terrorism' and its connotations instead of resistance in its prejudice against the Palestinians (Timotijevic, 2022, p. 272).

Data Selection

The study analyses a news report from the BBC Online News that was written by Hazel Shearing and Ashitha Nages in May 9, 2024. The report was about the situation of the pro-Palestinian protests in the UK universities. Commenting on the topic of the report, in the wake of Gaza War in 7 October 2023, intense protests have erupted, demanding for the termination of the Israeli siege on Gaza, providing humanitarian aids for people in Gaza, and a ceasefire. The Israeli army have killed more than 33, 000 Palestinian people in the first six months of war only (Karame, 2025, p.58).

 

Model of Study

The constructed model of study analyses the macrostructures of the online news reports; namely, the headlines, lead paragraphs, and the lead images. The macrostructures are the structures that represent the overall meanings of a text, and they are centers for the most important information. Cognitively, the readers also derive macrostructures from the textually expressed propositions. Such macrostructures are defined in terms of an (hierarchically) ordered set of (macro-) propositions that are derived from sequences of textually expressed propositions, so-called episodes; by means of recursive macrorules (deletion, generalization and construction) (Van Dijk, 1987, p.272).

The study employs the model of the ideological square of Van Dijk to analyse the power relationship in terms of meanings that headline and lead paragraph aim to impose on the receivers. The strategies of imposing are emphasise positive information about Us, emphasise negative information about Them, de-emphasize negative information about US, and de-emphasize positive information about Them. (Van Dijk, 2012, p.34). It also makes use of consensus, implication, fallacy, and counterfactual to analyse the ideological practice of written language. The categories of ideological analysis are adopted from Van Dijk (2012, pp: 48-65).

According to Van Dijk (2012, p.50), the legislation of the parliaments and the information of news are produced in structures that are governed by the majority force and consensus. They are bipartisan and consensual values to represent the group unification, cohesion, and solidarity (We) the ingroup against (Them) the outgroup. Furthermore, implication means, "something implied or suggested as naturally to be inferred or understood" (Galzier, 1998, p.610). What is interesting in the categorical work of Van Dijk (2012) concerning the implications is that various semantic and syntactic triggers can result in implied meanings. The implications come out through the verbs of modality (p.39), passive construction, word order, and nominalization 'verb turned into a noun' (p.42), and synonymy and paraphrase.

Fallacies commence logic and reasoning via the procedural errors. They are procedural errors in reasoning or logic leading to unsound conclusions. Finally, the inserting of a counterfactual argument allow the people to introduce absurd and negative consequences on alternatives that they have not been reported by anyone and they are represented in terms of warnings and advices. They can be triggered through different linguistic markers, namely, if constructions, suppose, as even, at least, without, or besides.

The visual analysis is built upon the framework of Kress and Van Leeuwen's (2021) visual meanings. The representational meaning pertains to the description of events and states in the world through the visual elements and the relationships between what was depicted. It contains two main structures, the narrative and the conceptual. Narrative structures include what the viewers can categorize as aspects of reality. It has action and reaction processes. The depicted participants represent the action process by employing different vectors; thus, mouths, eyebrows, wrinkles, gestures, bodies, limbs, and the outstretched arms. The vectors of the reactional processes are formed by an eyeline, meaning that, by the direction of the glance of one or more of the represented participants                (2021, p.62).

Images in many times, tends to express the essence of the represented participants, as in the utilisation of conceptual structures, which represent the participants in terms of their more generalized and more or less stable and timeless essences. There is a primary use for the symbolic conceptual structures in the online news report. Symbolic structures mean that the participants are endowed with identity-related elements that are more enduring in the viewer minds. (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021, p.255).

The interpersonal meaning of the images means that there is a particular nature for the relationship between the viewers and the represented participants depending on the visual dimensions. The visual dimensions are image act and gaze depending on a demand act when the participant looks directly to the viewer or an offer act when the participants do not communicate with the viewers. Social distance dimension depending on depicted part of the participant's bod. Perspectives and camera angle dimension depending on the selected angle of the camera, and modality depending on a number of markers like the representation of details (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021, p.158).

Compositional meaning is the meaning that gives overall meanings and logic to the presence of representational structures and interpersonal dimensions through some visual systems. Information value system includes specific informational values, which are existed as results of the placements of represented participants in the spatial syntagms of images. Framing system pertains to the system that a producer of an image uses to highlight and create elements to disconnect between the visual elements, the given and new, the represented participants, distinct groups and identities of people, or life acts. It interrupts the harmony to create distinct units concerning people and objects, and stresses individuality and differentiation. Salience is the compositional system that realizes the disparate affordances of the represented participants to attract the attention of the viewers (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2021, p. 182).

Data Analysis

The headline of the report is:

"Universities UK says protests may require action"

The construction of the headline is short but complicated. The BBC employs three critical categories, the consensus, implication, and fallacy. The consensus occurs through the nominal structure "Universities UK". It makes the opinion look like a unified institutional voice. The structure assumes that the characterization of the protests from an implicitly negative perspective, as an event that requires actions, occurs through a unified institutional voice. This metonymy erases any internal diversity because it looks like a formal statement issued by an institution of  the UK universities.

 

The noun phrase "protests may require action" triggers an implication. It implies, through foregrounding the noun, "protests", that now it is the time of taking or initiating an action against the protests. It does not imply that, taking actions against the protests, it is just a conditional evaluation depending on the steps of the protesters. The implication contributes in putting the protests in a definite suspicious position without giving any additional real, not parahprased, information that can represent the protests at least neutrally in front of the readers, or placing them in a possible defence position.

The analytical detail, 'now it is the time of taking an action against the protests', is the meaning that is processed immediately in the minds of the readers before the other meanings. The use of the verb of modality, 'may' implies that this evaluation is based on a careful scrutiny.

The BBC works on consolidating on the readers' side that the pro-Palestinian protests are a suspicious and problematic activity, relying on the opinions of highly regarded institutions and characters.The consolidation of the BBC proceeds through employing the advercundiam fallacy. The BBC describes the protests as the main and direct entity that may be faced by particular procedures, and represents this description as meaning quoted from an authority. In reality, the president of Universities UK did not say that the protests may require action, but he said that the universities may need to take action. Besides, the taking of an action is not an immediate, near, or possible one, but it is a conditional one as it is stated by the lead paragraph. The BBC suppresses the information that shift the representation of the protests from a negative and accused evaluation to an objective and conditional one.

 

The lead paragraph is:    

"Universities "may need to take action" if protests against the Israel-Gaza war interfere with life on campus, the president of Universities UK has said"

The lead paragraph is partially fair to the pro-Palestinian protests because it provides information that are able to exclude the negative impressions of the protests in the headline which are about that the protests in a direct manner, requires action. From another side, the lead paragraph employs a counterfactual construction in "if protests against the Israel-Gaza war interfere with life on campus". The counterfactual construction denotes that the protests are in a path that disturbs the university life. The protesters did not declare anything related to the aforementioned path, and at the same time the president of Universities UK did not say the 'interfere with life on campus' part, and it is just a paraphrase the bold part of paragraph two in the report: 

Prof Dame Sally Mapstone said there should be no presumption universities would clear protest encampments but all students must be able to take their exams and graduate.

 

The counterfactual construction presents the pro-Palesitinaina protests, as the specific antibody for all the manifestations of life on the campuses, and not only specific details.

Visual Analysis

Reviewing of the representational meaning of the image in Figure 4.1, results in a narrative structure represented mainly by the reaction processes. In the centre, there is a bidirectional transactional reaction process realized by three protesters who have their own discussion. On the left side of the background, and on the right side of the foreground threre are transactional reaction processes, where the book, the computer, and the tablet are the phenomenon, 'goals', of the eyelines