Joanne Smalley

In years to come, students in university departments around the world will be studying the propaganda embedded in this headline. As someone who regularly lectures in sociology, journalism and media studies, I could teach an entire lesson on the title alone. For example: 1. Treating the 4 Israeli soldiers as more important than the 23 Palestinian children (by leading the story with their deaths and just chucking in the others at the end) implies their lives are of higher value. 2. Infantilizing active duty soldiers as "teenagers" while not emphasizing the age of the schoolkids, despite many of them being demonstrably younger. 3. The classic use of the passive voice: Israelis are "killed" while Palestinians merely "die". 4. Putting scare quotes around "23 die" subtly undermines the credibility of that claim. Maybe no one died, and the Palestinians are just lying? 5. Using the word "attack" for Hezbollah actions, but choosing a more neutral, clinical word like "strike" for Israeli aggression. 6. Allowing Israeli sources to dictate the framing of the story ("Israel names teenage soldiers") etc. 7. Actually naming the Israeli soldiers, but not doing the same for the far greater number of Palestinians, again sends the message to the reader that Palestinian lives don't matter nearly as much, if at all. It's truly incredible how much propaganda has been packed into 16 words. We are swimming in an ocean of propaganda. That's why it is crucial to deconstruct it and critically assess everything you read, see and hear.