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Defense of a Master's Thesis by Ahlam Abdullah in the Contemporary Public Relations Program

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Researcher Ahlam Ibrahim Abdullah, a student in the Master's Program in Contemporary Public Relations, has defended her thesis titled: "Religious Diplomacy: Framing Israeli Propaganda for the "Abraham" Accords via Social Media Platforms".

This study aimed to identify how Israel frames the "Abraham" Accords religiously; through its digital propaganda directed at the Arab public, within the "People of the Book" platforms on YouTube and "Israel in the Gulf" on Twitter. The reason for choosing two platforms that differ in identity and content is due to the importance of researching the framing mechanisms and appeals that Israel employs in addressing the Arab public through its direct and indirect propaganda.

This is a mixed methods study that combines quantitative and qualitative, as despite its direct reliance on a content analysis form, the contexts of content analysis and its induction, including content frameworks, appeals, and the employment of appeals, etc., prompted the research to an analytical reading of the results.

The study concluded that the "People of the Book" channel implicitly promoted the Abrahamic religion, and in its essence, focused on Judaism and the religious and historical roots of Jews in Arab countries, while "Israel in the Gulf" focused on promoting coexistence between religions and freedom of religion and belief. Both accounts also focused on the framework of ethical principles, the framework of human concerns, and the framework of the specific issue, and neither platform used intimidation appeals, but rather employed emotional appeals more than rational ones in an attempt to attract the audience.

The researcher recommended conducting more in-depth research on Israel's use of religious diplomacy, and allocating media programs to educate the public about religious discourses and awareness-framing processes, and raising the public's ability to detect messages embedded in digitized content and messages.

The thesis was supervised by Dr. Mohammad Abu Al Rub. The examination committee included Dr. Bassam Aweida and Dr. Hussein Al Ahmad.