Engagement politique vs distanciation professionnelle : dans deux quotidiens libanais : l’exemple de la couverture de la guerre de 2006 à travers An-Nahar et As-Safir

The structures of the various media bodies mirror generally the political and social organization of any country. In Lebanon, the media are pluralistic and reflect the political and communal diversity in the country. Echoing the multiple political parties with their Arab and international interferences, their various ideologies, their multiple community affiliations, and their differences in interpreting the Lebanese identity, the media are accused of intensifying discord among the Lebanese and harming national cohesion. Our research focuses on the analysis of three complementary journalistic treatment of one event. The first encompasses the coverage of the July 2006 war seen through the editorials of the two affluent Lebanese newspapers, An-Nahar and As-Safir. The second scrutinizes the war through the stories and coverage of field facts, and the third studies the photographs published on the main page of the two newspapers. This thesis has demonstrated that the media in Lebanon cannot escape the sectarian division and that they really suffer from the socio-political system. The results of the study led to the following hypothesis: in a crisis situation, the media get closer to the pulse of their home communities, and they are more open to the public at the national level in more peaceful situations.