The impact of political context on news coverage: Covering Qatar in the Israeli press

<jats:p>Political environment is an important factor in news coverage, both in terms of the news items selected (the amount of coverage) and the tone of the coverage. Through an analysis of news coverage of Qatar in the Israeli press, the current study examines the impact of the political circumstances and the contextual cues in news stories on the framing of foreign news. The analysis includes 1,199 articles appearing in the mainstream online Israeli press in two time frames: summer 2013 and summer 2014 (during the war in Gaza). Findings indicate that, although both the circumstances and the contextual cues had a significant impact on the tone of coverage towards Qatar in the Israeli press, while controlling for the contextual cues in the news stories, coverage of Qatar did not change significantly during the war, which indicates that the framing process is less influenced by the immediate political circumstances than the political cues appearing in the coverage.</jats:p>