This study focuses on contrasting responses to two highly provocative acts from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount in February 2000, and a Palestinian terrorist cell's suicide bombing of a nightclub in Tel Aviv in 2005. Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 2000 led to the second intifada, the bloodiest outbreak of violence in the conflict's recent history. However, what followed the suicide attack in Tel Aviv in 2005 were several weeks of restraint from both sides. This study positions media texts as antecedents and consequents to these two key focal points in history and examines their content. The central method for the study is quantitative content analysis. Three newspapers were selected primarily for their ability to set the public agenda: English editions of the Israeli Haaretz and Jerusalem Post, and the Palestinian Al-Quds, translated into English from its original Arabic. The corpus for the study comprised 820 news and opinion articles about Arab-Israeli relations from one week of articles from each side of Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount and one week of articles from each side of the suicide bombing. Media texts were coded for two operationally defined constructs: inflammatory words and conciliatory words. Inflammatory words were fighting words symptomatic of violent and aggressive behavior. Conciliatory words were related to pacification, symptomatic of appeasing, and passive behavior. Built-in dictionaries of Diction, Version 6.14.5, a software program, were used to confirm the validity of the two principal constructs. Results confirmed the newspapers' propensity to focus on violent news and also suggested that media content is likely to be shaped and influenced by acts of violence on the ground. Results also supported speech-act theory and indicated that inflammatory or violent texts in the media perform the functions of agenda-setting or news-framing and potentially cultivate violent behavior among readers. The constructs of inflammatory and conciliatory words and their application in constructing a practical Threat Index are among the key contributions of this study.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-07-29T16:21:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE JULIO COLA ROVIDA.pdf: 491833 bytes, checksum: 38ea9a7ec6fd58dba6680dfa971676e6 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-02-18 / The current rate of extinctions observed in the entire planet has its origin in high rates of habitat loss due to human population increase. The species-area relationship may be usefull in predicting extinction threats when combined with this loss. Lists of Cerrado s tetrapods were compiled and using the species-area relationship, we predicted values of species a threat. These values were compared with the IUCN Red List. The predictions of threat in all cases were higher than the Red List, except for endemic mammals that reflect the current threat list, and endemic birds whose predictions are lower than the threat level by IUCN. A large portion of species have populations in decline according to IUCN. Part of these results can be explained by a time-lag in the response time to the degradation itself associated with the gaps of knowledge about the species. The relationship could be used as a preliminary threat assessment, and followed by the aggregation of these red lists in order to increase efficiency in conservation planning. Life history, spatial and environmental heterogeneity data, when aggregated, should increase the prediction s accuracy. Major investments in basic biology are necessary in order to achieve maximum information input about the species to be evaluated. / A atual taxa de extinções observadas em todo planeta tem sua origem nas altas taxas de perda de habitat em decorrência do aumento populacional humano. A relação espécies-área pode ser útil na predição de ameaças de extinção quando associada a essa perda. Compilamos listas de tetrápodes do Cerrado e usando a relação espécie-área, foram preditos valores (números) de espécies em ameaça. Esses valores foram comparados com a lista vermelha da IUCN. As predições de ameaça em todos os casos foram superiores às da lista vermelha, excetuando-se mamíferos endêmicos que refletem as predições da lista atual, e aves endêmicas cuja predição de ameaça é inferior ao observado pela IUCN. Uma grande parcela de espécies também possui populações em declínio segundo a IUCN. Parte desses resultados seria explicada por um time-lag no tempo de resposta à degradação associada a lacunas de conhecimento acerca das espécies. A relação poderia ser usada como forma preliminar de avaliação de ameaça, e em segundo momento a agregação dessas listas vermelhas deveria ser feita a fim de se aumentar a eficiência no planejamento da conservação. Dados de história de vida, heterogeneidade ambiental e espacial, quando agregados, aumentariam a precisão da predição. Maiores investimentos em pesquisa básica se fazem necessários a fim de se obter o máximo de informações acerca das espécies a serem avaliadas.