A Transitivity Analysis of Western and Middle Eastern Media Reporting on the Israel–Iran War

Abstract

The wording employed in news reporting greatly shapes public opinion, especially regarding international disputes like the Israel–Iran war. Media organizations, influenced by their geopolitical ties, frequently present events through unique ideological perspectives. This raises issues regarding how news outlets from the West and the Middle East linguistically frame the same conflict through different grammatical selections. This study seeks to examine and contrast the transitivity structures used by Western and Middle Eastern media when reporting on the Israel–Iran war that took place in June 2025. Utilizing Halliday's transitivity framework from Systemic Functional Linguistics, the research employs a qualitative comparative approach to analyze two news articles—one sourced from POLITICO (Western) and the other from Al Jazeera (Middle Eastern). The results indicate that although both sources depend significantly on material processes to describe military activities, they differ in attributing agency, choosing participants, and highlighting verbal and relational processes. Al Jazeera often depicts Israel as the aggressor and emphasizes perspectives from the Global South, while POLITICO offers a more impartial portrayal that highlights diplomatic restraint. These findings imply that choices of transitivity in media texts are influenced by ideology, and this linguistic framing can greatly affect how audiences perceive global political events.