Mediating Palestine: Representation, Mobilization, and Experimentation

This special issue is inspired by the life of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed by an Israeli soldier in Jenin in May 2022. It was compiled during the deadliest time for journalists anywhere in the last three decades. During its ongoing war on Gaza, Israel has killed well over one hundred Palestinian journalists and media workers. The contributions to this volume address how diverse media forms shape and express Palestinian lifeworlds and politics. Palestinians practice media—through documentary production, photography, art, animation, social media, and journalism—to defy the media stereotypes that seek to reduce them to perpetrators or victims, and to mobilize imagination for liberation. By attending to the materialities and conditions of production of everyday media forms as part of broader political and social struggles, this special issue seeks to amplify and contextualize Palestinian media work as Palestinians strive to survive and flourish in the midst of ongoing Nakba.