A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF X POSTS ON THE GAZA CONFLICT: UNVEILING IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLES AMONG THE MUSLIMS, JEWS AND CHRISTIANS

Abstract

The linguistic dimensions of online religious discourse have received relatively little scholarly attention, despite their importance in shaping public opinion and global perceptions of conflict. While previous studies have examined media representations of the Israel–Palestine conflict, less focus has been placed on how ordinary users, particularly from different religious backgrounds, employ language on social media to frame such conflicts. This research addressed this gap by applying a Corpus-Based Critical Discourse Analysis (CBCDA) to explore how Muslims, Jews, and Christians represented the Gaza conflict on X (formerly Twitter). A self-compiled corpus of 1,200 posts, collected between October 2023 and March 2025, was analyzed using AntConc to examine word frequency and Fairclough’s three-dimensional CDA model was employed to interpret meaning at the textual, discursive, and social levels. At the textual level, Muslim posts emphasized terms such as resistance, martyr, freedom, and oppression; Jewish posts highlighted security, terror, Hamas, and defense; while Christian posts focused on peace, prayer, children, and suffering. The findings demonstrated that repetition, emotional appeals, and hashtags were common strategies across all groups, but served different purposes in mobilizing audiences. By combining corpus techniques with CDA, this study revealed how language in digital spaces operates as a powerful tool for identity-building, ideological expression, and the reproduction of power relations. It contributes not only to the understanding of online religious discourse in the context of war but also offers methodological insights for future corpus-based studies of digital conflict representation.