Palestine in the US Press 1918: a computerized analysis of historical texts

The subject of the article is the study of the American periodical press on Palestine in 1918 using databases and computer programs to analyze statistical indicators of texts. This makes it possible to solve several problems. The first task: to find out the process of changing interest in the Middle East geographically (in every American state). The second task is to analyze the evolution of interest in Palestine in American newspapers in a historical and chronological aspect. The third task is to study the statistical indicators of the texts of the 10 most relevant articles on Palestine in 1918. The object of research: American information discourse. The analysis of statistical indicators of the US periodical press on Palestine allows us to more accurately determine the content and place of the Middle East problem in the US information discourse. A quantitative calculation of mentions of Palestine in newspapers was made using the Chronicling America portal created by the Library of Congress. Online newspaper repositories of each state and individual newspapers were used to verify the information received. Statistical analysis of the text was carried out using the "Leximancer" program. The main contribution of the author is that as a result of the study it was found: the number of mentions of Palestine in 1918 shows that democratic newspapers in the United States were leaders in covering the Middle East topic; three concepts ("Palestine", "Britain", "Jews") were key in 1918 The Middle East conflict was not yet considered in America as a conflict between Arabs and Jews, but it was no longer considered as a confrontation between two empires: the British and the Ottoman. The periodization of the evolution of American interest in Palestine in 1918 was determined: 1) January – February; 2) June – August; 3) November – December. At each of the indicated stages, there is an increase in the number of mentions of the "Plate" and keywords in American newspaper publications.

Palestine, colonialism, information discourse, Middle East, press, imperialism, USA, statistics, Great Britain, zionism