Transediting necropolitics: BBC’s Arabic and English coverage of Gaza’s digital blackout

This study explores how the BBC’s bilingual coverage of the October 2023 telecommunications blackout in Gaza reveals the entanglement of necropolitics with the media practices of transediting and journalating. By analyzing two reports, one in English and one in Arabic, produced by the same institution, the paper shows how cross-lingual transeditorial processes generate divergent narratives of the same event, reflecting deeper structures of power and epistemic violence. The English report frames the blackout as a humanitarian issue caused by technical failure, downplaying intentional targeting and obscuring Israel’s exercise of necropower through infrastructural destruction. In contrast, the Arabic version foregrounds the Israeli military’s role, situates the blackout within the siege, and includes culturally resonant language of prayer and resilience. These differences underscore that transediting and journalating are not neutral acts; they involve selection, omission, and reframing aligned with, or against, hegemonic narratives. Through textual analysis, the paper argues that the BBC simultaneously produces content that depoliticizes Palestinian suffering for English readers while offering politically explicit framing to Arabic audiences. This paradox highlights how language and editorial practices function as tools of epistemic violence or resistance, raising urgent ethical questions about narrative control, audience targeting, and visibility in settler-colonial conflicts.