GLOBAL MEDIA AND ISLAM AEN4213 AEN4213 PAGE 1 ALJAZEERA: HOW IT STARTED “The Opinion, and the Other Opinion” The Al Jazeera network was launched in Doha, been the key to the channel’s success in the Qatar in November 1996. It quickly became the region (Zayani, 2005). Operating under the most influential and the most widely watched slogan “The Opinion, and the Other Opinion”, news channel in the Middle East region. Al the Arabic network channel openly debates Jazeera was created from the unsuccessful BBC sensitive topics and controversial issues that Arabic Television channel after the joint venture have never been discussed by the media in the between Saudis and the network collapsed. The region, such as government corruption, the role Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al- of women, sexuality, polygamy and Sharia law. Thani, re-hired 120 reporters and producers of the defunct channel and provided a start-up The network is also regarded as a platform for loan of $140 million to set up Al Jazeera. Unlike opposition voices in the Middle East region, and most state-controlled media in the Middle East at the same time features views from American Al Jazeera operates independently without and Israeli authorities (Zayani, 2005; Lull, 2007). overt control by its nation-state and that has AEN4213 PAGE 2 ALJAZEERA: ENDED THE WESTERN MONOPOLY Al Jazeera’s independent editorial approach has infuriated leaders of the Middle East. Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iraq and Iran, to name but a few, have closed down Al Jazeera’s bureaus and expelled the network’s reporters from their countries (Miladi, 2003; Quinn and Walters, 2004; Seib, 2012). Al Jazeera has been acclaimed as the network Al Jazeera had broadcast several speeches of the which ended the Western monopoly of global group’s leader, Osama bin Laden, which contained news production. The network constitutes a inflammatory remarks against the US (Allan, 2004). textbook example of contra-flow in global media This enraged the Bush administration, which labelled platforms by providing an “alternative” point of the network the “mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden” view to that of the major Western international (McPhail, networks such as the BBC and CNN (Zayani, 2005; Wessler and Adolphsen, 2008). Al Jazeera again aroused the ire of US officials for its coverage of the 2003 Iraq war. The network The Arabic network channel was catapulted onto broadcast interviews of US prisoners of war and the global news scene in 2001 through its showed graphic images of dead US soldiers (Allan, reporting of the Afghanistan war. During the war, 2004; Samuel-Azran, 2009).Deputy Defense Secretary Al Jazeera was the only international news Paul Wolfowitz accused Al Jazeera of “slanting the network that was allowed by the Taliban to news” in favour of Saddam Hussein and “inciting remain in the country. As a result, international violence” against American troops in Iraq (Seib, networks in the US and other Western countries 2005b: p. 227). had to rely on the footage of Al Jazeera during the war (Zayani, 2005; Seib, 2005b). Another important factor responsible for Al Jazeera's “infamous” global reputation, particularly in the US, was its access to the Al Qaeda group in Afghanistan. 2004: p. 210). AEN4213 PAGE 3 How Al Jazeera report about Islam in comparison to Western international media? AL JAZEERA ARABIC VS ALJAZEERA ENGLISH Al Jazeera English (AJE), the second channel of Qatar’s network, was launched in November 2006. Although both AJE and Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) are funded by the Qatari royal family, they are two different entities with separate editorial policies and internal guidelines (Barkho, 2010; Figenschou, 2011). The main difference between them according to Leon Barkho (2010) is that AJA’s editorial policy mainly concentrates on representing the “social, cultural, and religious needs” of the Middle East and North Africa, whereas AJE’s strategy is to represent countries from the developing world with the Middle East as an important part of it (p. 128). AEN4213 PAGE 4 AJA vs BBC vs CNN Leon Barkho’s (2006) analysis of the online and television news of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) from September 1 – 15, 2004 found that even though from the production point of view, AJA practised the same style as the BBC or CNN, AJA’s stories and bulletins gave more priority to issues of Arab and Islamic concern such as the PalestinianIsraeli conflict and the Iraq war. This tendency was reflected in the terms AJE online news, on the other hand, tended to deployed by AJA in its news stories. For example, choose interviews from Palestinian sources as the BBC and CNN described Palestinian background and commentary on the reporting. insurgence groups as “militants” or “suicide Another major difference of AJE’s discourse bombers”, but AJA described their actions as compared to BBC and CNN was the usage of active “struggle and resistance” or “martyrdom voices in the news headlines. BBC and CNN normally operations”. While both the BBC and CNN refered removed or hid the agency when the Israelis were the to Israeli troops as “Israeli Defense Forces”, AJA agent participants or the perpetrators of the conflict, refered to them as “Israeli occupation troops” and the casualties were Palestinians. The practice (Barkho, 2006: p. 4). was reversed by AJE whereby the perpetrators of the act and the victims were clearly indentified and A similar study, carried out by Barkho (2007) on online stories of the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera English (AJE) during Israel’s incursions into the Gaza Strip in June 2006, shows that the three networks differed in the discourse structures of their news stories. BBC stories displayed a tendency to use Israeli official views in news, with CNN news mostly providing background or comment to Israeli official views that further support Israeli’s actions. written in active voices. AEN4213 PAGE 5 Is Al Jazeera bias in favour of Arab and Muslim issues? Explaining Al Jazeera’s partiality towards Islam and Muslim issues, Cherribi (2006) argues that Al Jazeera is “a religious news channel that allows other programmes that are liberal or neutral to be shown occasionally” (p. 132). His study of Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) news stories on the veil controversy in France between late 2002 and early 2005 found that AJA was using the issue to “build a global Muslim identity, mobilise a shared public opinion, and construct an imagined transnational Muslim community” (2006: p. 121). Cherribi (2006) explains that AJA’s programmes showed support of the veil as part of a “civilisation message” that is constructed daily to wider Muslim and Arab-speaking audiences (p. 128). AEN4213 PAGE 6 IS AL JAZEERA BIAS TOWARDS MUSLIMS? Anita L. Wenden (2005), who carried out a discourse analysis on AJE online news articles that marked the third anniversary of the al-Aqsa Intifada. Wenden (2005) argues that AJE’s discourses tended to provoke and exacerbate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and showed bias towards the Palestinians. AJE mostly portrayed the Israeli government’s In Lebanon, Sunni Muslims who were protesting policies as repressive and unjust, with Israelis against the selection of Hezbollah-backed candidate “stealing” Palestinian land and the Jewish Najib Mikatiset as prime minister accused the settlements depicted as “illegal” (Wenden, 2005: network of sympathising with the Shiite opposition p. 98). group. An Al Jazeera van was burned by Sunni protesters during the demonstration in Tripoli on 25 The Palestinians, on the other hand, were January 2011 (Murdock, 2011). In Egypt, six AJE depicted as powerless and having the right to journalists, including its main correspondent Ayman resist. Israeli actors such as the government and Mohyeldin, were detained while covering the military were mostly held responsible for demonstrations in January 2011. The Egyptian initiating violent action while Palestinians were authorities also stopped the transmission of Al represented as responding to or resisting it. Jazeera's channel and closed the network’s office (Hammond, 2011; Al Jazeera English, 2011b). AJE at the same time is not free of criticism from the leaders of the Middle East and Muslim Unlike its Arabic counterpart, however, AJE received countries. In January 2011, Mahmoud Abbas, the a positive reception from the US authorities. The President of the Palestinian Authority, network was said to have become the main source condemned the network for releasing secret for the US President and his advisers about what documents from Israeli-Palestinian peace happened on the ground during the Arab Spring negotiations. protests (Robichaux, 2011). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised AJE for providing “real news” (Youmans and Brown, 2011). AEN4213 PAGE 7 ARE ALL ARAB NEWS CHANNELS THE SAME? However, the assumption that all pan-Arab Abu Dhabi Channel, on the other hand, projected a satellite news channels would demonstrate bias more cautious tone, and tried to show a non- in favour of Arab and Muslim issues might not be judgmental posture towards the events. true. A study by Mohamed Zayani and Zayani and Ayish (2006) argue that such differences Muhammad Ayish (2006) on the reporting of arose because the three channels had “different three Arab media, namely Al Arabiya, Abu Dhabi owners, subscribed to different agendas and Channel and Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA), during the projected different images of themselves” (p. 487). overthrow of the regime of Saddam Hussein, shows that those channels handled the news Al Jazeera is financed and owned by the Qatari royal from different narratives and visual perspectives. family (Ghareeb, 2000), Abu Dhabi Channel is owned In reporting the fall of Baghdad, Al Arabiya for by the Abu Dhabi Media, a public joint stock instance tended to be more assertive. The company wholly owned by the Abu Dhabi channel was more daring in condemning government (Gulf News, 2007), and Al Arabiya is part Saddam Hussein and portrayed him in a less of the Saudi-owned Middle East Broadcasting Centre favourable light. (Al Arabiya, no date). In contrast, AJA came off as more sympathetic towards the regime. It tended to be more doubtful and skeptical about the future of Iraq after the fall of Baghdad and employed more critical language towards American-led occupation forces. a) How the news labelled Palestinians, Israel, Hamas and/or Palestinian land etc? b) What are the sources chosen for the news - are they from Palestinian side or Israeli side? c) Based on the analysis of (a) and (b), what is the common sense presented in the news? d) How balance and fair the global news media represents Palestinian and Israel conflict during the May 2021 conflict? A) HOW THE NEWS LABELLED PALESTINIANS, ISRAEL, HAMAS AND/OR PALESTINIAN LAND ETC? BBC PALESTINIAN MILITANT GROUP HAMAS ISRAEL OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM AL JAZEERA HAMAS, THE GROUP WHICH RULES GAZA, AND THE PALESTINIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD (PIJ) ARMED GROUP ISRAEL B) WHAT ARE THE SOURCES CHOSEN FOR THE NEWS - ARE THEY FROM PALESTINIAN SIDE OR ISRAELI SIDE? BBC 1. ISRAELI POLICE SPOKESMAN MICKY ROSENFELD 2. THE ISRAELI POLITICAL SECURITY CABINET 3. PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU 4. A HAMAS OFFICIAL 5. TOP HAMAS POLITICAL LEADER ISMAIL HANIYA 6. BASEM NAIM, FROM THE HAMAS COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 7. A MEMBER OF HAMAS'S POLITICAL BUREAU, IZZAT AL-RESHIQ, AL JAZEERA 1. ISRAEL’S SECURITY CABINET 2. HAMAS, THE GROUP WHICH RULES GAZA, AND THE PALESTINIAN ISLAMIC JIHAD (PIJ) 3. EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT ABDEL FATTAH EL-SISI 4. ALI BARAKEH, A MEMBER OF HAMAS’S ARAB AND ISLAMIC RELATIONS BUREAU C) BASED ON THE ANALYSIS OF (A) AND (B), WHAT IS THE COMMON SENSE PRESENTED IN THE NEWS? BBC BBC REGARDS HAMAS AS A MILITANT GROUP. MILITANT IS DEFINED AS A GROUP THAT ADVOCATE EXTREME VIOLENCE BBC PRIORITISED ISRAELIS SOURCES AL JAZEERA ALJAZEERA REGARDS HAMAS AS A LEGITIMATE GROUP THAT RULES GAZA ALJAZEERA IS MORE BALANCED GIVING VOICES TO BOTH SIDES D) HOW BALANCED AND FAIR GLOBAL NEWS MEDIA REPRESENTS THE PALESTINIAN AND ISRAEL CONFLICT DURING THE MAY 2021 CONFLICT? BBC BASED ON THE SOURCES AND THE LABELLING USED, BBC IS GIVING MORE PRIORITY TO ISRAEL AND SEEMS TO FAVOUR THE RIGHT OF ISRAEL TO EXIST AL JAZEERA AL JAZEERA SHOWS MORE BALANCED COVERAGE. IT GIVES BOTH SIDES VOICES TO SPEAK. IT HOWEVER ACKNOWLEDGE STRUGGLES OF THE PALESTINIAN CITIZENS.
