This study investigates types of corruption that had been revealed by investigative reports during the last 3 years and their impact on social, legislative, and other aspects of life. It surveys 145 reports achieved and published by Arab investigative journalists from Egypt,

The spread of fear of the coronavirus and related insecurities around the pandemic have fuelled nationalist and increased exclusionary tendencies in countries all over the world. In North America, for instance, anti-Asian racism increased when former US President Donald Trump dubbed the virus the ‘Chinese virus’. A nationalist agenda has been strengthened in many places, including the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region; and hateful narratives blaming ‘others’ for the pandemic, legitimizing a retreat to the protection of national borders and policies, are being spread in different media outlets. This article comparatively investigates processes of othering with regard to COVID-19 in four MENA countries – Egypt, Iraq, Oman and Yemen – and asks, who is held responsible for the coronavirus crisis in different countries? How is othering revealed in media coverage related to COVID-19? What (in)sensitive language can be identified? The study looks at mass media coverage at the peak of the global lockdown during the spring of 2020. The media analysis reveals a strong emphasis on mostly national identities as articulated lines of demarcation in all four cases. A homogenizing and demonizing othering was detected in particular in the cases of Yemen and Egypt, but also Iraq, when blame was attributed to political adversaries. The Omani case was characterized by a more subtle othering that focused strongly on the importance of citizenship.

Throughout history, successive governments in Yemen have realized the importance of the media. Consequently, they have tightened the grip on the media by imposing a monopoly on ownership and by selecting editors-in-chief and other leading positions to ensure complete media control. Thus, media have functioned as a voice for the regime rather than a voice for the public. A slight change has occurred since the Yemeni unification in 1990 in terms of allowing limited ownership and freedom of expression. However, resulting from the long monopoly and mismanagement, media in Yemen are facing huge challenges at the levels of infrastructure, technology, regulation, freedom of expression, training, and professionalism.

This study aims to investigate how television talk shows are politically employed, especially in times of political conflict between Qatar on one side and Saudi Arabia on the other. Its focus is on AlLewan program that was broadcast on Rotana Khalejia channel during Ramadan 2019. The program includes 29 episodes. The study finds that Alshawa [the awakening] Movement, Qatar, the Saudi opposition, and the Muslim Brotherhood are the top issues addressed in the program. Main actors of the discourse in the program include Osama bin Laden, Saudi opposed Saad Al-Faqih and Mohammed Almasa’ari, and the Saudi crown prince. The most emotionally loaded words and phrases are used to construct a call for facing the state, to ascertain the domination of Allah, and to impose awakening guardianship on the society. The program uses a number of communication strategies and techniques, including communication process strategy, confrontation and accusation, and the showing of clips from previous videos. The program applies several argumentative tools related to the Alshawa, Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, Islamic cassette tape, the Saudi Crown Prince. These tools include the narrative technique, the use of historical narratives, citations from Qur'anic verses as well as hadiths and prophetic biography.

Ansaq carries on with its regular publications that include various high-quality scientific research papers. We are pleased to present in this new issue five research papers, in addition to a translated chapter of a book. These papers cover different fields of knowledge, as shown in the table of contents; some papers tackle translation, some examine poetry and its aesthetics, some investigate communication mechanisms, in addition to other fields. The journal is still interacting with the Corona pandemic (Covid-19) as an exceptional event that shook the entire world in an unprecedented way, the effects of which are still present and felt every day in various walks of life. The dangers of this pandemic are still visible and have not come to their end yet. Covid-19 virus imposes itself from time to time through its new variants, which announce their appearance in the East at times, and in the West at other times. Hence, Ansaq welcomes scientific research that looks into this cosmic phenomenon in the context of what is related to its fields of research, especially those that deal with this issue from interdisciplinary research angles, similar to the sociolinguistic study in this issue on the approach to the epidemic discourse in literature and media. The study takes the Moroccan media as a model for this approach. Given the importance of translation in its communicative aspect with other cognitive products, this issue includes a translated chapter of the book: Du Cerveau au Savoir (From Brain to Knowledge), which is one of the most prominent philosophical works of the American linguistic philosopher John Rogers Searle. It is worth noting that Ansaq has recently joined the “Marefaˮ database after achieving the criteria for accrediting the impact factor and reference citations “Arcif,ˮ which is compatible with international standards, amounting to (32) standards. The journal was classified in the field of Arts as (Q2), in media and communication as (Q3), and in humanities (interdisciplinary) as (Q3). Ansaq aspires diligently to occupy a more advanced position in this first Arab classification, and to become a (Q1) journal soon - God willing -. On the same level, the journal is working to become indexed in other international databases, in addition to the ones that currently list it.