8. Qatar

Abstract

The State of Qatar is a new, small, and extremely rich country, ruled by the Al-Thani family and with a population of which a majority are non-Qatari nationals. It is also a country mostly known for the satellite channel Al-Jazeera. This cocktail of smallness, royal rule, and money is crucial for understanding the media landscape in Qatar, which in basic terms must be divided between the national media and the global satellite consortium of Al-Jazeera. Despite their different audiences, both media types are used and managed to consolidate and strengthen the rule and influence of Qatar and the Al-Thani family.

News Coverage of the Nile Dam Crisis in Chinese, Qatari and British Media: Exploring Proximity to Egypt and Ethiopia as a Framing Influence on CGTN, AJE and BBC's Reporting

“…AJE was more aligned with BBC in its reliance on heavy sourcing, quoting, and visualizing potential threats of the project to balance its coverage. Understanding the Qatari media system that encompasses pro-government national outlets, which ascribe to self-censorship, and transnational media—most notable of which is Al Jazeera Network—that serve as “an instrument for Qatar's soft power strategy” with varying degrees of independence helps explain AJE's approach to covering the Renaissance Dam dispute (Galal, 2021, p. 135). Despite Al Jazeera Arabic's explicit pro-protester coverage of the Arab Spring uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, for example, critics have argued the station toned down its reporting when the protests occurred in its Gulf neighbor Bahrain (Erdbrink, 2011), with some even accusing it of using “double standards” and “intentionally ignoring the coverage of Bahraini events” during the uprisings (El-Semany, 2011).…”