Al Jazeera Arabic and Al Jazeera English Websites: Agenda-Setting as a Means to Comparatively Analyze Online News Stories

Abstract

This study seeks to investigate similarities or differences in the content of news stories published on Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) and Al Jazeera English (AJE) websites. Guided by agenda-setting theory 2,400 online news stories were analyzed. Findings indicate that on fewer than 8% of the time do AJA and AJE display the same news story on their websites. Since Al Jazeera’s target audience differs depending on the language, the study argues that AJA and AJE set the agenda for two sets of news consumers. This is fairly significant as Al Jazeera seeks to play a greater role in news dissemination to a global audience. Al Jazeera deliberately seeks to highlight a certain news item, such as the almost daily coverage of the crisis between Qatar and four other Arab countries in the summer of 2017, thereby actively engaging in agenda-setting. Findings also indicate that AJA publishes more news stories pertaining to the Arab world than AJE. AJA’s coverage of the African and South American continents is relatively low compared to the Arab region, thereby directing audience’s attention to events and issues closer to Al Jazeera’s home base of Qatar. The study also argues that news consumers play a significant role in determining the news items displayed by news outlets.

A critical discourse analysis of Al Jazeera’s online coverage of the war in Yemen before and after the 5 June 2017 Gulf crisis

“…Al Jazeera certainly changed its media coverage of the war in Yemen over time, and similar observations have been made in the context of other research that support the idea that as Al Jazeera functions to serve the interests of Qatar (Abdul-Nabi, 2022b;Al Khalifa, 2019;Gasim, 2018;Kharbach, 2020;Mejalli, 2019;Naier, 2021;Samuel-Azran and Pecht, 2014), its approach will change as these interests shift. The findings of the current study particularly strongly support the conclusions of Abdul-Nabi (2022b) and Satti (2020), whose studies were conducted in countries that are not considered to be major participants in the Gulf crisis, as in this study. However, Samuel-Azran (2013) stated that the credibility of Al Jazeera has been acquired through its coverage of issues in which Qatar's interests are not directly implicated.…”

“…Samuel-Azran et al (2016) and Samuel-Azran and Pecht (2014) agreed with Satti (2020) that Al-Jazeera’s Arabic output is clearly the most highly biased in terms of supporting Qatari interests, particularly as compared to its English counterpart, Al Jazeera English. The observable change in perspective adopted by Al Jazeera over the Gulf crisis offers evidence of Qatar’s involvement in the media narrative generated by Al Jazeera, with the media channel acting as a public diplomacy tool for the furtherance of Qatari foreign policy.…”

“…The latter finding contradicts Satti (2020), however, who compared the online content of AJA and AJE to determine whether news stories differed across the two websites. That work was guided by agenda-setting theory, covering three time periods including July 2017 to April 2018.…”

“…The literature is therefore awash with academic studies on the Al Jazeera network from comparative perspectives, while the topic of the current research, Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Gulf crisis and the war in Yemen, is more focused. Other studies have, however, also examined this topic to a certain extent (Abdul-Nabi, 2022b; Al Khalifa, 2019; Gasim, 2018; Mejalli, 2019; Naier, 2021; Samuel-Azran and Pecht, 2014; Satti, 2020). Such studies have analysed Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Gulf crisis from various angles, as with Naier’s (2021) study that explored Qatar’s tools for utilising soft power, such as lobbying, international mediation, and, of course, the Al Jazeera network, which created a national brand for Qatar during that period.…”

Воззрения Арабских Исследователей На Деятельность Телеканала «Аль-Джазиры» Периода Катарского Дипломатического Кризиса

“…Во время конфликта эта линия просматривалась достаточно ощутимо. К подобным выводам приходят и другие исследователи, применяющие сопоставительный подход в анализе крупнейших вещателей арабского мира [Hassan, Elmasry, 2019;Kosárová, 2020;Satti, 2020;и др. ].…”