Challenging Authority in Cyberspace: Evaluating Al Jazeera Arabic Writers

Abstract

The Arab Spring has been widely branded as a social media revolution. Evidence has shown that many Arab citizens consider Al Jazeera one of the most popular and credible Arab news networks, making it important to explore the manner and the extent to which this media network may have impacted the Revolution. One way to do so is by examining the meaning, configuration, and providers of the Al Jazeera network’s news content. This exploration seems to raise important questions: what are the contents of Al Jazeera’s Arabic politico-religious articles? Are political writers revolutionaries in their views? Do they identify with the Arab mainstream or with a political/ideological group, or do they court the interests of Arab states? To what extent are writers affected by their country of origin, their ideological affiliations, or the country in which Al Jazeera is based—Qatar? This article attempts to answer these questions by analyzing the fluidity and the complexities of a sample of articles collected from Al Jazeera’s Arabic political columns between 30 January and 31 August 2011. In doing so, this article contributes to a timely discussion of social media, religion, and authority in the Arab world by presenting a case study of the political content of one of the Arab world’s leading media outlets.

In the Heart of the Storm: How Al Jazeera is Contributing to Changing the Gulf and the World

“…At the end of 2010, when the protests started to spread across the region, Al Jazeera emphasized the interconnection of *Address correspondence to this author at the Department of Mass Communication, Qatar University, P.O. Box 2713, Doha, Qatar; Tel: +974-4403-4869; E-mail: haydar@qu.edu.qa the Arab streets, the movements and the logos of the groups, airing videos on governmental cruelty in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, and oppositional opinions [2]. Moreover, protesters challenged the authorities by promoting a critical dialogue on social media outlets (Facebook, Twitter) and developing a virtual community that shared the goal to make their leaders accountable.…”

“…By embracing the practices of networked journalism, Al Jazeera became closer to its audience as it invites the public to contribute to the news via comments on the website, blogs, Twitter and Facebook outlets and their own videos and photos and SMS messages [9]. Moreover, its bond with the Arab public has been strengthened through the utilization of the Standard Modern Arabic (Fusha) instead of colloquial Arabic, thus engaging with a wider Arab audience [2,6]. The contemporary hybrid media environment gave birth to a dynamic sphere where the faster access to Internet, the alternative media, the intensified social media usage and networked journalism engage the Arab audiences in dialogue on multiple levels [7].…”