Al-Jazeera English Research Project

By Todd Fine on Oct 20, 2007

Hey, Shawn. Congratulations on your grant. This seems like a very timely and interesting project. I watched a good deal of Al-Jazeera English while in the Middle East this summer. We should chat sometime.

By Joseph Circione on Nov 2, 2007

Dear Mohammed & Shawn:

What an interesting and timely project! Sounds fascinating. Please keep me posted of the results.

By Jim on Jan 13, 2008

Gauging viewers’ perceptions and their ranking requires the research to look through the glass of how perceptions form and order themselves. This does not happen in isolation as the viewers also act as a mirror reflecting and reacting to the exogenous realties surrounding them. A host of factors continue to influence the parameters that are being measured or what Paula Levine calls the transcending shadows from other places. No doubt the media forms ‘mediatise’ or ‘shape, facilitate, and condition the communication of conflicts’ but not just from one isolated source but perhaps through perceptions accumulated over time from multiple sources not easy to disassociate and dissect.

No matter how balanced and even handed Aljazeera programmes have been about the shooting incident in Virginia Tech University, a viewer would have affected to a far greater extent by the Cho Seung Hui’s package received and splashed by NBC and before that how the Columbine High School killings were projected. Thus in affect all the airtime and column space given to the villain of the Virginia tragedy, to his 23-page statements and his 43 sickening photographs is what mattered in the representation and perception of the changing dynamics about youth and gun violence.

The way issues are primed and framed over other media outlets creates an effect makes the viewer adjust the mirror and also shape the gaze. The situation gets even further complicated by the fact that many in the news media advance “form over substance, celebrity over ideas” to a level that plagued the public discourse as referred to in a new book The Silence of the Rational Center. Co-authors Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke argue that the members of the foreign policy establishment are no longer doing the job of keeping the US foreign policy informed and rational. Instead, hungry to spin their own versions, they are in the business of advancing simplistic, glib mythologies. The result is that Americans are often presented with a fantasy world of nightmare scenarios rather than with explanations that lead to rational choices.

A frenetic 24/7 news cycle with a penchant for immediate, adversarial programming on media outlets such as cable news hooked to a virtuoso display of stand-off weapons contributes to a “new aesthetic of war” where for one set of viewers it is evening news consisting Nintendo style graphics of surgical strikes served at dinner time. It is noted that different media, genres, and formats enact the public display and deliberation of divergent if not opposing interests. For many months Peter Arnett’s 1991 despatch “the sky over Baghdad has been illuminated” was heralded as a proud display of the CNN’s scoop as indifferently as it was about fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Elsewhere many others who felt the impact, heard the bombs, felt the shock waves, saw bright lights in the sky felt helpless and voiceless. Thus events coexist within a human framework–that of our bodies, our local communities, our families. Even though we are experiencing the world through a confluence of both old and new technologies, Michel de Certeau reminds us that the events themselves are still being translated through the practices of, and in everyday lives; through our routines, our senses, our familiar landscapes and our narratives. All these still remain powerful potential points for creative expression, in and by which we experience and convey what we know.

An Italian scholar of the Arab media, Donatella della Ratta rightly suggests that the West should seriously consider before blaming (or blocking) any channels like Aljazeera that are in fact educating tools to inform rather than a medium providing an embedded version from a warring side. If the likes of Aljazeera English had wider access in to American homes it would not have taken this long to see the contradictions between the lofty claims made at the Capitol and actual realities faced on ground.

Thus when responding about how a viewers finds the coverage of Iraq, the relative positions of the perceiver and perceived may not contain and convey only a snap shot of the moment when the questions were posed. The viewer is affected by factors preceding and following a development also by the manner in which the questions are posed and by whom, including how they are phrased etc. I therefore wonder if the researchers are looking at how one of the best informed and well exposed defence official has looked back at four years of American Media coverage of the Iraq war 2003-2007. Even then it took a uniformed officer four years to speak up his mind in public (upon retirement). What is far more worrisome is that the US mainstream media has not risen up to secure straight, clear-cut answers reflecting a “systematic failing” which is grown as an institutional failure.
General Ricardo S. Sanchez gave his candid assessment of the military and press relationship in his address at the Military Reporters and Editors Luncheon in Washington D.C. While Sanchez believes it to be necessary that the military and the press corps maintain a mutually enabling relationship, in his observation this continues to be problematic listing several reasons paraphrased below:

“As I assess various media entities, some are unquestionably engaged in political propaganda that is uncontrolled,” say the General. In his assessment, the profession of war reporting, “has strayed from these ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, what they read in our newspapers and what they see on the web. For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and agendas.

Sanchez referred to the way the Iraqi conflict is handled asking point blank: “Who will demand accountability for the failure of our national political leaders involved in the management of this war?”

Media outlets ought to answer why it hasn’t sufficiently lobbied for access to alternate sources that can keep the US news corporations on their toes to give frank and fair reports from Iraq and Afghanistan. Media outlets ought to answer why it hasn’t sufficiently probed the cakewalk crowd who promised a casual march to victory in Iraq. How many media activists pressed for accountability of the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming “measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.” Had American tax payers an easy access to alternate information sources it wouldn’t have taken them four years to question the wisdom of the “cakewalk” bunch. Thus encouraging and embracing alternate sources of media has become increasingly important at a time when many US media organs tiptoe around issues in fear of overstepping their boundaries.

It is pertinent to heed to what top defence officials who have served as key positions till recently have to say about the US media. In General Ricardo S. Sanchez’s observation, the four years of American media’s coverage of the Iraq war continues to be problematic due to a near lack (if not total absence) of accountability.

Had American tax payers an easy access to alternate information sources it wouldn’t have taken them four years to question the wisdom of the “cakewalk” bunch i.e. the likes of Ken Adelmen who misled the American media by claiming “measured by any cost-benefit analysis, such an operation would constitute the greatest victory in America’s war on terrorism.”

Thus encouraging and embracing alternate sources of media has become increasingly important at a time when many US media organs tiptoe around issues in fear of overstepping their boundaries. An Italian scholar of the Arab media, Donatella della Ratta rightly suggests that the West should seriously consider before blaming or blocking channels like Aljazeera that are in fact educating tools to inform rather than a medium providing an embedded version from a warring side. Her analysis is a wake-up call for those who believe that pouring $62 million on Al-Hurra can make the US image right in the Middle-East. For a fraction of such amount spent on facilitating wider access to alternate sources like Aljazeera English help American view the actual realities faced on ground from diverse sources.

At a conference, “Creating Connections: New Partnerships for Understanding in the Middle East,” sponsored by the Vermont Peace Academy, Vermont Council on World Affairs and Norwich University. A participant said: “It’s an intellectual tragedy that the United States has cut itself out of Al Jazeera English’s contribution to [informative] conversation. Everything that’s happened to us in Iraq shows that’s very dangerous. The lesson of Iraq is: Ignorance kills.” See: http://tinyurl.com/2gwad8

Instead of making wrong choices and pursuing wrong approaches that are just goose-chasing and witch-hunting exercises US needs to befriend with the ones that capture and portray the facts professionally and far effectively. Now more than ever the USA public and its opinions makers need tools that can help them separate the wheat from the chaff not occasionally but on an on-going, round the clock basis.

By ahmed waheed on Jan 30, 2008

I would like to inform thank for hard work in alajazeera tecnecialside works . I hope will contact me.I am from maldives as a smallest country in indian ocean.these island is underwater beatiful as well as sensitive envernmemt.

By Patrick Tawil on Feb 6, 2008

This is a great research project. Since I am a AJE viewer I would love to see the result.
In my capacity of Marketing & Research Consultant, is it possible to have an idea about the questionnaire?

Regards

By JERRY NISSEN on Apr 13, 2008

You constantly drum about Zimbabwe elections - which are obviously rigged… no doubt.

Lets compare US elections when George W. Bushie took over….. It was rigged…. no doubt.

US is not a democracy - it is 99% corporate controlled with the remaining 1% controlled by the well-entrenched bureaucrats. Add the IRS - an out-of-control KGB-like agency which no Senator or Representative dares challenge for fear of retribution to them…… ah a little like our old buddy J. Edgar Hoover who had a little snitch on everyone in Washington D.C.

Comparison based on Al-Jazeera research would be terrific….. Plenty of material available.

By Rania Okasheh on Apr 21, 2008

Dr. Nawawy and Shawn Powers Congratulation to both of you. My Master thesis, which compared AJE to CNN coverage of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, revealed among others that yes perhaps AJE viewers are more likely to think in less dogmatic terms.

By William Hanna on Jun 19, 2008

When and where can we read about progress and outcomes?

By MOHAMMED IBAHRINE on Jun 24, 2008

Congratulations.
I look forward to reading your findings.