Title:
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The Jordanian daily press coverage of Camp David and Wadi Araba peace agreements : a qualitative study
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This study aims to assess the degree to which the Jordanian daily press is
concerned with two Peace Agreements between Arab countries and Israel, namely:
the Camp David Peace Agreement of 1978 and the Wadi Araba of 1994. This has
been done through analysing the content of the press coverage related to these Peace
Agreements by the two most widely read newspapers in Jordan, "AI Ra'i" and "Ad
Dustour". The study examines the similarity and diversity between the periods of
these two agreements in order to explain reasons for the stance of the Jordanian press
towards both agreements. It also describes the role of the press and its relations with
the state of Jordan, contributing to a general understanding of the relations between
politics and the press. With regard to the Jordanian daily press coverage of these
Peace Agreements, the research problem stated in the title has been broken down into
many questions. The most important of these are: What was the stance of the
Jordanian daily press towards Peace Agreements?; How did the Jordanian political
parties influence the relevant press coverage?; What were the journalistic forms used
to present the press coverage? What differences were there between the two periods?
The research employed a combination of two methods, content analysis and
interviews, with agenda setting and gate keeping as basic theories underpinning the
research. The main conclusions reached by this study are: that the stance of the press
was in favour of peace in both periods; that the Jordanian press paid continued
attention to peace topics during the periods of the two Peace Agreements; that the
two newspapers used journalistic forms (namely Political Caricature) in different
ways in the two periods; that the Jordanian political parties did not exert an
influential role on the press in its coverage of these Peace Agreements; that there are
some similarities in the press coverage, in terms of stance, the use of journalistic
forms and journalistic techniques and the sources of news and information; and that
there are certain differences in the press coverage between 1978 and 1994 in terms of
ownership, censorship and the different types of pressures they were under in the two
periods.
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