Title:
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Political ideology and the language of news : a case study of two Arabic emigrant dailies in London: Al-Hayat & Al-Quds Al-Arabi
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This thesis concentrates on the effects of political ideology on the contents
of the Arabic emigrant press, especially the London based Al-Hayat and Al-Duds
Al-Arabi. There are some academic studies about the history of the Arabic
emigrant press, but there is no single study examining in depth the journalistic
work styles or the character of language used by these dailies to describe events.
There are two issues under study: the Gulf War of 1990, and the Islamic political
movements in Algeria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The findings of this thesis are
derived from 340 newspaper issues under study (140 issues about the Gulf War of
1990 and 200 issues about the Islamic political movements).
The area of ideology, in particular political ideology is the theoretical
framework of the thesis. From this area, the researcher borrowed the concept and
theory of ideology and its relation to language and media discourse. The main
focus of this study will be on both manifest and latent contents of the newspapers
under study. From the media theory perspective, the present thesis is related to two
theoretical frameworks: political economy and representation approaches. The first
one will help to explain the political and economic reasons behind selecting
specific news items. The political economic approach will also define the political
and economic pressures which decide the news values of a given newspaper. The
second approach to which this thesis is related is representation. This approach will
help to answer the question of how the newspapers represented the issues and
actors under study through their language and to what extent these representations
could be considered as ideology.
The thesis employs content and discourse analysis as a research
methodology. The researcher uses the traditional quantitative approach of content
analysis and use discourse analysis as a qualitative approach of the same
methodology. The framework of discourse analysis in this thesis, depends on the
literatures of Fairclough, Fowler, and Van Dijk.
One of the main findings that this thesis has reached is that the Arab
emigrant press in London suffers from the same elements of pressures which affect
journalism in most parts of the Arab world. For instance, both kinds of Arab press
(local and emigrant) are affected by political regimes, ownership and subsidisation,
advertisements, and censorship. In this thesis we will notice how the newspapers
under study are affected by the censorship in the Arab world as well as the
influence of some Arab political regimes. In reporting the Gulf War of 1990, Al-
Hayal was affected by the Saudi censorship which led it to reduce Iraq as an
important actor and place in that conflict. The newspaper's relations with Saudi
Arabia also prevented the newspaper from explaining the motives of the suspects
behind exploding the two American residential complexes in Saudi Arabia. It is
true that the newspaper adopted one position toward the activities attributed to the
Islamic groups in the Arab world, but when Saudi Arabia became the target of
such activities the newspaper just condemned the explosions without searching or
presenting any reasons for them because of its sensitive relationship with the Saudi
government.
AI-Quds AI Arabi depending on its identity (the owner and the editor -inchief
in that time were Palestinian, decided to support Iraq in the Gulf War of
1990. Furthermore, the newspaper claimed that Iraq would be able to confront the
coalition led by the USA to liberate Kuwait, so the newspaper, before the start of
Desert Storm on 17.1.1991, supported the military solution to solve the Gulf crisis.
In reporting the Islamic political movements in the Arab world, the newspaper
took two different attitudes: it rejected the activities of these movements in Algeria
and Egypt and supported to a large extent the two explosions in Saudi Arabia
which were attributed to Islamic groups and individuals
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