Abstract This thesis explores how the cultural and social media environments surrounding the journalism of Al Jazeera English are shaped by and shape the channel’s news practices. Al Jazeera English has been described as a contra-flow news organization in the global media landscape and this thesis discusses the different reasons why the channel is described in this way by looking at its origins, aims, characteristics and ideals. Based on interviews with Al Jazeera English journalists, news observations and two field observations in London, I argue that Al Jazeera English brings cultural and social sensitivity to its news reports by engaging with multiple in-depth perspectives, using local reporters and integrating citizen generated material. The channel’s early adoption of online technologies and citizen journalism also contributes to a more democratic news direction and gives the channel a wider spectrum of opinions and perspectives to choose between. By applying a comparative analysis built on similar studies within anthropology of news journalism differences and similarities within the journalistic practices can be detected, comparing Al Jazeera English’s journalism with journalism at other places and news organizations. These comparisons and discussions enables new understandings for how news is produced and negotiated within the global media landscape, and this gives the global citizen an improved comprehension of why the news, which shapes our appreciation of the world, looks like it does. In conclusion, this awareness opens up for a discussion towards a societal transformation that gives space for a more multifaceted journalism distancing itself from one-sided perspectives and institutional censoring.

Stockholms Universitet, Instutitionen för journalistik, medier och kommunikation JMK, Karlavägen 104 Box 27 861, 115 93 STOCKHOLM Tel: 08-16 20 00 Titel: CCTV och Al Jazeera – likheter och skillnader i de internationella nyhetsprogrammen   Title: CCTV and Al Jazeera –similarities and differences in the international news programs Författare: Hanna Strid, hanna.strid@gmail.com, Marta Kaszuba, marta.kaszuba@hotmail.com. Handledare: Christian Christensen C-uppsats Höstterminen 2013 This essay aims to identify what similarities and differences there are between news broadcastings from Chinese CCTV and Al Jazeera English which has its national headquarters in Qatar. When national channels broadcasts internationally, it is interesting to see what they choose to convey as that day's news flow and how to represent their country. It can depend on many different things such as structures of media ownership in the country and cultural context. The research methods used have been empirical studies and comparative analysis of a total of ten broadcasts of the largest daily newscasts on both channels, both news programmes are called the News Hour. All the news we have watched during the work with this essay we have studied according to Kieth Selby and Ron Cowdery's method of analysis presented in How to Study Television, this gives the essay a high grade of validity. The method has helped us to divide the empirical data into smaller components in order to make it easier to compare them. As a theoretical background we have used Stuart Hall's representation theory and his thoughts on the concept of culture. The theory is applied to verify the empirical data which is compiled in analysis chapter, and the results are discussed. In summary, we have found many similarities and differences between the programs and concluded that the news can never be objective without constantly being created by someone with an underlying idea of ​​the material transmitted. This can be done in many ways, both with a neutral ambition as of Al Jazeera English or on CCTV which often focus on their own country's positive sides and deeds.   Keywords: CCTV, Al Jazeera English, similarities, differences, news flow, national, international, broadcasts, representation, representation theory

The 15th of March 2019, the city of Christchurch in New Zealand was exposed to two mosque attacks that left at least 50 people killed and many people wounded. The attacks were described as a terrorist attack performed by a 28-year-old Australian man with right-wing extremist views. The two mosque attacks were broadcast live by the perpetrator on his social media accounts. By using a qualitative text analysis, the author has studied the reports of the attacks of three news channels, CNN, RT English and al- Jazeera English, with a selection of nine articles. The study has investigated the description and the framing of the mosque attacks by each news channel. With the aid of a framing analysis, the author was able to identify which frames that has occurred in the reports by CNN, RT English and al-Jazeera English. The aim of the study was to study the framing of the mosque attacks by the news channels with different culture valuations and whether there were any similarities or differences in their descriptions of the attacks. The result of the analysis could show that there were both similarities and differences in the reports of the news channels. CNN and al-Jazeera English used the affective and attributive framework and RT English used the descriptive framework in their reports of the mosque attacks.

Twitter is an online social networking service which functions as an information sharing medium, hence it is perfect for media to convey pieces of news. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Al Jazeera English (AJE) are two international news channels that actively use Twitter to share their news stories. Previous investigations have found that depending on the news story, the BBC and AJE convey their pieces of news slightly differently. This study aims to give an analysis of the textual content in these two news channel’s text messages (tweets) on Twitter to see if there are linguistic variations. The tweets were analysed in terms of tone, word choice and information richness. Tweets where the words Syria and kill occurred were chosen for a more thorough analysis, and the results show that the BBC had a slightly more negative tone, provided more detailed news reports and used a more informative language than AJE. It might be that the findings were a result of chance considering the fact that the collection of tweets analysed was rather small and differed in size. Nevertheless, the differences that were revealed by the study were of an apparent nature and occurred too frequently and consistently in this small material to be discarded as merely incidental.

I denna uppsats har vi genom en kvalitativ textanalys jämfört hur Al Jazeera och SvD rapporteratom Sydsudan under ett tidsspann på arton månader. Underlaget för forskningen är tio artiklarfrån SvD:s webbsida och tio artiklar från Al Jazeeras webbsida. Våra frågeställningar är; Vilkaretoriska grepp använder sig de olika medierna av och skiljer sig användningen på något sätt, ochi så fall hur? Vi har även formulerat en hypotes där vi påstår att en analys av de retoriska greppenkommer att synliggöra ideologiska underliggande meningar hos respektive nyhetsleverantör.Genom att formulera tio frågor utifrån den massmedieretoriska innehållsanalysen har vikunnat synliggöra olika retoriska grepp som används av skribenterna; däribland metaforer,liknelser, personifiering, värdeladdade ord och miljöbeskrivningar.Detta är en diskursanalys där vi tillämpat semiotiska teorier om språk och retorik. Våraresultat visade att det fanns flera likheter än skillnader gällande den språkliga gestaltningen hosde båda medierna. Hypotesen motbevisades och resultaten visade snarare att mediernasideologiska undertoner överensstämde.

Zugl.: Dresden, Techn. Univ., Magisterarbeit

Cette thèse utilise une approche de type théorie ancrée, en constituant un corpus de 252 vidéos d’informations, diffusées par Al Jazeera English, Press TV English, Euronews English et France 24 English, sur les événements du Printemps Arabe, pour apporter des réponses aux trois questions suivantes : [QR1] : Comment les institutions dominantes de l’information ont elles affecté le flux de l’information internationale pendant les événements du Printemps Arabe ? [QR2] : Comment les événements du Printemps Arabe furent représentés sous forme de reportages ? Et [QR3] : Comment les contributions à l’information ont-elles été utilisées pour construire les reportages internationaux ? Les vidéos d’informations du corpus sont étudiées à travers une Analyse Critique du Discours. Par conséquent, l’analyse est complémentée par une recherche documentaire et par une recherche empirique, sous la forme d’interviews, sur les institutions dominantes de l’information du Printemps Arabe, comprenant les chaines d’information mentionnées précédemment ainsi que l’agence de presse AFP et l’agence UGC Crowdspark. De plus, les paysages de l’information et des médias du Bahreïn, de l’Egypte, de la Libye, de l’Arabie Saoudite, de la Syrie, de la Tunisie et du Yémen, entre 2011 et 2013, ont également été étudiés à partir de recherche documentaire. Il est apparu que tous ces pays avaient des lois strictes sur l’accès à l’information et la publication, tout particulièrement quand ces informations concernaient les autorités, la religion ou la sécurité du pays, amenant des actes de censure stricts et des menaces, qui ont eux-mêmes conduit à l’autocensure chez les acteurs de l’information locaux et internationaux. Cette recherche a montré que la plupart des événements du Printemps Arabe ont été représentés en utilisant des images des lieux des événements, avec une représentation internationale minime et avec des modèles de représentation de manifestations pacifiques lors des soulèvements en Egypte, en Syrie et au Yémen et des modèles de représentation d’émeutes violentes lors des soulèvement Bahreïnis et Tunisiens. Des modèles mettant en scène la destruction ou des explosions ont pu être observés dans les pays en proie à une quelconque forme de conflit, à savoir en Libye et en Syrie. Les images de mort et de souffrance étaient peu répandues et seulement prédominantes dans les informations représentant la mort de Gaddafi et l’attaque chimique dans le Ghouta. La majorité des interviews d’information ont donné voix aux acteurs importants des événements, par opposition aux experts sur le sujet. L’analyse critique du discours a permis de formuler des théories sur l’utilisation des différents contenus dans les informations internationales, à savoir : les interviews, le contenu amateur, les chiffres et les pourcentages, les citations et le contenu de télévision publique. / This thesis uses a grounded theory approach, by building a corpus of 252 news videos, broadcast by Al Jazeera English, Press TV English, Euronews English and France 24 English, on events of the Arab Spring, to answer three questions: [RQ1] how did the dominant institutions of information affect international news flow during the events of the Arab Spring? [RQ2] how were the events of the Arab Spring represented in form of news stories? And [RQ3] how was contributed material used to construct international news stories?The news videos from the corpus are analysed using Critical Discourse Analysis, therefore the discourse analysis is complemented by literature, and empirical research in form of interviews, on the dominant information institutions of the Arab Spring, including the aforementioned news channels as well as the news agency AFP and the UGC agency Crowdspark. Additionally, the information and media landscape of Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen between 2011 and 2013 has also been studied using existing literature. It was found that all countries had strict laws against information access or publication, especially if the information was related to authorities, religion or security, leading to strict acts of censorship and threats, which further instilled self-censorship in local and international news actors.This research found that most events of the Arab Spring were represented using footage in the event location, with minimal international representatives and with frames of peaceful demonstrations during the uprisings of Egypt, Syria and Yemen, and frames of violent riots in the Bahraini and Tunisian uprisings. Frames featuring destruction or explosions were observed in countries that experienced some kind of conflict, namely, Libya and Syria. Images of death and suffering were minimal and only evident in news representing the death of Gaddafi and the Ghoutta chemical attack. Majority of news interviews gave a voice to relevant event actors, as opposed to topic experts. The critical discourse analysis produced theories on the usage of various content in international news, namely: interviews, amateur content, figures and percentages, quotes and state TV content.

In a global media environment characterized by change and conflict, narratives are especially useful to understand how the media form and distribute shared understanding of how the world works and who the important actors are. As the borders between local and global politics are blurred in the digital media landscape, protesters are in increased rate turning their placards to global broadcasters’ cameras, especially when political movements such as the U.S.-based Black Lives Matter movement get international counterparts. The scholarship concerned with the framework through which the media report protests argue the protest paradigm offers useful variables for the study of protests, while problematizing the lack of research on global broadcasting media. Global broadcasters, International Relations scholars argue, need to be understood as resources of soft power that distribute strategic narratives, but they have yet to develop a methodology for how broadcasts can be empirically studied. With this research gap as a point of departure, the chosen case study is the unrest in Ferguson in August 2014. A quantitative mapping and a comparative narrative analysis focusing on the narrative structure were conducted on 16 days of news bulletins from Al Jazeera English, BBC World News and RT. The results show several differences in the reports, the first concerns the amount of attention that was given to Ferguson by each broadcaster, where RT gave almost twice the amount of attention as the other two broadcasters. Further differences were found in the sources each broadcaster used and how they used violence as an entry-point to what their narratives where about, which in the case of AJE was the effects violence has on a society; BBCW’s narrative was of a political issue of high importance that concerns people of color; whereas RT’s narrative was about the militarization of the U.S. police force. The results imply the global broadcasters offer distinctive narratives, which through different storytelling techniques convey different attitudes and morals.