Al Jazeera and the Global Media Landscape

The South is Talking Back

Tine Ustad Figenschou

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135078690
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Lingue e linguistica
• Categoría: Giornalismo

This book analyzes how and why Al Jazeera English (AJE) became the channel of choice to understand the massive protests across the Arab world 2011. Aiming to explain the 'Al Jazeera moment, ' it tracks the channel's bumpy road towards international recognition in a longitudinal, in-depth analysis of the channel's editorial profile and strategies. Studying AJE from its launch in mid-November 2006 to the 'Arab Spring', it explains and problematizes the channel's ambitious editorial agenda and strategies, examines the internal conflicts, practical challenges and minor breakthroughs in its formative years.

The Al Jazeera-phenomenon has received massive attention, but it remains under-researched. The growth of transnational satellite television has transformed the global media landscape into a complex web of multi-vocal, multimedia and multi-directional flows. Based on a combination of policy-, production- and content analysis of comprehensive empirical data the book offers an innovative perspective on the theorization of global news contra-flows. By problematizing the distinctive characteristics of AJE, it examines the strategic motivation behind the channel and the ways in which its production processes and news profile are meant to be different from its Anglo-American competitors. These questions underscore a central nexus of the book: the changing relationship between transnational satellite news and power.

1
Introduction

The Al Jazeera Moment

“Al Jazeera is not a tool of revolution. We do not create revolutions. However, when something of that magnitude happens, we are at the center of the coverage,” said Wadah Khanfar, Al Jazeera Network’s Director General from 2003–11, in his TED talk from March 2011. Interviewed after the talk, he described the enormity and the importance of the Arab uprisings in almost poetic terms:

Actually, this may be the biggest story that we have ever covered. We have covered many wars. We have covered a lot of tragedies, a lot of problems, a lot of conflict zones, a lot of hot spots in the region, because we were centered at the middle of it. But this is a story—it is a great story; it is beautiful. It is not something that you only cover because you have to cover a great incident. You are witnessing change in history. You are witnessing the birth of a new era. And this is what the story’s all about. (Khanfar, 2 March 2011)

For the network’s English news channel, Al Jazeera English (AJE), the uprisings represented a ‘perfect media storm’ as the channel capitalized on a set of comparative advantages making them the international news channel to go to. This book analyzes how and why AJE became the channel of choice to understand the massive protests across the Arab world. Aiming to provide a comprehensive understanding of the ‘Al Jazeera moment,’ it tracks the channel’s bumpy road towards international recognition in a longitudinal, in-depth analysis of the channel’s editorial profile and strategies. Studying AJE from its launch in mid-November 2006 to the ‘Arab Spring’ and beyond, it explains and problematizes the channel’s ambitious editorial agenda and strategies as well as examines the internal conflicts, practical challenges, and interim successes in its formative years.

To understand the role of the new and old media during the Arab Spring, it is important to recognize the complex and contradictory characteristics of the wider Arab public sphere. The present chapter first maps recent localization trends in the global media landscape. Second, it discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and democratic potential of the Arab public sphere, with particular emphasis on satellite news channels, expectations of a ‘satellite democracy,’ and popular participation and mobilization. It aims to demonstrate that neither the naïve beliefs in media effects in the Arab world nor popular mobilization and protest are a new phenomenon in the Arab public sphere, although the pace, scale and magnitude of the Arab uprisings were unprecedented. The third part of the present chapter situates Al Jazeera English in the global news landscape and outlines the channel’s comparative advantages over its international competitors in the dramatic last couple of years.

The Localization of Global News

Al Jazeera English’s coverage of the Arab uprisings has been seen as a powerful demonstration of the channel’s emerging role as a major international player (Miles 2011, Ricchiardi 2011, Seib 2012). And yet, there can be no static definition of what such a role might entail at any given time, as the international media ecology (and with it the implications of what it may mean to successfully compete within it) is constantly evolving. However, there are certain recurring trends and themes. As I will outline in the following, in the past decades, international media outlets oscillated between efforts to globalize and efforts to localize.

In today’s complex satellite news landscape, the technological developments, the plurality of news outlets, new patterns of global ownership, new global media institutions and new financial hubs and emerging media centers blur the traditional dichotomy between dominant Western news flows and its challengers. The growth of transnational satellite television has transformed the global media landscape into a complex web of multivocal, multimedia and multidirectional flows (Chalaby 2005b, Rai & Cottle 2007, Sinclair et al. 1996, Straubhaar 2007, Thussu 2007b). Today, 24-hour news channels compete in a very crowded, highly competitive market, and in addition to overlapping each other, they also compete with an ever-increasing number of state and local news channels (Cushion 2010: 23). These complexities have revealed the shortcomings of existing theoretical approaches and paradigms in the global news field (Cottle & Rai 2008, Rai & Cottle 2010) and the present study is one attempt to illuminate the complexity of the current satellite news landscape. Recent years have shown an unprecedented growth of localized international news satellite channels stressing distinctive news perspectives and challenging the commercial Anglo-American news media. As the most ambitious of these satellite news contra-flows, the rise of the Al Jazeera Network epitomizes the dramatic changes in the global television news landscape.

In the early 1990s, the original ideal type of transnational satellite news channel was promoted as deterritorialized and cosmopolitan, disrupting the relationship between place and time.¹ The deterritorialized channels in the first generation of transnational news channels had less time-specific, 24-hour-oriented programming schedules for a multinational audience and internationalized patterns of production. Deterritorialization implies a weakening or loss of the ‘natural’ relationship of culture and media to geographical and social territories (Rantanen 2005: 96). In the first phase of satellite news, politicians, business executives and academics in the tradition of the global public sphere (see Volkmer 1999, 2000, 2002) shared a strong belief in global news. In the early days of satellite television, it was widely believed in corporate circles that the boundaries between cultures were quickly disappearing and that a global, cosmopolitan culture was emerging (Chalaby 2005b: 53). Cosmopolitanism symbolizes an exciting and glamorous lifestyle, travel between and intermingling with different cultures, and a broad-minded, urbane and worldly attitude. Consequently, it was criticized for being elitist and Western (Rantanen 2005: 119–22).

The logic behind this first phase of satellite news broadcasting was best symbolized by the instant, initial success of CNN International’s (CNN) 24/7 breaking news coverage in the early 1990s. Foreign news reporting had previously been defined largely within the scope of the nation-state, but the international strategies of CNN rapidly established the network as a global news leader in the coverage of world crises. The earliest 24/7 satellite news channels were heralded as symbols of the global news organizations. The satellite news pioneers, CNN International, later followed by BBC World,² demonstrated the potential of satellite technology to broadcast a common set of programming across a range of television markets around the globe (Rai & Cottle 2007). In response to the continuous production demands of the 24/7 news genre, CNN developed three new journalistic styles and types of news presentation: breaking news, live coverage and fact journalism (Volkmer 1999: 139). In particular, CNN’s live reporting of global breaking news and international crises gave it an unparalleled position in international communication in the 1990s. At the outset of the first Gulf War, CNN was ahead of its competitors with its live coverage of the conflict, advanced presentation techniques, and extended access to US military sources (El-Nawawy & Powers 2008: 12). The emergence of CNN as a major influential satellite news network produced a new communication approach to international relations known as the “CNN effect” (Gilboa 2005b: 326), discussed in more detail below.

Emphasizing their global orientation, CNN and the BBC exhibit a cyclicity in their schedules with a preference for half-hour programs and no identifiable prime-time period. Furthermore, the schedules of both channels are often subject to change as they make way for live coverage of breaking news events (Rai & Cottle 2007: 68). In her analysis of CNN’s organization and strategy, Küng-Shankleman (2000) argued that its concentration on news made the channel a unique global product, but also resulted in uneven ratings, advertiser unattractiveness, accusations of sensationalism and the challenge of balancing fixed schedules with breaking news (ibid.: 194–9). In particular, the CNN World Report has been highlighted as a typical example of the emerging global public sphere and the de-Americanization of the channel (Flournoy & Stewart 1997, Kraidy 2005: 100, Volkmer 1999).³ According to scholars of political economy, such as Thussu (2007c: 69), the initial success of CNN resulted in the “CNNization” of international news and the launch of a number of new satellite news channels inspired by the CNN model, such as Sky News, the BBC and ITV. Further, he argues that the fierce competition among increasing numbers of satellite news networks encouraged them to provide news in an entertaining manner, as global infotainment, “the globalization of US-style ratings-driven television journalism, which prioritizes privatized soft news … over news about political, public and civic affairs” (ibid.: 8). On the other hand, in their study of the global 24/7 news channels CNN, the BBC, Sky News and Fox News, Cottle and Rai (2008: 176), found an “inherent complexity in the communicative structures of global TV news and the ways in which these deliver, deliberate and display conflicts and cultural differences in and around the contemporary world.”

In their empirical mapping of the reach, access and ownership of satellite news channels, Rai and Cottle (2007, 2010) identify the structural limitations in the global news ecology. They conclude that only a few of the contemporary satellite news channels are indeed global in reach: CNN, BBC, CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox News (Rai & Cottle 2010: 55–64). All of the global channels are major Western players, thereby lending credence to the thesis of continued Western dominance in the news market (ibid.). There are over 100 satellite news channels, cutting across virtually every region of the globe, with many of them broadcasting in different languages and the vast majority operating principally at regional, national or subnational levels. This suggests an increasing localization of the 24/7 news genre. Second, Rai and Cottle accentuate satellite news ownership. They find considerable evidence that major Western corporations dominate ownership at the global level. At the regional and national levels, however, they find that ownership patterns reveal an increased complexity and heterogeneity. They argue that this offers a less Western-dominated reading of news flows and formations than has been proffered by traditional geopolitical economy approaches (Rai & Cottle 2007: 60). The contemporary satellite news landscape is dynamic and rapidly expanding, with information flows increasingly overlapping and intersecting both within and across regions. Third, Rai and Cottle underscore the structures of distribution and access that reinforce the dominance of the major Western satellite news channels. Satellite news channels are generally accessible only via subscription (with some exceptions) and face considerable structural hurdles when it comes to distribution (Parker 1995 in Rai & Cottle 2010: 67). The global players, such as the BBC and CNN, are available all over the world without difficulty, whereas the choice of regional and national satellite channels on offer differs by area.⁴ These structures reinforce traditional political economy arguments, highlighting the continuing supremacy of the major Western players (ibid.). Following this argument, the ability of non-Western news channels to create contra-flows is called into question by these structural inequalities of access (ibid.). At the same time, Rai and Cottle (2010: 69–70) note these distribution structures are creating “an interesting paradox in which the news markets of the non-Western world, in many cases, are more pluralized, offering a mix of regional and national channels alongside the major Western players.”

Over time, the globalization strategy in the first phase of satellite broadcasting (offering the same menu to more and more people) turned out to be a failure as the big Western news channels struggled to attract a broader global audience (Hafez 2007, Hjarvard 2001, Sparks 2005). Audience numbers were lower than the global public sphere advocates might have expected, and viewers were predominantly male, well-educated and well-off and represented a global elite (Sparks 2005: 42). One of the main limits to globalization in the media is the fact that relatively few people have a primarily global identity (Straubhaar 2007: 6) and, in general, local, national, and regional media and identities have not been eroded by the competition from global media. On the contrary, the new global and trans-national media have actually helped strengthen and created new national and regional media in many parts of the world (Hafez 2007, Rantanen 2005). Moreover, Sparks (2005: 38) showed that although satellite news channels are often perceived as primary agents of global media, they are never free from national restrictions: all signals must be linked up from somewhere, and nowhere is unregulated. Satellite channels operate under national and regional political and economic constraints. The state’s influence over satellite broadcasting is particularly strong in the Arab world, where the Arab states have been and remain a determining factor, initiating and shaping satellite broadcasting.

In contrast to the global public sphere proponents, who argue that the conventional distinctions between the foreign and the domestic are irrelevant in deterritorialized satellite news, more recent academic contributions argue that the domestic frame has remained present in global news. The second phase of satellite broadcasting has been characterized by two interconnected and corresponding developments in transnational television. First, the major global transnational channels initiated different processes of localization in the shape of a centralized approach to local adaptation (Chalaby 2005b, Straubhaar 2007, Thussu 2007b).⁵ Today, global audiences are increasingly stratified by media output, which is specifically geared towards national or regional interests (Chalaby 2003, 2005a/b, Clausen 2003, 2004, Hafez 2007, Kraidy 2005, Straubhaar 2007). The two major global news channels CNN and the BBC have chosen different localization strategies (Chalaby 2003: 466–7, Thussu 2007c: 66). CNN gradually localized its feeds, introduced local and/or regional language news slots, and developed an international network of regional and local channels (Chalaby 2003). In contrast, the BBC has broadcast the same news to everyone while varying the current affairs, documentary and lifestyle programming (ibid.), and their news has been broadcast mainly in English, with the exception of limited dubbing in Japan and Spanish subtitles in Latin America (Thussu 2007c). As emphasized by Hafez (2007: 13), one result of the localization of the global channels is that there are many regional versions of the global channels, but no completely global program. According to El-Nawawy and Powers (2008), these localization and domestication processes cause the global media to reflect and speak to “particular national discourses with little regard to each other” (El-Nawawy & Powers 2008: 14). Scholars of political economy, such as Thussu (2007b), argue that these localization processes are central to the acceleration of Western or Westernized media flows around the globe, and that media output and services are being tailored to specific cultural consumers as a commercial imperative.⁶ The localization of the global satellite channels, exemplified by CNN International and CNN (the domestic US channel), arguably weakens the ‘global public sphere’ argument (Sparks 2005: 41): why does the leading satellite channel strategically differentiate the material it broadcasts to the most powerful television market (the US) from the material it broadcasts to the rest of the world if international communication is characterized by a strong and vibrant global public sphere?

Secondly, there has been an unprecedented growth of more localized transnational satellite channels since the mid-1990s. Aware of the structural limitations in the global news system, these newcomers have been targeting specific national, regional or geocultural audiences. Researchers have identified a growth in localized transnational channels, particularly in the last ten years (Rai & Cottle 2007, 2010, Straubhaar 2007, Wessler & Adolphsen 2008). In contrast to the first generation of global satellite channels, which mainly expanded from a national base or market where they remained strong and profitable, the second generation targeted regional and/or international audiences from the very beginning (Straubhaar 2007: 55–6). Regionalism has been a strong trend in the international media since the 1990s, and the dynamic regionalist view of international media structures has been investigated in a growing number of publications (Hafez 2007, Moran 2009, Sinclair et al. 1996, Straubhaar 2007, Tunstall 2008). The aforementioned Arab satellite ‘revolution’ is a pivotal illustration of the development of regional markets of localized transnational satellite channels.

In the Arab context, CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War in 1991 highlighted the contrasts between Arab state television’s coverage of the war, giving static, censored versions of the dramatic events, and the live coverage of CNN (Sakr 2001). Western media were generally seen as having more credibility than Iraqi and Arab media. Still, many Arabs were disappointed by the Western bias in the war coverage, and the need for stronger Arab media was apparent (Ghareeb 2000: 1). The presence of CNN helped to forge a market for a new kind of Arabic broadcasting, for leading Arab entrepreneurs had watched CNN and recognized how powerful satellite television could be as a political and commercial vehicle (Rugh 2004: 211). The CNN model inspired the development of Arab satellites, and these were deployed to suit the interests of those who controlled individual stations. In most cases, this meant limiting the model in some way (Sakr 2001: 97). From the mid-1990s to the present, there has been an explosive growth in Arab satellite channels competing for Arab viewers, ranging from news channels to family channels, religious channels and music television (Sakr 2007b). Furthermore, in the last decade there has been an unprecedented boom in Arabic-language television channels operated by non-Arab states: Al-Hurra (The Free One), funded by the US congress; Rusya al-Yawm (Russia Today), funded by the Russian government; al-‘Alam (The World), owned by the Iranian state; BBC Arabic, funded by the UK Foreign Office; and CCTV Arabic, funded by the Chinese government—in addition to the Arabic versions of Deutsche Welle World TV (German government) and France 24 (French government) (Kraidy & Khalil 2009: 125).

In addition to the rapid growth in the Arabic-language market, there has been an unparalleled growth in recent years of localized international news satellite channels stressing alternative news perspectives vis-à-vis Western mainstream news outlets. Both governments and private corporations have acknowledged the plurality of voices and recognized the need to broadcast their own perspective on global events. A prominent example is the Spanish-language Latin American news channel, Telesûr (2005), launched under the catch phrase “Nuestro Norte es el Sur” (“Our North is the South”) (Boyd-Barrett & Boyd-Barrett 2010, Burch 2007). Although these channels are established to target international audiences, they differ markedly from the cosmopolitan ideal viewers that theorists have associated with CNN and other global networks in the first generation satellite channels (Rai & Cottle 2007), and they could be understood as defensive and even reactionary to the growing influence of the global Western channels (ibid. 2010: 72). Today, a growing number of channels are competing for English-speaking audiences worldwide, offering English-language alternatives to the Anglo-American satellite news channels, e.g., France24 (2006) (“worldwide news with French eyes”),⁷ Russia Today (2005) (“the Russian point of view”), Deutsche Welle TV (from 1953) (“German and other positions on important issues”), Chinese CCTV 9 (“your window on China and the world”) and the Iranian Press TV (2007) (“unbiased reporting of controversial global news”). These channels offer a variety of combinations of information about internal events and domesticated perspectives on international affairs.

Al Jazeera English (AJE) represents the most ambitious of these channels and is the object of analysis in this book. AJE was launched on 15 November 2006. At present, the channel employs over 1,000 employees from over 50 nationalities, covering the world 24/7 from the channel’s four broadcasting centers in Doha, Kuala Lumpur, London and Washington D.C. and from the Al Jazeera Network’s more than 70 bureaus in the field (AJE press office information request, May 2013). As of May 2013, it is being distributed to over 260 million homes in over 120 countries (ibid.).

AJE is the first English-language satellite news channel headquartered in the Middle East,⁸ and, in order to situate the channel within the Arab regional context, the major developments in and key characteristics of the Arab public sphere will be outlined in the next section.

Participation, Protest and Authoritarian Rule: The Arab Public Sphere

From the mid-1990s, optimistic expectations of a kind of ‘satellite democracy’ ...

Índice

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: The Al Jazeera Moment
• 2 A Strategic Contra-Flow? Al Jazeera–Qatari Relations
• 3 Editorial Strategies: The Challenges of ‘Reporting Back’
• 4 Reversing the News Flow? News Geography on Al Jazeera English
• 5 A Voice of the Voiceless: Al Jazeera English’s Source Hierarchies
• 6 Challenging the Spin: The Gaza War 2008–2009
• 7 Suffering Up-Close: Al Jazeera English’s Dramatic Visualizations
• 8 Beyond the Arab Spring: The Structural Contradictions of the Al Jazeera Project
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index