Do They Frame it Differently?: Examining the Coverage of the U.S./Al-Qaeda Conflict in the English-and Arabic-Language Al-Jazeera Websites

This study explored the online coverage of the U.S./Al Qaeda conflict in the Englishand Arabic-language Al-Jazeera websites. Utilizing prominence, use of sources, and agency as framing devices, it looked at how Al-Jazeera caters the news to different users online. By and large, results showed limited differences in coverage between the two websites. The overwhelming majority of attributed sources were from the United States and its allies. Furthermore, results revealed a trend of negative coverage regarding all of those involved in the conflict. DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY – PAGE 3 DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY? : Examining the Coverage of U.S./Al Qaeda Conflict in the English-and Arabic-Language Al-Jazeera Websites The United States has engaged in a long-term conflict with Al Qaeda and all individuals, organizations, and groups it believes may be connected to that organization. Less than one month after the 9/11 terrorist attack, the United States stroke against the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan, where Al Qaeda was headquartered. Many terrorist attacks by different cells and groups connected with Al Qaeda, have since taken place against the United States and its allies in the conflict, such as Britain and Spain. In response, the United States has put tremendous effort to arrest, kill, or disrupt the Al Qaeda organization and those perceived to be connected to it. For example, less than two years after the start of the Afghan War, the United States invaded Iraq as part of its global “war on terror,” claiming that Saddam’s regime had connections with Al Qaeda organization (Tuathail, 2003). Thus for good reasons, the devastating consequences of this U.S./Al Qaeda conflict caught the attention of the media worldwide. One of these media that closely covered this conflict is AlJazeera network. Specifically, the Qatar-based network was the only news outlet covering the Afghan War from the frontlines (Jasperson & El-Kikhia, 2003). Al-Jazeera TV network, the first twenty-four-hour all-news network in the Arab world, although launched slightly more than a decade ago, has already established a reputation of being a leading independent news source in the Arab world. It is considered the region’s most-viewed and most credible news network (El-Nawawy & Iskandar, 2003; Johnson & Fahmy, In Press). The network has English-and Arabic-language news websites. Al-Jazeera launched its Arabic site on Jan. 1 2001 (Salem, 2003). In an attempt to globalize the network and reach English-language users worldwide, the network officially launched its English-language site on DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY – PAGE 4 Sept. 1 2003. As the Arabic-language site has experienced incredible development, the Englishlanguage version has also rapidly improved, attracting more users (About Al-Jazeera, 2003). Current literature indicates that users of the two websites differ. Many users of the Englishlanguage website indicate they come from the United States and other Western countries. In a survey posted on the English-language Al-Jazeera website, almost half of the respondents (47 percent) listed the United States as their country of origin, 20 percent listed Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom and only 14.4 percent of the respondents indicated backgrounds from 20 Arab countries and five Muslim countries (Johnson & Fahmy, 2006). Users of the Arabic-language website, on the other hand, tend to be primarily from the Arab World. In a survey posted on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera website, 98 percent of the respondents indicated backgrounds from 20 Arab countries and 2 Muslim countries (Afghanistan and Pakistan) (Fahmy & Johnson, 2007a). However, views toward Al-Jazeera vary. Critics have accused the network of providing a forum for Israelis, supporters of Saddam Hussein and supporters of Osama Bin Laden to express their views (Hanley, 2004). Some Arab regimes have criticized the network for being an avenue for dissident voices and a conspirator of anti-government movements, while others acknowledged it as the sole voice of journalistic objectivity in the Arab region (Negus, 2001; Zednik, 2002). Furthermore, Al-Jazeera has been repeatedly accused by the Bush administration of being biased in reporting the Middle East. These officials further complained that Al-Jazeera provides airtime to experts hostile to U.S. policy (Mekay, 2004). More recently, accusations against Al-Jazeera have been laden with claims that the satellite network’s framing of Middle Eastern and world events, have ignited Muslim and Arab anger against the United States, its military campaigns, and its foreign policies. (El-Nawawy & Iskandar, 2003; Zednik, 2002; Salem, 2003). Meanwhile, many Arab officials have been accused of expressing different views in Arabic, while sending an entirely DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY – PAGE 5 different message to the media in English (Marcus & Crook, 2004). There have been claims that Arab news sites sanitize Arabic hate terminology in their English counterparts. As one critic noted, "The Arabic version included the language of the terror organizations, while the English was cleansed with changes and omissions, including changes to the language of direct quotes" (HaLevi, 2007). The present study will, thus, explore whether the English-and Arabic-language news AlJazeera websites, targeting different users online, differed in their coverage of the U.S./Al Qaeda conflict. It will examine the use of framing devices in these two news websites. Specifically, it will examine the prominence of online stories covering the conflict, the use of sources in these stories, and the overall tone of coverage. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: NEWS FRAMING Framing has become a popular method in media research; particularly in studies examining the ways media producers construct the news. As defined by Entman (1993), “to frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (p. 52). Tankard et al. (1991) describe a media frame as “the central organizing idea for news content that supplies a context and suggests what the issue is through the use of selection, emphasis, exclusion, and elaboration” (p.277). Framing can have powerful influences on audiences as it affects their recognition and understanding of social problems and political issues (Entman, 1993). The concept of framing has been used to understand mass communication content and its relation to media effects (Entman, 1993). Framings of news stories are suggested by particular devices such as headlines and kickers, subheads, photographs, photo captions, leads, pull quotes, selection of sources or affiliations, DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY – PAGE 6 selection of quotes, nut graphs, and logos (Severin & Tankard, 2001). Researchers using the framing approach looked for these framing devices and mechanisms to identify frames (i.e. Wall, 1997; Norris, 1995; Reese & Buckalew, 1995; Liebler & Bendix, 1996). To assess the prominence of the coverage of specific topics, researcher looked at the number of units about these topics, their placement and their length in order to assess their visibility, emphasis, and importance. For example, Norris (1995) assessed the prominence of international network news in the pre-and-post-Cold War periods, by content analyzing the number and the length of stories and the story order. Other framing studies examined the sources used in the coverage of the topic (Fahmy, 2005; Tankard et al., 1991; Severin & Tankard, 2001). For example, Fahmy (2005) examined the news sources used to visually portray 9/11 and the Afghan War in English-and Arabic-language newspapers. Shoemaker & Reese (1996) asserted that “Attributing statements is a key element of the objective ritual. It protects against accusations that they [journalists] have been manipulated” (p.113). Source selection is, thus, one of the framing devices because relying on specific sources means framing the news from those sources’ perspectives. Some framing research employed the “agency” variable in order to determine the tone of the coverage toward the combatants of a conflict. The term agent was defined as a particular reference to an actor in the events who is perceived to have done something negative, positive, or neutral and therefore is an agent of action (Wall, 1997). Daradanova (2002) used the agency concept to measure the construct of two newspapers’ framing of the 1999 Kosovo crisis. This study will use framing as a theoretical foundation to analyze the news content of the English-and Arabic-language Al-Jazeera websites. The researchers will look for evidence of framing in several devices. As suggested by previous studies (e.g. Iyengar & Simon, 1993; Wall, DO ‘THEY’ FRAME IT DIFFERENTLY – PAGE 7 1997; Reese & Buckalew, 1995,) the researchers will examine the prominence of U.S./Al Qaeda conflict by examining the frequency and placement of these stories. Framing devices suggested by Tankard et al. (1991) and Severin & Tankard (2001), such as the selection of sources will also be analyzed. Beyond this, Wall’s (1997) concept of agency will be used to assess who was identified as causing or solving the problems of the conflict under study.