Doctoral thesis (Dissertations and theses)
Media Coverage of the Syrian Crisis from 2011 to 2013: Comparison Between Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar Channels
Kassab, Madeleine
2020
 

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Keywords :
Syrian Crisis, Media Content Analysis,; Propaganda and Misleading,; Verbal and non-Verbal Signs, Al-Jazeera, Al-Manar.
Abstract :
[en] The Syrian crisis is characterized by the intertwining of variables at the local, regional and global levels. The geopolitical importance of Syria and the positions of the Syrian government on many issues, most notably the Arab-Israeli conflict and the support of the “Resistance” in Palestine and Lebanon, radically divided the Syrian society and the Arab media into supporters and opponents of the Syrian government and created contrasting mental images of the Syrian crisis. Media not only transmit events but contribute to their creation as well. Media contents are formulated according to the desires and tendencies of the sender so that the recipients get mental images of the facts that make them adopt ideas and behaviors consistent with the propagandists’ objectives. For many, the media are the basic source of information and consequently they are the creator of thoughts and attitudes. This study tackles the coverage of the internal pivot of the Syrian crisis by Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar channels from 2011 to 2013; that is before the expansion of the crisis on the Arab and international levels and before the role of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) got larger. In addition to its relation to the geopolitical importance of Syria, the importance of this research is related to the influential role of AlJazeera and Al-Manar channels on the public opinion of the Arab peoples. Moreover, the engagement of Qatar and Hezbollah in events in Syria increases the importance of the two channels which hold the agendas of their financers and convey the propagandas of the conflicting parties on the Syrian ground. This study aims at knowing the characteristics of the news discourse that is influenced by many political, economic, religious and military variables and at detecting the tools of propaganda. The quantitative analysis in this research shows the general features of the two channels’ coverage mechanism of the Syrian crisis. The semiotic analysis studies the denotative and connotative levels of the verbal and non-verbal signifiers. This eventually helps to know the mental images which the two channels desire to insert into the recipient’s mind. This research is based mainly on Agenda-setting Theory, News Framing Theory and Gatekeeping Theory, and based on a multidisciplinary approach. The evoked disciplines are: information and communication sciences, media sociology, politics, linguistics, history, propaganda and misleading, military sciences, sociology, and religion. The results proved that the tendency of Al-Jazeera is anti- Assad and pro-opposition by a rate of 100%, whereas Al-Manar’s is contrary by 100%. Each signifier mentioned in the research samples contributes to propaganda promotion and psychological war. The two channels adopted several techniques which are known in the field of propaganda some of which are: Assertion, Repetition, Exaggeration, Name-calling, Glittering generalities, Reincarnation and plain folk, Recipient-credible testimonials, Bandwagon, Simplification, Emotional enticement, Euphemism, Diverting attention, Lesser than two evils, Pinpointing the enemy, Inflicting terror and chaos, Lying and misleading. The study detected other means that were employed in the context of propaganda war on the screens of the two channels: denying and trivializing the existence of the other, the people say the truth, more concentration on the actions of the enemy, simultaneous absence and presence, hinting, linking the destiny of the State to that of the people, alleviation of events´ severity through employing non-verbal signifiers, one signifier is stronger than many combined signifiers, direct and indirect adoption, direct and indirect bias, repeating the opponent’s propaganda, exploiting the characteristics of Arabic language, Islamizing events and accusing the enemy of sectarianism, animalizing the opponent and undermining them through exploiting the socially prevailing meanings of words, exploiting the indications of the mentioned numbers, mentioning the names and types of weapons, giving free rein to the recipient’s imagination through verbal and non-verbal signifiers, linking the feelings of hope or victory to religious phrases, showing the attitudes of children, disproving the other’s propaganda, the channel gives the interviewed people political trends, balancing between the discourses of strength and weakness, images free from a clear meaning and leading the recipient’s perception to the images content through the news story, exploiting the position of another enemy in the region, exploiting the interference of allies, stressing that the enemy is not strong and that it is rather brutal, indirect mentioning of the weakness of the opponent in order to justify the military actions, affirming the maintaining attitudes and continuation, the significances of the camera’s angles and movement, exploiting non-traditional spoils, metaphors, linking all the catastrophic results to the opponent, a signifier on behalf of another, exploiting the characteristics of the female, integrating the statistical presentation with the emotional enticement, addressing the topic of ethnicities and sects indirectly, the journalists’ involvement in the events, human icons, and the propagandists spread their propaganda through mentioning or adopting that of another party.
Disciplines :
Arts & humanities: Multidisciplinary, general & others
Author, co-author :
Kassab, Madeleine ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Traverses
Language :
English
Title :
Media Coverage of the Syrian Crisis from 2011 to 2013: Comparison Between Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar Channels
Alternative titles :
[en] Media Coverage of the Syrian Crisis from 2011 to 2013: Comparison Between Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar Channels
Defense date :
10 September 2020
Number of pages :
458
Institution :
ULiège - Université de Liège
Lund University CMES, Lund, Sweden
Degree :
Doctorate in Media, Culture & Communication
Promotor :
Geuens, Geoffrey ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Traverses
Abdelhady, Dalia
President :
Hamers, Jérémy ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Traverses
Jury member :
Guaaybess, Tourya
Luceno Moreno, Marta ;  Université de Liège - ULiège > Département médias, culture et communication > Théorie critique des nouveaux médias et analyse des groupes de communication
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since 11 November 2020

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