International News Organizations and the Coverage of Global Events: the Egyptian Arab Spring by Aljazeera.Com, Bbc.Com, and Chinadaily.Com.Cn Dissertation

Home , BBC Persian Television, Hugh Sykes (journalist)

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

School of Journalism & Mass Communications

English Language MA in Digital Media, Communication & Journalism

International news organizations and the coverage of global events: The Egyptian Arab Spring by aljazeera.com, bbc.com, and chinadaily.com.cn Dissertation

Student:

Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis

Supervisor:

Nikos Panagiotou

Thessaloniki 2017

Abstract

‘Arab Spring’ is known with several names such as ‘Jasmine Revolution’, and ‘Arab Evolution’. Its impact on the lives of the Arab people remains unknown until today, as there are many different opinions. Moreover, there exist many researches on the Arab Spring and the information flow conducted by prominent media companies. However, few of them take into consideration the Chinese media landscape and its growing influence. As a result, this MA dissertation tries to reveal the framing of the followed news organizations, Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily. The research focuses on a five- day period of time (9-13 February 2011) sample of 92 articles via the usage of Open Calais. The main finding is that all of the examined news organizations portrayed the events with the Civil unrest frame. Thus, this study displays new findings for the research of the Arab Spring because of the fact that all of the aforementioned news organizations paid no attention to the individual characteristics of the people that participated at the uprisings and treated the protesters as a unified crowd that causes civil unrest. As a result, this framing can lead to the adoption of negative or positive characteristics for the whole movement, which are relied on the narrative of each news organization.

Keywords: News coverage; Civil Unrest; Media companies; Arab Revolution

Acknowledgements

To thank all those who deserve gratitude for the completion of my Master’s studies would require even more pages than this dissertation already contains. Believing that they are aware of the extent of my gratitude, I will limit myself to thanking only Assistant Professor Nikos Panagiotou for providing his persistent guidance in order to finish this study successfully and my family for giving me once again the opportunity to touch the shining stars of knowledge.

Table of Contents

Introduction ...... 5 Chapter 1: Mass media and revolutions: theoretical approaches ...... 7 Chapter 2: International news organizations ...... 13 Chapter 2.1: Al Jazeera ...... 21 Chapter 2.2: BBC...... 27 Chapter 2.3: China Daily ...... 33 Chapter 3: Methodology ...... 39 Chapter 3.1: Results ...... 45 Chapter 3.2: Discussion ...... 50 Chapter 3.3: Conclusions ...... 53 Notes ...... 54 Appendices ...... 55

Bibliography ...... 138

Introduction

The role of the Arab Spring was significant for the Arab people, especially for the Egyptians that believed that this revolution could lead them to a more modernized nation. Arab Spring in Egypt did not happen due to the power or the status of political forces or parties and this is the reason why it cannot be associated with specific labour movements and unions. It was caused by the new generation, which with new ideas intended to challenge the old generation and its sovereignty, something that had not happened for decades. The mechanisms that had been created by the regime were strong and had managed to uproot the opposition. Egypt was experiencing a large and growing gap between the different political parties and the several social movements. The regime had failed to absorb the anger of young people, who hoped for a more prosperous future than this of their parents (El Raggal & Ezzat, 2015). The existing gaps were being exploited by the youth generation of the country and showed that “smartphone citizen journalism is particularly important in areas where governments successfully controlled the activity of professional journalists” (Duffy, 2011, p. 54). New technologies and social media networking contributed to the successful spread of the movement. Those that possessed mobile phones, which could be connected to the web and to immortalize the events, could report through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This footage often was used by well- known news organizations, including Al Jazeera and the BBC, due to the limitations that had been applied by the Egyptian regime. In the meantime, technological developments have changed the way of coverage. News organizations are trying to find new ways to inform the public and become better than their competitors in order to survive. In addition, this struggling amongst the news outlets of the globe became more intense with the expansion of the Chinese media market. Chinese government is spending large sums of money for empowering its media companies. In this dynamic context, it is important to see the way of how international news organizations (Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily) decided to frame (the way of portraying individuals or events) one of the most crucial incidents of the Egyptian Arab Spring, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. This can provide useful insight regarding the ways the media outlets can shape public perceptions.

Thus, the first chapter begins by defining media framing and presenting the new challenges that faces the field of journalism. The next chapter talks about the creation and the spread of international news organizations and the coverage of the Arab Spring, including the profile of the three news organizations of the study: Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily. Finally, the last chapter presents in detail the study of this dissertation and its findings.

Chapter 1: Mass media and revolutions: theoretical approaches Mass media role in providing frames and dominant interpretations to the audience is critical. As it is known, facts in journalism should be placed in a context in order to put emphasis on a specific angle or frame that could provide a “central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989, p. 143). According to Entman (1993, p. 52) “Framing essentially involves selection and salience. 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 […] Frames, then, define problems - determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values, diagnose causes - identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments - evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies - offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects”. Moreover, “News frames are constructed from and embodied in the keywords, metaphors, concepts, symbols and visual images influenced in a news narrative” (Entman, 1991, p. 7). Subsequently frame-building indicates the elements that affect the basic aspects of news frames. The internal and external journalistic aspects regulate the framing issues of journalists and news agencies/organizations. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that there is a constant communication amongst social movements, journalists and the establishment. Those interactions and the provided frames are evident in the text of news stories. Apart from frame-building, there is also frame-setting which focuses more on the individuals’ prior knowledge and predispositions and the influence that is caused by his communication with the media’s frame. This is one of the reason why media framing can affect society and change attitudes and behaviours of each individual, leading to alteration of decision- making and political socialization (De Vreese, 2005). The eruption of the two World Wars changed not only the form and frames of warfare, but also the way journalists covered the conflict zones. The concept of hybrid warfare

7 that emerged in 2005 has been used a lot to describe Hezbollah’s combat tactics in the Lebanon war of 2006, and it is linked with the complexity of the current battlefield. The essence is that the enemies are no longer symmetrical (predictable, static, etc.), but asymmetrical: easily and continuously adaptable with unpredictable tactics. Today’s battlegrounds are likewise characterised by a modern information environment that holds a lot of information and data about potential or current targets, field operations, cyberweapons etc. In other words, in the conflicts of our times everything matters, even the framing and the propaganda technics that are conducted by media organizations (Marcel, 2016). The aforementioned context can provide the answer of some of the 21st- century wars, in which the main goals of each individual actor are not about holding or concurring a region, but about gaining the support of the public. “Media are increasingly essential elements of conflict, rather than just functional tools for those fighting. At the same time, newer media technologies have increased communication and information dissemination in the context of conflict. In particular, the growth of citizen media has changed the information space around conflict, providing more people with the tools to record and share their experiences with the rest of the world” (Sigal, 2009, p. 8). Nowadays, even the structure of society has changed. There is the appearance of the notion of the expanding network society; “A network society is a society whose social structure is made of networks powered by microelectronics-based information and communication technologies” (Castells, 2004, p. 3). The network is consisted of interconnected nodes, where there is no centre, but many different branches that lead to alternative paths. This plethora of nodes is crucial for the absorption of relevant or irrelevant information. If the network manages to absorb on a daily basis information that are related to its goals, it becomes more efficient. Moreover, the programme is the element that defines the objectives and the function of the network. The problem lies to the fact that these binary logic networks are not specific anymore and therefore confusion and complexity are being created. These two elements lead to the overcome of the system’s limits and the surpassing of those limits turn the efficient into an inefficient network. However, the rapid technological development of the last decades expanded the boundaries of the networks and, as a result, the society itself (Castells, 2004).

The invention of internet and the era of digitization was supposed to reform radically the media landscape by giving more space to new actors and by creating new voices. Nonetheless, the old actors managed to expand their dominance via the running of more channels. Television still today remains the most powerful medium and is followed by radio. The new devices and platforms have not beaten the viewership of television (Dragomir & Thompson, 2014). On the other hand, digitization modified rapidly the field of journalism. Not only the working conditions and the ethics of the profession, but also the risks, the practices and the news values. It gave opportunities to citizens to form their platforms and to provide news content, alongside with the questioning of the journalists. In addition, it created several opportunities for investigative journalists (Chan, 2014). “More than 60 percent of the countries have seen a surge in new publishing platforms such as blogs, independent websites, and email groups for investigative journalism. The encouraging trends span the spectrum of countries from emerging economies such as China, India, Kenya, Egypt, Morocco, and Brazil to developed economies such as the United States and France” (Chan, 2014, p. 111). Digitization and Internet gave birth to the notion of ‘citizen journalism’. According to Noor (2017, p. 55) “there are various other synonyms used for citizen journalism - "public journalism," "civic journalism," "stand-alone journalism," "networked journalism," "open source journalism," "crowd-sourced journalism," "collaborative journalism," "grassroots journalism," "community journalism," "bridge media" and so on. These forms of journalism related to "citizen journalism", but each is a unique species that has evolved out of a larger family of social media. All these terms refer to different acts”. Citizens’ contributions to newsmaking in crises came on 26 December with the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. It was the event that changed the viewpoint of the news organizations in relation to the footage of amateur’s journalists. On the ground, there were no correspondents, so Mass Media had to narrate their stories by relying on emails or eyewitness accounts (Allan & Peters, 2015). The essence of citizen journalism is that the newsmakers are independent. They are not connected with business and political interests and in the meantime, they do not have journalistic training or experience. In addition, citizens are the ones who control and decide the incidents that will be covered. In other words, news consumers become news producers. This kind of

9 coverage was being demonstrated, mainly, on incidents of people mobilization like social movements and revolutions (e.g. Occupy Wall Street, Gezi Park protests, Umbrella Revolution and Arab Spring) (Fuchs, 2010). However, during the last years several media across the globe have created sections, in which citizens can contribute to newsmaking. Some of the pioneers of this trend were the Arab media. The conflict between Israeli forces and Hamas on the Gaza Strip (2008) and the subsequent Gaza War (or Gaza Massacre) was the turning point for the news organizations of the region. They could not reach the conflict and decided to rely on the citizens about the news content of the warfare. Both sides used in large-scale social media as weapons in order to shape opinions and to gain supporters. Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles, footage, photos etc. were used broadly as a way to change the course of the narrative and to create a more comprehensive one in favour of each side. Israeli forces brought also to the cyber battle videos on YouTube and they exploited even other official social media accounts like the twitter account of Foreign Ministry. This flood of information challenged the capabilities of news agencies in covering the conflict and highlighted the multidimensional work of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya (Hamdy, 2010). “With Al Jazeera and Arabiya at the forefront of this diversification with their oppositional ideologies and journalistic training they brought the most comprehensive type of coverage. Integrating news, programming, background, analysis, visual images, and context, these prominent Arab networks brought viewers into the heart of the war” (Hamdy, 2010, p. 5). The concept of dynamic hybrid warfare brought deep concern about the future of journalism, the methods that would be applied by the news outlets and the other news actors in order to inform the public and to preserve the ideals of journalism. The aforementioned cases highlighted the complexity and the difficulty of today’s news coverage. The breakthrough of technology, the oligopoly of media industry and the death of traditional journalism implies the hybrid future of the profession. There would be a combination of the practices of traditional journalism with the new dynamic tools of our digital era (speed, transparency, and engagement) (Huffington, 2010). In some countries, like China all these changes brought likewise new ethics and hybrid values, values that come from the Western type of journalism and are combined with the more censored cultural context of the country (Dai, 2013). This phenomenon is logical as every radical

10 change in the field of communication technology favours and ultimately brings about a fundamental change in our thinking about communication, the interaction between culture and media, and the role of communication technology in social structure (Paschalidis, 2010). The growing use of social media had been observed also in armed conflicts. Movements like Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street tended to use social media platforms as information platforms. Thus, the audience is willing to trust strangers and to be informed by them. This dynamic environment creates challenges also for the designers, as they need to find new tools for the navigation of information that guarantee the security and the anonymity of the user (Monroy-Hernández, Boyd, Kiciman, De Choudhury, & Counts, 2013). The spread of fake news and the lack of evaluation of the facts have led recently to the creation of a news check extension for Google Chrome. The extension that is named ‘NewsCheck’ aims to help the readers with the investigation of a story by providing a checklist with information about the person that created the content, the time that it was created, if it is original or not and finally, where the content was created (Wardle, 2017). Moreover, BBC announced the beginning of a team with the main goal of debunking fake news. This initiative aims simultaneously in restoring the credibility of news organizations: "The BBC’s Reality Check team will focus on content that is clearly fabricated and attempting to mislead the public into thinking it has been produced by a reputable news organisation. The decision to combat what has come to be called fake news comes at an especially sensitive time in the debate over the veracity of information online. Following reports concerning a document containing a number of serious and salacious allegations against Donald Trump, the US president-elect held a press conference in which he told a reporter from CNN “you are fake news”" (Jackson, 2017). As for war correspondents, in warfare there are always the unexpected events and the difficulty of informing the public in a more unbiased way. The confusion of the battleground and the need of survival pushes journalists to the edge. However, frontline journalists have the capability of freedom, as they cannot be controlled easily. Sometimes they manage to cover the conflict in their way. Nonetheless, the spending hours with or between enemies have blurred, in some cases, their view. Additionally, digital era has

11 weakened war correspondents (Tumber & Webster, 2006). Warfare reminds us that journalists are not observers, but important participants. They ought to be more accurate in a world that is rapidly changing, creating in the meantime a global communication industry that tightens the relations between nations (Gilboa, 2005).

Chapter 2: International news organizations International or world news is named the one that come from abroad and are related to a foreign country or a global subject. This category of news derived from the invention and the studying of the theory of international communication. This theory states that international communication is the act of communication that takes place in a global scale (Stevenson, 1992). Specifically, there were essentially three strategic points for the establishment of the globalization of communication. Firstly, the electric telegraph was the pioneer mass communication medium that managed to use successfully electricity in order to be used for communication practices. The first telegraphs used ground cables and were therefore limited to their geographical area. It was only in the 1850s that reliable underwater telegraph methods developed. The original underwater cables were mostly made of copper wired enhanced by caoutchouc, a natural insulation material made from the juice of a specific specie of a Malaysian tree. Until 1900, about 190,000 miles of underwater cables had been installed all over the world. The British companies owned 72% of these cables, while a significant part of this percentage belonged to one company, Eastern and Associated Companies. These submarine cable networks developed in the second half of the 19th century and formed the world's first communication system in which messaging was clearly separated from the time-consuming process of transferring. The citizens that were living in large urban centres in Europe and North America had acquired the means to communicate almost instantly with the rest of the world. As a result, rapid communication on a global scale became a reality, although it took place through channels that mirrored the organization of political and economic power (Thompson, 1999). The second strategic point of the 19th century, which was crucial for the establishment of global communications networks, was the founding of international agencies. The importance of the invention of news agencies has to do with three aspects: a) agencies have been engaged in the systematic gathering and dissemination of news and other information in large areas, initially primarily in Europe, but also rapidly in other parts of the world; b) after an initial period of competitive rivalry, the biggest news agencies finally agreed to share the world in exclusive business spheres, creating a multi- faceted global scale communication network; c) news agencies collaborated closely with

13 the press, providing the newspapers with news and information that could be printed and broadcast to a broad audience. Thus, the newspapers were connected to the communication networks which, through the press (later through radio and television), had access to a significant and increasing rate of population. Havas founded the first news agency in Paris in 1835. In the late 1840s, Paul Julius Reuter in London and Bernard Wolff in Berlin founded rival news agencies. The competition between the three news agencies intensified in the 1850s, as each agency sought to secure new customers in order to expand its business sphere. Nevertheless, concerning the avoidance of disastrous conflicts, the agencies decided to cooperate by dividing the world into mutually exclusive areas. As a consequence of the Agency Alliance Treaty in 1869, Reuter assumed the British Empire and the Far East, Havas took over the French Empire, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and Wolff acquired the exclusive right to operate in Germany, Austria, Scandinavia and Russia. The three agencies dominated the global newsgathering and dissemination of news until the outbreak of the First World War, when their cartel broke down from the expansion of two US agencies, Associatrd Press (AP) and United Press Association (UPA, which was later renamed to United Press International-UPI). Since the Second World War, the four major news agencies – Reuters, AP, UPI and AFP (the capitulation of France in 1940 caused the dissolution of Havas, which was eventually replaced by the Agence France-Presse) – have retained their sovereign position in the global system for the collection and dissemination of news and other information. At the same time, other smaller news agencies were established, but they were depended on the aforementioned major news organizations. The supremacy of the major news agencies, coupled with other inequalities in the information and communication flow internationally, led to the demand for the reorganization of the global information order. This was one of the reason for launching the debate, especially by UNESCO in the 1970s and early 1980s, on New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO). Despite the problems, NWICO helped to raise awareness about issues arising from the dominance of major news agencies and, more generally, from the inequalities associated with the globalization of communication. In addition, it provided the stimulation for the development of various forms of cooperation between the so-called Third World

14 countries, such as the expansion of local and independent news agencies in Africa and elsewhere (Thompson, 1999). The third strategic point, which played an important role in the globalization of communication, is rooted in the late 19th century: it involves the development of new means of transmitting information through electromagnetic waves and successive efforts to regulate the distribution of the electromagnetic spectrum. The use of electromagnetic waves for the benefit of communication expanded greatly the ability to send information over long distances in an easy and relatively inexpensive manner. Moreover, it eliminated the need to install cables, either on the ground or in the sea. The international legal frameworks for the management of the spectrum were not effective. The most important organization that dealt with this issue was the International Telegraph Union, which was later renamed to International Telecommunications Union (ITU). It was created in 1865 with a pact signed by 20 European states. At the Berlin Conference of 1906, it first dealt with the radio. There has been an agreement to distribute certain parts of the spectrum to specific services, such as the frequencies used by ships at sea. Until the first phase of this international action, frequencies were distributed by ‘first come, first served’, which means that radio users simply informed the ITU about the frequencies they were using or wishing to use. Nevertheless, as the radio spectrum debate was growing, the ITU gradually adopted a more active attitude. Some parts of the spectrum were distributed to certain services, and in addition, people were divided into three broader regions, as to organize all areas more carefully: Europe and Africa, the Americas, Asia and the South Pacific. Finally, the system adopted by the ITU has been under pressure in recent years. The demand from existing radio users has risen and because there is a new demand from countries which until today were excluded from the management of International Telecommunications (Thompson, 1999). In the beginning, world news stories were not so highly respected amongst journalists, as media organizations used to focus more on national issues. This tendency was highlighted in 1997 by James Hoge, Jr., the editor of Foreign Affairs that wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review an article with the title “Foreign News: Who Gives a Damn?”. In this piece of his, he stated that the coverage of international news had declined with the exception of the coverage of the destruction of the Soviet Union.

According to Hoge “a world less threatening to America is less newsy, as the newsweekly editors put it. Or in the more colloquial words of television veteran Reuven Frank, sunshine is a weather report, a raging storm is news” (Zuckerman, 2008, p. 2). However, this trend did not last long thanks to the events that took place a few years later and shook the global community. One of those incidents were the September 11 attacks (9/11) that led United States of America to begin the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The aim of the campaign was to wipe out the danger of international terrorism. Apart from that, the rise of the developing countries and the new financial crisis alongside with the invention of the Internet and its bulk usage by the audience changed completely the way people consume news stories (Zuckerman, 2008). The dynamic media landscape has provoked many debates about the future of journalism, as a result a plethora of scholars, researchers and professionals of the field have commented on this new reality. According to the former President of the Associated Press, Thomas Curley: “You may not know us well, or perhaps haven’t even heard of us. We don’t publish a newspaper or run a TV or radio station; what we do is provide the news to those who do for a world insatiable for information” (Curley, 2007, p. 18). Curley’s opinion expresses one of the new forms of covering global events. The majority of the companies of the news industry is relying on the news stories, which are provided by famous news agencies such as AFP, AP, and Reuters. This practice has become more common due to the extended need of providing stories not only on a daily basis, but all day long. Contemporary media world demands for more beats, investigative reportages, and topics that are connected to the sphere of infotainment. In this new landscape the news organizations, which have 24/7 newsrooms, try to be first and to have a continuous flow of information. In achieving these goals, they have to rely largely on the news stories that are provided by other sources. In this way, the low-paid journalists do not need to lose time on writing and reporting. They simply have to copy or alter a little the words of the story in order to maintain a somewhat profitable flow of information (Johnston & Forde, 2011). This development brought to light once again the issue of the influence of the more powerful nations to the ones that are not so strong. This correlation has been already revealed by the communication studies from 1950 to 1954. During this period Harold

Adams Innis publishes milestone reports on the biasing effects of the predominant media of this time and “Fred Siebert, Theodore Peterson, and Wilbur Schramm publish their classic Four Theories of the Press, outlining various roles media can take in society” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2009, p. lix). Internet and the appearance of social media created even more civil roles for news organizations. Perhaps, this was one of the reasons for their tentative reactions toward Internet in the first place. In United Kingdom, the Daily Telegraph was the first national newspaper that launched an online edition of its in 1994, the Electronic Telegraph. The primary attention of the Telegraph was on commercializing the website of the newspaper in an effort to secure the print edition and not to lose readership through reading the news stories on the website without charge. At this point, it should be mentioned that this financially balanced separation of the offline and online presence remains highly debatable until today, promoting the voices that state that Internet will eventually kill traditional media. However, for many news organisations there were also other ways of thinking and investing. For example, the Guardian and the BBC invested a lot of money in their digital presence. Their goal was to attract a significant number of online users. On the contrary, MailOnline was one of the media company that started to expand its online presence quite late, but achieved in becoming the most visited newspaper website in the United Kingdom. These approaches reveal the tremendous changes that have occurred in the field of journalism the last decade. Many media companies for their survival were transformed into multimedia organisations that operate almost like news agencies. The new multimedia strategy forces journalism to perform multiply jobs even in the nick of time. Additionally, Internet via its new forms of journalism, such as blogging and citizen journalism brought more pressure to the professional ones as it challenged the notion of the gatekeeping role of journalism (Saltzis, 2012). “Nevertheless, although for many years the academic study of news has highlighted a number of problematic areas in “traditional” journalism, and although citizen journalism and social media have created a news environment where the traditional news organizations do not have the monopoly on determining what is newsworthy or who should be a journalist, the importance of the latter has not disappeared altogether. It is argued that these organizations through their expertise, professionalism, and influence have still a special role in the multimedia age. So instead

17 of holding a monopoly, they are now the big – probably the biggest – players in a much more diverse environment” (Saltzis, 2012, p. 463). Additionally, according to Patterson (2013) it should be underlined that “the press is unusual in that it is a private business with a public trust. It is obligated by its constitutionally protected position to serve the public interest but driven by its business needs to serve itself. The twin imperatives have long been a source of conflict within and outside news organizations, but the business side cannot be ignored. It would be foolish to assume that knowledge-based journalism could gain a foothold in the newsroom if what it produces lacks audience appeal. News organizations are not—consciously at least—in the business of self-destruction”. In the case of the incidents that are described as ‘Arab Spring’ and took place the first half of 2011, there is a huge debate about the role of media companies, the central role of social media in reporting the facts, and how they were exploited by the several actors in order to guide or to disorient the social movement. In the beginning, the majority of the researchers and the media coverage focused on the importance of Facebook, Twitter and the usage of mobile phones. The results of those approaches were that it was highlighted the narrative that social media achieved in mobilizing the young crowd making them to create a democratic movement that could challenge the authoritarian regimes of the Arab world. However, this optimistic narrative was replaced by more sceptical ones. Media were not only the sources of information, but actors of the political unrest as they followed and reported the facts and the events that they wanted providing simultaneously different explanations of the uprisings (Galal & Spielhaus, 2012). For example, Osman and Samei (2012) demonstrated the huge differences between the coverage of two prominent newspapers of Egypt. Al-Ahram, which is owned also by the Egyptian government, tried to halt the revolution and to frame it as a movement orchestrated by foreigners wanting to undermine the Egyptian regime. On the contrary, Al-Shuruq supported the movement via publicizing the actions of the protesters and it referred to the dead people of the revolution as martyrs. Moreover, researches showed that the new technologies of communication created new public spheres that diversified the media landscape. Protesters took the initiative and printed their own newspapers or operated radio stations revealing once again the need of sharing their narratives for the events of the Arab Spring. Perhaps, this need for building

18 a common ground of knowledge amongst the individuals is related to globalizing the main goals of the movement. In this way it can be explained the name ‘Arab Spring’, which was used broadly by the international news organizations and accepted by the protesters despite the fact that this term treats the Arab countries as a whole system without considering the important differences between those nations. Galal and Spielhaus (2012, p. 5) bring on the discussion table another aspect of the news coverage of the Arab Spring as they argue that “particularly interesting is not only how the events themselves were reported but also how they were contextualized and which comparisons were drawn within European contexts. In Europe and the US, perceptions and media coverage of the developments in Arab countries in early 2011 was initially shaped by national frameworks of the perception of Islam, especially during the first days and weeks of the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. As the unrests gained momentum and affected more and more countries, the frames for presenting and analysing them in media and politics were challenged and finally changed considerably”. The various perspectives about the explanation of the incidents of the Arab Spring remain controversial until today. There are also the non-western opinions that are talking about an ‘Islamic Awakening’ of the Arab world. In his book with the name ‘Islam and the Arab Awakening’ (2012), the scholar Tariq Ramadan underlines the importance of Islam for the Muslims stating that for more than twenty years there is the prediction of the end of political Islam. But, this has not yet happened as Islam remains a historical reference, which connects the lives and societies of the peoples. Iran made use of the notion of Islam and stacked to the aftermath of Arab Spring, where almost none of the countries moved to a more democratic rule. During the period of the uprisings, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated publicly that “our Muslim brothers and sisters throughout the world should know that these futile and desperate moves by the enemies of the Islamic Awakening are a sign of the greatness and importance of this uprising” (Mohseni, 2013, p. 1-2). Of course, Khamenei’s perspective aims to boost Iran’s political agenda, though it is a fact that softer Islamic governments were formed because of the Arab Spring. For instance, in Kuwait the rigorous social reforms were not completed due to the urgency of coping with the danger of ISIS and the possible coup

19 d'état. The leading party invested on building a common ground amongst the political parties of the country that could guarantee the pragmatic rule of the country (Freer, 2015). Overall, the plethora of agendas and narratives for the Arab Spring exposed that one cannot define precisely the outcome of these upheavals. So far, no new radical relations between the regimes and the citizens have appeared.

Chapter 2.1: Al Jazeera The Al Jazeera satellite channel founded in Qatar, in a part of the world where for decades there were important restrictions for the freedom of the press and harsh censorship for the coverage on state issues. The Arab news media linked to political actors and thus there was no tendency to present the opposed opinions or activities. Furthermore, they were not allowed to criticise the government policies. The comparisons of the laws governing the Arab press in the early to mid-1990s have shown that little has changed so far. All Gulf countries have also enforced prison sentences for vaguely worded offenses, such as ‘criticism of the governor’, ‘spreading fake news’ and ‘public order disruption’. They all had ministries that controlled and censored the broadcasters via various methods, such as the licensing of publications and the mandatory filing of the newspaper before it was distributed. The professionals that worked on television news broadcasts in Egypt, traditionally the ‘country-maker’ of the media trends in the region, have found that there is strong resistance to any attempt to imitate the style and the content of the news that was presented to the Arab region by CNN during the Gulf War in 1991 (Sakr, 2004). However, the above-mentioned problems seemed not to be the case for all Arab countries, especially for the State of Qatar that after the coup d'état of Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani against his father in 1995. He had different plans for the country, believing that Qatar could play a leading role in the world of political affairs. His first move was to abolish the Ministry of Information. This decision was approved by the Qatari Cabinet in February 1996 and separated Qatar’s media regulation system from the rest of the Arab states. The Emir of Qatar stated that it was the time to stop secrecy and to understand the real needs of the citizens. That same year the country accomplished another pioneering initiative for the Arab world, as it agreed to broadcast the 24-hour BBC radio programs in Arabic and English. Furthermore, in the municipal elections of 1999, women allowed to vote and stand for election. Within this framework of the new freedom that has emerged in the political affairs of the country, the small country found the right opportunity for the creation of Al Jazeera Satellite Channel in 1996 (Sakr, 2004). The termination of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Arabic service on Saturday 20 April 1996 left 250 BBC-trained professionals without a job. The majority of

21 those employees shared a common vision about making the difference in the Arab media landscape. The closure of the service of BBC ruined their dream and that incident was the best chance for hiring skilful journalists, broadcasters and media administrators in order to work on the newborn Qatari channel. Almost half of them (120) agreed and became member of the Al Jazeera’s staff. Mostafa Souag that had worked on both of the aforementioned news organizations told to Miles (2005, p. 33-34) that “the BBC project was different: the audience was very limited, because the channel was not free. We were broadcasting just eight hours a day and it never ran long enough to create the kind of impact that Al-Jazeera has had. Al-Jazeera, on the one hand, broadcasts twenty-four hours a day, has a large audience and is free in most places, especially in the Arab world. Its’ broadcast from an Arab capital, in an Arab country and managed by Arabs themselves: the BBC was none of these things. Al-Jazeera was the first time Arabs discovered it was possible to have an Arab institution that they could respect”. Another key-point for the success of the channel was the deal with Arabsat and the beginning of the transmission through a C-band transporter in 1997. This development made Al Jazeera to be able to compete with the other satellite channels, as it was common in the Arab world to own a satellite dish and to watch the news on television because of the high rates of illiteracy that existed in the region. Lastly, its relatively operating freedom resulted in launching lucrative political programmes, documentaries and talk shows (More than One Opinion, Without Borders, Religion and Life, Only for Women, The Opposite Direction etc.) that discussed taboos and controversial topics of Arab society (Miles, 2005). Al Jazeera brought the live talk shows or views-exchange programmes to the Arab public sphere. It was once again an initiative that wanted to attract more audience and to change the way Arab used to see the concept of talk shows in the Gulf countries, as there were restrictions in criticizing govern policies or religious beliefs. The Opposite Direction became, almost immediately, the most popular talk show in the Arab world, but also provoked diplomatic crises to Qatar due to the sensitive topics of the show (Kasim, 2005) and the way the presenter, Faisal Al Kasim, “consistently bent on pushing guests to their limits in a dramatized fashion with the objective of achieving some form of impact on audiences at individual and institutional levels” (Ayish, 2005, p. 106).

Apart from the impact of Al Jazeera on the Arab population, the Qatari channel questioned the coverage of the Western media that were supposed to be the most influential across the globe. The Second Intifada can be named as the first occasion that the coverage of the channel influenced the global news industry. The investigating reportages for the practices of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) caused the PA’s reaction against the chief of Al Jazeera’s bureau in Ramallah, Walid al-Omary, who was threatened for ‘unbalanced reporting’. Afterwards, it came the interview with the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh, in which he stated that all Arab people should support with various means the fight of Palestinians. This public statement had an international impact, because the then President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, had moved to an opposite direction by asking the fighting nations to maintain their calmness. Despite that fact, Saleh’s opinion gave the Arab public the reason to demonstrate and demand a declaration of Jihad against Israel. Furthermore, the war in Afghanistan was easy to be exclusively covered by Al Jazeera. It was the only satellite channel that owned bureaus in the region; the first was in Kabul and the other in Kandhar. The other media organizations could not gain better access, so they relied heavily on the Al Jazeera’s provided footage. This case did change for the American television networks (ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC) after the September 11 attacks, when the US government asked them to restrict the Al Jazeera’s footage. Regardless of the American reactions, the exclusive interviews of Taliban and Bin Laden alongside with the photos and the videos of the conflict, made many prominent news organizations (e.g. BBC) to praise its coverage and to admit that the Qatari organization filled an existed information gap (Miles, 2005). Meanwhile, Al Jazeera wanted to expand its presence on the web and it launched its website, Aljazeera.net, in January 2001. From its early years it attracted an enormous number of visitors (161 million visitors for the year 2002) coming mostly from Middle East. It is not a surprise that Aljazeera.net became from its birth influential for Middle East region. The audience wanted more exclusive news and footage about the on-going conflicts of the region and even the American citizens did not afraid to visit the site and acquire information. In the third year of its existence, the site became far more popular, as it had more than a billion hits. In addition, it is known that the online presence can

23 boost the reputation of a news organization, because it broadens its horizons by making it accessible in the most unreachable areas of the world, promoting simultaneously the interaction via the new capabilities of the online technology (Awad, 2005). “Through its columns, polls, forums and links, Aljazeera.net not only draws to the intention of its recipients a map of the near and the faraway, but also configures a space with a center and a periphery. The setting in columns constitutes the references according to which the contents can be distributed. These references only exist insofar as the media institutes them. It seems obvious to consider the setting in columns like a simple rational ordering established following a professional convention. This categorization reflects in fact the organization of the space which the media refers to as well as social movement and its contradictions along with the new sensitivities of the receptors. Aljazeera.net operates three orderings of the information it organizes: the order to the events, the territory and the center of interest” (Awad, 2005, p. 85). The leading team of Al Jazeera network decided in the end of 2002 to start dubbing and subtitling in English footage that had been released in Arabic. It was believed that via this new content the network would be able to captivate a greater extent of the English- speaking audience. Subsequently the first English website of Al Jazeera was launched on March 24, 2003. The web page was an outcome of the cooperation with the experienced BBC World Service, which could guarantee the creation of a site that could meet the expectations of the English-speaking public. Half a day after its release, a team of American hackers attacked it and left it offline for more than a day. From that day on, Al Jazeera started facing the tremendous pressure of the American establishment. Its web providers stopped hosting its news services and Yahoo and AOL broke their advertising contracts with it. Additionally, the two largest stock exchange market of the country, NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), recalled the press credentials of Al Jazeera’s journalists. Thus, it was decided that the relaunch of the web page would take place at the end of 2003, but that never happened, because the effort of creating the English network was based on false foundations. The English version of the network, initially named Al Jazeera International, hired many well-known non-Arab professionals (e.g. Robert Frost, Riz Khan, Trish Carter, John Rushing, David Marash, Nigel Parsons and Sue Phillips) trying to reconstruct its global image (Powers, 2012). According to the

24 then managing director of Al Jazeera International, Nigel Parsons, “We're the first news channel based in the Mideast to bring news back to the West. We want to set a different news agenda” (CNN, 2005). The prospect of the Al Jazeera International and the high salaries that its staff was supposed to get rose the anger of the Arab personnel that had lower earnings. These tensions accelerated the essential reforms throughout the whole organization (Al Jazeera Arabic, Al Jazeera Net, Al Jazeera Sports, Al Jazeera International, and Al Jazeera Documentary). Finally, Al Jazeera International renamed to Al Jazeera English (AJE) and made its debut on November 15, 2006 (Powers, 2012).

Figure 1: aljazeera.com website

During the Arab Spring, the English service of Al Jazeera achieved to ‘mimic’ CNN via creating its own ‘effect’. AJE paved the way for the internalization of the movement. It brought harsh criticism to the Arab regimes and achieved to reform Arab Spring. Moreover, its coverage attracted the interest of the American public, in spite of the fact that in the past the Americans had strongly opposed the news network. Tony Burman, AJE’s chief strategic adviser noted that the effect and the value of the Arab network is obvious, even to the eyes of the US government (Youmans, 2012, p. 63). Lastly, Howard and Hussain (2013, p. 99) contribute to this notion by saying that “it is Al Jazeera English (AJE) that played a significant role in amplifying the distributed and diverse voices of the

Arab Spring. Over the past several years, Al Jazeera English has grown rapidly in importance for mediating both transregional and international politics. Over the past several political crises, Al Jazeera English has also learned actively from past challenges and beta-tested strategies for covering dangerous areas. Combining both advantages during the Arab Spring, Al Jazeera was well equipped to navigate the region’s political and cultural complexities, feeding coverage about the Arab Spring to the rest of the world; it became the default go-to source on Arab Spring updates for many other organizations, including the New York Times, the Huffington Post, Reuters, and Wired”.

Chapter 2.2: BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster and its headquarters are hosted at Broadcasting House in London. The BBC is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the most influential broadcaster on earth. Its sources and footage are successfully competing the ones that come from the most famous new agencies or media organizations of the world. Through its services, its news stories are spreading across an enormous number of non or English-speaking people. BBC was one of the most popular media organizations that invested heavily on the online expansion, as the British Broadcaster remains until today one of the most sophisticated company in its field and operates unique services like the department that watches on a daily basis the news (Westcott & Mukherjee, 2011). In Europe and America there was a noticeable activity related to the operation of news services the time that BBC founded in 1922. In the United Kingdom, some companies acquired MF transmitters and created daily services. One of them was Marconi headquartered at the Marconi House on London. That was the time when UK’s government decided the beginning of a public broadcaster. Firstly, the government defined eight areas of transmitting. “The stations serving these areas were to be in, London, Cardiff, Plymouth (later changed to Bournemouth) Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow or Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Later, Belfast was added. A meeting was held at the GPO in London attended by representatives of 28 companies interested in broadcasting, and they were asked to formulate a plan to create one or more organisations to give effect to the proposals. Two further meetings followed, both held at the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE) and the final decision was to create a single company” (Ellen & Shacklady, 2003, p. 1). The meeting resulted in creating the British Broadcasting Company through a joint venture of six companies (The Marconi Company, The Metropolitan Vickers Company, The Western Electric Company, The Radio Communications Company, The General Electric Company, and The British Thompson- Houston Company) that would finance the organization for up to two years. The first General Manager was J.C.W. Reith, a legend of UK’s broadcasting history, who could provide the proper knowledge and the professional standards that were essential for building the brand of BBC. The excellent job of the first two years of the company led to

27 the rise of its income to about £500,000, as the public’s demand was high and was willing to pay the license fee in order to watch its programmes. The growing interest of the audience for its services made the government to alter the status of the Company, because its licence was about to expire at the end of December 1926. A year earlier, the committee chose to turn the Company into a public authority. In 1927, the British Broadcasting Company changed to British Broadcasting Corporation with John Reith as Director General. It was estimated that the Corporation had two million licence holders, and these prosperous numbers gave rise to the dream of the total coverage of Great Britain and its global expansion (Ellen & Shacklady, 2003). During the World Wars, BBC had to respond to two challenges. Firstly, to maintain the existed coverage under any circumstance and secondly to protect its services and transmitters, as they could be exploited by the enemies. The engineers had to be on alert and switch off the transmitters whenever it was necessary. When several locations were under attack, the transmitters were off for long time. To cope with this problem, BBC installed low power transmitters, because they could not be identified by the enemies and could provide special bulletins for the citizens of the areas informing them in efficient manner (Ellen & Shacklady, 2003). In the meantime, the new technological breakthroughs brought signals that could broadcast over vast distances. Thus, made BBC to create in December 1932 its World Service that was named Empire Service. King George V used annually this service to address the Empire and transmit his Royal Christmas message. In June 1940, when France surrendered to Germany, General Charles De Gaulle arrived at the Broadcasting House in order to deliver his thoughts to the people of the occupied country. It was that time that the Empire Service changed its name to The Overseas Service, including “broadcasts in Arabic, Spanish for Latin America, German, Italian, French, Afrikaans, Spanish for Europe and Portuguese for Europe. By the end of 1940, the BBC was broadcasting in 34 languages. Each day 78 news bulletins were broadcast, amounting to 250,000 words. Other new services included Icelandic, Albanian, Hindi, Burmese and the dialect spoken in Luxembourg” (BBC, 2012, p. 9). Apart from the above-mentioned facts, BBC helped delivering secret messages across Europe for the sake of Entente Cordiale, as well as providing accurate information with its war correspondents, who were risking their lives being in the front line of war. Additionally,

28 one of the most remarkable journalists of all time, George Orwell, worked for the Eastern Service of BBC from 1941 to 1943 serving as a Talks Producer. Overall, BBC was on every possible conflict and broadcasted news stories for the Eastern Bloc, the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian Uprising, the Falklands conflict, the Rwanda civil war etc. The broad coverage and the expansion of its radio ownership was the reason of renaming the service once again. In May 1965, it was renamed to World Service wanting to focus more on the dynamic field of international affairs (BBC, 2012). According to BBC (2012, p. 8) its World Service: “ (a) reaches 166 million per week, in 28 languages including regional services online, TV, radio and mobile, (b) the overall audiences to the BBC's Arabic services have risen by more than 50% to a record high of 33.4 million adults weekly - up from 21.6 million before the 'Arab Spring', (c) the BBC Arabic TV's audience has risen to 24.4million from 13.5million - up by more than 80 per cent. Weekly reach across Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabic, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco has nearly doubled to a weekly reach of 18.4% from 9.8%, and (d) Top 5 performing language services are English (43m), Hausa (23m), Arabic (33.4m), Swahili (20m) and French for Africa (11m)”. The next step for the improvement of the organization was to go online. In 1997, BBC had its new online service searching for a better way to meet the demands of its international audience. In fact, there are two basic components in the online operation of the BBC Online service. The first component is based on how it is funded. There are two funding resources. One is public and the other comes from the commercially funded section of the organization. However, the commercially funded section is smaller than the public one, but it is related to e-commerce and not to the international news. All departments that make up the organization contribute to the content of BBC Online. There are about sixteen individual segments in the BBC, the majority of which are production segments. All departments provide material on radio, television and on-line. Some of these departments are the Children’s BBC, the BBC Radio, the BBC Television, the BBC World Service, and the BBC News. The BBC World Service Online operates in about 43 languages, in which its global service broadcasts as a part of its radio service, which in some cases shares the same responsibilities with the other BBC’s administrations. Two such departments that are closely related to the English-speaking

29 section are BBC News and BBC Sports. As part of this, the World Service co-finances the creation of a specific amount of money that is available for the public service websites. Within the public service, there are two channels of funding. The first comes from the license fee and the second, which comes directly to the World Service, is called ‘grant’ and comes from the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The World Service is funded differently from the rest of the BBC, because its mission is to provide world news (Westcott & Mukherjee, 2011).

Figure 2: bbc.com website

BBC also played an important role in the coverage of the Arab Spring. Specifically, in the case of Egypt, new technologies and social media networking contributed to the immediate and successful spread of the movement. Those that possessed mobile phones, which could be connected to the web and to immortalize the events, could report through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. It was observed that less than 15% of the demonstrators had a smartphone. However, they used their smartphones with great wisdom. Protesters had occupied Tahrir Square for 18 days until President Hosni Mubarak decided to resign. During all these days, there was a plethora of photo material and videos from the Square. This material was often being shared by well-known news organizations, including Al Jazeera and the BBC, due to the limitations that had been applied by the Egyptian regime. There was no other way for keeping updated the public.

For this reason, accounts of citizens in social media, who uploaded material of the demonstrations, gained many followers. Amongst their new followers were even professional journalists (Duffy, 2011). Another advantage for the protesters was that they used the online media platforms and Facebook pages like “We are all Khaled Said1” in order to form an efficient network that would mobilize and inform a huge amount of people with the aim of strengthening the opposition against Hosni Mubarak. Google maps and Twitter were used extensively as guiding tools for the protestors. They helped them with the avoidance of the government’s troops and with the coordination of action. Under these difficult circumstances, the BBC services achieved in having a range of much of the coverage and providing news stories that showed various aspects of the conflict. The coverage of the days until the resignation of the President of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak, is characterised as outstanding and a result of the professionalism of BBC’s staff. Nevertheless, after the resignation of the Egyptian President there was a decline in the coverage. Other parts of the Arab region like Libya attracted the attention of the audience and the BBC services were not as alert as before concerning the Egyptian Arab Spring. There were attacks on women and cases of repression that were not reported (BBC Trust, 2012). In addition, as reported by Mortimer and the BBC Trust (2012, p. 3) “the content analysis showed fewer than might be expected cross references to BBC online and a lack of reference to the authentication of User Generated Content (UGC) such as mobile phone footage”. Nonetheless, BBC Online is today one of the most popular website of the world. In UK, it is consistently in the top five most visited sites of the country and remains the third biggest service of BBC. Its influence on social media platforms is evident, as it is the most shared publisher in the English language on Twitter. Furthermore, according to the BBC Online Creative Review (2016, p. 6): “In 2010 the BBC streamlined its online offer. We went from over 400 individual websites to just 10 flagship products. Today, our flagship products are: iPlayer, iPlayer Radio, News, Sport, iWonder, Weather, Homepage, CBeebies, CBBC and Bitesize. We have recently added the new BBC Three to this list. We run other services for Food, Music, Earth, Arts, Newsbeat and Taster, which are available across a range of devices and platforms using the basic technology developed for the flagship products. BBC Online accounts for around 4.5% of UK time spent online.

Facebook attracts 20%. The BBC is a vital destination for millions, but by no means the only one: whether or not they visit the BBC, 97% of users of news and information websites use non-BBC sites… If the BBC is to remain universal, it must change its tone, its range and its offer”. The future years will show if the undergoing initiatives will help BBC to continue being competitive and to remain one of the most influential and popular news organizations of the world.

Chapter 2.3: China Daily Chinese news organizations importance has grown together with the extraordinary economic growth and active diplomacy of China that has transformed East Asia alongside with the will of the Chinese government to transform the domestic media into first-class international media outlets. The government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) thinks that this kind of expansion can provide the tools for spreading its messages around the globe. In July 2009, the most important television network in the country, China Central Television (CCTV), launched an Arabic channel that was followed in September by a Russian one. Furthermore, other Chinese media were trying to create new bureaus in abroad to gather more international news stories and inform better even their foreign audience. Another example of this process is the China Radio International (CRI), which founded in 1941. CRI’s programme is available in 49 foreign languages. Its broadcasts are also available online and can be heard in all those languages, including six more languages (Ukrainian, Belarusian, Greek, Dutch, Icelandic, and Norwegian) that were added in 2009 and are exclusively provided via the Internet (Kenichi, 2011). This new policy of the Chinese government differs from the older one. The mass media organizations used to be strictly monitored by the government, especially the past century. They were not working entirely as professional journalists. They were working for the government producing propaganda articles and, of course, there was almost no criticism toward the leading party of PRC. The journalists were acting like the representatives of the leading party of the country and their job was characterized as ‘party journalism’. Moreover, there was an evident absence of the characteristics of the western journalists, who are representing the concept of ‘liberal journalism’. Open Door Policy altered the media landscape in the country as well as its economic model. News organizations turned into enterprises that were not so strictly monitored by the government. In favour of increasing media audience, news industry paid more attention to the coverage of citizen’s daily life along with investigative news stories (Rong, 2013). Despite the fact that ‘Investigative Journalism’ is declining in the Western World for the sake of the financial balancing of the news organization, in China the case is completely different. The authoritarian regime of the Chinese leading party promoted unconsciously the depth-reporting that started its rising in the late 1970s due to the need of controlling

33 corruption, crime, the Communist Party of China (CPC), and the working conditions. The journalists tried to challenge the establishment and to act according to the notion of watchdog journalism (Wang, 2010). “The media today can be seen as having four major responsibilities or functions. These are to persuade or present opinion, to inform, to entertain, and to regulate. Not least among these is the regulatory function of the media. The practice of this function, called watchdog journalism, is a style of writing or broadcast aimed at identifying a current societal problem, either hidden or overt, and offering opinion on necessary action. This style is intended to incite the readers into taking direct steps to change the agents or factors controlling the situation or issue. Yet, sometimes overlooked in application of watchdog journalism is the ‘institution’ of the media itself. Explicitly stated, watchdog journalism has had in the past, and continues in modern times to have a positive influence on the lives of civilians throughout the world. Inevitably, however, the regulator needs to be regulated” (Eisenman, 1996). The emergence of technology empowered ‘watchdog journalism’ by Online Journalism and Blogging. Blogging was introduced in 2002 by www.blogchina.com. A year after it is estimated that 200,000 Internet users adopted this new practice. Meanwhile, Chinese Universities and CPC experimented on the idea of creating blogging platforms that would benefit the economy of the country. In 2006, the People’s Daily’s webpage was the first Chinese media organization that began providing blogging services (Zhang, 2008). Many famous journalists started to own blogs or personal webpages on several Internet platforms. Furthermore, there are professionals of the field that argue that a lot of important news stories became known through microblogging. The functioning of microblogs in PRC looks like Twitter. The messages of the users are limited to 140 characters, but there are four significant differences. “First, in the former, comments are threaded under the posts. Second, it is easy to share photos, audios, and videos, which are also displayed inline under the posts. Third, you can say more in 140 characters in Chinese than in the Roman alphabet, making it possible for microblogs to operate as an information outlet and a discussion forum. Fourth, the search and discovery functions on Sina Weibo are more advanced than Twitter. They can be used to track emerging issues and agendas. Lastly, Weibo also has the ‘long weibo’ function, in which a long essay can be turned quickly into a jpeg document and uploaded as an attachment to a Weibo post.

In this way, people have the chance to read long articles without jumping into links, further expanding the discussion space” (Yong et al., 2012, p. 59). In 2009-2010 PRC spent almost $9 billion for its news organizations, including all of its most far-reaching news outlets, such as CRI, CCTV, Xinhua news agency, and the English-language China Daily newspaper. This investment was aiming at the empowerment of the aforementioned news outlets. China Daily, for example, tried to advertise itself through ‘China Watch’ in popular US newspapers. ‘China Watch’ represented a mixed content of cultural information about China combined with CPC’s positions that could mislead the reader as to think that this content is a product of the indigenous newspaper. Although there is a label that highlights that it is a ‘paid supplement’, there are readers stating that it can be mistaken, especially the online supplement (http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/). China Daily’s adverting content can be found likewise in other continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe), and want to reach out even more countries. The memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Australia raised questions about its intentions and the connection that it has with CPC, considering its role as a news outlet. It is believed that this MoU is linked with the Chinese propaganda. At this point, it should be mentioned that the English-speaking activity of both of Xinhua and China Daily in Twitter is often associated with propagandistic usage, because it was designed for the foreign audience rather than the indigenous one (Kalathil, 2017).

Figure 3: China Daily’s ‘China Watch’ 35

Another characteristic of China Daily is that it is liberal enough and often covers stories that other news organizations avoid to report (Young, 2013). Furthermore, China Daily’s website made its debut in 1995 and claims that it is the most influential English- language webpage in China, as it is used not only for learning the news, but also for language learning2. It preserves more than 30 supplementary webpages and its everyday views are more than 31 million, the majority of which are coming from e-visitors who are living abroad. In 1995, it became the first national newspaper that launched an online edition and one of the first e-papers that publishes news stories about city life, culture, entertainment, and lifestyle, including more than 400 employees from China and about 50 professionals from Australia, Canada, India, USA, and UK. Its iPad/iPhone application, which was launched in 2009, exceeds the 100,000 users worldwide. Lastly, it is “China’s first bilingual mobile newspaper, on China Unicom, includes China Daily Mobile News (China Mobile version and China Telecom version) and the China Daily PDF edition. It has more than 600,000 subscribers, and is China’s second largest mobile newspaper” (China Daily, n.d.).

Figure 4: chinadaily.com.cn website

CPC’s efforts to promote globally China Daily did not end with the advertising of the website. In favour of the circulation of the UK and the US editions of the newspaper, there was a vast investment of 45 billion Yuan (Chen, 2013). The newspaper edition of China Daily began its distribution in 1981 and has a circulation of around 200,000. An editor of the newspaper, Tan Hongkai, believes that a vulnerability of China Daily is the fact that nine out of ten of the newspaper’s journalists have studied foreign languages and have a lack of journalistic experience; “Consider the staff of my opinions page. Most are in their twenties. For quite a while, I’ve been the oldest one, although two slightly older people just got assigned to me. Even I find writing decent editorials hard” (Polumbaum & Lei, 2008, p. 56). As far as Arab Spring is concerned, China approached the uprisings in a rational way. It was involved to secure the life of its citizens and its interests in North Africa. In Libya there were 38, 000 Chinese citizens along with a network of financial agreements that costs around $18.8 billion. In Egypt, there were living 1,800 Chinese and 300 Taiwanese that needed to be saved. Parello-Plesner and Pantucci (2011) argue that the coverage of the Chinese media organizations was focused almost exclusively on the attempts of helping the PRC’s citizens, but there were also some liberal media organizations like Caixin that published articles about democracy and social change. CPC was afraid of the spread of the Arab Spring, as it was a social movement in favour of democracy and against authoritarian regimes. This scenario came true in some parts of the country via some anonymous Internet users that achieved in calling and organizing protests in big cities of China. Participation may not have been significant, but the Chinese government reacted strangely by beating some foreign reporters and the global media organizations focused on covering these peculiar reactions3. China is rapidly developing its media landscape and it is already the biggest media market of the world. Furthermore, it seems to have prevailed in gaining major influence on the media landscape of Hong Kong. The former British colony used to be in contact with the global community and adopted westerns liberal values of journalism that used to question the acts of the Chinese government. As reported by Reporters Without Borders (2016) the last few years Beijing’s influence hit ever deeper Hong Kong’s media heart and succeeded in diminishing the media freedom of the region. “Beijing appears to have

37 learned important lessons about soft power: credibility, authenticity, and the identity of the messenger carry a great deal of weight. If these can be accomplished without the state being explicitly involved, even better. Moreover, as the global media landscape continues to evolve and traditional values of independent journalism give way to blurred lines between advertising, opinion and news, even greater opportunities for influence may emerge” (Kalathil, 2017, p. 36).

Chapter 3: Methodology This study examines the frames of a sample of 92 articles (the content of the videos of the examined articles was omitted) about the Egyptian Arab Spring and the resignation of the President Hosni Mubarak in the English-language websites of Al Jazeera, British Broadcasting Corporation, and China Daily from 9 to 13 February 2011. In December 2010, the self-immolation of a fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, triggered a series of demonstrations in Tunisia that were spread throughout Algeria, Jordan, Egypt and Yemen. The causes of the uprising were mostly domestic issues such as, lack of human rights and democracy, corruption, unemployment, food prices, and poverty. The turmoil in each country led to the overthrow of the government and sparked the Syrian civil war. The instability of the regimes of the Arab countries made the regional news coverage quite unsafe for the journalists. That was one of the reasons why the global news agencies relied on the footage, photos, and updates of the local citizens and tried to narrate the ‘Arab Spring’ stories via the large-scale usage of ‘nonprofessional’ content. The Arab Spring news coverage triggered a global debate amongst journalists regarding the importance of verifying the information that is spread by citizens, the need for a more neutral and factual based coverage and the way of reporting the events via brand-new media tools. The most important tools were social media and other digital platforms. For example, there was the use of the platform of bit.ly to shorten the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) links of the news organizations. This action achieved to spread the news of Arab Spring to an international audience and to increase the pressure on the Arab regimes, forcing the leaders of the countries to hear the demands of the movements and to make compromises (Aday, Farrell, Lynch, Sides & Freelon, 2012). “Social media devices, applications and tools have become available extensively and easily, offering an unprecedented degree of immediate activist journalism coverage of events and places. Almost suddenly, everyone with a smartphone, even if they were in the remotest areas of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen or Syria, could become an “activist journalist”. Such unprecedented inclusivity goes against the selectivity of coverage that traditional broadcast media is compelled to employ because of the limitation of resources and the complexity of logistical deployment” (Hroub, n.d., p. 150).

The Egyptian revolution began in 2011, when a large number of citizens started to protest demanding the withdrawal of the President Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak’s departure in 11 February 2011 made the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to take control of the country until the elections on 24 June 2012, in which Mohamed Morsi El Ayat became the fifth President of Egypt. However, the anti-government protests in June 2013 resulted in the removal of Morsi (3 July 2013) by the General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi who became the next President of Egypt. The step-down of Hosni Mubarak is one of the most prominent incident of the Egyptian Arab Spring, as it was the first ultimate goal of the protestors. This incident made the Egyptian people to believe that they regained the sovereignty of their country, its resources and its fate. Moreover, Egypt started seeking a better future that would guarantee a more sustainable way of life for its citizens, in which people's dreams can finally come true (Sueif, 2012). Existing research has mainly focused on the role of the media in the uprisings against the regimes of the countries that were affected by the Arab Spring. However, we do not have a lot of information about the way of coverage that was conducted by well-known media organizations, especially for the online English news of Chinese news companies, which are believed to play a more vital role in the global agenda setting due to the extraordinary economic growth and active diplomacy of China that has already transformed East Asia. Additionally, according to Frangonikolopoulos (2011), the western news organizations are the ones that dominate the market of information industry and these news outlets have the power to define the global agenda of journalism. Furthermore, as reported by the Digital News Report of Reuters Institute (Newman, Fletcher, Levy & Nielsen, 2016, p. 9) “main usage online remains with brands that have a strong news heritage and have been able to build up a reputation over time”. Thus, we have chosen to conduct a comparative framing analysis between a) Al Jazeera, which is one of the largest news organizations in the world with a Pan-Arabic perspective that paved the way for the internalization of the Arab Spring4, b) China Daily, China's biggest English-language newspaper; its site was launched in 1995 as a comprehensive multimedia outlet and China’s most influential English-language web portal which is state-owned and can provide the view of the People's Republic of China5 and c) BBC, which is the most influential western news organization in the world6.

To determine how the three selected media covered the aforementioned period of time, this study uses content analysis because it is “the systematic assignment of communication content to categories according to rules, and the analysis of relationships involving those categories using statistical methods” (Riffe, Lacy & Fico, p. 3). The content analysis is used via Open Calais in order to define the News Frames of the news organizations. According to Entman (1993, p. 52) “Framing essentially involves selection and salience. 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 […] Frames, then, define problems - determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values, diagnose causes - identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments - evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies - offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects”. Articles for this study were taken from the Google search engine for BBC and Al Jazeera and for China Daily from its own website search engine. The articles were located by using separately the keywords “Egypt” and “Hosni Mubarak”. The researcher read all the English-language articles and included them in the research as long as there was content that was linked with the Egyptian Arab Spring. The period chosen for the sample was February 9, 2011 through February 13, 2011. The date February 9, 2011 was chosen because it resembles the peaking time of the uprisings that would lead to the Mubarak’s step-down. The date February 13, 2011 was chosen as the ending date because it was the second day after the resignation of the President of Egypt and it is believed that the researcher can see if there is a declining in the news coverage. The search results were compared to eliminate any duplication. The total number of articles included in the sample is 92: 24 Al Jazeera English, 29 BBC, and China Daily 39. For the extraction of the frames of each article and their classification, this study used the free online version of Open Calais (http://www.opencalais.com/). Open Calais is a Knowledge Extraction (KE) tool “that extracts named entities with sense tags, facts and events. It is available as a web application and as a web service” (Gangemi, 2013, p. 8). Both the output that is marked as ‘Social Tags’ and ‘Topics’ decided to be considered as topics,

41 because it is hard to make a distinction between them at a theoretical level. Additionally, Open Calais has some functions that can help detecting the frames of a story (Gangemi, 2013). For each article, according to Open Calais’ results the researcher looked for the dominant frames, which reveal the most important aspects of the event that is highlighted by the media organization (Ruigrok & van Atteveldt, 2007). Nonetheless, Gamson and Modigliani (1989) have proved that there can exist more than one dominant frame in an article. Researches have shown that the conflict frame is used during war coverage in order to present the conflict and the hostility amongst different actors, parties, groups, and organizations (Neuman, Just, & Crigler, 1992). This type of frame was most commonly used by the USA news outlets in the past years (An & Gower, 2009), but the new researches of the coverage of conflicts provided more dimensions trying to explain further the conflict frame by locating the angles of the different actors that take part in wars. For instance, Sheppard, Blumenfeld-Jones, and Minton (1987) tried to define the classification of the conflict descriptions of the third parties in relation to the “deductively derived conflict frames” (Pinkley, 1990, p. 1). The literature has also spotlighted the kind of coverage that is performed in wars between states, as they produce more coherent news stories that can charm the audience via their dramatic footage and the sensationalism that it brings. Audience’s attraction guarantees the increasement of the advertising profits. Here lies the powerful role of journalists that can go beyond the lines and shed light to shady events or even self-censor themselves (Vladisavljević, 2015). Subsequently the research on the topic of Arab Spring proved that there were some specific kind of frames that were used by the news organizations. Bruce (2014) found that Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera English, Al Arabiya, Alhurra, and BBC Arabic included in their coverage a dominant use of the Human interest frame. Human interest frame is one of the most usual frame that can be found in war coverage (Neuman et al. 1992; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000) as it helps to sensationalize facts and events. “In crisis situations, the frame stimulates the psychological pulse of people, which ultimately leads them to a more negative attitude toward the crisis showed that the human interest frame influenced participants’ emotional response, and that it was a significant predictor of blame and responsibility in a transgression crisis” (An & Gower, 2009, p. 108). In 2012, Hamdy and

Gomaa also proved that during the Egyptian Arab Spring the posts of the news organizations on social media were using the Human interest frame. Secondly, there is the Public affairs frame, which focuses mostly on political actors or authorities. Hallin (1994) in his book about American TV journalism talked a lot about the American public sphere and the notion of recognizing politicians as authority in cases of turmoil or festivities. Some years later, Benson alongside with Hallin (2007) revealed the connection between the flow of information and the influence of politicians. Journalists turn to them to hear their point of view about peculiar events in order to construct the main issues of the future debate. In addition, their comparative analysis of American and French news organizations found that on the aforementioned situations the US media were strongly relied on the political authorities than the French one. As far as Arab Spring is concerned, Bruce (2014) proved the findings of Benson & Hallin (2007), which suggest that in times of unrest the western media outlets tend to rely more on the political authorities. Despite the Public affairs frame, there is always a unique coverage about the Egyptian Arab Spring. Many reporters described it as a story of civil unrest. From the days that it broke out to the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, it moved large numbers of citizens on the streets demanding a more ‘democratic’ life. It was the first civil unrest story of Egypt that attracted such millions of people on the streets (Makhadmeh, 2014). The civil unrest frame as it is portrayed by Tierney, Bevc, and Kuligowski (2006) is linked with the coverage of natural disasters. In the case of Hurricane Katrina, the media outlets based their news stories on sensationalism through publishing footage that represented the behaviour of the affected people as normal. Feelings and behaviours such as violence, shock, traumatic experiences, and the fighting for survival were supposed to be typical. Hurricane Katrina left thousands of citizens without a home providing the chance to gangs to attack them or even to rape some members of the homeless families. These turmoils were mixed with the rumours about the on-going procedures of restoring the social breakdown resulted in a coverage, which was heavily based on statements of the affected population. This media approach was quite different from the old ones concerning disaster coverage. As a result, the public believed that the stories of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans were framed as civil unrest stories.

Lastly, the researcher read each article to evaluate the Open Calais’ output, as it is known that “when researchers rely on computer programs to analyze large volumes of text, they must identify the universe of words that mark the presence of a frame” (Chong & Druckman, 2007, p. 108). The sample needed to be categorized in columns and checked for duplicates or results that were not linked with the context of the articles. Another key factor in determing the way of the coverage of the three news organizations was to include the author, the sources and the multimedia that was used in each article. Hence, the following questions were asked:

Research Question 1: What are the framings, the differences and similarities amongst the news stories of these news outlets? Research Question 2: Which were the dominant frames of the three news organizations? Research Question 3: Do they change over time?

Chapter 3.1: Results There were 92 articles included in the sample. Primary focus or dominant frame was assigned to the frames that were the main idea or most prominent in the article as reported by Open Calais. Secondary focus or secondary frame was given to the frames that were present in the article, but were not the dominant frame or focus. The examined articles revealed the following dominant frames: Civil unrest, Public affairs, Economic and Conflict. The results show that the three news organizations did not focus on all frames equally. As shown in Table 1, Al Jazeera English, BBC, and China Daily emphasized the Public affairs (42.39%), the Civil unrest (41.3%), and the Human Interest (13.04%) frame. The data show that Public affairs and Civil unrest were represented far more frequently than any of the other frames.

Table 1 Dominant Frames Percentage Public affairs 42.39% Civil unrest 41.3% Human interest 13.04% Conflict 1.08% Economic 1.08% Sports 1.08% Number of articles: 92

Additionally, the results reveal the frames that were the main idea or most prominent in the articles for each individual news organizations. For Al Jazeera English, the most common frames were the following ones (table 2): Civil unrest (66.6%) and Public affairs (25%). For the British Broadcasting Corporation the dominant frames were: Public affairs (41.37%), Civil Unrest (34.48%), and Human interest (24.13%). Finally, in the Open Calais’s analysis of the articles of China Daily’s website there were amongst the most prominent frame stories, an article that could not be categorised, as its context is related to sports (you can read the article in the appendices section). Apart from this fact, the other frames are Public affairs (53.84%), Civil unrest 30.76%, and Human interest (10.25%).

Table 2 Al Jazeera English

Dominant Frames Percentage Civil unrest 66.66% Public affairs 25% Conflict 4.16% Human interest 4.16% Number of articles: 24 BBC Public affairs 41.37% Civil unrest 34.48% Human interest 24.13% Number of articles: 29 China Daily Public affairs 53.84% Civil unrest 30.76% Human interest 10.25% Economic 2.56% Sports 2.56% Number of articles: 39

Research question 3 addressed whether the frequency of the dominant frames changed during the examined period (for a detailed analysis see appendix 5). On February 9th, all the stories of AJE had the Civil unrest frame. The majority of the published news of the other two media companies were also framed as civil unrest incidents. The second examined day (02/10/2011) AJE again relied heavily on the civil unrest frame alongside with BBC. On the contrary, China Daily’s coverage was mainly framed as Public affairs content. On February 11th, the Qatari news outlet was once more committed to the same framing. BBC used dominantly the Public affairs frame and the Chinese company was equally divided into three pieces with Civil unrest, Human interest, and Public affairs framed news. The fourth examined day (02/12/2011) AJE did not change its coverage filter (Civil unrest 60%). BBC had the same number of Civil unrest, Human interest, and Public affairs framed news. Moreover, China Daily used more the Public affair framing (40%). Lastly, Al Jazeera had a 66.66% percentage of Civil unrest, BBC used a percentage of 40% for both Human interest and Public affairs framed stories, and the Chinese news organization depended on its Public affairs framing for about 75%. China Daily relied exclusively on other news agencies in order to provide articles for its reader and it did not include articles that were written by correspondents or experts. Although, it has the most news stories about the examined topic (39/92) the other two

46 media companies, BBC (29/92), and AJE (24/92), use far more sophisticated types of coverage, and, of course, they have their correspondents on ground collecting footage as well as experiences that can be expressed right on the spot. Videos, interactive maps, photos, and articles from experts of the region provides theoretically a more dynamic coverage (see table 3). In addition, the Chinese medium has 27 stories that do not include multimedia content. On the contrary, all AJE’s news is accompanied with audio, images, video and interactive content. Lastly, BBC has only three stories that do include only text.

Table 3 Al Jazeera English Title of the article Date Author Who's afraid of the Muslim 9 February 2011 Mohammed Khan is a political Brothers analyst based in the UAE Syria: 'A kingdom of silence' 9 February 2011 Cajsa Wikstrom is an online editor with Al Jazeera English. The youth of Tahrir Square 10 February 2011 Evan Hill, With reporting by Lara el-Gibaly and Rowan el- Shimi The poverty of dictatorship 10 February 2011 Dani Rodrik is author of The Globalization Paradox and professor of IPE at Harvard University The resurrection of pan-Arabism: 11 February 2011 Lamis Andoni is an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs. Mubarak's failed last stand 11 February 2011 Walter Armbrust is Hourani Fellow and University Lecturer in Modern Middle East Studies at Oxford University. He is the author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1996). Egypt: An idea whose time has 11 February 2011 Marwa Maziad is a columnist come at Egyptian newspaper Almasry Alyoum. She is a specialist on Middle East media and politics and is currently a visiting researcher at Istanbul Sehir University. To Mohammad El-Sayed Said 12 February 2011 Marwan Bishara is Al

Jazeera's senior political analyst. He was previously a professor of International Relations at the American University of Paris. An author who writes extensively on global politics, he is widely regarded as a leading authority on the Middle East and international affairs Egypt through Iran's 1979 lens 13 February 2011 Robert H. Reid, Middle East Regional Editor for The Associated Press, has covered the region since 1978 Iran opposition planning protests 13 February 2011 D. Parvaz is senior producer for the Human Rights section at Al Jazeera English, where she commissions pieces and reports extensively on the MENA region and Asia, especially Egypt, Libya and Afghanistan. Her work includes coverage of US Constitutional issues and the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disasters in Japan. She's been previously based in Tokyo, London and New York | BBC Internet role in Egypt's protests 9 February 2011 Anne Alexander is a Buckley Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge Egypt's Muslims and Christians 10 February 2011 Anne Alexander is a Buckley join hands in protest Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Cambridge Q&A: Egyptian protests against 11 February 2011 Martin Asser BBC News Hosni Mubarak Did social media create Egypt's 11 February 2011 BBC spoke to new media revolution? expert Walter Armbrust Syria opens up to social networks 11 February 2011 Lina Sinjab BBC News, Damascus Egypt crisis: Premature 11 February 2011 Yolande Knell, BBC News,

48 celebrations on Mubarak speech Cairo Demonstrators clean-up Egypt's 12 February 2011 BBC's Jeremy Bowen reports streets Ahdaf Soueif: Protesters reclaim 13 February 2011 Ahdaf Soueif s an Egyptian the spirit of Egypt novelist and political and cultural commentator, who lives with her children in Cairo and London. Egypt's economy gets back on 13 February 2011 BBC's Katy Watson track Egyptian Museum: Cairo's looted 13 February 2011 Yolande Knell, BBC News, treasure Cairo

Chapter 3.2: Discussion Regarding RQ2, the data revealed that China Daily published the most news stories of the three examined news outlets and has the dominant frame of Public affairs. Meanwhile, the Chinese news outlet was the only one that contained an economic framed news story. It was believed that this study would provide more of these kind of news stories, because “the economic consequences frame reflects a "preoccupation with the ‘bottom line,’ profit and loss". Focusing on the economic consequences of an issue is a frequently observed strategy for packaging the news and news producers use the consequence frame to make an issue relevant to their audience” (De Vreese, 2004, p. 36). Economic frame is a common technique in media framing (An & Gower, 2009). BBC’s coverage framed as well the majority of the news stories with the public affairs frame, giving more space to the expression of the political agendas of the actors. This result proves the connection between the flow of information and the influence of politicians, who are recognized in cases of turmoil or festivities as authority. Journalists turn to them to hear their point of view about peculiar events in order to construct the main issues of the future debate (Benson & Hallin, 2007). Additionally, AJE, BBC, and China Daily portrayed the examined days as cases of Civil unrest, a term that appeared recently due to the peculiar coverage of Hurricane Katrina, in which feelings and behaviours such as violence, shock, traumatic experiences, and the fighting for survival were supposed to be normal outcomes of the crisis. According to the findings of Tierney, Bevc, and Kuligowski (2006) this frame reveals that the examined period is portrayed under ‘war zone’ conditions, treating all the protesters as a unified crowd without paying attentions to the cultural background and differences of each individual. As a result, it can be said that the whole movement can adopt easily negative or positive characteristics depending on the narrative of each news organization. Perhaps, the civil unrest framing coverage is linked to the fact that, according to Makhadmeh (2014), the Egyptian uprising was the first story of civil unrest of Egypt that attracted such millions of people on the streets. Al Jazeera was the only one of these three international news organizations that had as dominant frame the civil unrest frame.

Subsequently Human interest frame was once again one of the most usual frame that was found (Neuman et al. 1992; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000), expanding the results of Hamdy and Gomaa’s study (2012), which proved that during the Egyptian Arab Spring the posts of the news organizations on social media were using the human interest frame, helping the news outlet to sensationalize facts and events. “In crisis situations, the [human interest] frame stimulates the psychological pulse of people, which ultimately leads them to a more negative attitude toward the crisis showed that the human interest frame influenced participants’ emotional response, and that it was a significant predictor of blame and responsibility in a transgression crisis” (An & Gower, 2009, p. 108). Regarding the RQ3 and the frequency of the dominant frames, the dominant frames did not change during the examined period. AJE stayed focused on its civil unrest frame, China Daily used predominantly the frame of Public affairs, and BBC was more impartial than the other two outlets, but relied also a little more on the same dominant frame of the Chinese media organization. Another crucial point is that both AJE and BBC provide far more angles in their coverage, as they have correspondents on the spot and published many articles by experts of the region. That was not the case for China Daily, which depended on news agencies (21/39 of the articles had as its main source the official press agency of the People's Republic of China, Xinhua News Agency). Furthermore, China Daily’s and BBC’s coverage have more in common as the majority of their articles, according to Open Calais, have the Public affairs frame, which means that they pay more attention to the actions and the influence of politicians. On the other hand, the Qatari network portrayed mostly the examined period as an incident of a unified group that causes civil unrest. Meanwhile, all of them had some stories that were sensationalized in order to present the incidents in a way that raises public interest and emotion, at the expense of veracity (RQ1). A significant limitation of this study was that it examined only the three English websites of the following international news organizations: Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily. Moreover, the total number of articles included in the sample was collected from a five-day period of time (9-13 February 2011). Examining other English-language websites published in the same or other regions of the world would provide a more complete analysis of the coverage of the Egyptian Arab Spring.

Another limitation to this study is that for the extraction of the frames of each article and their classification it was used the free online version of Open Calais. As a Knowledge Extraction tool, Open Calais “extracts named entities with sense tags, facts and events. It is available as a web application and as a web service” (Gangemi, 2013, p. 8). Both the output that is marked as ‘Social Tags’ and ‘Topics’ decided to be considered as topics, because it was hard to make a distinction between them at a theoretical level. In addition, this study did not examine the effects of certain events or circumstances on the news coverage. For example, during the days of the Egyptian Arab Spring there was a plethora of photo material and videos from the Tahrir Square. This material was often being shared by well-known news organizations, including Al Jazeera and the BBC, due to the limitations that had been applied by the Egyptian regime. There was no other way for keeping updated the public. These circumstances may have also affected the issues that were being published. Finally, there are numerous additional studies that could be conducted to increase the body of research on the Arab Spring, especially for the Chinese news companies, which are believed to play a more vital role in the global agenda setting due to their recent expansion. While this study focused mostly on classifying the framings of the news coverage counting the frequency and using statistics to explain what happened, a qualitative analysis would give a more complete and detailed description of the news coverage.

Chapter 3.3: Conclusions This study advances the research on media framing of the Arab Spring by showing the media’s (AJE, BBC, and China Daily) portrayal of the step-down of Hosni Mubarak via using the KE tool Open Calais. Furthermore, it focuses on the news differences and similarities among the articles of these news outlets, demonstrating that the three news organizations did not equally emphasize on all frames. Overall, they depended on the Public affairs, the Civil unrest, and the Human Interest frame. But, for Al Jazeera English, the most common frames were Civil unrest and Public affairs. For the British Broadcasting Corporation the dominant frames were Public affairs, Civil Unrest, and Human interest. Lastly, China Daily’s frames were Public affairs and Civil unrest. BBC’s coverage framed likewise the majority of the news stories with the Public affairs frame, giving more space to the expression of the political agendas of the actors. AJE was the only one of these three international news organizations that framed the majority of the news stories as incidents of civil unrest. Additionally, AJE, BBC, and China Daily portrayed the examined days as cases of civil unrest. Perhaps, the civil unrest framing coverage is linked to the fact that the Egyptian Uprising of 2011 was the first story of civil unrest of Egypt that attracted such millions of people on the streets. This study is important for several reasons. First, it reveals the frames of the Egyptian Arab Spring’s news coverage of Online English edition of Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily by using the free online version of Open Calais. Thus, it displays new findings for the research of the Arab Spring because of the fact that all of the aforementioned news organizations paid no attention to the individual characteristics of the people that participated at the uprisings and treated the protesters as a unified crowd that causes civil unrest. As a result, this framing can lead to the adoption of negative or positive characteristics for the whole movement, which are relied on the narrative of each news organization. Second, it examines and shows some of the differences and similarities amongst the news stories of these news outlets. All of them had some stories that were sensationalized in order to present the incidents in a way that raises public interest and emotion, at the expense of veracity. Third, it can be used as a point of reference or comparison for future researches on the examination of the coverage of the Arab Spring.

Notes

1 Khaled Said was a young Egyptian businessman that was killed in police custody, in Alexandria, in June 2010. The photos that were published on Facebook page, ‘We are all Khaled Said’, by an activist and depicted him with a broken jaw and broken teeth became the catalysts for the uprising of the Egyptian Arab Spring. If you want to learn more about the story of ‘We are all Khaled Said’, you can read the book of Wael Ghonim, “Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People Is Greater Than the People in Power: A Memoir”, who created the facebook page. 2 The number of users visiting the China Daily website can be measured by using alexa. It shows that its rank is 281 in the global scale and 48 in China (6/30/2017). 3 According to the British Academy postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Geography at Oxford University, Troy Sternberg (2013), China has an additional connection with the Egyptian Arab Spring because it is the biggest wheat supplier and buyer in the world. The weather changing patterns in 2010 caused supply shortages. The wheat production was reduced in Russia (-32.7 percent), Ukraine (-19.3 percent), Canada (-13.7 percent), Australia (-8.7 percent), and China (-0.5 while the domestic consumption increased by 1.68 percent). The aforementioned crop reduction shoot up the bread prices in Egypt, the largest global wheat foreign buyer, where almost half of the income is spent on food. The wheat prices ascended from $157/metric ton in June 2010 to $326/metric ton in February 2011. 4 For more information about Al Jazeera, read the ‘Chapter 2.1: Al Jazeera’ (pp. 21-26) of this dissertation. 5 For more information about BBC, read the ‘Chapter 2.2: BBC’ (pp. 27-32) of this dissertation. 6 For more information about Al Jazeera, read the ‘Chapter 2.3: China Daily’ (pp. 33-38) of this dissertation.

Appendices Appendix 1 China Daily’s sports article

Egypt

Egypt unrest sees Champions tie off

The African Football Confederation (CAF) on Monday called off this weekend's African Champions League first round, return leg match between Kenya's Ulinzi Stars and Zamalek of Egypt in Cairo due to the political unrest in the North African nation, football officials said.

Five-time champion Zamalek won the first leg 4-0 in Nairobi on Jan 29, and hopes of the return match going ahead as planned appeared unrealistic following the escalation of the anti-government protests, which have led to the Egyptian league being suspended indefinitely.

CAF communications officer Adla Khaled said in a letter to the Ulinzi Stars management that the match will now be played during the weekend of Feb 24-26.

AFP-Reuters

(China Daily 02/09/2011 page22)

Appendix 2 The examined articles of Al Jazeera English

Al Jazeera English Title of the article Date URL Q&A: Syrian activist Suhair Atassi 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2lROGsD Who's afraid of the Muslim Brothers 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uhThZE Syria: 'A kingdom of silence' 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/1op4leB Egypt: Seeds of change 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uZQotP Egyptian army 'torturing' prisoners 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uhA5uJ The youth of Tahrir Square 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2v0qDtw The tool for revolution? 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tnCxvb The poverty of dictatorship 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tnDGmI Algeria moves to stave off unrest 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYYzW3 Hosni Mubarak resigns as president 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYB2Ev The resurrection of pan-Arabism 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYWPM9 Mubarak's failed last stand 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2ureZKT Egypt: An idea whose time has come 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2umUkH2 Profile: Hosni Mubarak 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2ui3Agc Watch: Mubarak's speech 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYzlHm Statement of Egyptian armed forces 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tRhxk3 Bahrain doles out money to families 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2fZvDcW Triumph as Mubarak quits 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tU6Pri Egypt's military leadership 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vl0chu The rise and fall of Hosni Mubarak 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tnebBX To Mohammad El-Sayed Said 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tTMbYF Egypt through Iran's 1979 lens 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tn6KL8 Algeria protesters push for change 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2urhFsi Iran opposition planning protests 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlcTJ3

Article 1: Q&A: Syrian activist Suhair Atassi Article 2: Who's afraid of the Muslim Brothers

Article 3: Syria: 'A kingdom of silence' Article 4: Syria: Egypt: Seeds of change

Article 5: Syria: Egyptian army 'torturing' prisoners Article 6: The youth of Tahrir Square

Article 7: The tool for revolution? Article 8: The poverty of dictatorship

Article 9: Algeria moves to stave off unrest Article 10: Hosni Mubarak resigns as president

Article 11: The resurrection of pan-Arabism Article 12: Mubarak's failed last stand

Article 13: Egypt: An idea whose time has come Article 14: Profile: Hosni Mubarak

Article 15: Watch: Mubarak's speech Article 16: Statement of Egyptian armed forces

Article 17: Bahrain doles out money to families Article 18: Triumph as Mubarak quits

Article 19: Egypt's military leadership Article 20: The rise and fall of Hosni Mubarak

Article 21: To Mohammad El-Sayed Said Article 22: Egypt through Iran's 1979 lens

Article 23: Algeria protesters push for change Article 24: Iran opposition planning protests

Appendix 3 The examined articles of BBC

BBC Title of the article Date URL Internet role in Egypt's protests 9 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tRd0OG Profile: Egypt's Wael Ghonim 9 February 2011 http://bbc.in/1FdivZx Lone tourists make most of empty 9 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2umGSTR Egypt resort In pictures: Egypt restores damaged 10 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2urgn0g treasures In pictures: Egypt protests 10 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tnakER Egypt's Muslims and Christians join 10 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2sYJvHE hands in protest In pictures: Hopes dashed in Egypt 10 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uqUZrZ Egypt unrest: Full text of Hosni 10 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2sYtEsV Mubarak's speech Iran jamming BBC Persian Television 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tTvPiA Egypt crisis: Premature celebrations on 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2v03Cqu Mubarak speech Egypt unrest 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uhFRwA Q&A: Egyptian protests against Hosni 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uhC3LV Mubarak Egypt's revolution: Interactive map 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2taZs1C Eighteen days that shook the world 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tQVtGb Did social media create Egypt's 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tTsqk0 revolution? Moez Masoud: 'Pharaoh has let his 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uhB1zg people go' Syria opens up to social networks 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2sYVZis In pictures: Mubarak's presidency 11 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uhCl5t In pictures: Tahrir Square clean-up 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2sYPJHv begins Egypt crisis: President Hosni Mubarak 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/1SYaZov resigns as leader In pictures: Victory for Egypt's 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uhUqjP protesters Hosni Mubarak resigns: World reaction 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2uZY1QV Egypt after Mubarak: A clean start 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2vkDMwD Demonstrators clean-up Egypt's streets 12 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tn6605 Egyptian Museum: Cairo's looted 13 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tb4yee treasure Hugh Sykes with his camera in Tahrir 13 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tReCrI Square Ahdaf Soueif: Protesters reclaim the 13 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2tn8J1K spirit of Egypt

Egypt's economy gets back on track 13 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2vlcExs Egypt elections: Ambassador's 13 February 2011 http://bbc.in/2vl95HG assessment

Article 1: Internet role in Egypt's protests Article 2: Profile: Egypt's Wael Ghonim

Article 3: Lone tourists make most of empty Egypt resort

Article 4: In pictures: Egypt restores damaged treasures

Article 5: In pictures: Egypt protests

Article 6: Egypt's Muslims and Christians join Article 8: Egypt unrest: Full text of Hosni hands in protest Mubarak's speech

Article 7: In pictures: Hopes dashed in Egypt

Article 9: Iran jamming BBC Persian Television

Article 10: Egypt crisis: Premature celebrations on Mubarak speech 78

Article 11: Egypt unrest

Article 12: Q&A: Egyptian protests against Hosni Article 17: Syria opens up to social networks Mubarak

Article 13: Egypt's revolution: Interactive map

Article 14: Eighteen days that shook the world

Article 15: Did social media create Egypt's revolution?

Article 16: Moez Masoud: 'Pharaoh has let his people go'

Article 18: In pictures: Mubarak's presidency

Article 19: In pictures: Tahrir Square clean-up begins

Article 20: Egypt crisis: President Hosni Mubarak Article 22: Hosni Mubarak resigns: World resigns as leader reaction

Article 21: I n pictures: Victory for Egypt's protesters

Article 23: Egypt after Mubarak: A clean start Article 25: Egyptian Museum: Cairo's looted treasure 89

Article 24: Demonstrators clean-up Egypt's streets

Article 26: Hugh Sykes with his camera in Tahrir Article 27: Ahdaf Soueif: Protesters reclaim the Square spirit of Egypt 91

Article 28: Egypt's economy gets back on track

Article 29: Egypt elections: Ambassador's assessment

Appendix 4 The examined articles of China Daily

China Daily Title of the article Date URL Egypt 'has power transfer plan' 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2ui8SIp Egyptian govt to move forward with 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tnrmTx reforms US demands immediate end to Egypt's 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uhDcTE emergency law Al-Qaida in Iraq urges people to wage 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2v0krSb Jihad in Egypt UN chief calls for 'order' in Egypt 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlnR13 IN BRIEF (Page 22) 9 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2urvVRx Al-Qaida in Iraq urges Egyptian holy 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2un7Drj war China supports Egypt's efforts to keep 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tnBhIQ stability Obama urges 'immediate, orderly' 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tbawM9 transition in Egypt King warned Obama Saudi could fund 10 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tRyU4v Egypt Egypt unrest reminds investors of 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYYPEu geopolitical risks Mubarak hands over power to VP 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2v0uBCi PM says Mubarak may step down soon: 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tRH4d0 BBC Mubarak transfers power to VP 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tS1GBX Minister: Israel must move ahead 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlDmpW toward peace Chinese FM: Leave internal affairs to 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sYMCjb Egyptians EU presses Mubarak to open way to 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2v0lWzN faster, deeper reforms Obama calls for credible path in Egypt 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uiawtR toward democracy Egypt's military to announce important 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tTV8Rt statement Sarkozy woos popular support for 11 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uhV2WI reforms at home Uncertainty clouds jubilation in Egypt 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tbuK8O Protests end Mubarak's reign 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uiaz8J Arab League chief hails Egyptian 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2sZtmls revolution Egypt to respect international treaties - 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tRp16S

94 army Behind Mubarak's exit: a military Coup 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uioV9k Iran's leader to Egypt: Beware of US 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2urOm8G Mubarak steps down, military in charge 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlpWtT China expects Egypt's stability restored 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2to3Dm1 at early date Ex-Envoy: Israel in trouble 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tbs0YM Thousands of Tunisian immigrants land 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2uipbVQ in Italy Restore stability in Egypt 12 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tTP9MQ Newsstand Roundup 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2urMYTI Egypt cabinet to stay for transition 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2unk0mY period Egypt's military council dissolves 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlpcVX parliament Israeli cabinet approves new army chief 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tntIlk Protestors to form council to talk with 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2umRoKI military in Egypt Egypt's future concerns world countries 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2vlJIpl Obama welcomes Egyptian military's 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2tUi82S commitment Egypt prepares for a new era after 13 February 2011 http://bit.ly/2v0eNj1 Mubarak

Article 1: Egypt 'has power transfer plan'

Article 2: Egy ptian govt to move forward with reforms

Article 3: US demands immediate end to Egypt's emergency law

Article 4: Al-Qaida in Iraq urges people to wage Jihad in Egypt

Article 5: UN chief calls for 'order' in Egypt

100

Article 6: IN BRIEF (Page 22)

101

Article 7: Al-Qaida in Iraq urges Egyptian holy war

102

Article 8: China supports Egypt's efforts to keep stability

103

Article 9: Obama urges 'immediate, orderly' transition in Egypt

104

Article 10: King warned Obama Saudi could fund Egypt

105

Article 11: Egypt unrest reminds investors of geopolitical risks

106

Article 12: Mubarak hands over power to VP

107

Article 13: PM says Mubarak may step down soon: BBC

108

Article 14: Mubarak transfers power to VP

109

Article 15: Minister: Israel must move ahead toward peace

110

Article 16: Chinese FM: Leave internal affairs to Egyptians

111

Article 17: EU presses Mubarak to open way to faster, deeper reforms

112

Article 18: Obama calls for credible path in Egypt toward democracy

113

Article 19: Egypt's military to announce important statement

114

Article 20: Sarkozy woos popular support for reforms at home

115

Article 21: Uncertainty clouds jubilation in Egypt

116

Article 22: Protests end Mubarak's reign

117

Article 23: Arab League chief hails Egyptian revolution

118

Article 24: Egypt to respect international treaties - army

119

Article 25: Behind Mubarak's exit: a military Coup

120

Article 26: Iran's leader to Egypt: Beware of US

121

Article 27: Mubarak steps down, military in charge

122

Article 28: China expects Egypt's stability restored at early date

123

Article 29: Ex-Envoy: Israel in trouble

124

Article 30: Thousands of Tunisian immigrants land in Italy

125

Article 31: Restore stability in Egypt

126

Article 32: Newsstand Roundup

127

Article 33: Egypt cabinet to stay for transition period

128

Article 34: Egypt's military council dissolves parliament

129

Article 35: Israeli cabinet approves new army chief

130

Article 36: Protestors to form council to talk with military in Egypt

131

Article 37: Egypt's future concerns world countries

132

Article 38: Obama welcomes Egyptian military's commitment

133

Article 39: Egypt prepares for a new era after Mubarak

134

Appendix 5 The Frequency of the dominant frames of the three news outlets

Frequency of dominant frames over time (table 4) Date News organization Frame 9 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 9 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 9 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 9 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 9 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 9 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 9 February 2011 BBC Human interest 9 February 2011 China Daily Sports 9 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 9 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 9 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 9 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 9 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs Number of articles: 13 Civil unrest: AJE 100%, BBC 66.66%, China Daily (AJE 4, BBC 3, China 66.66% Daily 6) Human interest: BBC 33.33% Public affairs: China Daily 16.66% Sports: China Daily 33.33% 10 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 10 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 10 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 10 February 2011 AJE Human interest 10 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 10 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 10 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 10 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 10 February 2011 BBC Human interest 10 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 10 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 10 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 10 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest Number of articles: 13 Civil unrest: AJE 75%, BBC 60%, China Daily 25% (AJE 4, BBC 5, China Human interest: AJE 25%, BBC 20% Daily 4) Public affairs: BBC 20%, China Daily 75% 11 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 11 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 11 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 11 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 11 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 11 February 2011 AJE Public affairs

135

11 February 2011 AJE Public affairs 11 February 2011 AJE Conflict 11 February 2011 BBC Human interest 11 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 11 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 11 February 2011 China Daily Economic 11 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 11 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 11 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 11 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 11 February 2011 China Daily Human interest 11 February 2011 China Daily Human interest 11 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 11 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 11 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest Number of articles: 27 Civil unrest: AJE 62.5%, BBC 20%, China Daily 30%, (AJE 8, BBC 10, China Human interest: BBC 10%, China Daily 20% Daily 10) Public affairs: AJE 25%, BBC 70%, China Daily 40% Conflict: AJE 12.5% Economic: China Daily 10% 12 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 12 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 12 February 2011 AJE Public affairs 12 February 2011 AJE Public affairs 12 February 2011 AJE Public affairs 12 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 12 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 12 February 2011 BBC Human interest 12 February 2011 BBC Human interest 12 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 12 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 12 February 2011 China Daily Human interest 12 February 2011 China Daily Human interest 12 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 12 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 12 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest 12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs

136

12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 12 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs Number of articles: 22 Civil unrest: AJE 60%, BBC 33.33%, China Daily 18.18% (AJE 5, BBC 6, China Human interest: BBC 33.33%, China Daily 27.27% Daily 11) Public affairs: AJE 40%, BBC 33.33%, China Daily 54.54% 13 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 13 February 2011 AJE Civil unrest 13 February 2011 AJE Public affairs 13 February 2011 BBC Human interest 13 February 2011 BBC Human interest 13 February 2011 BBC Civil unrest 13 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 13 February 2011 BBC Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Public affairs 13 February 2011 China Daily Human Interest 13 February 2011 China Daily Civil unrest Number of articles: 16 Civil unrest: AJE 66.66%, BBC 20%, China Daily 12.5% (AJE 3, BBC 5, China Human interest: BBC 40%, China Daily 12.5% Daily 8) Public affairs: AJE 33.33%, BBC 40%, China Daily 75%

137

Bibliography

Aday, S., Farrell, H., Lynch, M., Sides, J., & Freelon, D. (2012). Blogs and Bullets II: New Media and Conflict after the Arab Spring. United States Institute of Peace, 80, 21.

Al Kasim, F. (2005). The Opposite Direction: A Program which Changed the Face of Arab Television. In M. Zayani (Ed.), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (pp. 93-105). UK: Pluto Press.

Allan, S., & Peters, C. (2015). Visual truths of citizen reportage: Four research problematics. Information, Communication and Society, 18(11), 2-4.

An, S. K., & Gower, K. K. (2009). How do the news media frame crises? A content analysis of crisis news coverage. Public Relations Review, 35(2), 107-112.

Awad, G. (2005). Aljazeera.net: Identity Choices and the Logic of the Media. In M. Zayani (Ed.), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (pp. 80- 89). UK: Pluto Press.

Ayish, M. I. (2005). Media Brinkmanship in the Arab World: Al Jazeera’s The Opposite Direction as a Fighting Arena In M. Zayani (Ed.), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media (pp. 106). UK: Pluto Press.

BBC (2012). BBC World Service 80th Anniversary 1932 – 2012, 2-17.

BBC (2016). BBC Online Creative Review, 2-15.

BBC Trust (2012). Report on the impartiality and accuracy of the BBC‟s coverage of the events known as the “Arab Spring”, 2-89.

Benson, R., & Hallin, D. C. (2007). How states, markets and globalization shape the news: The French and American national press, 1965-1997. European Journal of Communication, 22(1), 27-48.

Bruce, M. D. (2014). Framing Arab Spring Conflict: A Visual Analysis of Coverage on Five Transnational Arab News Channels. Journal of Middle East Media, 10, 1-26.

138

Castells, M. (Ed.), (2004). The Network Society: A Cross-cultural Perspective (pp. 3-7). UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited.

Chan, Y. (2014). Journalism and Digital Times: Between Wider Reach and Sloppy Reporting. In M. Dragomir & M. Thompson (Eds.), Digital Journalism: Making News, Breaking News (pp. 107-111). USA: Open Society Foundations.

Chen, L. (2013). Could or Should? The Changing Modality of Authority in the China Daily. Journal of the British Association for Chinese Studies, 2, 51-58.

China Daily (n.d.). China Daily Website Media Kit, 1-33.

Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10, 103-126.

CNN (07/04/2005). Al-Jazeera turns its signal West. web.archive.org. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20050710010536/http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/mea st/07/04/aljazeera.spread.ap/index.html.

Curley, T. (2007). Preface. Associated Press (Author). Breaking news: How the Associated Press has covered war, peace and everything else (pp. 18). USA: Princeton Architectural Press.

Dai, W. (2013). Hybrid Journalists -- Chinese Journalists in an era of reform: their values and challenges (pp. 6-7). UK: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. de Vreese, C. H. (2004). The effects of frames in political television news on issue interpretation and frame salience. J&MC Quarterly, 81(1), 36-52. de Vreese, C. H. (2005). News framing: Theory and typology. Information Design Journal + Document Design, 13(1), 52.

Dragomir, M., & Thompson, M. (Eds.) (2014). Digital Journalism: Making News, Breaking News (pp. 13-14). NY: Open Society Foundations.

Duffy, M. J. (2011). Smartphones in the Arab spring: A revolution in gathering, reporting the news. IPI Report: Media and Money, 53-56.

139

Eisenman, S. (04/01/1996). Watchdog Journalism: Function and Future. ee.columbia.edu. Retrieved from http://www.ee.columbia.edu/~shane/words/watchdog.htm.

El Raggal, A., & Ezzat, H. R. (2015). Egypt: Can a Revolution Be Negotiated?. Zartman, I. W. (Ed.), Arab Spring: Negotiating in the Shadow of the Intifadat (pp. 85). USA: The University of Georgia Press.

Ellen, M. T., & Shacklady, N. (2003). On Air: A History of B.B.C. Transmission (pp. 1-13). UK: Wavechange Books.

Entman, R. M. (1991). Framing U.S. coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran air incidents. Journal of Communication, 41(4), 7.

Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43(4), 52.

Frangonikolopoulos, C. A. (2011). Eisagogi stin elliniki ekdosi [Introduction for the Greek edition]. In C. Paterson & A. Sreberny (Eds.), Diethneis eidiseis ston 21o aiona [International News in the Twenty-First Century] (pp. 9-54). GR: Sideris Publications.

Frangonikolopoulos, C. A., & Chapsos, I. (2012). Explaining the Role and the Impact of the Social Media in the Arab Spring. Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition, 8(1), 15-16.

Freer, C. (2015). The rise of pragmatic Islamism in Kuwait's post-Arab Spring opposition movement. Rethinking Political Islam Series, 1-17.

Fuchs, C. (2010). Alternative Media as Critical Media. European Journal of Social Theory, 13(2), 178.

Galal, E., & Spielhaus, R. (2012). The Media and the Making of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. Global Media Journal German Edition, 2(1), 1-6.

Gamson, W. A., & Modigliani, A. A. (1989). Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology, 95, 143.

140

Gangemi, A. (2013). A Comparison of Knowledge Extraction Tools for the Semantic Web. The Semantic Web: Semantics and Big Data, 1-15.

Gilboa, E. (2005). Effects of Global Television News on U.S. Policy in International Conflict. In P. Seib (Ed.), Media and Conflict in the Twenty-First Century (pp. 24). USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hallin, D. C. (1994). We keep America on top of the world: Television journalism and the public sphere (pp. 1-179). UK: Routledge.

Hamdy, N. (2010). Arab media adopt citizen journalism to change the dynamics of conflict coverage. Global Media Journal Arabian Edition. 1(1), 3-5.

Hamdy, N., & Gomaa, E. H. (2012). Framing the Egyptian uprising in Arabic language newspapers and social media. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 195-211.

Howard, P. N., & Hussain, M. M. (2013). Democracy's Fourth Wave?: Digital Media and the Arab Spring (pp. 99). USA: Oxford University Press.

Hroub, K. (n.d.). (Social) Media and Politics and the Arab Spring Moment, 145-150.

Huffington, A. (08/14/2013). Bezos, Heraclitus and the Hybrid Future of Journalism. Huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna- huffington/future-of-journalism_b_3756207.html.

Jackson, J. (01/12/2017). BBC sets up team to debunk fake news. theguardian.com. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/12/bbc-sets-up-team-to- debunk-fake-news.

Johnston, J. & Forde, S. (2011). The Silent Partner: News Agencies and 21st Century News. International Journal of Communication, 5, 195–197.

Kalathil, S. (2017). Beyond the Great Firewall: How China Became a Global Information Power. Center for International Media Assistance, National Endowment for Democracy, 1-41.

141

Kenichi, Y. (2011). China’s Focus on External Publicity: The Impact of Changing Media Policy at Home and Abroad. NHK Broadcasting Studies, 9, 185-208.

Littlejohn, S. W., & Foss, K. A. (Eds.) (2009). Chronology. Encyclopedia of Communication Theory (pp. lix). UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.

Makhadmeh, N. (2014). Frames, Modalities, Topics and Sources: A comparative content analysis of natural disaster, terrorist attack and civil unrest crises by Egyptian journalist bloggers and citizen bloggers (Doctoral dissertation, Michigan State University, USA). Retrieved from https://d.lib.msu.edu/etd/3277.

Marcel, M. (2016). A New Typology of War – The Hybrid War, Military Art and Science, 21(1), 14-16.

Miles, H. (2005). Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That is Challenging the West (pp. 13-172). NY: Grove Press.

Mohseni, P. (2013). The Islamic Awakening: Iran’s Grand Narrative of the Arab Uprisings. Middle East Brief, 71, 1-9.

Monroy-Hernández, A., Boyd, D., Kiciman, E., De Choudhury, M., & Counts, S. (2013). The New War Correspondents: The Rise of Civic Media Curation in Urban Warfare. Social Networks During Major Transitions (Personal and Political), 1450.

Neuman, W. R., Just, M. R., & Crigler, A. N. (1992). Common knowledge (pp. 1-22). USA: University of Chicago Press.

Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Levy, D. A. L., & Nielsen, R. K. (2016). Digital News Report of Reuters Institute. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 9.

Noor, R, (2017). Citizen Journalism vs. Mainstream Journalism: A Study on Challenges Posed by Amateurs. Athens Journal of Mass Media and Communications, 55-61.

Osman, A., & Samei, M. A. (2012). Covering the Arab Spring: Middle East in the Media – the Media in the Middle East. Global Media Journal German Edition, 2(1), 1-19.

142

Parello-Plesner, J., & Pantucci, R. (2011). China’s Janus-Faced Response to the Arab Revolutions. ECFR/34, 1-5.

Paschalidis, G. (2010). I istoria kai I theoria ton meson tin epohi tis psifiakis koultouras [The history and media theory at the times of digital culture]. In M. Kokkonis, G. Paschalidis & P. Bantimaroudis, P. (Eds.), Psifiaka Mesa: O politismos tou ixou kai tou thematos [Digital Media: The culture of sound and entertainment] (pp. 448). GR: Kritiki Publications.

Patterson, T. E. (2013). Informing the News: The Need for Knowledge-Based Journalism [Kindle Touch version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com.

Pinkley, R. L. (1990). Dimensions of Conflict Frame: Disputant Interpretations of Conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(2), 1-10.

Polumbaum, J., & Lei, X. (2008). China Ink: The Changing Face of Chinese Journalism (pp. 53-58). USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Powers, S. (2012). The Origins of Al Jazeera English. In P. Seib (Ed.), Al Jazeera English: Global News in a Changing World (pp. 5-28). USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Ramadan, T. (2012). Islam and the Arab Awakening (pp. 96-144). UK: Oxford University Press.

Reporters Without Borders (2016). The Invisible Hand on Hong Kong’s Media, 1-28.

Riffe, D., Lacy, S., & Fico, F., (2005). Analyzing Media Messages: using quantitative content analysis in research (pp. 1-22). USA: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Rong, Z. (2013). Journalism as Professionalism Challenged by Net-users in China: Focusing on the Online Social Affair‘South China Tiger’. ISA RC52 Interim Conference, 1-18.

Ruigrok, N., & van Atteveldt, W. (2007). Global Angling with a Local Angle: How U.S., British, and Dutch Newspapers Frame Global and Local Terrorist Attacks. Press/Politics, 12(1), 68-90.

143

Sakr, N. (2011). To doruforiko kanali Al Tzazira: diethnes deltio eidiseon stin araviki glossa [Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel: Global Newscasting in Arabic]. In C. Paterson & A. Sreberny (Eds.), Diethneis eidiseis ston 21o aiona [International News in the Twenty- First Century] (pp. 263-292). GR: Sideris Publications.

Saltzis, K. (2012). Doing Journalism Online: How UK News Organizations Have Adapted in the Age of the Internet. In E. Siapera & A. Veglis (Eds.), The Handbook of Global Online Journalism (pp. 462-475). UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Semetko, H. A., & Valkenburg, P. M. (2000). Framing European politics: A content analysis of press and television news. Journal of Communication, 50(2), 93-108.

Sheppard, B.H., Blumenfeld-Jones, K., & Minton, J.W. (1987). To control or not to control: Two models of conflict intervention. Unpublished manuscript.

Sigal, I. (2009). Digital Media in Conflict-Prone Societies, 8.

Sternberg, T. (2013). Chinese Drought, Wheat, and the Egyptian Uprising: How a Localized Hazard Became Globalized. In C. E. Werrell & F. Femia (Eds.), Center for American Progress | Stimson | The Center for Climate and Security (pp. 7-14).

Stevenson, R. L. (1992). Defining International Communication as a Field. Journalism Quarterly, 69(3), 543-553.

Sueif, A. (2012). Kairo. I poli mou, I epanastasi mou [Cairo. My City, Our Revolution] (pp. 235-242). GR: Metaixmio Publications.

Thompson, J. B. (1999). Neoterikotita kai Mesa Epikoinonias [The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media] (pp. 249-264). GR: Papazisis Publications.

Tierney, K., Bevc, C., & Kuligowski, E. (2006). Metaphors matter: disaster myths, media frames, and their consequences in Hurricane Katrina. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 604, 57–81.

Tumber, H., & Webster, F. (2006). Journalists Under Fire (pp.172). UK: SAGE Publications Ltd.

144

Vladisavljević, N. (2015). Media framing of political conflict: A review of the literature. Media, Conflict and Democratisation, 2-31.

Wang, H. (2010). Investigative Journalism and Political Power in China: Five Newspapers’s Reporting of the Chenzhou Mass Corruption Case, February 2004-November 2008. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 5-9.

Wardle, C. (01/12/2017). Launching our new Chrome extension NewsCheck. firstdraftnews.com. Retrieved from https://firstdraftnews.com/launching-new-chrome- extension-newscheck/.

Westcott, C., & Mukherjee, J. (2011). Nea mesa stin pagkosmia upiresia tou BBC [New Media at the BBC World Service]. In C. Paterson & A. Sreberny (Eds.), Diethneis eidiseis ston 21o aiona [International News in the Twenty-First Century] (pp. 168-189). GR: Sideris Publications.

Yong, H., Kun, F., Yang, L., Ha, I., Yuping, Z., Mengyao, W., & Nute, K. (2012). Mapping Digital Media: China. Open Society Foundations, 58-67.

Youmans, W. (2012). AJE after the Arab Spring: The Politics of Distribution in the United States. In P. Seib (Ed.), Al Jazeera English: Global News in a Changing World (pp. 57- 78). USA: Palgrave Macmillan.

Young, D. (2013). The Party Line: How The Media Dictates Public Opinion in Modern China (pp. 163). Singapore: John Wiley & Sons Singapore Pte. Ltd.

Yuping, Z. (2008). Blogs as a New Form of Public Participation in Mainland China. Intercultural Communication Studies VXII(3), 44-56.

Zuckerman, E. (2008). International News: Bringing About the Golden Age. Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, 2-4.

145