Ada Mullol, M.A

THE ROLE OF MEDIA IN THE SYRIAN AND YEMENI CONFLICTS: THE EFFECT OF US AND SAUDI MEDIA COVERAGE IN THEIR FOREIGN INTERVENTIONS

A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Arab Studies

Ada Mullol, M.A.

Washington, DC April 10, 2018

I dedicate this thesis to my mother, my father, and my brother, who, despite being 6,500 km away and in 6 hours time difference, have been right beside me and supported me every step of the way.

And to my grandparents, who would have been filled with joy seeing me achieve my dreams.

Gràcies.

I am deeply grateful to Prof. Diana Owen, my thesis advisor, and Prof. Marwa Daoudy, my thesis reader, for their detailed comments, suggestions, and valuable lessons.

I would also like to show my gratitude to Prof. Vicki Valosick, Dede, Samah, and Mahdi, for all their support and for sharing this year-long journey.

And also to all my classmates, faculty, and friends, who supported and taught me, showed interest in my research along the way – and, surprisingly, didn’t get tired of me going over it again and again.

Thank you,

Ada Mullol

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION …………………………………………………………………………… 1

CHAPTER 1. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ……………………. 8

International Relations And Foreign Policymaking……………………………… 8

Media And Foreign Policymaking……………………………………………….. 11

CHAPTER 2. CASE STUDIES ………………………………………………………………. 21

The Syrian Civil War (2011-Present) …………………………………………… 21

The onset: an unpredicted uprising ……………………………………… 21

The particularity of the Syrian uprising: a civil war …………………….. 22

A regional war, a proxy war ……………………………………………... 26

The Yemeni Civil War (2015-Present) ………………………………………….. 29

The onset: a delayed consequence of the uprisings ……………………… 29

The shift towards a civil war …………………………………………….. 31

A regional war, a proxy war ……………………………………… ……... 33

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY……………………………………………………………… 35

Case Studies……………………………………………………………………… 35

Sample Selection………………………………………………………..………... 36

Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………….. 38

The unit of analysis………………………………………………………. 38

Content analysis …………………………………………………………. 42

Media’s closeness to the conflict…………………………………. 42

Location of the media coverage…………………………... 42

Authorship of the news items……………….……………. 43

Types of sources…………………….…..………………… 43

Priming and hierarchy of the news ………………………………. 44

Section……………………………………………………. 44

Physical positioning ……………………………………… 45

Length of the news items……….………………………… 45

Media frames and themes………………………………………… 46

Main Themes……………………………………………… 46

Words’ choice…………………………………………….. 47

Media’s political positioning……………………………………... 47

Political positioning of the headlines.…………………….. 48

Political positioning of the body of the news items………. 48

Interviews………………………………………………………………………… 49

Quantitative Statistical Analysis…………………………………………………. 50

Student’s t-test……………………………………………………………. 50

Logistic regression analysis………………………………………………. 50

CHAPTER 4. RESULTS …………………………………………………………………….. 52

Media Coverage Comparisons…………………………………………………… 52

Description of the results ………………………………………………… 52

Media’s closeness to the conflict…………………………………. 52

Location of the media coverage ………………………….. 52

Authorship of the news items…………………………….. 54

Types of sources………………………………………….. 56

Priming and hierarchy of the news ………………………………. 58

Section……………………………..………………..…….. 58

Physical positioning of the news items …………………... 59

Length of the news items…………………………………. 59

Media frames and themes………………………………………… 61

Main Themes……………………………………………… 61

Words’ choice…………………………………………….. 63

Media’s political positioning……………………………… ……... 66

Political positioning of the headlines and bodies of the

news items………………………… 66

Findings of the study of media coverage comparisons ………………….. 70

Effect Of Media Coverage On Foreign Policymaking…………………………… 72

Selection of variables for the study on media’s effect (Chi-Square

analysis)…………………………… 72

Study of media’s effect on foreign policymaking (LRA) ……….………. 76

Description of the results…………………………………………. 77

Findings of the study on media’s effect on foreign policymaking.. 80

CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION………………………………………………………………….. 82

Media Coverage Comparisons…………………………………………………… 82

Media Coverage Influence On Foreign Policymaking ………………………….. 98

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY ………………………………………. 106

APPENDIX A. HEADLINES OF THE ANALYZED NEWS ITEMS ……………………………… 111

APPENDIX B. METHODOLOGY: DESCRIPTION OF VARIABLES ……………………………. 119

APPENDIX C. CHI-SQUARE ANALYSIS ……………………………………………………. 120

BIBLIOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………………………… 121

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Evolution of the Syrian conflict (2011-present) ………………………………. 40

Figure 2. Evolution of the Yemeni conflict (2015-present) ……………………………... 42

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Selected events………………………………………………………………….. 36

Table 2. Selected media………………………………………………………………….. 37

Table 3. Syrian conflict: dates……………………………………………………………. 40

Table 4. Yemeni conflict: dates………………………………………………………….. 41

Table 5. Comparison results: Location of the media coverage…………………………... 54

Table 6. Comparison results: Authorship of the news items…………………………….. 56

Table 7. Comparison results: Types of sources………………………………………….. 58

Table 8. Comparison results: Length of the news items…………………………………. 60

Table 9. Comparison results: Main themes………………….…………………………… 62

Table 10. Comparison results: Types of words in the news items…….…………………. 64

Table 11. Comparison results: Political positioning of the news items …………………. 68

Table 12. Chi-square analysis: Media’s closeness to the conflict………………………... 73

Table 13. Chi-square analysis: Media frames and main themes…………………………. 74

Table 14. Chi-square analysis: Political positioning of the news items………………….. 75

Table 15. Logistic regression analysis results (n=153)…………………… ……………... 78

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“Journalism is the first rough draft of history”

Philip Graham, publisher, Washington Post (1963)

Introduction

The emergence of new technologies associated with globalization has increased the accessibility of international news in real time for the public in very distant countries. In addition to easier accessibility, some scholars have pointed out media’s increasing influence on foreign policy (Goldsborough 1997, 1; Bloch-Elkon 2007, 20; Fitzsimmons

2007, 1; Gilboa et al., 2016, 654), especially regarding conflicts (Hjarvard and Kristensen

2014, 51; Gilboa et al., 2016, 654).

This influence was demonstrated during the First Gulf War (1990-1991), following the media coverage about which the term “CNN effect” was coined – as the effect that media coverage of humanitarian crisis could have on policy shifts (Gilboa 2005, 29); it was reinforced during the war in Bosnia (Goldsborough 1997, 1-3). In the 2000s, however, the emergence of Internet and other information technologies and networks and their growing influence on global politics created a new trend against American hegemony. This phenomenon was called “the Al-Jazeera effect,” given Al Jazeera’s growing importance and the role it played in the Second Gulf War, which is similar to the one played by CNN in the previous decade. Al Jazeera channel, launched in 1996 and funded by the government of Qatar, has become one of the news channels with a higher audience in the Middle East and North Africa, creating a powerful arena for non-Western narratives and viewpoints

(Zayani 2005, 30; Coban 2016, 47-48). With this study I intend to improve conflict resolution strategies, shedding light on the role that international media, both from the West and from the Arab World, can play in conflict resolution processes.

Since the “CNN effect” was conceptualized in the early 1990s, several studies have attempted to analyze separately two relationships. The first relationship is between media coverage and public opinion (Everts 2000; Nelson 2001; Nacos et al., 2006, all quoted in

Bloch-Elkon 2007, 22). Media coverage, on the one hand, is understood as the daily activity of mass media within national or linguistic communities that create and distribute actuality content for the masses (Meulemann and Hagenah 2009, 2). Public opinion, on the other hand, encompasses collective attitudes on matters of concern to the nation freely and publicly expressed by people outside the government who claim a right that their opinions should influence or determine the actions of their government (Speier 1950, 376). The second relationship is between public opinion and policymaking, as in more or less democratic settings policymakers are accountable to the public as their source of legitimacy

(Bennet and Paletz 1994; Duncan et al., 2003, all quoted in Bloch-Elkon 2007, 22).

When tackling the possible influence of media coverage on foreign policymaking, influence is a term that remains difficult to define, despite being a basic concept in political science. This is due, in part, to the fact that influence is closely linked to another crucial concept that has also proved hard to define: power (Betsill and Corell 2001, 72). Nye, for instance, defines power as the ability to do things and control others to achieve the desired objectives (Nye 1990, 154-156). Foreseeing that the sources of power in world politics were “likely to undergo major changes”, Nye also asserted that “proof of power lies not in resources but in the ability to change the behavior of states” (Nye 1990, 155). Scruton considers influence to be a form of power, distinct from control, coercion, force or interference (Scruton 1996, 262). Cox and Jacobson narrow this definition stating that influence is the modification of one actor’s behavior by that of another (Cox and Jacobson

1973). Taking this last definition as a reference, many scholars agree that media have an

influence on public opinion (Bloch-Elkon 2007); however, the causal relationship between media coverage and foreign policymaking has been hard to establish (Christie 2006; Khalid and Said 2015). As Robinson stated, one of the factors favoring media’s influence in policymaking is the presence of policy uncertainty (Robinson 2000, 613-614): “The decision-making process is conceptualized as the outcome of a bargaining process between a set of policy subsystems in the executive. If an issue suddenly arises and no policy is in place, or if there is disagreement, conflict of interest or uncertainty between the executive subsystems, there can be said to be policy uncertainty. Policy certainty results from agreement on policy between the subsystems” (Robinson 2000, 616-617).

The present thesis aims to overcome the limitations of previous research through the analysis of international media coverage of current wars in the Middle East and its effects on foreign policies towards these conflicts. This study contributes to the existing debate on the effects of media in policymaking regarding foreign conflicts using a multidisciplinary approach. It combines conflict and international relations studies, an approach that allows the contextualization of the analyzed conflicts, and it also draws upon communications studies, which helps discern the role – positive or negative – of media in conflict resolution.

I hypothesize that media coverage can influence foreign policymaking. The main research questions that this thesis aims to answer are the following: (a) Does international media coverage of the wars in Syria and Yemen have an effect on the foreign policies of the intervening countries? (b) If so, do specific types of media coverage (closeness to the conflict, priming, framing, political positioning) have more influence on foreign policymaking than others? (c) Do US and Saudi media differ in their coverage of the Syrian and Yemeni wars? (d) Are the wars in Syria and Yemen covered differently?

In order to answer the abovementioned research questions, I analyzed media coverage by the United States and Saudi Arabia of two current civil wars in the Arab

World: the Syrian civil war (2011-present) and the war in Yemen (2015-present). These two conflicts were selected given that both have experienced foreign interventions (Fearon,

2007; Popp 2015; Bannelier-Christakis 2016), although they have generated a different degree of media coverage: the Syrian war has received a considerable amount of international media coverage, while the Yemeni conflict has gone practically unnoticed in media. Moreover, the two countries whose media coverage I analyzed, the United States and Saudi Arabia, were chosen as they are two of the main foreign intervening countries in both wars, so it is possible to compare their coverage of both conflicts.

In order to study the media coverage from these two intervening countries in the wars in Syria and Yemen, I analyzed the coverage by one newspaper and one television news channel from each country: The New York Times and the CNN from the United

States, and Okaz and Al-Arabiya from Saudi Arabia. All of them are representative print and televised media with large audiences – an elevated number of people who watch or read a given media discourse (Park 1982, 250) – and their stories often set the agenda for other media.

In the analysis, I studied the possible relationship between media coverage and foreign policymaking in two different phases of the conflicts – foreign military interventions and ceasefires promoted by these foreign powers – in order to discern if the possible media effect on policymaking differed in those periods. The periods that I analyzed were, in the case of Syria: the US and Saudi military interventions starting on

September 2014, the Saudi ceasefire on October 2015, and the US cessation of hostilities on February 2016. In the case of Yemen, I studied the period leading to the Operation

Decisive Storm led by Saudi Arabia in March 2015, the US first direct military action against Houthi targets on October 2016, and the US and Saudi ceasefires on November

2016. I selected these phases given that the concrete dates in which these foreign policy changes were established enabled an accurate selection of the media sample. With the goal of determining the relationship between US and Saudi media coverage and foreign policymaking towards the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, I performed a quantitative logistic regression analysis (LRA) of media coverage and foreign policy changes. In addition, I performed a comparative study between US and Saudi coverage of the interventions and ceasefires in each conflict, as well as a comparison between the coverage of Syrian and

Yemeni conflicts, using non-paired Student’s t-tests. These analyses provide a deep understanding of a possible differential coverage of each conflict and the media effects on their country of origin’s foreign policy towards these conflicts, as suggested by previous studies (Ragin 1998; Rubenzer 2008; Dekker and Scholten 2017). I complemented the results of these analyses with insights from distinguished journalists working in some of the studied media obtained through interviews.

Broadening and deepening the study of the impact that international media reporting has on the development of conflicts in the Middle East will provide a better understanding of the role that media and public opinion have on the foreign policies of countries intervening in this region. Specifically, it will clarify the influence and potential that media have on pushing for foreign military interventions and ceasefires in the Middle East. This could have an impact on the empowerment of the population worldwide to push for a change of controversial and increasingly militarist policies that have been established in the last decades in the region. This, in turn, will provide a new value to conflict resolution

approaches and a glimpse of how to improve foreign involvement in conflicts in the future.

This thesis is subdivided into five chapters. The first chapter provides an overview of previous research on this subject, starting when the “CNN effect” was coined during the

First Gulf War, and the media effect on foreign policymaking started being considered.

The second chapter explains the evolution of the case studies, the wars in Syria and

Yemen, from their onset to their shifting into civil wars, the beginning of the foreign interventions, and the current situation in these countries. It also details the main foreign policy changes of the intervening countries under study, the United States and Saudi

Arabia, towards these conflicts.

The third chapter details the methodology of the research for the present study. It specifies the selection of key events – the first military interventions and ceasefires led by the US and Saudi Arabia – in both conflicts and the reasoning behind choosing to analyze the coverage of the selected media. In addition, it details the content analysis variables used to analyze the US and Saudi media coverage. I analyzed a sample of 153 news items, focusing on media’s closeness to the conflict and the priming, framing, and political positioning of the news items. The chapter also explains the appropriateness of a quantitative logistic regression analysis and a quantitative comparative analysis.

The fourth chapter describes the main results of the study. The first section of the chapter presents the comparison, through a quantitative analysis, between US and Saudi media coverage of the selected events – interventions and ceasefires in Syria and Yemen – and the comparisons between the coverage of the wars in Syria and Yemen. In the second section, I present statistics from the quantitative analysis determining which of the studied variables may have had more influence on foreign policymaking.

In the fifth chapter I discuss the main findings of the study, comparing them with previous findings and complementing them with the interviews with two distinguished

journalists from the studied media: Eric Schmitt, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from The New York Times, and Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Al Arabiya’s Bureau

Chief in Washington, D.C.

This chapter is followed by the Conclusions of this thesis research and the further implications of the study’s findings. The first main conclusion of the study is that media coverage reflected the geopolitical interests of US and Saudi Arabia in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, respectively. Second, that there were similar traits in US and Saudi media coverage of the wars in Syria and Yemen, involving media criticism of policymaking, despite the fact that the former ones operate in a democratic context and the latter ones in an autocratic regime. Finally, my proposed model, focusing on some of the content analysis variables studied, predicts 40% of the variance in the dependent variable – military interventions or ceasefires – which suggests that the model is highly explanatory.

Chapter 1. Literature Review And Theoretical Framework

International Relations And Foreign Policymaking

International Relations theory is a discipline concerned with the explanation of historical events and processes, as well as with the examination of the concepts underlying our understanding of global affairs. The set of concepts in which it is based helps us to understand relations between states and societies (Halliday 2005, 21). The present thesis draws upon two key approaches of International Relations theory (Halliday 2005, 23):

Foreign Policy Analysis and Constructivism.

Foreign Policy Analysis (FPA), a perspective that emerged in the 1960s, is the examination and analysis of how foreign policy is formed. Despite considering the importance of states and systems, it questions the conventional realist approach of international relations – which focuses on states – considering that the role of states may be exaggerated. Thus, it seeks to go beyond this category, taking into consideration other factors – either domestic or external or their combination – that can come into play and shape foreign policymaking (Halliday 2005, 13 and 27-29). This involves getting away from the assumption that foreign policy is made by one-dimensional units, states or governments (Halliday 2005, 13) and, this way, FPA “provides a more complex, subtle, explanatory system and research agenda” (Halliday 2005, 30). However, “the FPA subfield is often seen as marginal to the “grand” IR theoretical debates” (Kaarbo 2015, 192).

Waltz’s structural realism, for example, insists on separating a theory of foreign policy from a theory of international politics. According to him, theories of foreign policy are oriented toward explaining discrete behaviors – or, as he put it, explaining “why state X made a certain move last Tuesday” (Waltz 1979, 121) – while IR theory would be more

oriented toward explaining systemic patterns (Kaarbo 2015, 194). Waltz considers that the main actors in IR are states coping in an anarchical international system, and that systemic factors play a key role in it – thus, suggesting that the focus should be on the behavior of states as unitary, rational actors, rather than what goes on inside them (Waltz 1979, quoted in Tamaki 2015, 90). However, authors such as Snyder, Bruck, and Sapin would oppose

Waltz’s separation of foreign policy and international relations. These scholars support a psychological approach to foreign policy, focusing on the policymaker’s personality and his or her definition of the situation (Snyder et al. 1962, 40-65; and Kaarbo 2015, 205). This psychological approach in FPA focuses on personality traits, leadership styles, analogies, framing effects, and threat perception, among others (Kaarbo 2015, 205). Snyder et al. also presented their own definition of decision-making: “[It] is a process which results in the selection from a socially defined, limited number of problematical, alternative projects of one project intended to bring about the particular future state of affairs envisaged by the decision-makers” (Snyder et al. 1962, 90).

As Hudson points out, FPA has “an actor-specific focus, based upon the argument that all that occurs between nations and across nations is grounded in human decision makers acting singly or in groups” (Hudson 2005, 1). With this focus on the agency of decision-makers, FPA also considers that how decision makers interpret and respond to the domestic and international environments is affected by a number of factors, such as psychological, societal, ideational, an political (Kaarbo 2015, 207). Halliday explains that

“in relatively open societies […] it is clear that a variety of institutions, pressures and points of view contribute to the formulation of foreign policy,” while “in more secretive, but factionalised states, particularly those where through oil revenues the boundaries between state and private, or family, interest are more than normally blurred, it is often hard to say

where the state, as originator of foreign policy, ends and private initiative begins.” Halliday puts Saudi Arabia as an example of this latter block, as in this country “the boundary lies between the policy of Saudi ministries and the initiative of individual princes and businessmen is difficult to assess” (Halliday 2005, 29). Nonetheless, the author asserts that foreign policy may also be affected by public opinion in authoritarian states (Halliday 2005,

30).

On the other hand, constructivism is an approach of international relations that highlights the role of meaning in world affairs (Lawson 2013, 28), and it is gaining momentum as an analytical approach to regional affairs (Lawson 2013, 30). Despite the fact that most studies that deal with conceptual questions of international relations are framed within structural realism, realism does not explain everything (Walt 1998, 43;

Lawson 2013, 36). Thus, a growing literature within Middle East studies draws inspiration from one branch or another of constructivism – as constructivist theories are diverse and do not offer a unified set of predictions (Walt 1998, 41; Lawson 2013, 36).

A common theme in the diverse constructivist theories is “the capacity of discourse to shape how political actors define themselves and their interests, and thus modify their behavior” (Walt 1998, 41). Thus, for them, the notion of discourse is a key element that

“lies at the heart of power” and it “stands at the core of the creation and recognition of threats” (Lawson 2013, 29). The concept of power still remains elusive in international relations theory; while some authors consider that power is centralized, others see it as widely diffused (Bachrach and Baratz 1962, 947). Among the latter ones, constructivists pay attention to prevailing discourses in society “because discourse reflects and shapes beliefs and interests, and establishes accepted norms of behavior” (Walt 1998, 40-41).

Constructivism emphasizes the impact of ideas (Walt 1998, 40) and, while there are

different types of ideas, the use of particular frames – ideas such as symbols and concepts – can help policymakers to legitimize policy decisions to the public (Campbell 1998, 385).

According to this theory, “material power must be combined with ‘discursive power’ in order to understand why some countries prevail while others do not” (Lawson 2013, 29).

Thus, discourse, for constructivists, not only refers to the language, rhetoric, and symbols that states use to express their identities or interests but also their practices to carry out their strategic objectives (Lawson 2013, 29).

Media And Foreign Policymaking

Despite media’s international role covering and informing citizens and policymakers about events worldwide and integrating international audiences to wars as well as to peace processes, the studies of international relations still fail to address comprehensively the role of media in international relations (Coban 2016, 45 and 47). The lack of a satisfying understanding and explanation of the role of communication and media in world affairs could be due, in part, to the abovementioned dominance of realism in international relations studies. Realism considers that the state is the main actor in the international arena and foreign policy is free of the influence of domestic factors such as the news media (Coban 2016, 46).

Nonetheless, the debate over the relationship between media coverage and foreign policymaking has been ongoing for at least half a century. Following the Vietnam war, foreign policy ceased to be an “elitist issue” as it was opened to many more players than policymakers, including media, which started challenging US policies in that conflict. This process was heading towards what Goldsborough calls “democratization of foreign policy”, and was accelerated by the end of the Cold War (Goldsborough 1997, 7-10). The live

reporting by the emerging CNN channel from Baghdad during the First Gulf War and the high visibility of the conflict it provided signaled that a new trend was taking place

(Robinson 2011, 3). That moment marked the emergence in academic circles of what has become known as the “CNN effect”, conceived as an increasingly influential role of media in politics through its alleged power to shape, modify or alter attitudes, and the possibility of becoming an agent of change (Watson 2008, 71).

This paradigm complements the theory of media “agenda-setting,” which states that media, through their selection of events to be covered, have the potential to establish which are considered important and which not. One of the greatest exponents of this theory was

Bernard C. Cohen, who in 1963 stated: “The press […] may not be successful much of the time in telling the people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about” (Cohen 1963, 13). On the one hand, “priming” addresses the impact of news coverage on the weight assigned to specific issues in making political judgments. In other words, the more prominent an issue is in the media, the greater its weight in people’s judgments (Iyengar and Kinder 1987, quoted in Iyengar and Simon 1993). On the other hand, media “framing,” which is known as “the second level of agenda setting,” is considered to be a mechanism of influence in which journalists use a frame of interpretation when presenting an issue to the public. Thus, they construct, select, and structure the information “to organize a particular reality in a meaningful manner for the public”

(Jasperson and El-Kikhia 2003, 113-114). “Media framing” was defined by Entman as selecting “some aspects of a perceived reality and mak[ing] 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” (Entman 1993, 52). As

Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon (2005) suggested, there might be an association between the

themes emphasized by the press during crises stages in a conflict, as the priority may be given to different arguments than during other phases of the conflict (Auerbach and Bloch-

Elkon 2005, 91). The use of certain words is also a way for journalists to show empathy or disapproval of foreign policies as part of media’s framing of the conflicts (Dimitrova and

Strömbäck 2008, 205). As Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon state, “the choice of vocabulary expresses a desire to impregnate the event with a particular significance by linking it to something familiar” (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 92).

In this line, the “CNN effect” was defined as a theory establishing that compelling television images from a humanitarian crisis can provoke major responses from domestic audiences, causing policymakers to intervene militarily in global events when it might otherwise not be in the country’s national interest, or forcing them to terminate the intervention once the military force suffers casualties or humiliation (Livingston and

Eachus 1995, 413; Neuman 1996, 15-16; Schorr 1998; Feist 2001, 713, all quoted in Gilboa

2005, 29; Robinson 1999, 301). This communications theory of international relations asserts that media networks have become a decisive actor in determining policies and outcomes of significant events (Gilboa 2005, 27), and concretely that the way in which they cover political process affects domestic as well as foreign policy issues (Norris 1997, 13).

At the end of the Gulf War, the impact of the new global and real-time media started to be considered substantial. This growing effect of media was enhanced by the advances in communication technology, which made it possible to broadcast live from anywhere on earth (Livingston 1997, 291). While in recent years there has also been the emergence of social media sites – such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube – which, remarkably during the Arab uprisings that were sparked in 2011 allowed activists to organize their movements and avoid media censorship and regulations in the Arab World (Duffy 2014, 1), some

authors consider that traditional media such as television channels and newspapers exert a strong influence on the foreign policy agenda. Especially those with high daily circulations, which means that their articles are carried by other newspapers and, on occasion, read by millions of readers around the nation and the world (Goldsborough 1997, 11). Thus, media have the potential to shape attitudes and opinions in international crises (Bloch-Elkon 2007,

21) and, under certain conditions, to influence the way the international events they cover develop and end (Gilboa 2009, 87).

The effect that media could have in foreign policies has been studied mainly regarding 24/7-broadcast television channels (Livingston 1997, 291; Norris 1997, 13;

Belknap 2002, 100; Watson 2008, 71; Robinson 2011, 3) as well as powerful traditional print media – newspapers (Goldsborough 1997, 11; Semetko and Valkenburg 2000, 97;

Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2008, 208; Hjarvard and Kristensen 2014, 52). Some studies have chosen to analyze media from opposing ideologies in a country; however, they were mainly focused on one country (Hjarvard and Kristensen 2014, 3). Moreover, as Gilboa states, many studies have highlighted the negative contributions of media to the escalation of violence; only few have dealt with its potential of conflict resolution (Gilboa 2009, 88).

Research into the effect of media on policymaking has reached contradictory conclusions (Robinson 2000). In parallel to the “CNN effect”, other theories have emerged on the relationship between media coverage and policymaking. The “CNN effect” theory opposes, for example, the “manufacturing consent” paradigm, which argues that media do not create policy but rather they are influenced – or even manipulated – by governments into supporting their policies (Robinson 1999, 301 and 303). Within this school of thought,

W. Lance Bennett incorporates the concept of “indexing”, arguing that media tend to

“index” the range of voices and viewpoints that appear in the news according to the range

of views expressed in the mainstream government debate about a certain issue – thus, only expressing the opinions that are already present in official circles while not publicizing popular opposition (Bennett 1990, 106; Robinson 1999, 304).

Robinson attributes the contradictory conclusions on the media-policymaking relationship to an over reliance on interview data and to a failure to employ a theoretical and systematic approach to the examination of media influence (Robinson 2000, 614).

Several studies have actually had difficulties demonstrating the causal effect of media coverage on policymaking (Christie 2006; Khalid and Said 2015). In order to overcome the limitations of previous research, Robinson developed a policy-media interaction mode, and concluded that media have an influence in policy when there are two factors in place: policy uncertainty and critical media framing (Robinson 2000, 613-614). On the one hand, policy uncertainty takes place when either there is no official policy regarding a particular foreign policy issue, the existing policy line changes frequently, or it is inconsistent given the government’s division among different approaches (Robinson 2000, 616-617). It opens the door for media to have an influence on policy. Robinson adds: “Interestingly, the idea of media influence when there exists policy uncertainty fits neatly with the elite version of manufacturing consent media theory” (Robinson 1999, 308). Thus, his model offers a way beyond the theoretical impasse between this theory and the “CNN effect” paradigm. On the other hand, media framing, which encompasses the specific properties of a narrative that may encourage people to develop specific understandings of certain events, can be empathic with suffering people – which implies criticism of the government, explicitly or implicitly – or emotionally distant – thus implicitly supportive of government policies

(Robinson 2000, 616). When there is media coverage critical of the government, policymakers can feel forced to intervene in a humanitarian crisis due to the media-driven

public pressure, given the fear of potential negative public reaction to government inaction

(Robinson 2000, 613-614). Policymakers’ action towards a distant conflict can be either a direct engagement in conflict resolution, influencing how belligerents conduct conflict, or the provision of humanitarian support to the victims of violence (Hawkins 2011, 56).

Otherwise, when there is policy certainty and a clear course of action, critical media coverage is unlikely to influence policy. Furthermore, in that situation policymakers will likely try to promote their chosen course of action through press briefings and announcements (Robinson 2000, 615).

In order to analyze the relationship between media coverage and a foreign policy response regarding a particular conflict, in the Arab world or elsewhere, it is necessary to pay attention to two relationships. The first one is the relationship between mass media coverage and public opinion. Given that media coverage is the principal means through which most individuals learn about foreign affairs events and about what policymakers are doing, it has a key role in reporting and interpreting those events for the public (Soroka

2003, 28; Bloch-Elkon 2007, 21). In this sense, Soroka considers that mass media content is the most likely source of changes in individuals’ foreign policy preferences (Soroka 2003,

42-43). A second relationship that must be considered is between the public opinion and foreign policy. Soroka points out that policymakers also follow media reports, but in this case on public opinion (Soroka 2003, 28). It is important to point out, nonetheless, that little research has examined the nexus between these two sets of relationships, and less so over an extended period of time. As stated by Bloch-Elkon (2007, 23), integrative models assessing the relationship between media, public, and policy, must be developed in order to understand the new international context.

However, since the 1990s there have been a growing number of studies attempting to establish integrative models of these three key variables (Soroka 2003, 28; Bloch-Elkon

2007, 20-21). Bloch-Elkon highlighted the idea that media may have different roles during the various stages of an international crisis. During the onset of a crisis, media’s role is of an adversarial watchdog towards the government. During its escalation, media tend to mobilize and support the government policy. Finally, during the de-escalation phase, media’s roles may vary depending on the outcomes. If there is a policy failure, media may become a watchdog again, while if there is a perceived success it will tend to show support towards the authorities (Bloch-Elkon 2007, 24-27).

The other side of the coin that must be addressed when considering media influence in foreign policies are the consequences of the imbalance in coverage of international conflicts. Hawkins (2011) examines the selectivity and disproportionate coverage by some media outlets of certain conflicts. This leads to the emergence of few chosen conflicts by the media that attract levels of coverage bordering on the obsessive, while the majority become stealth conflicts and are subject to a negligible, and at most sporadic, coverage.

Media coverage of international conflicts tends to be limited to those “culturally, geographically and psychologically close” (Hawkins 2011, 56). Thus, some regions tend to be particularly marginalized in international news. Africa has been the most affected by this trend, becoming the world’s least covered continent. This lack of attention by international media to particular conflicts can have substantially damaging consequences for the development of those crises (Hawkins 2011, 62). On these occasions, media are leaving some places and conflicts out of the agenda, making them invisible and not pushing governments to intervene. Considering the potential role of conflict resolution that media may have according to the theory of “agenda setting,” the fact that media keep some areas

or conflicts off the agenda would be the negative effect of this approach (McCombs 2004,

2; Coleman et al. 2009, 147).

Since the “CNN effect” concept was coined two decades ago, both the media and conflict environments have become multifaceted. With growing numbers and types of media sources, contemporary international responses to conflicts interact with multiple media narratives (Gilboa, et al. 2016, 654). As some authors state, given the contemporary geopolitical and technological context, the research on the relationship between foreign policy and media focusing on Western – mainly US – cases needs to be rectified (Gilboa, et al. 2016, 658). In this sense, the present study will contribute to the need of diversification, analyzing not only the US case but also the relationship between media and foreign policymaking in the regional context of the studied conflicts, focusing on Saudi Arabia.

The classical typology of media systems divides the world into democratic and authoritarian media systems – the former ones considered to allow freedom of opinion while the latter ones considered to introduce censorship. Some authors believe that this typology needs to be updated as those differences are not as clear-cut as they used to be:

“many authoritarian systems have been partly liberalized while Western democratic systems are developing traits of authoritarian systems […]; just remember the propagandist lies of the George W. Bush government during the war in Iraq 2003” (Hafez 2010, 2). In this thesis, I contribute to this debate through the analysis and comparison of the US and

Saudi media’s coverage of Middle Eastern conflicts. With the advance of new technologies, some authors, such as Gilboa, emphasize the importance of social media (Gilboa, et al.

2016) in the current coverage of events. Nonetheless, given that the cases studied in this thesis are civil wars, the focus has been on the traditionally considered significant news media: television networks and newspapers with noteworthy audiences. These media are

able to provide broader coverage of these conflicts to their national and international audiences.

As Dimitrova and Strömbäck state, “there are few studies comparing how news media in different countries covered the war. […] Comparative studies can enhance our understanding of the extent to which mass media are constrained by the national political environment of different countries” (Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2008, 204). There are even fewer studies that have contemplated the effect of media coverage in the two case studies analyzed here – Syria (2011-present), and Yemen (2015-present). In the case of Syria,

Werman (2015) analyzed the influence of media on the non-intervention in the country following a specific event – the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in 2013.

The author concluded that, in that particular case, the CNN effect was absent as the conditions established by Robinson’s model were not present (Werman 2015, 148 and 153).

Regarding the case of Yemen, Khalid and Said (2015) examined the Pakistani and the

United Arab Emirates’ print media coverage of the crisis in this country, but the authors did not conclude whether that coverage actually had an effect on foreign policymaking (Khalid and Said 2015, 27 and 30). These studies and their limitations confirm the relevance of using systematic methods, adequate tools, models and frameworks to investigate the relationship between media coverage and foreign policymaking (Gilboa 2007, 235).

In order to analyze the influence of media coverage on policymaking, previous studies have used content analysis of news items. As Savrum and Miller stated, “content analysis contributes to researching the role that the media play in influencing global affairs at multi-levels” (Savrum and Miller 2015, 5). Holsti, a pioneer in the use of content analysis to study media messages and political communications, asserted that it had proven to be a viable “technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically

identifying specified characteristics and messages” (Holsti 1968, 608, quoted in Savrum and Miller 2015, 5).

Chapter 2. Case Studies

The Syrian Civil War (2011-Present)

The Syrian civil war, which started in 2011 resulting from the Arab Spring, has provoked a deep humanitarian crisis. The death toll from the conflict, as of February 2016, was 470,000 (Human Rights Watch 2017). Recently, the ruthless bombing in besieged East

Ghouta in early 2018 has killed more than 1,000 people and wounded more than 4,800, as of March 7, leaving medical care in “complete collapse” (Doctors Without Borders, 2018).

Since 2011, over 5.4 million people have fled Syria seeking refuge abroad, there are currently 6.1 million internally displaced persons (IDPs), and 13.1 million people in need in the country. Also, 2.98 million people are in hard-to-reach and besieged areas (UNHCR

2017a).

The onset: an unpredicted uprising. Syria was initially unaffected by the demonstrations of what was called the Arab Spring, the mass protests that spread in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa calling for regime changes and democracy, becoming an unprecedented challenge for the authoritarian regimes of the region – in less than a year they led to the overthrow of four longstanding autocrats (Heydemann 2013, 71).

In fact, few thought that the uprising would spread to Syria (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014,

286). However, “popular protests on an unprecedented scale swept Syria after March

2011,” demanding social justice and equal opportunity (Daoudy 2016, 1074). Massive nonviolent protests started in the Syrian periphery, the villages, suburbs, and medium-sized cities. The uprising began in Der’a, an area that had formerly been a base of the Ba’th, but by 2011 it had been impoverished by the drought, an educated but unemployed youth, and new rural generations lacking land and connections (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 300).

Other centers of rebellion were Hama, Homs, and Deir ez-Zor, while the centers of powers and business – Damascus and Aleppo, respectively – remained relatively immune, although their suburbs were often breeding ground of revolt (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 300 and

302). From the outset, the uprising mobilized youth, who by then had limited or no stake in the status quo. The uprising was driven by networks of local committees that were in touch via cell phones and the Internet rather than a formal organization (Hinnebusch and Zintl

2014, 301).

Syria became immersed in turmoil as Syrians took the streets to demand the end of their authoritarian government. While the Syrian regime first responded with promises of reform, it quickly resorted to large-scale repression as its counterparts elsewhere. It soon became evident, with the degree of violence being used, that there would be “no possibility for a return to the status quo ante” (Heydemann and Leenders 2014, 3). The Assad regime relied on the support of Alawi core supporters in the security services and it demonized the opposition, indiscriminately classifying all demonstrators and the opposition to the government as foreign-led Jihadi and Islamic groups. This intensified the sectarian discourse on both sides. Many within the armed resistance turned to Islamic discourse to mobilize support, and over time Islamic militias would take the lead in the uprising, conquering areas in the north and north-east of Syria and imposing there “a practice of religion quite foreign to the country’s tradition of moderate and tolerant Islam” (Daoudy

2016, 1084). In turn, the regime’s “sloganeering of pro-Western Arab regimes, that of a

“fight against terrorism,” […] convinced many in the West that intervention would benefit

Islamic terrorism” (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 303).

The particularity of the Syrian uprising: a civil war. The uprising in Syria took a particular tangent in contrast to the other Arab uprisings: “the morphing of peaceful civil

resistance […] into violent civil war of an increasingly sectarian caste” (Hinnebusch and

Zintl 2014, 299). The initially peaceful demonstrations, asking for political reforms and not a regime change, faced violent repression by the regime, fearful of being overthrown as it had recently happened in Egypt and Tunisia, and the dreams of change and hope were transformed into a tragedy. That situation radicalized the situation in the country, turning it into an armed uprising with the help of arms supplies from neighbors and other regional countries (Daoudy 2016, 1074; Gupta 2016, 29-30; Belcastro 2017, 204). According to

Hinnebusch and Zintl, “the immediate origin of the descent into civil war was the regime’s

“security solution” to the challenge of civil resistance and its refusal to concede democratization as a legitimate way out of the crisis or to accept the opposition as a legitimate partner” (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 304). The regime turned its violence to indiscriminate striking of whole neighborhoods in small towns and suburbs to, first, deter the spreading of the uprising to the main cities and, second, to try to prevent the opposition from gaining control of parts of the country that could provide an opening for foreign intervention as in Libya (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 304). The Syrian government’s response demonstrated regime resilience, showing its willingness – and capacity – to press for its survival at any cost and by any means (Heydemann and Leenders 2014, 3-4).

The Free Syrian Army, the first military opposition group in Syria, was founded in

July of 2011 provoked by the regime’s escalation of violence, and some months later it carried out its first significant military actions as the opposition realized that nonviolence would not oust the regime and that foreign intervention was not coming (Hinnebusch and

Zintl 2014, 304; Belcastro 2017, 204-205). Militant insurgents opted for an “all-or-noting” solution and intensified the conflict, believing that they could only be safe if the regime was removed as, otherwise, the regime would seek revenge; the regime believed that an

opposition that favored an intervention by the “imperialist” enemies of Syria needed to be eliminated (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 304). By the end of 2012, the Syrian regime had lost control of wide parts of the territory, especially of the north and east of the country, and the conflict escalated into a civil war (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 307; Belcastro 2017,

204-205).

The regime had steadily escalated the violence, from tanks to fighter planes, to missiles, barrel bombs, and finally to chemical weapons, showing that it was ready to overstep all redlines (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 305). In March of 2013, rebels seized the city of Raqqah – the first provincial capital to fall out of government control – and several other opposition victories in the northeast followed. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime received military and intelligence support from Iran and Hezbollah, and political backing from

Russia. The Syrian opposition was increasingly backed by the US, Turkey, and some other

European and Arab Gulf states – each prioritizing their own interests and sometimes with cross purposes (Humud et al. 2017, 5). In April 2013, the UK and France reported to the

United Nations that there was evidence that the Assad government had used chemical weapons (CW) on several occasions since December 2012, and in August 2013 the US attributed a large-scale CW attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta to the Syrian regime.

Following that, President Obama requested congressional approval for the use of military force to respond. In September, Russia negotiated an agreement for the Syrian government to dispose of its CW stockpiles and destroy associated facilities in order to prevent a US military response (Humud et al. 2017, 6).

Meanwhile, numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees skyrocketed as the civilian population fled bombardment and a rapidly deteriorating food and medical situation. This left the field to the armed factions, and accelerated the shift from a civil

resistance to an armed struggle (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 305). The Syrian regime also lost control of wide areas of its territory to Kurdish fighters (Daoudy 2016, 1092). Since the hostilities started in 2011, the Kurdish population, located mainly in the north of Syria, have organized into three autonomous cantons that are largely self-governing, a situation that radically differs from the pre-2011 situation when Kurds suffered severe sociopolitical marginalization by the Syrian regime. Two of the main political and military entities governing these areas are the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s

Protection Units (YPG) (ARK 2016, 22).

In parallel to the increase in violence came a sectarianization of the conflict. The government chose to frame the conflict as a choice between stability and social peace or chaos and terrorists’ violence, and succeeded in infusing this sectarian dimension. In addition, parts of the opposition – whose initial strategy was to emphasize its nonsectarian and secular democratic character, in order not to scare the West and to mobilize the maximum civil resistance – seeing that their attempts to oust the regime failed, also had an incentive to sectarianize the conflict (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 305). “Hard-liners came to dominate on both sides, each more interested in destroying the other than in a peaceful solution” and, unable to prevail in the conflict each side further escalated violence, deepening the “security dilemma” (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 309).

This, in turn, opened the door to jihadists who saw sectarianizing Syria a great arena in which to regain the momentum they had lost when the Arab Spring seemed to produce nonviolent democratic transitions. This sectarian dynamic did not come out of nowhere, however; it had its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood’s opposition to the Ba’th regime since the 1960s and reinforced with their insurgency or uprising in the 1980s – in which terrorist violence against ‘Alawites faced massive regime violence, especially at Hama. However,

the Islamist challenge now was “much more potent than in the 1980s” (Hinnebusch and

Zintl 2014, 306). Later on, there was a “shift of power within the opposition to Islamist hard-liners,” which deepened the polarization of the conflict (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014,

306). In early 2012 several Islamist militias were formed, such as the Al-Nusra Front, once

Al-Qaeda’s branch in the country although later on would cut ties with its leader Ayman al-

Zawahiri, and Ahrar Al-Sham (Belcastro 2017, 204-205; Lister 2017). Radical Islamist forces such as ISIS were quickly advancing in 2013 and 2014 (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014,

310). In June 2014, the Islamic State declared the establishment of a caliphate in areas of both Syria and Iraq, and thousands of foreign fighters traveled to these countries to join the terrorist group (Humud et al. 2017, 6).

A regional war, a proxy war. The war in Syria has been characterized by the interference of external countries providing support to different sides of the conflict, both at the regional and international levels. Only a few months after the start of the uprising in

Syria, virtually all regional states had become involved in the country’s civil war, either by supporting proxy groups or by directly attacking targets, thus “making it a regional war as much as a civil war” (Belcastro 2017, 205). Once the uprising began, Turkey – which had been once an Assad ally – played a key role organizing and hosting the opposition. Also, founders from the Gulf states, especially Saudis and Qataris, founded and armed the insurgents (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 307-308). Saudi Arabia started providing support to Syrian insurgents in the spring of 2012, a decision not only fueled by anti-Iranian geopolitical calculations and a struggle for domestic legitimacy, but also, at first, by an anti-Islamist stance – after the growing influence of factions tied to the Muslim

Brotherhood (Pierret 2016, 23). On the other hand, Iran’s support for the regime was very relevant, providing key financial resources, assistance in electronic warfare, and support

forming and training pro-regime militias on the model of the revolutionary guard. In addition, Iraq provided Syria with cheap oil and declined to isolate the regime. By early

2013 Hezbollah also intervened with special forces to help the regime (Hinnebusch and

Zintl 2014, 308).

To sum up, at the regional level, the Iran-Hezbollah and the Saudi-Qatari blocks checkmated each other (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014, 310). External funding from Arab Gulf states intensified the Islamization of the armed insurgency in Syria. The alliances that were formed – the Syrian regime depending on Iran, Hezbollah and Iraq, opposed to Saudi

Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – followed a regional discourse of Shia against Sunni. Thus, the sectarian identity in the Syrian war “emerged from geopolitical games” (Daoudy 2016,

1084).

In the international arena, the West proved unwilling to intervene militarily for a long time. Even after Assad’s regime used chemical weapons in August 2013, clearly overstepping the US President Obama’s announced redline (Hinnebusch and Zintl 2014,

308), Obama was reluctant to put boots on the ground in Syria (Gupta 2016, 34). However, in August 2014, the US began airstrikes in Iraq to stop ISIS’ territorial advance, and in

September 2014 it expanded airstrikes to Syria (Humud et al. 2017, 6). Saudi Arabia was an initial participant in the airstrikes targeting the group (ARK 2016, 27). Some months later, during summer 2015, after the Syrian government faced several territorial losses, Russia began an increasing buildup of Russian personnel, combat aircraft, and military equipment in Syria. In September, Russia began its military intervention in Syria through airstrikes, on behalf of the Syrian government (Humud et al. 2017, 6-7). This “renewed Cold War scenario of US-Russian rivalry” which “blocked a breakthrough by either side on the

ground or a diplomatic resolution favoring one side over the other” (Hinnebusch and Zintl

2014, 310).

In October 2015, at the Vienna talks, which gathered many countries including

Saudi Arabia, an agreement was reached to seek a ceasefire in Syria. Only few days before the meeting took place, Saudi Arabia was “refusing to sit in the same room with the

Iranians” (Sanger, 2015). Later on, in 2016, the US and Russia attempted to implement a joint diplomatic initiative for a cessation of hostilities between pro-government and opposition forces twice – the first one in February, and the second in September – in order to reduce the violence in Syria. However, both initiatives were unsuccessful (Humud et al.

2017, 7 and 11).

The Yemeni Civil War (2015-Present)

Meanwhile, a “forgotten war” continues to rage in the Republic of Yemen (Amnesty

International 2015). The Yemeni civil war, which started in 2015, has received much less international attention than the Syrian conflict, despite the humanitarian crisis it is suffering

(Nußberger 2017, 119). As of November 2017, at least 5,295 civilians had been killed – although the actual civilian casualty count is believed to be much higher – and 8,873 were wounded (Human Rights Watch 2018). In addition, 22.2 million people – more than the

80% of Yemen’s population – are in need of humanitarian assistance (Nußberger 2017,

119; UNOCHA 2018, 17). 190,352 Yemenis were reported to have arrived to other countries in the region, as of October 31, 2017 (UNHCR 2017b). However, “only particularly gruesome incidents, like the terrorist attacks on a Shiite mosque in Sana’a or the air strike by Saudi Arabia killing at least 78 civilians, have gained international attention” (Nußberger 2017, 110-111).

The onset: a delayed consequence of the uprisings. Although the civil war in

Yemen started in 2015, some authors have argued that the roots of the current conflict are connected with the Arab Spring revolt. Although the civil war in Yemen has been labeled by some, including Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Cooperation Council partners as well as mainstream media, as a sectarian proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, according to

Perkins this narrative fails to acknowledge the trajectory of Yemen’s Arab Spring revolt

(Perkins 2017, 300). Nonetheless, proxy features have taken place through Saudi Arabia and Iran’s intervention and support to opposing actors in the conflict – although they were arguably not the origin of the current conflict. The uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt also invigorated Yemen’s long-marginalized youth (Perkins 2017, 300). In 2011, millions of

Yemenis from all demographics joined what became known as the Youth Movement and

demonstrated in the streets and public squares in Sana’a, Taiz, Aden, and other cities and towns, “confronting the few strongmen who had ruled Yemen for three decades” (Perkins

2017, 310). This would lead to “the greatest bottom-up threat to President Ali Abdullah

Saleh the Republic of Yemen had ever seen” (Perkins 2017, 300). The Arab Spring in

Yemen demonstrated the collective mobilization of a mass-based movement intending to overthrow the existing government and maybe even the entire social order, thus, according to Perkins, resembling a “social revolution” (Perkins 2017, 310). The Houthi movement from the north of the country that emerged as a resistance to Saleh and his corruption in the

1990s led by a charismatic leader, Hussein al Houthi, after whom they were named. The

Houthis are Zaydi, a minority community of Shiites, substantially different in doctrine and beliefs from the Shiites who dominate in Iran and Iraq (Riedel, 2017). Since the early 2000s the insurgent group has fought for more religious autonomy and political participation

(Nußberger 2017, 111-113), and they found, in the Arab Spring, “a new outlet for its discontent after defending its heartland against the state during six destructive wars between 2004 and 2010” (Perkins 2017, 300).

Once the protest movement reached critical mass, cooptation became a less viable strategy by the state to control dissent. As a consequence, the Saleh’s regime resorted to brutal counterrevolutionary measures. Snipers shot and killed 50 peaceful protesters from rooftops near the Change Square1 on 18 March 2011, provoking elite-level defections from the regime (Perkins 2017, 310). The protest movement in Yemen severely disrupted the economic activity of the country, as oil production stalled, imports slowed and the water crisis worsened during the revolutionary struggle. As a consequence, the access to

1 The Youth Movement, comprised mostly of urban youth from 15 to 30 years old, had peacefully organized in an area that they called “Change Square” near the University of Sana’a (Perkins 2017, 310).

electricity, fuel, and water dwindled across the country (Perkins 2017, 310).

Institutionalized political actors and tribal leaders who once were the base of Saleh’s patronage network began supporting the Yemeni revolt. Saudi Arabia and the GCC, backed by the US, “usurped the revolutionary movement in May by announcing an agreement in which Saleh would cede authority in exchange for immunity” (Perkins 2017, 311). The former President Saleh agreed upon a political transition process, an initiative by the Gulf

Cooperation Council (GCC) divided in two phases: Saleh’s delegation of power to the then

Vice-President Hadi, and a comprehensive all-inclusive national dialogue that would culminate with the drafting of a constitution to be submitted to a referendum and followed by Presidential elections (Nußberger 2017, 111-113). Following those steps, on 23

November 2011, Saleh relinquished the presidency to his former vice president, Abd

Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who would lead the transitional National Dialogue Conference

(NDC) (Perkins 2017, 311). Saleh stepped down and Hadi was elected President on 21

February 2012. The Yemeni process was labeled as a “model process” (Nußberger 2017,

114). Saleh, despite no longer president, remained in Yemen as head of the General

People’s Congress (GPC) (Perkins 2017, 300).

The shift towards a civil war. During the second phase of the political transition process, however, there were violent clashes between different tribal forces and the government (Nußberger 2017, 114). In November 2014, the Houthis resorted to militaristic tactics and expanded their territorial control, seizing control of the Yemeni capital Sana’a and other main cities, and occupied nearly every government facility (Nußberger 2017,

114; Perkins 2017, 311). Despite attempts to end violence and revive the transitional process, the Houthis did not withdraw from the conquered territory and eventually put the government, including President Hadi, under house arrest. This situation led to President

Hadi announcing his resignation on January 22, 2015 (Nußberger 2017, 114-116; Perkins

2017, 311). The Houthis dissolved the Parliament and established a Presidential Council to run the country temporarily. Many states denounced their unilateral action, condemning it as a “coup d’état” (Nußberger 2017, 116).

The “Houthi coup” marked a shift away from the opposition led by peaceful protesters in favor of social revolution to one driven by violent and more experienced political actors (Perkins 2017, 312). After the Houthis seized control of Sana’a, “revolution seemingly became regression, with the state collapsing into competing power centers”

(Perkins 2017, 300). On 21 February 2015, Hadi escaped Houthi-imposed house arrest and fled to Aden, attempting to restore the government: he declared Aden the temporary capital, revoked his resignation and gathered an anti-Houthi alliance (Nußberger 2017, 117; Perkins

2017, 312). The Houthis followed, capturing town after town with destruction on the way to Aden (Perkins 2017, 311-312). However, support for the Houthis decreased when it became apparent that they had aligned with Saleh. Eventually, the NDC devolved into “a stalemated revolutionary civil war” (Perkins 2017, 312).

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the Islamic State (ISIS) took advantage of the political instability and gained control of areas in the west of the country (Nußberger 2017, 117). AQAP, which has been in Yemen since the early 1990s and was described by the US government as the most dangerous affiliate of Al Qaeda, established a “mini-state” of more than 350 miles of coastline (Laub 2016; Nußberger

2017, 117). The militants of the Islamic State have portrayed their campaign in Yemen in sectarian terms, considering the Houthi campaign as an invasion from Iran. However, the group has not gained as many followers in Yemen – considered to be hundreds – as Al

Qaeda has – considered to be thousands (Laub 2016).

A regional war, a proxy war. Once the Houthis reached Aden, the ousted Abd

Rabuh Mansour Hadi took refuge in Saudi Arabia, from where he requested help on March

24: “I therefore appeal to you [GCC states] …to provide immediate support in every form and take the necessary measures, including military intervention, to protect Yemen and its people from the ongoing Houthi aggression, […] and help Yemen to confront Al-Qaida and

Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant” (President Hadi, quoted in Nußberger 2017, 117-118).

On 26 March 2015, a broad coalition of ten countries led by Saudi Arabia responded to his request launching Operation Decisive Storm, starting airstrikes and imposing a naval blockade in Yemen (Nußberger 2017, 118). This operation had the goal to restore Hadi, who had been “widely recognized as legitimate transitional President of Yemen,” into power (Nußberger 2017, 111). The conflict with the Houthis, and the perceived Iranian backing of that movement, had prompted the armed intervention by the Saudi-led coalition.

However, as mentioned, the origins of the current civil war may be traced to the widespread peaceful protests demanding political reforms during the Arab Spring, as in the case of

Syria (Laub 2016; Nußberger 2017, 111-113). The United States backed the Saudi-led coalition, along with the United Kingdom and France, providing logistical and intelligence assistance, surveillance support, and weapons – by being the largest provider of arms to

Saudi Arabia (Laub 2016; Nußberger 2017, 118). Nonetheless, US officials have pressed

Saudi Arabia for restraint, claiming that the intensity of the bombing campaign was damaging shared political goals. The US interests include the maintenance of stability in

Yemen and security for Saudi borders, as well as the transit of 4.7 million barrels of oil per day between the Arabian and Red Seas and a government in Sana’a that cooperates with

US counterterrorism measures (Laub 2016).

In addition, on October 12, 2016, the US military launched cruise missile attacks in areas of Yemen controlled by Houthi forces. This attack, authorized by President Obama, was claimed to be a retaliation following failed missile attacks the previous week on a US

Navy destroyer, and became the US’ first direct military action against suspected Houthi- controlled target in the Yemeni conflict. However, the Pentagon stressed the limited nature of the strikes, claiming that they were aimed at a radar that had enabled the launch of missiles against the US Navy ship USS Mason (Stewart 2016). Thus, the type of intervention was different in nature to the US-led coalition attack in Syria in 2014.

On November 19, 2016, the Saudi-led coalition declared a 48-hour ceasefire. Some days before, the US Secretary of State John Kerry had said that the coalition and the

Houthis had agreed on a ceasefire, as the US government was trying to end the fighting in

Yemen before Barack Obama left office. There had been previous attempts to establish a ceasefire in Yemen, sponsored by the UN, that had ended in disagreement (BBC 2016; The

Guardian 2016).

Chapter 3. Methodology

Case Studies

This project examines the degree to which international media coverage of conflicts in the Middle East may influence the foreign policies of the intervening countries. The study focuses on two Middle Eastern conflicts: the Syrian civil war (2011-present), and the

Yemeni civil war (2015-present). These two cases have been chosen, firstly, as being representative of current conflicts in the region that have experienced foreign military interventions (Popp 2015; Bannelier-Christakis 2016) by the same actors, the United States

(US) and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), as has been explained in detail in Chapter 2.

Secondly, they have been chosen because they have received a different degree of international media coverage: while the former one has been intensively covered, the latter one has gone practically unnoticed in international media. Thus, given that the two conflicts share some similarities but also have important differences regarding their experiences with foreign intervention and media coverage, the analysis will provide a relevant and solid ground for the comparison of the effects of media coverage, which will help answer the research questions.

The studied events are eight periods of these conflicts where there was a change in foreign policy by the intervening powers, the US and the KSA: one main foreign intervention as well as one ceasefire or cessation of hostilities in each conflict pushed by two of the main intervening powers. It will not be, thus, an exhaustive analysis of all events taking place during these conflicts but a representative selection of key events that involved dramatic foreign policy changes from the intervening countries in these civil wars. The selection of these two types of key moments follows previous studies’ division of conflicts

in escalation and de-escalation phases (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 89; Bloch-Elkon

2007, 26-27) and their mapping of significant events in each. Interventions are the peak moments of escalation phases, and ceasefires are the peak of de-escalations. In addition, this selection is based on an expected contrast between media criticism of foreign policies in the case of interventions and media calls for ceasefires and their reinforcement once they are taking place through humanitarian rhetoric. Taking all this into consideration, the events that have been selected in each conflict are the following:

Table 1. Selected events

Conflict Event type Dates and Description Syria 1. US-led intervention Starting on September 22, 2014 (U.S. Department of Defense, 23 September 2014) 2. KSA intervention Starting on September 22, 2014 (Reuters, 23 September 2014) 3. US ceasefire Cessation of hostilities with Russia, starting on February 26, 2016 (U.S. Department of State, 22 February 2016) 4. KSA ceasefire Starting on October 30, 2015 (The New York Times, 30 October 2015) Yemen 5. US intervention US’ first direct military action against Houthi targets, on October 12, 2016 (Reuters, 12 October 2016) 6. KSA-led intervention Operation Decisive Storm, starting on March 26, 2015 (BBC, 26 March 2015) 7. US-led ceasefire Starting on November 17, 2016 (The Huffington Post, 15 November 2016) 8. KSA ceasefire Starting on November 19, 2016 (BBC, 19 November 2016)

Sample Selection

As it has been outlined in the literature review, the influence of media in foreign policies has been studied mainly regarding 24/7-broadcast television channels and powerful traditional print media (newspapers). Following this model, the selected media for the present study are one newspaper and one television channel from each intervening country

– the US and Saudi Arabia – with a substantial daily circulation or number of viewers, respectively (Table 2).

Table 2. Selected media

Intervening countries Selected media Average weekday circulation or viewers / website visitors United States of America (US) The New York Times - Print circulation2: 650,000 (Sept. 2014) - Website3: 54 million unique visitors (Jan. 2015) CNN - Cable news median daily viewership4: 453,000 (2014) - Website5: 101,540,000 unique visitors (January 2015) Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Okaz - Print circulation6: 107,614 Al-Arabiya - Viewers in Saudi Arabian households (estimated)7: 678,760

The fact that these media have high circulation rates (newspapers) and audience size

(television channels), makes them influential in setting the tone for coverage in their respective countries (Papacharissi and Oliveira 2008, 59). The higher the circulation rates and audiences, the higher the likelihood to influence public opinion and, in turn, foreign policies (Bloch-Elkon 2007, 34). For the comparative purposes in the present study, choosing the most read and watched media in each country will provide equivalent data to analyze the media influence in foreign policies. In addition, it is considered that elite media such as The New York Times are incontestably the main sources for US’ foreign policy decision-makers (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 85).

2 Pew Research Center 2015, 31. 3 Idem. 4 Ibid, 33. 5 Ibid, 11. 6 Press Reference: “Saudi Arabia”. 7 Allied Media Corp.: “Al Arabiya TV”.

Data Analysis

The unit of analysis. In order to analyze the media coverage of these events in the two conflicts under study, the units of analysis are individual and complete news articles from newspapers and transcriptions of broadcast television news. Editorials and opinion pieces have been excluded from the present study – although other studies focused on editorial and commentary articles (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 89). The main goal here is to analyze how daily journalistic news coverage of events can have an influence in foreign policy, rather than to examine explicitly partisan pieces which sometimes are from the media’s outsiders. Thus, this selection will allow the examination of how television and newspapers behaved in reporting the two conflicts.

The selected time frame is approximately two weeks before the decisions to intervene in the studied conflicts took place. Thus, the news items analyzed were published or broadcasted in the two weeks before the decisions on foreign policy changes were made public. This time frame was chosen, following the approach of previous studies, to reflect the immediate media background preceding the foreign policy changes. Gilboa, in his analysis of the CNN effect, stated that in July 1991 the US President was forced to reconsider his withdrawal of troops from Iraq within a two-week period, following the impact of what Americans and Europeans were seeing on television – Saddam Hussein’s atrocities to stop the Kurdish rebellion in the aftermath of the Gulf War (Gilboa 2005). In addition, the selection of a short period of time preceding the foreign policy changes in the present study was based on previous studies on media’s effect on foreign policymaking.

Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon, for their analysis of the US foreign policy in Bosnia (1992-95) studied one week before the events took place (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 89). Also, it was based on the argument by Robinson that media influence is likely to occur when

policy is uncertain and media coverage is critically framed (Robinson 2000, 617), as it is considered that in the few weeks preceding the foreign policy changes there was this policy uncertainty and thus it made the period valid for this study.

A daily report from Monday to Friday has been analyzed from the media of the countries involved in each event. In some cases, when there was not a daily coverage of the conflict, the time series of analysis has been extended in time in order to get 10 media cases in each analyzed period8. This selected time series follows the methodology adopted by previous studies (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 89; Bloch-Elkon 2007, 29; Robinson et al. 2009, 680; Hjarvard and Kristensen 2014, 53) and will ensure the inclusion of relevant media coverage of these events before they took place. The focus on analyzing the samples preceding the date in which the foreign policy decisions were made also follows previous studies’ approach (Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2008, 209; Hjarvard and Kristensen 2014, 3).

This represents a total sample of 153 news items for the coverage of all selected events in the two conflicts – 80 news items covering the war in Syria, and 73 covering Yemen (See

Appendix A).

The selected media were accessed through different sources. The articles from the two analyzed newspapers, The New York Times and Okaz, were accessed directly through their websites as the articles were fully accessible there, while the transcripts of the two television channels were accessed through electronic databases – Lexis-Nexis Academic in the case of the CNN, and Factiva in the case of Al-Arabiya – based on keyword searches

(Soroka 2002, 2003; Dimitrova and Strömbäck 2008, 209; Baum 2013). The selected news samples from Saudi media – Okaz and Al-Arabiya – have been translated from Modern

Standard Arabic into English through the Middle East Institute.

8 In two of the analyzed periods there was not enough media coverage to reach a selection of 10 samples.

In the case of the Syrian conflict, Table 3 details the periods in which news samples from the selected media were analyzed.

Table 3. Syrian conflict: dates

War in Syria Event Dates decisions were public Dates analyzed 1. US intervention September 10, 2014, by US President a) The New York Times: August 28, 2014 – Obama (The White House, 10 September 10, 2014 September 2014) b) CNN: August 28, 2014 – September 10, 2014 2. KSA intervention September 14, 2014 (The Guardian, a) Okaz: September 1, 2014 – September 14 September 2014) 12, 2014 b) Al-Arabiya: August 28, 2014 – September 12, 2014 3. US cessation February 11, 2016. Munich Statement a) The New York Times: January 29, 2016 of hostilities of the International Syria Support – February 11, 2016 with Russia Group (ISSG) (United Nations b) CNN: January 29, 2016 – February 11, Secretary-General, 11 February 2016) 2016 4. KSA ceasefire October 23, 2015. Meetings in a) Okaz: October 9, 2015 – October 23, Vienna that led to an agreement on 2015 th October 30 (The New York Times, b) Al-Arabiya: September 21, 2015 – 23 October 2015) October 23, 2015

US and Saudi US cessation Saudi ceasefire intervention hostilities (Sept 22, 2014) (Oct 30, 2015) (Feb 26, 2016)

Saudi decision to intervene US decision to (Sept 14, 2014) Saudi decision to start ceasefire start ceasefire US decision to intervene (Feb 11, 2016) (Oct 23, 2015) (Sept 10, 2014)

2011 – Start revolution Present Period analysis Period analysis US media Saudi media

Period analysis Period analysis Saudi media US media

Figure 1. Evolution of the Syrian conflict (2011-present)

In order to show where the selected periods of analysis stand in the timeline of the

Syrian conflict, particularly in relation to the actual US and Saudi interventions and ceasefires, Figure 1 represents graphically these periods.

In the case of Yemen, the analyzed periods are detailed in Table 4. In order to show where the periods of analysis stand in the timeline of the Yemeni conflict, particularly in relation to the US and Saudi interventions and ceasefires, Figure 2 represents these periods graphically. As it can be seen, in clear contrast with the Syrian war, in the case of Yemen most of the foreign interventions’ decisions were made public at the same time they took place, without previous announcements.

Table 4. Yemeni conflict: dates

War in Yemen Event Dates decisions were public Dates analyzed 5. US intervention October 12, 2016. The decision to a) The New York Times: September 29, intervene was made public the same 2016 – October 12, 2016 day it took place, following attacks b) CNN: August 15, 2016 – October 12, on a US Navy Ship (Reuters, 12 2016 October 2016) 6. KSA intervention March 26, 2015. The decision to a) Okaz: March 12, 2015 – March 26, 2015 intervene was made public the same b) Al-Arabiya: February 27, 2015 – March day it started (BBC, 26 March 2015) 26, 2015 7. US ceasefire November 15, 2016 (Reuters, 15 a) The New York Times: October 13, 2016 November 2016) – November 14, 20169 b) CNN: October 17, 2016 – November 2, 201610 8. KSA ceasefire November 19, 2016. The unilateral a) Okaz: November 7, 2016 – November decision was made public the same 18, 2016 day the ceasefire started (BBC, 19 b) Al-Arabiya: October 17, 2016 – November 2016) November 16, 2016

9 In this time period, only 9 articles from The New York Times were available. 10 In this time period, only 4 broadcast transcripts from the CNN were available.

Saudi intervention US intervention US ceasefire (Nov 17, 2016) (Mar 26, 2015) (Oct 12, 2016)

Saudi decision US decision to intervene to intervene US decision Saudi ceasefire to start ceasefire (Nov 19, 2016) (Nov 15, 2016)

2015 – Start war Present Period analysis Period analysis Saudi media US media

Period analysis Period analysis US media Saudi media

Figure 2. Evolution of the Yemeni conflict (2015-present)

Content analysis. In order to examine the media framing of the studied events, a qualitative content analysis has been conducted, following the approach of previous studies

(Ragin 1998). A total of 10 variables were analyzed in each of the news items, with the goal of observing patterns of media coverage of the periods leading to interventions and ceasefires in Syria and Yemen. These variables have been classified in four blocks, considering the closeness to the conflict, and the priming, framing, and political positioning

of the news items. In this section I explain the variables in detail (See Appendix B).

Media’s closeness to the conflict

Location of the media coverage. Closeness of the war reporting to the conflicts themselves provides access to a broader range of firsthand sources, proximity to the events, as well as distance from the political bias of the media’s country of origin. Thus, in order to study whether and how media coverage may influence foreign policymaking it is important to analyze whether journalists are reporting about Middle Eastern conflicts directly from

the ground. To do so, I analyzed whether journalists from the selected media have covered the events from:

(a) The country in conflict – “the Ground”;

(b) Other countries in the Middle East or North Africa (MENA) – relatively close to the conflicts;

(c) International – any other country, excluding the ones above and the media’s country of origin, the US and Saudi Arabia respectively;

(d) The Newsroom – the media’s country of origin. Those news items that did not specify the author’s presence in any of the abovementioned locations were considered to have been written or broadcasted from the newsroom.

Authorship of the news items. The authorship of the news items published or broadcasted by the selected media – whether it was firsthand or second-hand information – also may influence the kind of reporting about the conflicts, as previously suggested

(Robinson 2009, 679-681). For this reason, I analyzed whether the authors of the news samples have been:

(a) Journalists working in the selected media;

(b) News agencies (e.g. Associated Press, Reuters, Saudi Press Agency);

Types of sources. In order to analyze whether the coverage of the wars in Syria and

Yemen has been balanced and accurate in relation to the developments on the ground, it is key to study the types of sources used by international media in their reporting. The analysis of sources provides an insight into whose voice narrated the coverage of the war as well as what actors were given less attention, as other authors have pointed out (Robinson

2009, 685). In order to do this analysis, the sources used in the studied news items have been divided between:

(a) Sources from the media’s country of origin –including state institutions

(politicians, military, intelligence agencies, etc.), civilians, experts and media;

(b) Sources from the country in conflict –including the government, the opposition, civilians and terrorists;

(d) Other international sources, such as international media and experts.

Priming and hierarchy of the news. Priming can involve factors such as the section in which the news appear – national or international affairs, etc. – and its physical positioning in the media – i.e. newspaper’s front page or television’s prime time – as well as its length – a longer news item shows a higher interest towards that issue, as suggested by several authors (Robinson 2000, 619; Fitzsimmons 2007, 20; Khalid and Said 2015, 28;

Vliegenthart et al. 2016, 289). In order to examine the attention or omission of the selected events in the studied media, the following variables were analyzed:

Section. The section in which the news items appeared in the different media has been taken into consideration. The studied categories are the following, based on the section that was specified in the news items:

(a) World/Middle East;

(b) Politics (national);

(d) Unknown/Non-applicable – in the occasions when news items did not specify

the section in which they had been published or broadcasted.

Physical positioning. The physical positioning of the news items was also studied.

This was evaluated, in the case of the newspapers, in terms of their physical page positioning – this is, their appearance in the front page or not. In the case of the television channels, the relevance that the news were given was assessed in terms of whether they were broadcasted in prime time or not, following previous studies (Fitzsimmons 2007, 20;

Khalid and Said 2015, 28; Vliegenthart et al. 2016, 289). The news items that did not specify either their presence on the front page or their appearance in prime time were considered as Non-Applicable.

Length of the news items. The length of the news items was also analyzed, following previous studies (Khalid and Said 2015, 28). Despite that the studied media differed in terms of their format – broadcasted news items and newspapers’ articles – the unit of analysis was the same for all media: the number of words used, either in newspapers’ articles or in television transcripts. The use of a similar metric to analyze media makes the results equivalent, so the comparison between them becomes possible.

Nonetheless, the length of news items was categorized separately for each of the four analyzed media, given the substantial differences in average length between them. This allows us to examine the relative space that a particular media allocated for an item in relation to the length that it regularly allocates for news. The length of the news items was divided into three categories – short, medium and long – for each of the studied media:

o The New York Times: articles’ average of 820 words

§ Short articles: < 720 words

§ Medium length articles: 721-920 words

§ Long articles: > 921 words

o CNN: news items’ average of 595 words

§ Short articles: < 495 words

§ Medium length articles: 496-695 words

§ Long articles: > 696 words

o Okaz: articles’ average of 290 words

§ Short articles: < 215 words

§ Medium length articles: 215-365 words

§ Long articles: > 365 words

o Al-Arabiya: news items’ average of 280 words

§ Short articles: < 205 words

§ Medium length articles: 205-355 words

§ Long articles: > 355 words

Media frames and themes. Media’s use of certain themes, descriptors and specific words in order to influence the audience also was analyzed in order to examine whether they have prioritized some argumentations or visions of the conflict.

Main Themes. In order to identify the most relevant themes of the media coverage in the selected news samples, following a similar classification scheme as previous authors

(Bernard and Ryan 1998, 614; Ryan and Bernard 2003, 88 and 103; Auerbach and Bloch-

Elkon 2005, 85), the main themes that were identified in the cases are the following:

(a) Security/Terror: when the news items focus on the existence of threatening terrorist groups – such as ISIS, Al-Qaeda or the Al-Nusra Front – or the activity of militias that threaten the security and stability of the region;

(b) Humanitarian crisis: when the news items focus on the famine, deaths, deprivation of water and electricity or waves of refugees caused by the conflicts;

(c) Conflict resolution/Peace: when the news items focus on the local, regional or international efforts to solve the war, which may be either successful or failed efforts.

(d) Other themes.

Words’ choice. As the use of certain words is also a way for journalists to show empathy or disapproval of foreign policies, I have studied the types of words used by the selected media in the selected news items – both in the headlines and body of the news items – in order to determine which ones predominated. Following the analysis, I divided them in three main categories, regarding the main issue these words made reference to:

(a) Military intervention/Security – excluding terrorism;

(b) Ceasefire/Peace;

Media’s political positioning. I analyzed the news items’ overall political positioning in order to examine whether they were critical or supportive of their countries of origin’s foreign policies. I analyzed both the positioning of the headlines and of the bodies of the news items, in order to see whether through their coverage of the wars in

Syria and Yemen media pushed for a military intervention or for the establishment of a ceasefire.

Political positioning of the headlines. The political positioning of the news’ headlines towards the coming changes in foreign policies, following previous studies

(Bloch-Elkon 2007, 30; Savrum and Miller 2015, 6), has been classified in three main blocks:

(a) Positive/empathic: the headlines favored the coming foreign policy change;

(b) Neutral: the headlines did not position themselves politically, or were a direct quotation of some of the actors in the conflict;

Political positioning of the body of the news items. The political positioning of the body of the news towards the coming change in foreign policy was classified using the following scale, as suggested by previous studies (Robinson 2000, 614-617; Auerbach and

Bloch-Elkon 2005, 89; Bloch-Elkon 2007, 30):

(a) In favor (Pro): the news items clearly favored the coming policy change;

(b) Pro with reservations: the items favored the change in foreign policy but showed some hesitation (i.e. exposing some drawbacks or negative consequences of those policies);

(c) Neutral/balanced: the news items provided a balanced coverage, mentioning opposing arguments of the different sides of the conflict in an equal manner;

(d) Contrary with reservations: the news items were contrary to the change in foreign policy but provided some argument in favor or some beneficial consequence of it;

(e) Contrary (Anti): the samples clearly opposed the coming foreign policy change.

Interviews

The content analysis will be complemented with the insights from two interviews with highly distinguished journalists from two of the media analyzed in the study, The New

York Times and Al Arabiya, who have covered the events in Syria or Yemen.

The first interview I performed (on August 16th, 2017) was with Eric Schmitt, a twice Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist from The New York Times. Schmitt is a senior writer that has covered conflicts in the Middle East for decades, including the current wars in

Syria and Yemen, and focuses on terrorism and national security. The second interview I performed (on February 20th, 2018) was with Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Al Arabiya’s

Bureau Chief in Washington, D.C. Bilbassy-Charters has been a foreign correspondent in the Middle East and has experience covering the Syrian conflict, from where she reported until January 2012.

These interviews act as a member check to assess the credibility of the study, as the findings of this qualitative study are compared and contrasted with the first-hand insights of the professionals who are covering these topics on the ground (Hoffart, 1991, quoted in

Hoffart and Cobb 2002, 171). In addition, they provide backstage information regarding the kind of coverage that these conflicts receive, including constraints journalists may face during their coverage. They can also provide insight into the attention that some of these conflicts have received in media while others have been neglected. In agreement with

Hallin and Manccini (2004), analyzing how journalists function in practice when they cover conflicts – how they make decisions, process information, and coordinate activities – is highly relevant when studying media coverage.

Quantitative Statistical Analysis

Student’s t-test. In order to perform a comparison between the US and Saudi media coverage of the four studied periods – the two US and Saudi military interventions in Syria and Yemen, and the two ceasefires pushed by these powers in these conflicts – and the comparison between how the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts were covered, I performed non- paired Student’s t-tests. The level of significance was considered p < .05 indicating that the difference of means (expressed as %) compared was statistically significant. The Student’s t-test was performed using the Staview II software for Macintosh.

Logistic regression analysis. In order to assess the effect of media coverage on US and Saudi foreign policies, I performed a binary logistic regression analysis (LRA) to determine which of the studied variables related to media coverage may predict US and

Saudi foreign policy changes towards the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts – either pushing for military interventions or ceasefires. The LRA was performed using the IBM SPSS software.

As a prior step before performing the LRA, I examined the statistical significance of the variables for the 153 news items selected. To that end, I calculated the Pearson Chi-

Square for the crosstabulation of each independent variable and the dependent variables. I then selected the independent variables that were statistically significant to perform the

LRA. The level of significance was considered p ≤ .05 and, given that this study is a media analysis, it is also considered that a Chi-Square significance between p = .05 and p = .10 is approaching statistical significance.

The LRA is a predictive statistical method that is useful to explain the relationship between one or more independent variables and one dependent (dichotomous) variable: the changes in foreign policy coded as 1 (intervention) or 0 (ceasefire) (Pohlman and Leitner

2003). Due to the binomial character of the dependent variable, it was not possible to perform the ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis. The goal of LRA is to find the best fitting model to describe the relationship between the dichotomous dependent variable, or outcome, and the set of independent (predictor) variables. The interest is to predict whether a set of variables fall into one or the other category of the dependent variable. This is, to try to find out whether a set of the studied variables related to media coverage can predict a foreign policy outcome – a military intervention or a ceasefire.

Logistic regression generates coefficients that can be used to compute which independent variables appear to be the best predictors of the dependent variable (outcome).

The logistic regression equation is expressed as:

logit (y) = a + b1x1 + b2x2 + . . . + bkxk

In this equation, logit (y) is the probability of presence of the characteristic of interest; a is the constant; and b represents the logistic regression coefficients. They represent the odds associated with each independent variable that can be used to predict the probability of a conditional outcome, in this case military intervention or ceasefire.

Chapter 4. Results

In this chapter, I first describe the results of the comparison study between US and

Saudi media coverage and between the coverage of Syria and Yemen, obtained through

Student’s t-test. A summary of the more relevant findings of these two comparisons follows the description of the results.

Secondly, I will address the results of the study regarding the effect of media coverage on foreign policymaking, obtained through a logistic regression analysis (LRA) preceded by a Chi-Square test. The key findings on the effect of media coverage are highlighted following the description of the results.

Media Coverage Comparisons

Description of the results. In this section I present the results of the comparison between US media coverage – including the CNN and The New York Times – and Saudi media coverage – Al Arabiya and Okaz – of the two conflicts studied based on the content analysis variables analyzed. In addition, I provide a comparative between how the conflicts in Syria and Yemen have been covered in relation to each of the variables studied.

Media’s closeness to the conflict

Location of the media coverage. Regarding the location of the media coverage, I analyzed from where the journalists that were the authors of the news items had reported the news. The four variables I studied were: Ground (when the journalist reported from the country in conflict, this is Syria or Yemen), MENA (the journalist reported from another country in the region of Middle East or North Africa), Newsroom (reported from the

country where the media is originally from, this is the United States or Saudi Arabia), and

International (from any other country excluding the abovementioned ones).

a) American and Saudi coverage. Both US and Saudi media covered the conflicts in

Syria and Yemen mostly from the newsrooms. Their coverage from the ground and from the MENA region was mostly low.

The results show, however, that US media covered these conflicts from international locations more often than Saudi media, especially preceding the ceasefire in Syria. In that period, 30% more of US news items than Saudi news items were covered from international locations (Table 5). This observation was also present in the media coverage of the Yemeni conflict, although it did not achieve statistical significance.

Saudi media, on the other hand, covered the wars from the newsroom more often than US media, also especially before the ceasefire in Syria – which Saudi media covered from the newsroom in 40% more of the news items than US media (Table 5). This observation was also present in the media coverage of the Yemeni conflict, although it did not achieve statistical significance.

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. The different levels of coverage from the ground in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts are remarkable. Yemen was covered from the ground in

21% more of the news items than Syria, which was almost uncovered from the ground – in

1% of the items (Table 5). Conversely, international coverage was generally reported more frequently in Syria than in Yemen – in 21% more of the news items (Table 5).

Regarding the coverage from the newsroom and from the MENA region, no significant differences were observed between the coverage of Syria and Yemen.

Table 5. Comparison results: Location of the media coverage

Period Location media US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items)

Syria Ground 0 0 0 – intervention MENA 5 20 15 .1594

International 20 20 0 –

Newsroom 75 65 10 .5027

Syria Ground 5 0 5 .3236 ceasefire MENA 15 10 5 .6429

Comparison International* 50 20 30 .0481 US-Saudi media Newsroom* 30 70 40 .0105 Yemen Ground 25 25 0 – intervention MENA 10 10 0 – International 15 0 15 .0749 Newsroom 50 65 15 .350 Yemen Ground 31 10 21 .139 ceasefire MENA 8 15 7 .545 International 8 5 3 .7606 Newsroom 54 70 16 .3615

Location Syria Yemen Difference p value

journalist (% items) (% items) (% items)

Comparison Ground*** 1 22 21 .0001 Syrian-Yemeni conflicts MENA 12 11 1 .7694 International*** 28 7 21 .0007 Newsroom 60 60 0 –

Note: * p < .05; *** p < .001

Authorship of the news items. Regarding the authorship of the news items, I analyzed who were the authors of the news items taking into account three variables: Media

(when the author was a journalist working for the studied media), News Agency (when the authorship was from a news agency external to the studied media), and Expert (when the author was an expert individual external to the media).

a) American and Saudi coverage. Both US and Saudi media covered the conflicts in

Syria and Yemen mainly through their own journalists. The use of experts external to the media was minimal.

The results show, however, that US and Saudi media differed in their use of their own journalists to cover Syria and Yemen. Saudi media covered the Yemeni conflict more through their own journalists, especially in the period leading to the intervention in Yemen.

In that period, Saudi media used their own journalists to cover 50% more of the news items than US media (Table 6). However, in the case of Syria the pattern was the opposite – US media covered it more often than Saudi media through their own journalists, although the difference was not statistically significant.

The use of news agencies to cover the conflicts in Syria and Yemen was also different in US and Saudi media, but in the opposite way. Saudi media, in this case, used news agencies to cover Syria more often than US media did – 20% of the news items more in the coverage of the intervention and 15% more in the ceasefire (Table 6). In fact, US media did not use news agencies in any of the news items covering the Syrian war. In the coverage of Yemen, this pattern was reversed, and US media used news agencies for its coverage more often than Saudi media – in the period preceding the intervention in Syria,

40% more of the US news items were from news agencies (Table 6).

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. US and Saudi media covered both the Syrian and

Yemeni conflicts mostly through their own journalists. Nonetheless, the use of own journalists was more pronounced in the coverage of the Syrian war – 18% more of the news items (Table 6).

Conversely, the use of news agencies for the news coverage was more abundant –

13% more of the news items (Table 6) – in the coverage of Yemen. The coverage of the

Yemeni conflict had, in general, a more diversified authorship, as the authors of some news items were external experts – although the percentage was low, constituting 3% of the total news items (Table 6).

Table 6. Comparison results: Authorship of the news items

Period Authorship US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items) Syria Media 100 85 15 .0749 intervention News Agency* 0 20 20 .0356

Expert 0 0 0 – Syria Media 100 85 15 .0749 Comparison ceasefire News Agency* 0 15 15 .0356 US-Saudi media Expert 0 0 0 – Yemen Media*** 50 100 50 .0001 intervention News Agency*** 40 0 40 .0001 Expert 10 0 10 .1544 Yemen Media 69 80 11 .496 ceasefire News Agency 31 20 11 – Expert 0 0 0 –

Authorship Syria Yemen Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items)

Comparison Media* 93 75 18 .0034 Syrian-Yemeni conflicts News Agency* 9 22 13 .0228 Expert 0 3 3 .138

Note: * p < .05; *** p < .001

Types of sources. Regarding the types of sources, I analyzed the sources quoted in the news items taking in account four variables: Country of origin of the media (sources from either the US or Saudi Arabia), Country in conflict (sources from either Syria or

Yemen), International political entities, and Other international sources.

a) American and Saudi coverage. Both US and Saudi media used similar types of sources, although to a different extent – US media generally used all of them in a higher

proportion. Thus, for all four variables the differences between US and Saudi media coverage were statistically significant.

First, sources from the country of origin of the media were quoted more often in US news items than in Saudi ones. This tendency was especially accentuated in the coverage of the intervention in Syria, when US media used sources from their country in 45% more of the news items (Table 7).

Second, sources from the country in conflict were also generally quoted more often in US news items. This was especially the case in the coverage preceding the ceasefire in

Syria, when this type of sources was used in 70% more of the US news items than in Saudi ones (Table 7).

Third, US news items quoted international political entities as sources more often than Saudi news items in most of the periods. This difference with Saudi media was especially remarkable preceding the ceasefire in Syria, when 55% more of the US news items used this type of sources; the intervention in Yemen, in 35% more of the news items; and the ceasefire in Yemen, in 39% more of the news items (Table 7).

Finally, other international sources were more used by US media in two of the periods, in which this difference with Saudi media was also statistically significant.

Preceding the ceasefire in Syria, these sources were quoted in 40% more of the US news items than in Saudi ones; and preceding the intervention in Yemen, in 45% more of the news items (Table 7).

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. Similar types of sources were quoted in the coverage of both the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts; the slight differences that were found were not statistically significant (Table 7).

Table 7. Comparison results: Types of sources

Period Types of sources US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items) Syria Country origin 80 35 45 .0032 intervention media** Country in conflict 10 10 0 – International political 40 50 10 .5372 entities Other international 20 40 20 .1761 sources Syria Country origin media 60 50 10 .5372 ceasefire Country in 80 10 70 .0001 conflict*** International political 100 45 55 .0001 Comparison entities*** US-Saudi Other international 50 10 40 .0049 media sources** Yemen Country origin media 50 40 10 .5372 intervention Country in conflict 45 25 20 .1941 International political 60 25 35 .025 entities* Other international 60 15 45 .0025 sources** Yemen Country origin media 69 35 34 .0569 ceasefire Country in conflict 38 55 17 .3687 International political 69 30 39 .0269 entities* Other international 15 25 10 .5242 sources

Types of sources Syria Yemen Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items)

Comparison Country origin media 56 47 9 .2344 Syrian-Yemeni conflicts Country in conflict 28 41 13 .0771 International political 59 44 15 .0659 entities Other international 30 30 0 – sources

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

Priming and hierarchy of the news

Section. Regarding the priming and hierarchy of news, I analyzed the section of the media in which the news items had been published or broadcasted. The four variables that I

studied were: news items’ presence in the section World/Middle East, in Politics, in Other sections, or Non-Applicable.

Throughout the content analysis, all the news items from Saudi media were considered Non-Applicable regarding their section, given that they did not specify in what section they were published. As a result, no statistical comparison could be made between

Saudi and the US media regarding the section of the media.

Physical positioning of the news items. Regarding the priming and hierarchy of news, I analyzed the positioning of the news items within the selected media. I studied whether they were positioned in the front pages or not, in the case of the newspapers, and whether they were broadcasted in prime time or not, in case of the television news items.

Nonetheless, as happened with the analysis of the section, all the news items from

Saudi media were considered Non-Applicable regarding their physical positioning, given that the news items did not specify it. As a result, no comparison could be made between

Saudi and US media regarding the positioning of the news items.

Length of the news items. Regarding the priming and hierarchy of news, I analyzed the length of the news items. I studied separately the length of the headlines and the bodies of the news items, and divided both into three blocks – Short, Medium, and Long.

a) American and Saudi coverage. Regarding the length of the headlines of the analyzed news items, there were remarkable differences between US and Saudi media. US media showed more medium-sized headlines, while Saudi media showed longer headlines, especially in their coverage of the Yemeni conflict. Preceding the intervention in Yemen,

US media had 30% more of the news items with medium-sized headlines, while Saudi media had 30% more with longer headlines; and preceding the ceasefire in Yemen, the

difference was of 37% more in each case (Table 8). The use of short headlines was minimal by both US and Saudi media.

Table 8. Comparison results: Length of the news items

Period Length US KSA Difference p value news (% items) (% items) (% items) Syria Headline Short 5 0 5 .3236 intervention Medium 65 55 10 .5309

Long 30 45 15 .3398 Body Short 45 25 20 .1941 Medium 30 45 15 .3398

Long 25 30 5 .7315 Syria Headline Short 5 5 0 – ceasefire Medium 70 40 30 .0587

Long 25 55 30 .0547 Body Short 25 45 20 .1941 Comparison Medium 25 40 15 .3236 US-Saudi media Long* 50 15 35 .0176 Yemen Headline Short 0 0 0 – intervention Medium* 80 50 30 .0481 Long* 20 50 30 .0481 Body Short* 45 15 30 .0392 Medium 25 45 20 .1941 Long 30 40 10 .5197 Yemen Headline Short 0 0 0 – ceasefire Medium* 77 40 37 .0382 Long* 23 60 37 .0382 Body Short 62 50 12 .5304 Medium 15 45 30 .0823 Long 23 5 18 .1277

Length Syria Yemen Difference p value news (% items) (% items) (% items)

Headline Short 4 0 4 .0959 Medium 57 60 3 .7298 Comparison Syrian- Long 39 40 1 .9025 Yemeni Body Short 35 41 6 .4409 conflicts Medium 35 34 1 .9227 Long 30 25 5 .4628

Note: * p < .05

Regarding the length of the body of the news items, US media tended to publish or broadcast shorter news items than Saudi media in most of the studied periods. This pattern was especially remarkable in the coverage of the intervention in Yemen, where there were

30% more US than Saudi short news items (Table 8). The only exception in which US media used longer news items was in the coverage of the Syrian ceasefire. In that period, there were 35% more US than Saudi news items that were long (Table 8).

In addition, in all periods there were more medium-sized Saudi than US news items, but these differences were not statistically significant. Finally, Saudi media tended to publish and broadcast more medium-long news items preceding interventions, and more medium-short news items preceding ceasefires.

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. No substantial differences were observed in the coverage of the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts regarding the size of the headlines or bodies of the news items (Table 8).

Media frames and themes

Main Themes. Regarding the media frames, I first analyzed the main themes emphasized in the news samples, taking into account four themes: Security/Terror,

Humanitarian crisis, Conflict resolution/Peace, and Other themes.

a) American and Saudi coverage. The most remarkable differences between US and

Saudi media coverage regarding their emphasis of certain themes was found in their coverage of the intervention in Yemen. In that period, US media emphasized more the theme humanitarian crisis – in 50% more of the US news items than Saudi media, which actually did not emphasize that theme in any of the news items in that period (Table 9) – a pattern that was also observed, to a lesser degree, in the remaining periods. However, also preceding the intervention in Yemen, Saudi media emphasized other themes – in 65% more

of the news items (Table 9). Within the category Others, the most common themes emphasized in Saudi coverage were: “preservation of status quo,” “freedom,” and “Iran”.

No statistically significant differences were found between US and Saudi coverage regarding their emphasis of Security/Terror and Conflict resolution/Peace themes (Table 9).

Table 9. Comparison results: Main Themes

Period Main theme US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items) Syria Security / Terror 80 70 10 .478 intervention Humanitarian crisis 10 5 5 .5602

Conflict resolution / 0 0 0 – Peace

Others 10 25 15 .2221

Syria Security / Terror 5 15 10 .304 ceasefire Humanitarian crisis 35 15 20 .1516 Conflict resolution / 40 60 20 .216 Comparison Peace US-Saudi Others 20 10 10 .3888 media Yemen Security / Terror 30 15 15 .2675 intervention Humanitarian crisis*** 50 0 50 .0001 Conflict resolution / 5 5 0 – Peace Others*** 15 80 65 .0001 Yemen Security / Terror 8 5 3 .7606 ceasefire Humanitarian crisis 23 10 13 .3211 Conflict resolution / 31 50 19 .2892 Peace Others 38 35 3 .846

Main theme Syria Yemen Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items)

Security / Terror*** 42 15 27 .0002 Comparison Humanitarian crisis 16 21 5 .4955 Syrian-Yemeni conflicts Conflict resolution / 25 22 3 .656 Peace Others*** 16 42 26 .0003

Note: *** p < .001

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. It is remarkable that the theme security/terror was more emphasized in the coverage of Syria – 27% more of the news items than in the coverage of Yemen (Table 9) – especially preceding the interventions in that country.

On the other hand, in the coverage of Yemen media focused on a variety of themes under the umbrella of the variable Others – 26% more of the news items than in the coverage of Syria (Table 9) – also especially preceding the intervention.

The difference in the use of themes humanitarian crisis and conflict resolution/peace between the coverage of the two wars was not statistically significant (Table 9).

Words’ choice. Also in relation to the media frames, I analyzed the choice of words made by the selected media, both in the headlines and the bodies of the news items. I considered three main variables, in which I classified: 1) the words that made reference to

Military intervention/Security, 2) those that referred to Ceasefire/Peace, and 3) those that were directly referring to Terrorism.

a) American and Saudi coverage. Regarding the choice of words in the news items’ headlines, the first substantial difference between US and Saudi coverage was that US media used words relating to a ceasefire/peace more often in all periods. This was especially remarkable preceding the ceasefire in Syria, when these words appeared in 40% more of US than Saudi news items (Table 10). A second key difference between US and

Saudi media regarding their choice of words in the headlines was US media’s higher tendency to use words referring to military intervention/security in all periods. This was statistically significant preceding the intervention in Yemen, when US media used these words in 50% more of the news items (Table 10). Finally, the use of words related to terrorism in the news items’ headlines did not have a statistically significant difference, indicating a similar use of these terms by US and Saudi media (Table 10).

Regarding the choice of words in the news items’ bodies, the most remarkable difference between US and Saudi media coverage was regarding the use of words referring to ceasefire/peace. The use of these words, similar to what was observed in the headlines, tended to be higher in US media in most periods, but it was especially so preceding the intervention in Yemen. In that period, words related to ceasefire/peace appeared in 30% more of US than Saudi the news items (Table 10). There were no statistically significant differences in the use of words referring to terrorism and military intervention/security, indicating a similar US and Saudi media use of these terms in the news items (Table 10).

Table 10. Comparison results: Types of words in the news items

Period Words used US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (% items) Syria Headline Military interv. / 55 50 5 .759 interv. Security Ceasefire/Peace 10 5 5 .5602

Terrorism 60 60 0 – Body Military interv. / 100 95 5 .3236 Security Ceasefire/Peace 75 60 5 .3236

Comparison Terrorism 95 90 5 .5602 US-Saudi media Syria Headline Military interv. / 65 45 20 .2136 cease. Security Ceasefire/Peace* 65 25 40 .0101 Terrorism 5 0 5 .3236 Body Military interv. / 100 90 10 .1544 Security Ceasefire/Peace 100 100 0 – Terrorism 80 60 20 .1761 Yemen Headline Military interv. / 70 20 50 .001 interv. Security** Ceasefire/Peace 25 20 5 .7136 Terrorism 10 5 5 .5602

Table 10 (cont.)

Period Words used US KSA Difference p value (% items) (% items) (%items) Yemen Body Military interv. / 100 85 15 .0749 interv. Security Ceasefire/Peace* 90 60 30 .0285

Comparison Terrorism 50 50 0 – US-Saudi Yemen Headline Military interv. / 54 50 4 .8354 media cease. Security Ceasefire/Peace 54 45 9 .6322 Terrorism 0 0 0 – Body Military interv. / 100 100 0 – Security Ceasefire/Peace 100 85 15 .1522 Terrorism 23 25 2 .9036

Words used Syria Yemen Difference p value (% items) (% items) (%items)

Headline Military interv. / 54 48 6 .4764 Security Ceasefire/Peace 26 34 8 .2843 Comparison Syrian- Terrorism*** 31 4 27 .0001 Yemeni Body Military interv. / 96 96 0 – conflicts Security Ceasefire/Peace 84 82 2 .7993 Terrorism*** 81 38 43 .0001

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. The main difference between the coverage of

Syria and Yemen, in this case, was regarding the use of words referring to terrorism. In the headlines, these words were used in 27% more of the news items covering Syria than in those covering Yemen. And, in the bodies of the news items, words referring to terrorism were present in 43% more of the news items on Syria (Table 10). Words related to terrorism were used especially often preceding the interventions in the Syrian war.

No relevant differences were observed in the coverage of Syria and Yemen regarding the use of words referring to military intervention/security nor ceasefire/peace – neither in the news items’ headlines nor in the bodies of the news (Table 10). It is worth to mention, however, that words referring to military intervention/security were the most used in the coverage of both conflicts.

Media’s political positioning

Political positioning of the headlines and bodies of the news items. I analyzed the political positioning of both the headlines and the bodies of the news items in regards to the coming change in foreign policy by either the US or Saudi Arabia, that is, the interventions or ceasefires in Syria and Yemen.

Regarding the headlines, I studied three main variables: 1) Positive/empathic

(towards the following foreign policy change), 2) Neutral, and 3) Negative/critical. In the case of the news items’ bodies, I studied five variables: 1) In favor, 2) Pro with reservations

(in case that the news items showed to be in favor of the foreign policy change but showed some hesitations or critical points), 3) Neutral (providing a balanced view of the following foreign policy change), 4) Contrary with reservations, and 5) Contrary.

a) American and Saudi coverage. The headlines of the news items, both by US and

Saudi media, were predominantly neutral in most periods. However, Saudi media had a higher percentage of neutral headlines in all studied phases of the conflicts, especially preceding the ceasefire in Syria. In that period, there were 50% more Saudi than US news items with neutral headlines (Table 11). On the other hand, US media tended to have more positive headlines towards the following foreign policy changes in most periods. This trend was especially accentuated preceding the ceasefire in Syria, when 50% more of US than

Saudi news items had positive headlines (Table 11). It is also worth to mention that the use

of critical headlines was minimal by both US and Saudi media, but while the former ones used them in some occasions preceding the interventions, the latter ones did not use critical headlines at all. However, this difference was not statistically significant.

On the other hand, regarding the political positioning of the news samples’ bodies, the first difference was that Saudi media tended to publish and broadcast slightly more news items in favor of the following foreign policy changes – with the only exception of the ceasefire in Syria. This difference was especially significant preceding the intervention in Yemen, when 20% more of the Saudi news items were in favor of that foreign policy change (Table 11). Second, US media had more news items than Saudi media classified as pro with reservations in all periods. This difference was remarkable preceding the ceasefire in Syria – when there were 30% more US than Saudi news items considered to be pro with reservations – the intervention in Yemen – there were 25% more US news items classified as such – and the ceasefire in Yemen – 34% more of the news items (Table 11). Third,

Saudi media had more news items classified as neutral in most periods, but this was especially significant preceding the ceasefire in Syria, when there were 40% more Saudi than US news items positioned as such (Table 11). Finally, no statistically significant differences were found between US and Saudi media coverage regarding the presence of news items considered contrary with reservations or contrary towards the following foreign policy changes (Table 11).

b) Coverage of Syria and Yemen. Most of the headlines covering both Syria and

Yemen were classified as neutral. The main difference in the coverage of the two wars was that in the coverage of Syria there were 16% more news items classified as positive/empathic towards the US and Saudi foreign policies in the country (Table 11).

Critical headlines were slightly more present in the coverage of Yemen, although the difference was not statistically significant.

Table 11. Comparison results: Political positioning of the news items

Period Political US KSA Difference p value positioning (% items) (% items) (% items)

Syria Headline Positive/empathic 30 20 10 .478 interv. Neutral 65 80 15 .3002

Negative/critical 5 0 5 .3236 Body In favor 30 40 10 .5197

Pro with 40 15 25 .0802 reservations Neutral 25 45 20 .1941 Contrary with 5 0 5 .3236 Comparison reservations US-Saudi Contrary 0 0 0 – media Syria Headline Positive/ 60 10 50 .0005 cease. empathic*** Neutral*** 40 90 50 .0005 Negative/critical 0 0 0 – Body In favor 60 40 20 .216 Pro with 35 5 30 .0171 reservations* Neutral** 5 45 40 .0027 Contrary with 0 5 5 .3236 reservations Contrary 0 5 5 .3236 Yemen Headline Positive/empathic 15 15 0 – interv. Neutral 70 85 15 .2675 Negative/critical 15 0 15 .0749 Body In favor* 0 20 20 .0356 Pro with 30 5 25 .0382 reservations* Neutral 40 40 0 – Contrary with 10 15 5 .6429 reservations Contrary 20 20 0 –

Table 11 (cont.)

Period Political US KSA Difference p value positioning (% items) (% items) (%items) Yemen Headline Positive/empathic 23 5 18 .1277 cease. Neutral 77 95 18 .1277

Comparison Negative/critical 0 0 0 – US-Saudi Body In favor 15 20 5 .7465 media Pro with 54 20 34 .0453 reservations* Neutral 31 45 14 .4295 Contrary with 0 5 5 .4288 reservations Contrary 0 10 10 .253

Political Syria Yemen Difference p value positioning (% items) (% items) (%items)

Headline Positive/empathic 30 14 16 .0153 * Comparison Neutral 69 82 13 .0551 Syrian- Negative/critical 1 4 3 .2712 Yemeni conflicts Body In favor*** 42 14 28 .0001 Pro with 24 25 1 .8967 reservations Neutral 30 40 10 .2092 Contrary with 3 8 5 .1139 reservations Contrary* 1 14 13 .0027

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

Regarding the body of the news items, the key finding of the comparison was that there was more media criticism in the coverage of Yemen, especially preceding the interventions in the country – 13% more of the news items covering that conflict were critical towards the US and Saudi foreign policy changes, in comparison with the coverage of Syria (Table 11). Conversely, the news items covering Syria were remarkably more in favor of the foreign policy changes affecting that conflict – 28% more of the news items on

Syria were classified as being in favor, in comparison with the items covering Yemen

(Table 11). There were no statistically significant differences in the presence of news items being classified as pro with reservations, neutral, or contrary with reservations (Table 11).

Findings of the study of media coverage comparisons. The key findings of the two comparisons for each of the ten variables analyzed are as follows. First, regarding the

Location of media coverage, when comparing US and Saudi media, the first finding was that both covered Syria and Yemen mostly from the newsrooms, and less from the ground and the MENA region. Also, US media covered the wars more often from international locations, while Saudi media covered them more often from the newsroom. When comparing the coverage of the wars in Syria and Yemen, the latter was more covered from the ground, while in Syria this location was almost absent and international coverage was predominant.

Second, in regards to the Authorship of the news items, both US and Saudi media covered the conflicts mainly through their own journalists. Nonetheless, Saudi media covered Yemen more through their own journalists, while US media did so in the coverage of Syria. conversely, Saudi media used news agencies more often to cover Syria, while US did so in their coverage of Yemen. Concerning the comparison between Syria and Yemen, the use of journalists from US and Saudi media was more pronounced in the coverage of

Syria, while news agencies were more used to report on Yemen.

Third, the analysis of the sources used revealed that US and Saudi media used similar types of sources, but US media generally used them in a higher proportion – they quoted more often sources from the media’s country of origin (the US), from the countries in conflict, international political entities, and other international sources. The differences between the coverage of Syria and Yemen, in this case, were not statistically significant.

Fourth, no statistical comparisons could be made regarding the section in which the news items were published, as the Saudi news items did not specify this information.

Fifth, as happened with the analysis of the section, no comparison could be made regarding the physical positioning of the news items for the same reason mentioned above.

Sixth, concerning the length of the news items, US media showed more medium- sized headlines, while Saudi media had longer headlines – especially in the coverage of

Yemen. Regarding the body of the news items, US media tended to use shorter items, with the only exception of the reporting on the Syrian ceasefire. Saudi media tended to show longer news items preceding military interventions. No substantial differences were found when comparing the coverage of Syria and Yemen.

Seventh, regarding the main themes being emphasized, US media emphasized more often the theme humanitarian crisis, especially when covering the intervention in Yemen. In that period, Saudi media emphasized other themes, among which: the “preservation of status quo,” “freedom,” and “Iran”. When comparing Syria and Yemen, the theme security/terror was more present in the reporting on the former conflict, while in the coverage of Yemen other themes were predominant.

Eight, the words’ choice was also different for US and Saudi media. US media used more often words related to ceasefire/peace and to military intervention/security in the headlines. In the news items’ bodies, US media also used more often words referring to ceasefire/peace in most periods. A key difference between the coverage of Syria and

Yemen was that words referring to terrorism, both in the headlines and in the bodies of the news items, were used more often when covering Syria.

Finally, regarding the political positioning of the news items, the findings showed that most headlines, both from US and Saudi media, were neutral. However, while Saudi

media had more neutral headlines in all phases, US tended to have more positive headlines.

Regarding the body of the news items, Saudi media tended to publish slightly more items in favor of the following foreign policy changes, and US media had more items being pro with reservations. Also, Saudi media had more news items classified as neutral in most periods.

When comparing Syria and Yemen, most headlines were again mostly neutral, but there were more positive/empathic headlines towards the following foreign policy changes in

Syria. The key finding regarding the body of the news items was that there was more criticism in the coverage of Yemen, while more news items in favor of the foreign policy changes were present in the coverage of Syria.

Effect Of Media Coverage On Foreign Policymaking

In this section I present the results of my study regarding media’s coverage effect on foreign policymaking. I analyze the variables predicting periods of intervention and ceasefire in my whole sample of 153 news items. In this section I first proceed to detail the results of the Chi-Square analysis, and later on I provide the results of the logistic regression analysis (LRA) in my study sample.

Selection of variables for the study on media’s effect (Chi-Square analysis).

Regarding the media’s closeness to the conflict, the three variables analyzed were statistically significant. First, concerning the Location of media coverage, both the reporting from the ground and from international locations were statistically significant.

Reporting from the ground varied from being absent in the intervention in Syria to being present in 25% of the news items in the intervention in Yemen (Table 12). The coverage from international locations varied from being used in 6.1% of the news items in the ceasefire in Yemen to 35% of the news items in the ceasefire in Syria (Table 12).

Second, regarding the Authorship of the news items, the coverage from journalists from the own media was statistically significant, varying from being used in 75% of the news items in the coverage of the intervention in Yemen to 92.5% of the items covering

Syria (Table 12).

Third, the findings related to the Types of sources showed that the use of sources from the country in conflict and from international political entities were statistically significant. The former ones were used in 10% of the news items in the coverage of the intervention in Syria but in 48.5% of the items in the ceasefire in Yemen (Table 12).

International political entities were quoted in 42.5% of the items in the intervention in

Yemen but in 72.5% of the news items in the ceasefire in Syria (Table 12).

Table 12. Chi-Square analysis: Media’s closeness to the conflict

Variables Intervention Intervention Ceasefire Ceasefire Pearson Syria (%) Yemen (%) Syria (%) Yemen (%) Chi-Square (p value) Location Ground*** 0.0 25.0 2.5 18.2 .001 of media MENA 12.5 10.0 12.5 12.1 .983 coverage International** 20.011 7.5 35.0 6.1 .002 Newsroom 70.0 57.5 50.0 63.6 .305 Authorship Media* 92.5 75.0 92.5 75.8 .037 news items News Agency 10.012 20.0 7.5 24.2 .137 Expert 0.0 5.0 0.0 0.0 .126 Types of Country origin 57.5 45.0 55.0 48.5 .667 sources Country in 10.0 35.0 45.0 48.5 .001 quoted conflict*** International 45.0 42.5 72.5 45.5 .023 political entities* Other internat. 30.0 37.5 30.0 21.2 .516 sources

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

11 In the case of the intervention in Syria, one of the analyzed news items (Okaz, 1st September 2014) was produced both in Beirut (MENA) and in Washington, D.C. (International). Thus, this item has been considered in both categories. 12 In this case, one news item had shared authorship between a journalist from the media and a news agency, this is why it has been considered in both.

Regarding the priming and hierarchy of the news, none of the variables analyzed –

Section, Physical positioning, and Length of the news items – were statistically significant.

These results of this Chi-Square analysis can be found in Appendix C.

Regarding the media frames and main themes, the two variables analyzed were statistically significant. First, the different use of most of the studied Themes was statistically significant. The use of the theme security/terror varied from being emphasized in 6.1% of the news items covering the ceasefire in Yemen to 75% in the coverage of the intervention in Syria (Table 13). The theme conflict resolution/peace varied from not being emphasized in any of the news items covering the intervention in Syria to 50% of the news items covering ceasefires in that country (Table 13). Finally, other themes ranged from being used in 15% of the news items on the ceasefire in Syria to being emphasized in

47.5% of the items in the intervention in Yemen (Table 13).

Table 13. Chi-Square analysis: Media frames and main themes

Variables Interv. Interv. Cease. Cease. Pearson Syria (%) Yemen (%) Syria (%) Yemen (%) Chi-Square (p value) Themes Security / 75.0 22.5 10.0 6.1 .000 Terror*** Humanitarian 7.5 25.0 25.0 15.2 .125 crisis Conflict resol. 0.0 5.0 50.0 42.4 .000 / Peace*** Others** 17.5 47.5 15.0 36.4 .003 Words Headline Intervention 52.5 45.0 55.0 51.5 .832 Ceasefire*** 7.5 22.5 45.0 48.5 .000 Terrorism*** 60.0 7.5 2.5 0.0 .000 Body Intervention 97.5 92.5 95.0 100.0 .385 Ceasefire*** 67.5 75.0 100.0 90.9 .000 Terrorism*** 92.5 50.0 70.0 24.2 .000

Note: ** p < .01; *** p < .001

Second, concerning the Words’ choice, the use of words related to ceasefires and to terrorism, both in the headlines and bodies of the news items, was statistically significant.

Regarding the words that referred to ceasefires in the news items’ headlines, they ranged from being used in 7.5% of the news items covering interventions in Syria to 48.5% of the items covering ceasefires in Yemen. In the body of the news items, they varied from being present in 67.5% of items covering interventions in Syria to the 100% of those covering ceasefires in that conflict (Table 13). Regarding the words related to terrorism, in the headlines they ranged from not being used in the coverage of ceasefires in Yemen to being mentioned in 60% of the news items covering interventions in Syria. In the body of the news items, this type of words ranged, in the same periods as in the headlines, from being mentioned in 24.2% to 92.5% of the items (Table 13).

Table 14. Chi-Square analysis: Political positioning of the news items

Variable Interv. Interv. Cease. Cease. Pearson Syria (%) Yemen (%) Syria (%) Yemen (%) Chi-Square (p value)

Headline Positive / 25.0 15.0 35.0 12.1 .068 empathic Neutral 72.5 77.5 65.0 87.9 .149 Political Negative / 2.5 7.5 0.0 0.0 .127 position critical Body In favor*** 35.0 10.0 50.0 18.2 .000 Pro with 27.5 17.5 20.0 33.3 .376 reservations Neutral 35.0 40.0 25.0 39.4 .479 Contrary 2.5 12.5 2.5 3.0 .122 with reservations Contrary** 0.0 20.0 2.5 6.1 .003

Note: ** p < .01; *** p < .001

Finally, regarding Media’s political positioning, the presence of news items that were either in favor or contrary to the following foreign policy changes was statistically significant. Concerning those items that were positioned in favor of the foreign policy changes, they varied from being 10% of the items covering interventions in Yemen to 50% covering ceasefires in Syria. Regarding the items that were contrary to the foreign policy changes, they ranged from not being present at all in the coverage of interventions in Syria to becoming 20% of those covering the intervention in Yemen (Table 14).

In summary, the variables that were statistically significant were the Location of media coverage, the Authorship of the news items, the types of Sources, the Themes and

Words used, and the Political positioning of both the news items’ headlines and bodies.

Based on these findings, these variables will be included in the LRA in order to determine the relationship between their presence in media coverage and the US and Saudi foreign policy changes towards the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

Study of media’s effect on foreign policymaking (LRA). In order to determine the relationship between the dichotomous dependent variable, or outcome, and the set of independent (predictor) variables, the model for the LRA analysis was constructed by selecting the variables that were statistically significant in the Pearson Chi-Square analysis.

Among them, the variables that were statistically significant when conducting the LRA analysis were the following: Sources (Model 1), Themes (Model 2), and Words (Model 3).

The Model 4, which is the one I am proposing as the set of predictor variables that are significantly related to the dependent variable, was constructed by combining Models 1, 2,

and 3. Table 15 shows the logistic regression coefficients and the statistical significance

(Sig.) of each of these variables as indicated by their probability values13 in the LRA.

The variables that were not statistically significant in the predictive model are, first, some of those that make reference to the media’s closeness to the conflict, and thus were not included in the logistic regression model. This includes the journalistic presence on the ground and the authorship of the news items. Second, those variables that were related to the priming and hierarchy of the news, such as the section in which they were published or broadcasted, their physical positioning in the newspapers or whether they were broadcasted in prime time, and length of the news items. And third, media’s political positioning, both in the headlines and in the body of the news. In this section I first describe and explain the findings of the logistic regression analysis and, later on, I summarize the key findings of this analysis.

Description of the results. The three variables that were statistically significant in the Pearson Chi-Square analysis were selected as predictors in the LRA. They were divided in 3 blocks, according to the category that they belong to: Block 1 (Sources used in the news items), Block 2 (main Themes of the news), and Block 3 (type of Words present in the news items).

Block 1 includes both Sources from the country in conflict and Sources from international entities; Block 2 includes the themes Security/Terror and Conflict resolution/Peace; and Block 3 includes words in that made reference to a ceasefire – both in the title and in the body of the news items – and words that made reference to terrorism – also including the titles and the body of the news.

13 The graduation of significance is as follows, from less significant to more significant: * p < .05; ** p <.01; *** p < .001.

The B coefficient shows the relationship between the independent variables and the dependent variable (intervention vs. non-intervention/ceasefire). When B is positive,14 it means that that variable was present when there was a military intervention (dependent variable = 1); and, when it is negative, it means that that variable was present when there was a ceasefire (no military intervention; dependent variable = 0).

Table 15. Logistic regression analysis of the results (n = 153)

Independent variables Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 (Hierarchical) Block 1 Sources B = -1.035 – – B = -1.024 Block 1: Sources country in Sig. = .004** Sig. = .024* Cox & Snell conflict R2 = .080 Sources B = -.563 – – B = .200 Pred. = 62.715 international Sig. = .097 Sig. = .664 entities Block 2 Security/Terror – B = 1.705 – B = .363 Block 1, 2: Themes Sig. = Sig. = .573 Cox & Snell .001*** R2 = .358 Conflict – B = -3.000 – B = -2.985 Pred. = 77.1 resolution / Sig. = Sig. = .000*** Peace .000*** Block 3 Headline words – – B = -1.013 B = -2.67 Block 1, 2, 3: Words Ceasefire Sig. = .016* Sig. = .589 Cox & Snell Headline words – – B = 2.983 B = 2.350 R2 = .403 Terrorism Sig. = .005** Sig. = .049* Pred. = 78.4 Body words – – B = -1.834 B = -1.697 Ceasefire Sig. = .007** Sig. = .032* Body words – – B = .130 B = .060 Terrorism Sig. = .740 Sig. = .892 Cox & .080 .332 .280 Snell R2 Predicted 62.7 73.2 70 probability

Note: * p < .05; ** p < .01; *** p < .001

14 The variable Sources international entities changes from having a B negative in Model 1 (B = -.563) to a B positive (B = .200) in Model 4. This is due to the fact that this variable is highly collinear with other variables in the equation which can result in a sign change – especially if a variable is not highly statistically significant when analyzed independently, as in this case (.097). 15 The initial percentage of cases correctly classified into categories of the dependent variable (of simply guessing without considering the variables in this study) is 52.3% of predictability.

The Cox & Snell R2 indicates the goodness of fit of a model. It shows the percentage of the variance in the dependent variable (intervention vs. ceasefire) that is explained by the independent variables studied. It is a relatively conservative approach to establishing the percentage of cases that is possible to predict with a model, compared to other approaches such as the Nagelkerke R2, which is a similar indicator although somewhat inflated. The Predictability (Pred.) is the percentage of cases that the model was able to classify correctly into categories of the dependent variable (intervention vs. non- intervention/ceasefire). In other words, the Predictability shows the predicted probabilities after the block of variables is entered into the equation.

Regarding the different models that appear in Table 15, Model 1 is the analysis of the B coefficient, the statistical significance, the Cox & Snell R2 and the predicted probability of the Block 1 of variables (Sources) when they are studied independently.

Model 2 is the analysis of the same items for the Block 2 of variables (Themes) studied independently. Model 3 also analyzes these items in the Block 3 of variables (Words) studied independently. However, Model 4 is different, in the sense that it is hierarchical. It analyzes the same items than Model 1, 2 and 3, but it does so by including all the variables from the three Blocks. Model 4 is divided in two columns. The first one shows the B coefficient and the significance of all variables when the three Blocks are studied together.

The second column, showing the Cox & Snell R2 and the predicted probability, adds the different Blocks progressively: first, the Block 1 alone is analyzed, then Block 2 is added and analyzed with the previous one, and finally Block 3 is added and the variables are analyzed altogether.

It is important to note that the coefficients for some of the variables change when they are calculated altogether (Model 4) – generally decreasing in strength and statistical

significance in this model in relation to when the Blocks 1 (Sources), 2 (Themes), 3

(Words) are studied independently (Models 1, 2 and 3). This is due to the fact that some of the variables are collinear, which means that they overlap or share explanatory power with the dependent variable. For example, the words that make reference to terrorism in the headlines and the words that refer to it in the body of the news items are collinear.

Findings of the study on media’s effect on foreign policymaking. The first key finding of the logistic regression analysis is that the Themes variable has a stronger influence on the dependent variable (intervention versus non-intervention/ceasefire). The

Themes variable block has the highest coefficients pseudo R2 value and is statistically significant. It is followed, in terms of statistical significance, by the variable Words (Block

3) and, finally, by the Sources (Block 1).

A second finding is related to the periods when these variables are more present, either in media coverage of the periods preceding interventions or ceasefires. The logistic regression analysis shows that the variables security/terror theme and words making reference to terrorism – both in the headlines and the body of the news – are predominantly present when the news items were covering the periods preceding a military Intervention.

This is shown by the positive or negative sign of the B coefficient. Conversely, the variables sources from the country in conflict, sources from international entities, the conflict resolution/peace theme, and words that make reference to a ceasefire – both in the headlines and in the body of the news – are predominantly present when the news items were covering a ceasefire.

A third key finding is that Model 4, which includes the statistically significant variables, predicts 40% of the variance in the dependent variables according to the

“goodness-of-fit” measure, the Cox & Snell R2. This is a high percentage, and way higher than what the blocks of variables predict separately.16

In addition, regarding the percentage of predictability, Model 4, which analyzes the three sets of variables together, is able to correctly classify 78.4% of the news items into categories of the dependent variable. Given that the initial percentage of cases correctly classified into categories of the dependent variable (of simply guessing without considering the variables in this study) was 52.3%, the model proposed in this study improves the ability to predict the values of the dependent variable by 26.1%.

16 According to the Cox & Snell R2, Model 1 can explain approximately the 8% of cases when it is analyzed independently; Model 2 around 33% of cases; and Model 3 approximately the 28%. Paying attention at the progression of Model 4, when the variable Sources (Block 1) is evaluated alone it predicts 8% of the cases, while Sources and Themes (Block 1 and Block 2) together predict 35%, and all three blocks of variables – Sources, Themes and Words (Block 1, Block 2, and Block 3) – together predict 40% of the cases. Given that Cox & Snell R2 is a pseudo R-square, we cannot conclude precisely that its results are the percentage of cases explained with the Models. However, it shows that these are the approximate percentages of cases may be explained by each model.

Chapter 5. Discussion

Media Coverage Comparisons

“It’s all how you frame it, it’s not the idea that you want to convey. You can talk about any idea, it’s just how you do it. Sometimes you work through minefields, that’s for sure. Just make sure your legs don’t get blown off.”

Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, Al Arabiya’s Bureau Chief in Washington, D.C. (2018)

The closeness of media coverage to the war can substantially influence the type of coverage of that conflict. The presence of journalists on the ground can shape the vision media is giving of that war, the narration of events, access to first-hand information, as well as provide media with access to a diversity of sources. Thus, in order to study how US and

Saudi media have reported on the Syrian and Yemeni wars, I analyzed the presence of journalists on the ground, the authorship of the news items, and the types of sources that were quoted.

First, regarding the Location of the media coverage, the results showed that both US and Saudi media reported primarily from the Newsroom. When comparing media from both countries, Saudi media reported a higher percentage of the news items from the

Newsroom – especially preceding the ceasefire in Syria. However, US media reported significantly more from International locations than Saudi media in the periods preceding the ceasefire in Syria and the intervention in Yemen. The coverage from the Ground and the MENA region was similar by US and Saudi media – both types were generally low, and coverage from the Ground was practically absent in the case of Syria.

The fact that most news items were covered from the Newsroom, that is, the countries of origin of the studied media, may be due to the difficulty of accessing the war zones in Syria and Yemen – even before foreign interventions. In addition, when comparing the location of the media coverage in the reporting of the Syrian war versus the

Yemeni war, a clear finding was that conflict in Yemen was substantially more covered from the Ground than Syria. Conversely, the Syrian war was significantly more covered through International coverage. This may be due to the particularly hard situation for journalists in the Syrian war. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ,

2018a), the number of journalists killed in Syria increased dramatically with the start of the civil war, reaching 31 journalists killed in 2012. From the onset of the war in 2011 until

2017, the NGO has recorded the deaths of 115 journalists. The Yemeni war has also caused journalists’ deaths, although in lesser numbers – the CPJ has recorded 14 journalists’ deaths from 2015 to 2018 (CPJ 2018b). The majority of journalists killed in the Syrian conflict have been from Syria and other countries in the Middle East, although there have been several casualties among Western journalists (McLaughlin 2016, 13-14). As Nadia Bilbassy stated: “Syria became a graveyard for journalists.” She added: “I covered wars, and famine, and all kind of conflicts. But I felt danger in Syria like I never felt anywhere else. Although

I could’ve died at least 3 times in Africa [where she covered conflicts for 10 years], at least.” Eric Schmitt, in the same line, pointed out that when covering a conflict as a journalist “the biggest constraint is your safety”:

In previous conflicts journalists weren’t targeted, they were seen more or less

as neutral observers, by both sides, and while you had to be careful that you

were not caught in a wartime or conflict situation, you yourself were not

going to be targeted. That has all changed, as we have seen, particularly with

ISIS: Western journalists, aid workers and other Westerners become targets.

Sadly, some of my journalistic colleagues were beheaded, they have been

kidnapped… We still have Austin Tice, who’s been in custody somewhere in

Syria for five years now. It has become a much more dangerous profession

for those journalists and photographers who are covering this kind of

warzones.

US media coverage from International locations being higher than Saudi media may be due to the fact that, facing difficulties in accessing the ground, US media tried to have access to different points of view through reporting from several foreign countries.

The fact that Saudi media coverage from the newsroom is higher than the US media could be due to several factors. Among them, economic factors, as it may be considerably cheaper to cover the conflict from the newsroom than sending a correspondent into the field

(Elmasry et al. 2013, 765). US media, such as The New York Times or CNN, may have had more resources to invest in international correspondents than Saudi media (Henery 2010,

9). It also could be due to the regime type in the country of origin, and hence, media freedom, considering that democracies lead to higher degrees of press freedom than autocracies (Stier 2015, 1288).

It can be argued that objectivity is likely to be interpreted in a different way by journalists who are reporting from the Newsroom than by those who are covering a conflict from the Ground. Some authors have pointed out editors’ interventions in newsroom affairs

(Hafez 2010, 7), while reporters on the battlefield have sometimes been accused of going beyond “professional requirements of objectivity and impartiality,” generating a new

phenomenon called “journalism of attachment” – associated with the trauma, fear, and death of war – that prioritizes moral principles and challenges journalistic objectivity

(Myssayeva and Amankeldi 2015, 36). The advocates of “journalism of attachment” argue that reporters cannot remain neutral in the face of modern evils like genocides, but must rather side with the victims and call for solutions. In that sense, Nadia Bilbassy stated:

“You feel impotent in a way, as a reporter. I am not a humanitarian aid worker, but as a reporter what you see in front of you it gets into your soul. […] It was very hard to cover

Syria. Until now, I have to admit that I’m very passionate about the conflict and what’s happening.” Christiane Amanpour, who was foreign correspondent for the CNN, once said that “there are regimes in war that do not reserve neutrality” (Myssayeva and Amankeldi

2015, 36). In addition, sometimes journalists on the ground embed with the military from their country of origin in order to gain protection, as happened in the coverage of the 2003

Iraq War (Rutledge 2017, 23), but this practice has raised concerns arguing that they become biased in the way they frame their reporting, affecting their objectivity. However, some studies have pointed out that embedded reporters have among the highest percentage of neutral stories of any type of reporter (Aday et al. 2005, 15). According to Eric Schmitt,

“if you only do the reporting from the ground, you may loose the larger context.” The New

York Times’ senior writer considers that the good thing about journalism “is that you can blend everything together, you can get insights into what the policies are here, what’s motivating things from Washington, and then you can go out and test them, getting some experience in the field.” Schmitt adds that, as a war correspondent, it is very important to go get into the field as much as possible, going back and forth between the newsroom and the ground, “so you’re not just trapped here in the Washington bubble, you’re getting firsthand knowledge from the ground.”

Some of the opponents to “journalism of attachment” argue that the selection of sources by journalists can directly affect the type of reporting, as they are able to refer to certain opinions which support their own political stances and sympathy, and thus influencing the “objective reality” of news coverage of warfare (Myssayeva and Amankeldi

2015, 38-39). However, the results of this study show that both US and Saudi media quoted the same Types of sources in the news items analyzed. Nonetheless, US media used each of the studied types of sources in a higher proportion of news items than Saudi media. Thus,

US media quoted more sources from the Country of origin of the media (the US, in this case) than Saudi media – especially in the periods preceding the intervention in Syria and the ceasefire in Yemen. They also quoted more sources from the countries in conflict (Syria and Yemen) – especially covering the period preceding the ceasefire in Syria. US media also used more often than Saudi media International political entities as sources, in most of the periods under study. And, finally, US media also used more often Other international sources – especially when covering the periods leading to the ceasefire in Syria and the intervention in Yemen.

Sources differ in credibility, and those that are seen as more credible can be more persuasive in influencing opinion (Jasperson and El-Kikhia 2003, 114). Thus, the fact that in this study I did not find an excessive reliance on government sources and that both the

US and Saudi media analyzed used in a similar way a variety of sources, is an indicator relating to media autonomy (Robinson 2009, 681). However, the difference in the degree of use of different types of sources between US and Saudi media coverage could be explained by the differing regime type – as autocracies may have a stronger control the amount of sources used (Elmasry et al. 2013, 765). It could also be explained with economic factors

(Elmasry et al. 2013, 763-764) – which may facilitate having access to a broader range of sources internationally.

When comparing the coverage of Syria and Yemen, the most remarkable differences found were that the use of International political entities as sources was higher in the coverage of Syria, while in the case of Yemen there were more sources from the country in conflict. This was likely due, as described above related to the location of the media coverage, to the lack of accessibility to the ground in the Syrian conflict provoked by the dangerous security situation.

Regarding the Authorship of the news items, both US and Saudi media covered the wars in Syria and Yemen primarily through journalists from their own Media. However,

US media covered the Syrian conflict – both interventions and ceasefires – with a higher percentage of news items from their own journalists than Saudi Arabia. In fact, US media covered all the conflict in Syria solely through its own journalists. On the other hand, US media covered Yemen – especially the intervention – through News Agencies significantly more than Saudi media, using also external Experts – although minimally. Conversely,

Saudi media covered substantially more with their own journalists the Yemeni conflict – especially the intervention, which they covered solely with their own journalists. Saudi media covered the Syrian conflict through with News Agencies substantially more than US media.

It may be considered that covering a conflict through the media’s own journalists indicates a higher interest from that media in that conflict. It also shows a higher professional standard, as relying on news agencies could be considered as placing their trust on unverified second-hand information (Elmasry et al. 2013, 763). At this point, it is

noteworthy to keep in mind that the US led the coalition that intervened militarily in the

Syrian conflict, while Saudi Arabia led the military intervention in the Yemen war. Taking these facts into account, the correlation between a higher amount of media covering the events by themselves in the periods when the country where they belong leads an intervention – in either Syria or Yemen – deserves particular attention. It suggests that US media had a special interest in covering the Syrian conflict, and thus invested resources in covering it with their own journalists, before US intervened in the war. Similarly, it suggests that Saudi media had more interest in the Yemeni conflict preceding the Saudi-led intervention, and thus also invested more in the coverage of the war by its own journalists.

But what explains this special interest of the US media in Syria and of Saudi media in Yemen? On the one hand, some have argued that Western media have had more interest in the coverage of the Syrian conflict given that it has been a “more catastrophic” war

(Taub 2016). Filippo Grandi, UNHCR High Commissioner, stated: “Syria is the biggest humanitarian and refugee crisis of our time, a continuing cause of suffering for millions which should be garnering a groundswell of support around the world” (UNHCR 2017a).

Although there have been so far more civilian casualties as a result of the Syrian conflict, the United Nations reported in 2018 that Yemen has more people in need of humanitarian aid – 22.2 million people – than any other country, including Syria – 13.1 million people

(UNOCHA 2018, 17). This seems to suggest that “attention is about more than numbers”

(Taub 2016). Thus, other factors should be considered when trying to explain the diverging interests of US and Saudi media in the coverage of Syria and Yemen. According to Taub,

“conflicts gain sustained American attention only when they provide a compelling story line that appeals to both the public and political actors, and for reasons beyond the human toll,” proposing as one of the key factors the presence of “an emotionally engaging frame of

clearly identifiable good guys and bad guys” (Taub 2016). Another key factor to look into is the US and Saudi Arabian geopolitical interests and the effect that they could have had on the studied media coverage.

The Syrian war has, in fact, had a direct effect on American and European interests on several fronts, which may have generated US media interest in covering this conflict in particular. First, the West has felt directly threatened by ISIS, which has its stronghold in

Syria – as this terrorist group has attacked the West and has murdered American hostages.

Thus, ISIS has become a great danger for the West (French 2017). Second, the West has been directly affected by the waves of refugees from Syria that have crossed the

Mediterranean. Thus, being able to explain the origin of the refugee crisis, which began with the start of the civil war in Syria in 2011 (Zong and Batalova 2017), has become a key interest for US media. Third, the US also had geostrategic interests in the country, especially after Russia came into play, generating a high interest for US audiences. Some authors have pointed out that this turned the war into one resembling Cold War period conflicts (Bishara 2015, 13).

Conversely, the Yemeni conflict did not pose a direct threat to the US despite there also being terrorist groups on the ground in Yemen. Also, the presence of other actors such as the Houthis did not pose an existential threat for the US as ISIS in Syria did. Also, it is noteworthy to mention that the US intervention in Yemen was not a full-scale intervention as in Syria. Second, although there are many refugees fleeing the Yemeni conflict, those refugees did not leave to the West but rather to Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the Horn of Africa

– especially Somalia and Djibouti (UNHCR 2017b). Nonetheless, given the depth of the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and the fact that the number of Yemeni refugees is steadily rising, Yemen is in risk of becoming “the next Syrian refugee crisis.” Over 173,100

people have already left the country, and over 82,300 have fled to countries in the Horn of

Africa (Lopour 2016, 1). Third, the geostrategic interests that were into play in Yemen were different from those in Syria: in Yemen, the US may not have had an interest in criticizing a US ally, Saudi Arabia. In addition, the US has provided some support to the

Saudi intervention, as US strategic interests require a broad stability in the Arabian

Peninsula – being highly dependent on Saudi Arabia as a key strategic partner, especially regarding the containment of Iran in the Gulf (Cordesman 2015). As Taub points out, “there is no obvious good-versus-evil story to tell there [in Yemen]: The country is being torn apart by a variety of warring factions on the ground and pummeled from the air by Saudi

Arabia, an American ally” (Taub 2016). Yemen has been referred to by some aid organizations and new outlets as a “The Forgotten War” (Lopour 2016, 2), given that it has been “largely under-reported and overshadowed by other conflicts such as Syria” (Lopour

2016, 1). However, Taub states that “the truth is that inattention is the default, not the exception,” while Syria is a rare case in terms of the high media coverage it has received

(Taub 2016). In addition, the fact that the results of this study show that US media used

(although minimally) external Experts to report on the intervention in Yemen suggests that this conflict is generally less known by US audiences that the Syrian one (Riedel 2017), and thus the voice of experts may help explain its developments.

On the other hand, the fact that Saudi media covered the Yemeni conflict with their own journalists more than the US did may suggest that they had more interest in the coverage of this conflict, while covered the Syrian conflict more through news agencies.

One of the main geostrategic concerns that the wars in Yemen and Syria had for Saudi

Arabia were the struggle for regional influence with Iran, and for Saudi Arabia Iranian intervention poses a “supreme strategic and security threat” (Blanga 2017, 57). In fact, it is

considered that the Yemeni war has ended up as “the biggest geopolitical contest on the

Arabian Peninsula since the unrest in 2011” (Jan and Majid 2017, 194). Saudi Arabia, as well as other Sunni states, have accused the Houthis of being a proxy for Iran, and only a couple of months before Saudi Arabia launched the Operation Decisive Storm the Houthis had reinforced their takeover of Sanaa and placed Hadi under house arrest (Jan and Majid

2017, 193). Thus, Saudi interests were related to security issues and the possibility of

Houthis or terrorist groups crossing the border (Terrill 2011, 17-20). Second, the interests of Saudi Arabia in the Yemeni conflict were also probably related to the amount of refugees entering in the country (Terrill 2011, 17-20): the kingdom has hosted many refugees fleeing the Yemeni war – in 2017, there were 39,880 Yemeni individuals in Saudi

Arabia (UNHCR 2017b), although the real numbers of refugees taken in by Saudi Arabia are unclear. All this could have influenced the focus of Saudi media on covering this conflict with their own journalists.

The Syrian conflict is also perceived by Saudi Arabia as a key element in the struggle for regional influence, given the link between the Syrian government and Iran

(Blanga 2017). However, during the initial months of the uprising against the Baath regime in Syria, Saudi Arabia supported Assad. This was due to the fact that another of the key concerns for Saudi Arabia is regional stability, especially in the countries near its borders.

Riyadh feared changes that might provoke regional instability and, in addition, it needed

Syria as a broker with Iran. Nonetheless, as the repression continued and the Syrian protests became a revolt, Saudi Arabia started showing its dissatisfaction with Syria (Blanga 2017,

50 and 57).

Moreover, the fact that Saudi Arabia does not share a border with Syria, while it does with Yemen, could also help explain the higher interest by Saudi media on covering

the Yemeni crisis than the Saudi war in alignment with Saudi Arabia’s geopolitical interests of regional stability in bordering countries (Blanga 2017, 57). In addition, in the case of

Yemen, differing from the situation in Syria, there was already a bad relationship between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia (Orkaby 2015; Terrill 2011).

The previous statements on US and Saudi interests in Syria and Yemen could also have relevance in explaining this study’s findings regarding the analysis of the priming and hierarchy of news items. In this regard, I analyzed the length of the news items, both the news items’ headlines and bodies, in order to see if it was possible to observe a prioritization of events through the length of the coverage. Longer news stories reflect a higher interest in a conflict (Elmasry et al. 2013, 764). My findings indicate that US media used in all periods mostly medium-length headlines. This differs substantially with Saudi media in the coverage of Yemen – as well as the ceasefire in Syria – when Saudi media showed longer headlines. Regarding the news items’ bodies, US media used more often short news items, with the only exception of the Syria ceasefire where their news items are mostly long. On the other hand, Saudi media tend to have medium-long news items preceding interventions and short-medium news items preceding ceasefires.

The length of the headlines did not show a clear pattern in relation with the coverage of a concrete conflict. This can reflect the existing debate in media outlets between the effectiveness of shorter versus longer headlines, as well as the inner daily debates between copy-editors and senior editors on whether choose either larger headlines to capture as much of the story as possible or shorten the headlines to leave out unnecessary information (Dor 2003, 708). The findings regarding the length of the bodies suggest that

US media had more interest in Syria preceding the ceasefire in that country, and Saudi

media had more interest in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts preceding the military interventions in those wars. While these findings could partially be explained in relation with the abovementioned geopolitical interests by both intervening countries – the US prioritization of the Syrian war and the Saudi prioritization of the Yemeni conflict – the fact that Saudi media had longer news items preceding both the intervention in Syria and in

Yemen does not clearly follow the pattern of prioritization of a certain conflict. This could probably be due to the fact that citizens of a country may be more interested in international events that affect them directly, and interventions may affect them more personally – given the threat of possible retaliation – than ceasefires abroad.

Media framing, known as the “second level of agenda setting,” occurs when media make some aspects of a particular issue more salient in order to promote “a certain problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation,” which can make selected attitudes salient and shape public opinion (Jasperson and El-

Kikhia 2003, 113-114). Nadia Bilbassy, from Al Arabiya, assured: “In a way the media drives the agenda, because when you expose certain conflicts, this is when people start to put pressure on elected officials”. The results of the analysis of the main Themes in the news items showed that different themes were emphasized in the different periods. There was no significant difference in the US and Saudi media use of the theme Security/Terror – which both overwhelmingly emphasized preceding the intervention in Syria. In that period, both US and Saudi media also used words related to military intervention/security and

Terrorism in most of the news items. Both US and Saudi media also reinforced the theme

Conflict resolution/Peace preceding the ceasefires in Syria. In that period, the words used in

most of the news items, both by the US and Saudi media, were referring to ceasefire/peace, military intervention, and in lower frequency to terrorism.

However, in the coverage of Yemen there was a divergence between the main themes in US and Saudi media, especially preceding the interventions – when US media mainly emphasized the theme Humanitarian crisis while Saudi media emphasized Other themes. The most frequently used words in these periods were referring to military intervention/security followed by words on ceasefire/peace – both of them used in higher frequency in the US coverage – and also words referring to terrorism. Preceding the ceasefires in Yemen, both US and Saudi media were divided between the theme Conflict resolution/Peace and Other themes. In that period, the words that were used more frequently, both by the US and Saudi media, made reference to military intervention/security, followed by those on ceasefire/peace. Words related to terrorism were used in much lower frequency than in the other periods.

These observations made on the US and Saudi media framing of the conflicts in

Syria and Yemen reflect the abovementioned US and Saudi political and geostrategic interests in these wars. Both US and Saudi media emphasized the Security/Terror theme and used mainly words related to it preceding the intervention in Syria, as ISIS in Syria was a threat for both the national security of the US and Saudi Arabia. In addition, as Nadia

Bilbassy, Al Arabiya’s Bureau Chief in Washington D.C. explained: “ISIS is a sexy topic, so everybody is interested in ISIS. But I don’t think there’s any fundamental reporting on the depth of the humanitarian crisis, especially in Syria, it is the largest humanitarian crisis since the Second World War, and definitely in the Arab world.”

This contrasts clearly with the themes emphasized preceding the interventions in

Yemen. In that period, US media emphasized the theme of Humanitarian intervention,

instead of focusing on security/terror. This, as abovementioned, may be due to the fact that the Yemeni war did not pose a direct existential threat to the US interests. In the same period, Saudi media emphasized Other themes, among which “preservation of the status quo,” and “Iran.” As mentioned above, the main geostrategic concerns of Saudi Arabia in the region are the preservation of the status quo and its struggle for regional influence against Iran (Blanga 2017, 50 and 57). These two main geopolitical interests of Saudi blended in the Yemeni crisis, after the Houthis were accused of being linked to Iran.

Regarding the Saudi media coverage of the ceasefires, in both conflicts the theme that predominated was Conflict resolution, although in the case of Yemen Saudi media, again,

Saudi media emphasized Other themes, related to the country’s geostrategic interests.

Given that in autocracies media are thought to enjoy a lesser degree of freedom, as regimes interfere to a greater extent with news coverage and apply censorship (Stier 2015,

1273-1274), it was expected that the political positioning of Saudi media’s coverage would be more aligned with its government’s political interests in the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts than in the case of US media. In fact, “government ownership continues to be the dominant ownership structure in most of the Arab region” (Elmasry et al. 2013, 751). However, the pattern of positioning of the headlines was mostly neutral both in US and Saudi media, with the exception of the period leading to the ceasefires in Syria, where more US than Saudi headlines were in favor of that foreign policy change. Considering the political positioning of the news items’ bodies, the US coverage was mostly in favor of the foreign policy changes that followed, with a peak high preceding the ceasefire in Syria. The only exception was in the period preceding the intervention in Yemen, where US coverage was mostly neutral. The political positioning of Saudi coverage, on the other hand, was divided

between positive and neutral in most periods, but in the period leading to the intervention in

Yemen it was predominantly neutral. In addition, a remarkable similarity between US and

Saudi coverage was that, preceding the interventions in Yemen, a relevant percentage of news items was contrary to the foreign policy change that followed.

Regarding this last finding of the study, it was expected that, given the regime type in Saudi Arabia and the consequential higher control of media (Stier 2015, 1276) –

Freedom House considers that the Saudi Arabian media system has a Press Freedom Status score of 86/100, considered “Not Free” (Freedom House 2017a), and media in the country have been labeled “loyalist press” (Hafez 2010, 2) – as well as the abovementioned key strategic interests for the country in intervening in Yemen, Saudi media would not be substantially critical in that period. In addition, as Nadia Bilbassy pointed out, sometimes the constraints in media’s political positioning are not only due to political reasons. “Follow the money!” Bilbassy claims, adding that a commercial interest may dictate the coverage:

“If you [a media outlet] have tons of money, sometimes billions of dollars, coming from advertisement, you don’t want something as grotesque as a bloody child in Syria to spoil your dinner when you’re sitting with your family.”

However, this study shows that Saudi media followed a similar pattern to US media

– Freedom House gives the US a Press Freedom Status of 23/100, which is considered

“Free” (Freedom House 2017b) – with a substantial level of critical coverage preceding the intervention in Yemen. In addition, while US media showed to be, in the remaining periods, more in favor of the foreign policy changes that followed, including the military intervention in Syria, Saudi media tended to show a high number of news items that were neutral towards the foreign policy changes that followed. These results suggest that media control of the Saudi Arabian regime did not substantially shape media’s behavior in that

period, and that the expected differences between the political positioning of media from a democratic country and an authoritarian regime were not found – in fact, media from the

US showed to be generally more in favor of the US government foreign policy decisions.

Despite the fact that state interference in news production should be low in democracies, the editorial line of media in democratic can be biased by the preferences of media owners and commercial pressures (Stier 2015, 1276). Nonetheless, Eric Schmitt from The New

York Times assured that reporters in the newspapers do not have to follow an editorial line as, he stated, the news department is separated from the editorial department. “You report what you see, what you learn,” he stated, while the editorial department “may have different views in certain issues.”

Some authors point out that in the past two decades media reforms have brought increased freedoms to some Arab countries, leading to the apparition of more independent news outlets (Elmasry et al. 2013, 751). Interestingly, it is considered that a major change in the Arab press environment took place in 1991, during the First Gulf War, when Arabs were exposed to American satellite news network CNN. It was precisely in the war’s aftermath that Arab news networks were established – such as Al Jazeera, founded in 1996 in Qatar, or Al-Arabiya, created in 2003 to compete with Al Jazeera – following some aspects of CNN reporting style (Elmasry et al. 2013, 751-752).

Media Coverage Influence On Foreign Policymaking

In this section I detail what the findings of the study on the effect of media coverage on foreign policymaking mean, and whether they fit (or not) with the existing literature on media influence in policymaking. To this end, I focus first on the three main blocks of variables that have shown statistical significance in the logistic regression analysis and later on I tackle the three sets of variables that were not statistically significant.

The variable Themes was one of the independent variables that was statistically significant. The theme Security/Terror was highly correlated with the news items that covered the periods preceding military interventions in Syria and Yemen, while the theme

Conflict resolution/Peace was highly correlated with the news items that covered the periods preceding the ceasefires pushed by the US and Saudi Arabia in these conflicts. This finding is in consonance with the conclusions drawn by Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon of their study on the US foreign policy in Bosnia in 1992-95. These authors found that there was a very high and significant association between the meta-frame emphasized by the press and the crisis stage that they analyzed: “The priority given by the press to different arguments underwent significant changes throughout the crisis” (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005,

91). They concluded that by emphasizing humanitarian and security meta-frames, The

Washington Post and The New York Times may have pushed the Clinton administration to a more active policy (Auerbach and Bloch-Elkon 2005, 96).

Given the correlation between themes and the foreign policy outcome found in the present study, the analyzed media coverage preceding the US and Saudi foreign policy changes towards the wars in Syria and Yemen (interventions and ceasefires) could have influenced this foreign policy shift. As Papacharissi and Oliveira (2008, 53) put it:

News frames are important in how these events are reported, as they reflect a

process of recurring selection and emphasis in communicating perceived

reality (Entman 1993; Gitlin 1980). Frames present a central part of how

individuals cognitively comprehend and file events, and as such, are an

important determinant of how a news story is told, especially in times of

conflicting accounts and factual uncertainty.

The authors add that “applying frames to a crisis situation […] may serve as a strategy with which to identify main causes and responsible agents, make moral judgments, and, finally, to suggest policy responses to the event” (Papacharissi and Oliveira 2008, 54).

As Eric Schmitt points out, “ultimately, our job [as journalists] is to be storytellers. We’re trying to alert the world of what’s going on […]. We have to keep going, we have to keep that pressure on policymakers, whether it’s in the United States, Russia, Europe, or Syria itself. Because without continued pressure there won’t be any reason to try to bring some kind of resolution to this.”

The variable Words was statistically significant as well. On the one hand, there is a high correlation between the use of words that make reference to Terrorism, both in the headlines and in the body of the news, and the coverage of periods preceding military interventions in Syria and Yemen. On the other hand, words that make reference to a ceasefire are highly correlated to the coverage of periods preceding US and Saudi-led ceasefires in those conflicts. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of these two differentiated types of words covering the periods leading to the different phases of foreign military interventions – interventions and ceasefires, respectively – may have had an influence, added to the bigger frames emphasized by these media, in the foreign policy decisions that were taken later on. As Dimitrova and Stromback put it, “modern warfare is

fought not only with weapons, but also with words aiming to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the people” (Dimitrova and Stromback 2008).

It is especially interesting that the type of words that correlate with periods leading to military interventions are those that make reference to terrorist groups or activities, and not those that make direct reference to a military intervention or other security issues. This means that right before the decision to intervene militarily in Syria and Yemen was taken, both the US and Saudi media emphasized the terrorist threat in those countries. According to Dimitrova and Stromback, news frames that are “culturally congruent” are most influential on public opinion, and what makes them “culturally congruent” is their use of words and images that are highly salient in the culture – this is, “noticeable, understandable and emotionally charged” (Entman 2004, 6, quoted in Dimitrova and Stromback 2008,

205). Taking these authors’ argument, and given the growing transnational threat that terrorism originated in the Middle East and North Africa has posed globally since the 9/11, it can be concluded that words that make reference to the terrorist threat are clearly among those “noticeable, understandable and emotionally charged”, thus becoming most influential. Hart and Hassencahl, in a different note, studied the use of metaphors in US newspapers following the September 11 attacks, and found out that metaphors were

“routinely used to dehumanize the enemy, who was depicted frequently as animal or aggressor” (Hart and Hassencahl 2002, quoted in Papacharissi and Oliveira 2008, 56).

These authors also concluded that metaphors may be linked to policy directions. However, it is important to keep in mind that other factors may have influenced foreign policy changes.

The variable Sources was also statistically significant. It is interesting that both the variables Sources from the country in conflict – this is sources from Syria and Yemen – and

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Sources from international entities are correlated with US and Saudi media coverage of the periods leading to ceasefires. According to Wolfsfeld, news media are at their most independent when they advocate the case of the challengers – groups outside the political elite of a country – thus giving more room for their frame and less for the official frame.

This, in turn, puts pressure on political actors to react, mediate or come to the aid of the victims, possibly enabling third-party interventions (Wolfsfeld 1997, 69-79). In his words:

“The greater and more sympathetic the coverage of challengers and their cause, the more central and independent the role of the news media in altering the balance of power”

(Wolfsfeld 1997, 72). This would imply, in the case of media coverage of Syria and

Yemen, that media may have had a stronger influence on foreign policymaking during ceasefire periods due to their stronger use of “challengers” – in this case, direct sources from Syria and Yemen, and also from international entities besides media’s countries of origin.

Similarly, Robinson reviews some literature that emphasize that media lack autonomy in wartime, and that in those periods it remains deferential to government war aims. The author mentions that one of the factors that could explain this is the excessive dependence on government sources when constructing the news on wars (Robinson 2009,

680). Other scholars such as Mermin (1997) have also equated media reliance on (political) elite sources with non-influence (Robinson 2001, 528). Dimitrova and Stromback state that during wartime “news media generally rely on official sources and are especially dependent on information from government and military sources” (Carruthers 2000, Pfau et al., 2004,

Tumber and Palmer 2004, quoted in Dimitrova and Stromback 2008, 207). These authors add that, in addition, governments may try to control the flow of information in these situations. They may do so by restricting access to the war zone, instituting a pool system

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of reporters and through embedding, and all these make journalists rely on government and military officials for information. Dimitrova and Stromback specify that US journalists in particular tend to be heavily dependent on their official sources, and when no dispute about a foreign policy issue exists, they let the official sources set the media agenda (Dimitrova and Stromback 2008, 207). This goes in the same direction as Bennet’s indexing hypothesis, and seems to be linked with the consensus (or the lack thereof) among the elite sources. If there is consensus among those sources, journalists will likely not investigate an issue and push for answers, thus leading to an “over-reliance” on official government and military sources. Thus, media’s agenda may be set by government officials rather than by journalists or editors (Bennett 2003, and Entman 2004, quoted in Dimitrova and Stromback

2008, 207). Eric Schmitt, on the other hand, explained that in the coverage of Syria from the ground, the coverage is quite constrained, especially by the Syrian regime’s control, as the few journalists that are allowed in by the regime are taken into “a very carefully guided tour, but you can only go where they tell you that you can go.” However, Schmitt assures that it is also very important to get that limited view of what is going on in the ground, of

“how the Assad regime is thinking about the conflict, how confident they are or not,” an insight that later on can be contrasted with policymakers abroad.

Regarding the variables related to the media’s closeness to the conflict, the first one is the journalistic presence in the ground while covering the conflicts. One may expect that when there is an insufficient presence of correspondents on the ground covering a conflict, journalists cannot learn the nature of the crisis for themselves, but rather have to rely on information gathered and disseminated by the government, thus leading to a decreased influence of their coverage in foreign policies. Also, if there was a high presence of

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journalists in the ground it would be expected the opposite effect, as they would not be so constrained by the information provided by their country of origin. However, the study shows that either if journalists covered the conflicts in Syria and Yemen from the ground or they did not, this does not seem to have influenced the changes in foreign policy towards a military intervention or a ceasefire. This could be due to the fact that governments have also the ability to limit or control the access to information by journalists even when they are reporting from the ground for national security reasons, among others.

The second variable is the role of authorship of the news items – whether the author was from the media itself, a news agency, or an external expert. I expected that, in relation to the first variable, the authorship by a journalist from the media or by an expert could be more determining for a foreign policy change. However, the results show that this variable is not correlated with a certain policy change. As previously discussed in the comparison between US and Saudi media coverage, the authorship of the news items reflected the geopolitical interests in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, respectively. Similarly, the Chi-

Square analysis suggests that the studied media had a higher interest overall in the coverage of the Syrian conflict as the overwhelming majority of the news items that covered this war were made by journalists from the own media, and was less so in the coverage of Yemen.

In both cases there are no differences between news items’ authorship covering interventions and ceasefires, which suggests that this variable will not predict specific changes in foreign policy.

Regarding the priming provided to the news items by the media, it was expected that longer stories would contain more interpretations of the events (Barnhurst 2009, 3) and, consequently, that this would push policymakers towards a certain foreign policy

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change. However, the results show that the length of news items does not have a relevant relationship with the foreign policy outcome (intervention or ceasefire). A similar hypothesis was posed on the variables Section and Positioning of the news items, considering that news that appeared in national politics sections, and in the first pages of the newspapers or in prime time of TV channels, would gain more relevance in foreign policy changes. However, they do not seem to have influenced a particular foreign policy change. Thus, none of the studied variables related to priming and a certain hierarchy of news seem to have influenced US and Saudi changes in foreign policy towards the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.

It was expected that the political positioning of the news items – being in favor of the coming foreign policy changes or against them – would be significantly influential in foreign policy changes. Nonetheless, the results of the study show that there seems to be no direct relationship between a certain political positioning – either in the headlines or in the body of the news – and a foreign policy outcome (military intervention or not). This may be due to the fact that media political positioning is considered to have more influence on policymaking when there is a policy uncertainty. Policy certainty, as previously mentioned, was defined by Robinson as the consensus, agreement, and coordination between the subsystems of the executive with respect to an issue; and policy uncertainty is when there is a disagreement or conflict of interest within the subsystems of the executive regarding that issue (Robinson 2001, 534-535). The greater the level of uncertainty over a policy within the executive or the elites, then, the more vulnerable the policy decision-making process is to the influence of media coverage – which, in turn, gains independence and may be able to frame coverage in more critical ways (Robinson 2001, 535; Hjavard and Kristensen 2014,

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54), while if political elites agree about a particular issue and there is a consensus, it is very difficult for media to develop and sustain alternative viewpoints and have an influence on public opinion, and will likely reflect the dominant elite’s viewpoints (Robinson 2002, 30;

Fitzsimmons 2007, 1; Hjavard and Kristensen 2014, 54). Given the previously mentioned clear geopolitical interests of both the US and Saudi Arabia in the wars in Syria and

Yemen, this suggests that there was no policy uncertainty at play before their interventions in those conflicts. However, as Eric Schmitt pointed out: “Our job [as journalists] is to continue to try to shine a spotlight on these tragedies, to see if we can try to bring an end to this fighting.” Similarly, Nadia Bilbassy said: “For me, as a reporter, even if you save one life, it’s good enough to bring attention to a conflict.” Bilbassy adds:

Media in a democracy always should have an effect. The media always mirror

the health of the state, in terms of where democracy is going. You have to held

officials accountable, they serve the public. So the media should always play

its rightful role in a society. I always say I want to be able in the Middle East

one day to write a story without fear of reprehension, without fear that

somebody, the Mukhabarat or the intelligence services, will come and knock at

my door and arrest me, or kill or kidnap a member of my family.

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Conclusions And Implications Of The Study

In this thesis I studied and compared United States (US) and Saudi Arabian media coverage, and I hypothesized that this media coverage had an influence on US and Saudi foreign policymaking, respectively, towards these countries’ interventions in the wars in

Syria and Yemen. These conflicts were selected as examples of two devastating current wars in the Middle East that have suffered foreign military interventions but, nonetheless, have received different levels of international media attention. In choosing my case studies

I felt that the US and Saudi Arabia perfectly illustrated the foreign interventions in Syria and Yemen, as two main powers that actively intervened in both conflicts: one being a

Western democracy and key international power, and the other being a monarchical autocracy and key regional power in the Arab World. This not only suggested that their media would be operating in different freedom statuses, but also that they would offer different points of view of these conflicts, from regional and international contexts. I focused the study on traditional news media of reference and with high audiences from each of the two countries, including newspapers and television channels, as they are considered to be the ones that may have a higher influence on policymakers. The analyzed media were the CNN and The New York Times from the US, and Al Arabiya and Okaz from

Saudi Arabia.

I performed a content analysis of the four media outlets’ coverage, in the periods immediately preceding interventions and ceasefires led by the US and Saudi Arabia in both conflicts – around two weeks before these events. In the content analysis, I focused on the media closeness to the conflicts and the priming, framing, and political positioning of the news items. With the results of this study I performed a quantitative analysis, using a

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Student’s t-test for the comparison between US and Saudi coverage, and a logistic regression analysis (LRA) to analyze the influence of media coverage on foreign policymaking. Through these studies, the selected variables have proven to be a useful tool to obtain robust data on the similarities and differences in the cross-national comparison between US and Saudi coverage, and to suggest that certain types of media coverage may help predict foreign policy changes in terms of military interventions or ceasefires.

Regarding the comparative study between US and Saudi media coverage, the first main conclusion of this thesis is that media coverage reflects the geopolitical interests of both countries in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen. US media manifested more interest in the coverage of the Syrian conflict – in which the country had more strategic interests on national security, considering the presence of the Islamic State and the waves of Syrian refugees fleeing the war – while Saudi media were more focused on the coverage of the

Yemeni war – a conflict that was taking place right in the other side of their border, thus menacing the regional and their own stability, as well as involving an ally of its regional adversary, Iran. These geostrategic interests of the US and Saudi Arabia were reflected mainly through the news items’ Authorship, Themes and Words’ choice. US and Saudi media covered with their own journalists, thus investing more resources, the conflicts in

Syria and Yemen, respectively, and relied more in news agencies for the coverage of the other conflict. In addition, the themes and words used in the media coverage preceding the interventions and ceasefires in these conflicts also reflected US and Saudi respective interests. While in the coverage of Syria the media from both countries emphasized themes and words related to security and terror preceding the interventions, and ceasefire and conflict resolution preceding the ceasefires, covering Yemen there was more variability: US media emphasized the theme of humanitarian intervention, while Saudi media opted for

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Other themes, mainly the maintenance of status quo and Iran. It is important to note that the

Journalistic presence on the ground was also studied to analyze the level of media’s interest in covering the conflicts. However, the findings extracted from this analysis are not conclusive, given that in the case of Syrian war, the elevated number of journalists killed on the ground while covering the conflict made most media decide not to send more reporters, aside from the interests that their respective countries of origin may have in Syria.

The second main conclusion on the comparative study is that, despite some of the studied media are from a Western democracy and others are from an authoritarian monarchy in the Middle East, there were similar traits in their coverage of the wars in Syria and Yemen. This was discernible through the use of Sources and the Political positioning of the news items. Media from both countries used similar types of sources – either from the media’s countries of origin, the countries in conflict or other international sources.

Regarding the political positioning, Saudi media showed a relevant proportion of neutral news items – although also many news items in favor – both in the coverage of Syria and

Yemen, a level of neutrality that was equal or even superior to the US media. On the other hand, US media were mostly in favor – with reservations – of the foreign policy changes that followed. In addition, Saudi media showed, in a similar way as US media, a substantial criticism preceding the intervention in Yemen. This was a striking finding, given that preceding a foreign policy action that was clearly result of a critical geopolitical concern for

Saudi Arabia, and considering the political regime and the context of media freedom in the country, a more favorable media coverage was expected towards the foreign policy change that followed.

Regarding the study on the effect of media coverage on US and Saudi foreign policymaking, the results of the logistic regression analysis show that the proposed model

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that analyzes the three sets of variables that were statistically significant – Sources,

Themes, and Words – together (Model 4) explains the 40% of the variance in the dependent variable – a military intervention or a ceasefire. Although the results do not allow to clearly affirm the existence of a causality between the variables analyzed from US and Saudi media coverage and the foreign policy changes towards the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts, they do show that the combination of the different types of Sources, Themes, and Words used strongly predict a high percentage of cases. Nonetheless, other factors out of the reach of this study may have influenced foreign policy decisions in addition to media coverage.

The main implications of this study are that, despite the diverging political regimes and the press freedom contexts in a Western democracy such as the US and an Arab monarchical autocracy such as Saudi Arabia, the media coverage of these two countries on the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts did not show key differences that might have been expected – although media from each country reflect diverging geopolitical interests. This may suggest that Arab media are opening and diversifying their coverage of foreign affairs.

This, in turn, could be related to the increasingly empowering role of social media worldwide, which allow citizens from far away countries and radically different regime types to express their opinions – although still with different levels of freedom – on many issues, and also on foreign conflicts and military interventions. On the other hand, the correlation showed by the results of the logistic regression analysis between certain types of media coverage and foreign policies suggests that the power media coverage should be taken more into consideration in conflict resolution efforts. If in the face of conflicts and humanitarian disasters such as the ones currently taking place in Syria and Yemen media contributed to emphasize themes and use words related to peace and conflict resolution, and

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used a variety of sources in order to provide different points of view of the conflicts, policymakers, both in the West and the Arab World, may be encouraged and empowered to seek for diplomatic solutions and ceasefires.

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Appendix A. Headlines Of The Analyzed News Items

1. The New York Times

a) The New York Times: Intervention in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline NYT-1 28 August 2014 "Beheadings in Syria Now Routine, U.N. Panel Says" NYT-2 29 August 2014 "Syrian Refugees Surpass 3 Million, U.N. Says" NYT-3 1 September 2014 "Affiliate of Al Qaeda Confirms Capture of U.N. Peacekeepers in Syria" NYT-4 2 September 2014 "Militants Add Cluster Bombing to Tactics, Rights Group Says" NYT-5 3 September 2014 "ISIS Says It Killed Steven Sotloff After U.S. Strikes in Northern Iraq" NYT-6 4 September 2014 "After Beheading of Steven Sotloff, Obama Pledges to Punish ISIS" NYT-7 5 September 2014 "Syria May Have Hidden Chemical Arms, U.S. Says" NYT-8 8 September 2014 "Destroying ISIS May Take Years, U.S. Officials Say" NYT-9 9 September 2014 "As Obama Makes Case, Congress Is Divided on Campaign Against Militants" NYT-10 10 September 2014 "Obama Ready to Authorize Airstrikes on ISIS in Syria"

b) The New York Times: Ceasefire in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline NYT-11 29 January 2016 "Syrian Opposition Bloc Still Won't Commit to Joining Peace Talks" NYT-12 1 February 2016 "Syria Peace Talks Inch Ahead as Bombings Near Damascus Continue" NYT-13 2 February 2016 "Syria Talks Are Declared Open as Mediator Begins Shuttle Diplomacy" NYT-14 3 February 2016 "New Offensive by Assad's Forces Overshadows Syria Peace Talks" NYT-15 4 February 2016 "Syria Talks Are Suspended" NYT-16 5 February 2016 "Government Forces, Backed by Russian Jets, Advance in Syria" NYT-17 8 February 2016 "Member of ISIS group Led by 'Jihadi John' Is Reportedly Identified" NYT-18 9 February 2016 "Syrians Desperate to Escape What U.N. Calls 'Extermination' by Government" NYT-19 10 February 2016 "Syrian Opposition Groups Sense U.S. Support Fading" NYT-20 11 February 2016 "Russian Intervention in Syrian War Has Sharply Reduced U.S. Options"

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c) The New York Times: Intervention in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline NYT-21 29 September 2016 "Activists cry foul as U.N. decides against Yemen rights probe" NYT-22 30 September 2016 "Gunmen assassinate a senior intelligence official in Yemen" NYT-23 3 October 2016 "Red Cross says female French hostage released in Yemen" NYT-24 4 October 2016 "UN: Yemenis need urgent aid" NYT-25 5 October 2016 "UAE says Houthi attack on ship in shipping lane was 'act of terrorism'" NYT-26 6 October 2016 "Once lauded as a peacemaker Obama's tenure fraught with war" NYT-27 7 October 2016 "U.N. envoy hopes to announce Yemen ceasefire deal soon" NYT-28 10 October 2016 "A Roar at a Funeral, and Yemen's War Is Altered" NYT-29 11 October 2016 "U.N. Chief Condemns Airstrike on Yemeni Funeral and Dismisses Saudi Denials" NYT-30 12 October 2016 "Pentagon hints at possible retaliation after Yemen missile fire"

d) The New York Times: Ceasefire in Yemen17

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline NYT-31 13 October 2016 "U.S. Ship Off Yemen Fires Missiles at Houthi Rebel Sites" NYT-32 14 October 2016 "Yemen Sees U.S. Strikes as Evidence of Hidden Hand Behind Saudi Air War" NYT-33 17 October 2016 "Yemen ceasefire set to start on Wednesday night: U.N. envoy" NYT-34 18 October 2016 "Short-Term Cease-Fire in Yemen Appears Likely" NYT-35 19 October 2016 "Yemen's 72-hour U.N. mediated ceasefire starts" NYT-36 20 October 2016 "Yemen missile launch, Saudi-led air strike strain truce" NYT-37 21 October 2016 "Parties to Yemen war exchange accustions of breaching ceasefire" NYT-38 6 November 2016 "Marine Veteran Held by Yemeni Rebels since 2015 Is Freed" NYT-39 14 November 2016 "U.S. Fingerprints on Attacks Obliterating Yemen's Economy"

17 Only 9 samples were available in this time period.

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2. CNN

a) CNN: Intervention in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline CNN-40 28 August 2014 "U.N.: 43 peacekeepers captured near Golan Heights crossing" CNN-41 29 August 2014 "Report: ISIS waterboarded captives" CNN-42 1 September 2014 "U.N. trying to secure release of Fijian peacekeepers held by Syrian rebels" CNN-43 2 September 2014 "Apparent ISIS executioner: 'I'm back, Obama'" CNN-44 3 September 2014 "Biden's warning to ISIS militants: 'We will follow them to the gates of hell'" CNN-45 4 September 2014 "Key White House adviser: U.S. Will fight ISIS with a coalition" CNN-46 5 September 2014 "Slain journalist Steven Sotloff has final word at his memorial service" CNN-47 8 September 2014 "CNN poll finds majority of Americans alarmed by ISIS" CNN-48 9 September 2014 "National security hawks call for airstrikes targeting ISIS leaders" CNN-49 10 September 2014 "As Obama prepares for ISIS fight, where are the doves?"

b) CNN: Ceasefire in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline CNN-50 29 January 2016 "Syria peace talks finally begin after delays" CNN-51 1 February 2016 "Syria peace talks inch on in shadow of attacks that killed dozens" CNN-52 2 February 2016 "Syrian opposition criticizes Russian aggression as peace talks inch on" CNN-53 3 February 2016 "As fighting rages, Syrian peace talks put on 'pause'" CNN-54 4 February 2016 "Former Russian MP: Assad taking more territory, so rebels must negotiate" CNN-55 5 February 2016 "40,000 fleeing Aleppo as battle for Syrian city intensifies, U.N. group says" CNN-56 8 February 2016 "In Syria, war crimes don't take sides, U.N. Report says" CNN-57 9 February 2016 "CNN inside Aleppo: A city on edge, trying to survive" CNN-58 10 February 2016 "John Kerry to push for ceasefire at Syria meeting" CNN-59 11 February 2016 "World powers agree to 'cessation of hostilities' in Syria"

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c) CNN: Intervention in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline CNN-60 15 August 2016 "Airstrike hits Yemen hospital, kills 14, aid group says" CNN-61 19 August 2016 "Saudi-led coalition regrets aid group's withdrawal in Yemen" CNN-62 29 August 2016 "ISIS claims suicide bombing at Yemeni military training camp" CNN-63 6 September 2016 "Lawmakers seek to stall $1B arms sale to Saudis" CNN-64 15 September 2016 "Yemen: The 'forgotten war' cloaked in the shadow of Syria" CNN-65 21 September 2016 "Senate rejects bid to block US-Saudi Arabia arms deal" CNN-66 22 September 2016 "Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen leave over 30 dead" CNN-67 27 September 2016 "No legitimate reason for attacks on Yemen hospitals, says aid group" CNN-68 10 October 2016 "Yemen: Missiles target US warship, Pentagon says" CNN-69 12 October 2016 "US strikes Yemen after missiles launched on warship"

d) CNN: Ceasefire in Yemen18

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline CNN-70 17 October 2016 "Yemen 'cessation of hostilities' begins, set to last for 72 hours" CNN-71 27 October 2016 "Yemen food crisis leaves millions at risk of starving" CNN-72 28 October 2016 "US intercepts multiple shipments of Iranian weapons going to Houthis in Yemen" CNN-73 2 November 2016 "The next US president faces a world of trouble"

18 Only 4 samples were available in this time period.

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3. Okaz

a) Okaz: Intervention in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline OK-74 1 September 2014 “Al-Nusra Front - (Jabhat al-Nusra)- Releases Five Military Men and Threatens to Slaughter Hezbollah Prisoners. Washington Unveils Its Strategy to Strike Daesh Next Week” OK-75 2 September 2014 “A Syrian Slaughtered by Daesh: Even His Prayers to God Did Not Save Him” OK-76 3 September 2014 “16 killed, including 10 children in an air strike by the Syrian Regime” OK-77 4 September 2014 “Terriosm of Al Assad, and ‘Daesh’” OK-78 5 September 2014 “The Elimination of Daesh: An International Coalition and A Strategic Planning to Root Out Extremism” OK-79 8 September 2014 “The Syrian Regime and Daesh: Two Sides of One Coin. Two Lebanese Analysts” OK-80 9 September 2014 “Kerry in the Region to Establish an Alliance against Terrorism” OK-81 10 September 2014 “Two European Analysts: It Is Time To Eliminate Daesh” OK-82 11 September 2014 “France is ready for A Military Action Against ‘Daesh’ in Iraq and perhaps Syria” OK-83 12 September 2014 “CIA: Daesh fighters 20,000 to 31,500. Intensifying Raids on Daesh: Washington Spreads Aircraft in Arbil”

b) Okaz: Ceasefire in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline OK-84 9 October 2015 “Kerry discusses with Lavrov the concern of the main intervention in Syria” OK-85 12 October 2015 “The Crown Prince and the Russian president discussed developments in Syria” OK-86 13 October 2015 “Leading coalition for Okaz: We demand weapons to eradicate Bashar” OK-87 14 October 2015 “ A Sudi-French agreement on the Iranian interference. Al-Jubair- The Kingdom’s position did not change toward Syria or Al Assad’s regime” OK-88 16 October 2015 “Hollande: Russian intervention will not save Al-Assad” OK-89 19 October 2015 “Al Jubair: We welcome the Yemini investigation according to 2216. Iran is an occupation country and is not part of a solution in Syria” OK-90 20 October 2015 “Bashar is a president without presidency” OK-91 21 October 2015 “De Mistura and the Silence” OK-92 22 October 2015 “Political Analysts in Vienna, Musco is considering its vision for a political solution” OK-93 23 October 2015 “Qarsli for Okaz: A pivotal role for Saudi diplomacy in activating the political solution in Syria”

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c) Okaz: Intervention in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline OK-94 13 March 2015 “New Organizational Decisions are Expected [including] Two Vice Presidents. Yemeni Source to Okaz: Saleh Rallies the Tribes and Political Powers against Hadi” OK-95 16 March 2015 “Yemen and the Last Chance” OK-96 17 March 2015 “Two Palestinians experts to Ukkaz: Arabs Should Forcefully Intervene to Reclaim Yemen” OK-97 18 March 2015 “Yemenis Depend on the Kingdom to Save Their Country” OK-98 19 March 2015 “Iranian Experts Plan to Breach Ma’rib. Al-Bayda’ Tribes Deal the Huthis Calamitous Human Losses” OK-99 20 March 2015 “Confirming that the Strikes upon the Presidential Palace are Proof that They Reject Political Solutions, President Hadi Says: Saleh and the Huthis’ Military Coup Has Been Foiled ” OK-100 23 March 2015 “Expedited UN Mechanisms to Save Yemen” OK-101 24 March 2015 “Calling for Iran to Not be Given Deals that It Does Not Deserve in the Nuclear Negotiations, Sa’ud al-Faisal says: We Will Take Actions to Protect the Region if the Huthi Coup Does Not Stop” OK-102 25 March 2015 “Yemen Requests Military Intervention; Foreign Ministers Study the Situation” OK-103 26 March 2015 “[Operation] Decisive Storm to Protect Yemen’s Legitimate Government and Defend Its People”

d) Okaz: Ceasefire in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline OK-104 7 November 2016 “Hadi: We Don’t Want a Fragile or False Peace” OK-105 8 November 2016 “The Huthis Threaten to “Sweep Away the Deposed [‘Ali Saleh]” OK-106 9 November 2016 “30 Terrorists Killed in Mukalla; Hadi Apologizes for Meeting Walid al-Sheikh” OK-107 10 November 2016 “Yemen: A Recovery Plan in Liberated Areas is Launched” OK-108 11 November 2016 “Batis to Okaz: Walid al-Sheikh Failed to Achieve Peace in Yemen” OK-109 14 November 2016 “Kerry Arrives to Oman to Defend Peace Efforts in Yemen” OK-110 15 November 2016 “Formation of a Yemeni National Unity Government by the End of the Year Was Announced. Kerry Declares a Ceasefire in Yemen; the Legitimate Government says ‘His Statements Were Made Without Our Knowledge’” OK-111 16 November 2016 “Hadi Praises the Coalitions Efforts to Support His Country’s Government Against the Coup” OK-112 17 November 2016 “[‘Abd-al-Malik] al-Huthi’s Nephew and 28 militiamen are Killed in Sa’dah” OK-113 18 November 2016 “Movements to Classify the Huthis a Terror Group. Human Rights Watch (HRW): The Putschists are Abusing [their] Opponents”

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4. Al-Arabiya

a) Al-Arabiya: Intervention in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline ARA-114 18 August 2014 “Fighters in Syria are sentenced to imprisonment” ARA-115 21 August 2014 “Iranian foreign Ministry: Ready to cooperate with Riyadh” ARA-116 26 August 2014 “Al Faisal welcomes the assistant of the Iranian Foreign Minister, today” ARA-117 28 August 2014 “Iran: Zareef’s visit to Saudi Arabia is confirmed” ARA-118 29 August 2014 “Saudi Conditions to establish a cooperative relationship with Iran” ARA-119 3 September 2014 “Syria’s Foreign Fighters… Tunisia is at the Forefront” ARA-120 5 September 2014 “Iran: our relationship train with Saudi Arabia is on the right track” ARA-121 9 September 2014 “Jeddah hosts the international meeting to confront “ISIS”” ARA-122 10 September 2014 “Obama reveals today a strategy to fight “ISIS”” ARA-123 12 September 2014 “Kerry in Turkey to discuss alliance against “ISIS””

b) Al-Arabiya: Ceasefire in Syria

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline ARA-124 21 September 2015 “Saudi Arabia is upset by the world's disregard for the lives of the Syrians” ARA-125 29 September 2015 “Saudi Arabia: Assad has to either leave or face the Military option” ARA-126 30 September 2015 “Saudi Arabia: We Call on Russia to Cease its Military Operations in Syria” ARA-127 1 October 2015 “Saudi – Egyptian Consultations on Yemen, Syria and Libya” ARA-128 2 October 2015 “Al-Jubeir: Al-Assad Has No Role in Syria Transition Phase” ARA-129 13 October 2015 “Al-Jubeir: Saudi's Stance on Syria and Al-Assad has not changed” ARA-130 19 October 2015 “Al-Jubeir: Iran is an Occupying Power … We hope that Iran halts its interventions” ARA-131 21 October 2015 “King Salman receives a call from Putin” ARA-132 22 October 2015 “Vienna: Russia-US-Turkey-Saudi Meeting to determine the Syrian destiny” ARA-133 23 October 2015 “Lavrov: Russian-Jordanian Agreement on Military Coordination in Syria”

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c) Al-Arabiya: Intervention in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline ARA-134 27 February 2015 “Yemen... The transfer of Gulf embassies to Aden to support legitimacy” ARA-135 2 March 2015 “The Crown Prince meets the newly released diplomat upon his arrival” ARA-136 3 March 2015 “King Salman gives "Al Khaldi" the king "Abdul Aziz" insignia.” ARA-137 6 March 2015 “With video… Many secrets about releasing Al Khaldi” ARA-138 9 March 2015 “Saud Al Faisal swears the oath in front of King Salman” ARA-139 11 March 2015 “Mohammed bin Naif: States and regimes that finance terrorism to target us” ARA-140 20 March 2015 “King Salman orders to treat the victims of the Aden and Sanaa bombings” ARA-141 23 March 2015 “Al Faysal: Iran practices aggressive policies and intervenes in the region” ARA-142 25 March 2015 “Saudi forces bomb Huthis and reports of their leaders killed” ARA-143 26 March 2015 “The Supreme Scholars Council: "Asefat AlHazm" in Support of Legitimacy in Yemen”

d) Al-Arabiya: Ceasefire in Yemen

Ref. Num. Date Article Headline ARA-144 17 October 2016 “Al-Jubeir: The entry of the militias into Mosul will cause a bloodbath” ARA-145 19 October 2016 “The league announces the start of a ceasefire in Yemen for 3 days” ARA-146 20 October 2016 “The Houthi militias violate the truce.24 breaches In the early hours” ARA-147 21 October 2016 “Yemen 's truce on its second day. 43 violations of militias” ARA-148 25 October 2016 “Saudi Arabia accuses Iran of supporting Houthi with money and weapons” ARA-149 28 October 2016 “Al-Makhlafi: Targeting Mecca proves that there are no taboos at the coupists” ARA-150 1 November 2016 “Yemen: Militias accuse UN envoy of fueling war” ARA-151 4 November 2016 “A campaign in several Pakistani cities for solidarity with Saudi Arabia” ARA-152 10 November 2016 “Yemen... Hadi refuses to meet the UN envoy” ARA-153 16 November 2016 “British ministers with unprecedented clarity: We will continue to overthrow Saudi Arabia”

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Appendix B. Methodology: Description Of Variables

Variables studied in the content analysis

Variables Media’s closeness 1. Location of media coverage “The Ground”: the country in conflict to the conflict Other countries in the MENA region International The Newsroom: media’s country of origin 2. Authorship of the news items Journalists from the media News Agencies Experts in the field 3. Types of sources Sources from the media’s country of origin Sources from the country in conflict International entities (UN, NGOs) Other international sources (media, experts...) Priming of the news 4. Section World/Middle East Politics Other Unknown/Non-Applicable 5. Physical positioning Appearance in the front page/prime time or not 6. Length of the news items Short (headlines and body of the news Medium items) Long Media frames 7. Main themes Security/Terror and themes Humanitarian crisis Conflict resolution/Peace Other themes 8. Words’ choice Military intervention/Security (not terrorism) (headlines and body of the news Ceasefire/Peace items) Terrorism Media’s political 9. Political positioning of the Positive/empathic positioning headlines Neutral Negative/Critical 10. Political positioning of the In favor/Pro body of the news items Pro with reservations Neutral/Balanced Contrary with reservations Contrary

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Appendix C. Chi-Square Analysis

Priming and hierarchy of the news

Variables Intervention Intervention Ceasefire Ceasefire Pearson Syria (%) Yemen (%) Syria Yemen Chi- (%) (%) Square (p value) Section19 World / Middle East 65.0 75.0 95.0 76.9 .141 Politics / National 35.0 25.0 5.0 23.1 .141 Other 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 N/A20 Physical Front page / Prime 36.8 50.0 57.9 55.6 .597 positioning21 time Other 63.2 50.0 42.1 44.4 .597 Length22 Headline Short 2.5 0.0 5.0 0.0 .328 Medium 60.0 65.0 55.0 54.5 .767 Long 37.5 35.0 40.0 45.5 .826 Body Short 35.0 30.0 35.0 54.5 .156 Medium 37.5 35.0 32.5 33.3 .969 Long 27.5 35.0 32.5 12.1 .136

19 This table shows the results mainly for US media, as the section in which the news items appeared was not specified in the case of Arab media – the newspaper Okaz and the television channel Al-Arabiya. 20 In this case there is no computed p value because “Other sections” is a constant: it is absent in all cases. 21 This table shows the results mainly for US media, as the presence of the selected news items in front pages or prime time was not specified in Saudi news items. The positioning of the news items was not specified in the case of Arab media – Okaz and Al-Arabiya – and in some news items from The New York Times. 22 As specified in the Methodology chapter, the range of lengths of the news items – short, medium, long – is particular for each media, as it was calculated from the news items’ average length in each of them.

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