Aristotle University of Thessaloniki School of Journalism & Mass Communications English Language MA in Digital Media, Communication & Journalism International news organizations and the coverage of global events: The Egyptian Arab Spring by aljazeera.com, bbc.com, and chinadaily.com.cn Dissertation Student: Minos-Athanasios Karyotakis Supervisor: Nikos Panagiotou Thessaloniki 2017 Abstract ‘Arab Spring’ is known with several names such as ‘Jasmine Revolution’, and ‘Arab Evolution’. Its impact on the lives of the Arab people remains unknown until today, as there are many different opinions. Moreover, there exist many researches on the Arab Spring and the information flow conducted by prominent media companies. However, few of them take into consideration the Chinese media landscape and its growing influence. As a result, this MA dissertation tries to reveal the framing of the followed news organizations, Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily. The research focuses on a five- day period of time (9-13 February 2011) sample of 92 articles via the usage of Open Calais. The main finding is that all of the examined news organizations portrayed the events with the Civil unrest frame. Thus, this study displays new findings for the research of the Arab Spring because of the fact that all of the aforementioned news organizations paid no attention to the individual characteristics of the people that participated at the uprisings and treated the protesters as a unified crowd that causes civil unrest. As a result, this framing can lead to the adoption of negative or positive characteristics for the whole movement, which are relied on the narrative of each news organization. Keywords: News coverage; Civil Unrest; Media companies; Arab Revolution 2 Acknowledgements To thank all those who deserve gratitude for the completion of my Master’s studies would require even more pages than this dissertation already contains. Believing that they are aware of the extent of my gratitude, I will limit myself to thanking only Assistant Professor Nikos Panagiotou for providing his persistent guidance in order to finish this study successfully and my family for giving me once again the opportunity to touch the shining stars of knowledge. 3 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 1: Mass media and revolutions: theoretical approaches ..................... 7 Chapter 2: International news organizations .................................................... 13 Chapter 2.1: Al Jazeera ...................................................................................... 21 Chapter 2.2: BBC............................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2.3: China Daily ................................................................................... 33 Chapter 3: Methodology ...................................................................................... 39 Chapter 3.1: Results ........................................................................................... 45 Chapter 3.2: Discussion ..................................................................................... 50 Chapter 3.3: Conclusions ................................................................................... 53 Notes ....................................................................................................................... 54 Appendices ............................................................................................................. 55 Bibliography ........................................................................................................138 4 Introduction The role of the Arab Spring was significant for the Arab people, especially for the Egyptians that believed that this revolution could lead them to a more modernized nation. Arab Spring in Egypt did not happen due to the power or the status of political forces or parties and this is the reason why it cannot be associated with specific labour movements and unions. It was caused by the new generation, which with new ideas intended to challenge the old generation and its sovereignty, something that had not happened for decades. The mechanisms that had been created by the regime were strong and had managed to uproot the opposition. Egypt was experiencing a large and growing gap between the different political parties and the several social movements. The regime had failed to absorb the anger of young people, who hoped for a more prosperous future than this of their parents (El Raggal & Ezzat, 2015). The existing gaps were being exploited by the youth generation of the country and showed that “smartphone citizen journalism is particularly important in areas where governments successfully controlled the activity of professional journalists” (Duffy, 2011, p. 54). New technologies and social media networking contributed to the successful spread of the movement. Those that possessed mobile phones, which could be connected to the web and to immortalize the events, could report through Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. This footage often was used by well- known news organizations, including Al Jazeera and the BBC, due to the limitations that had been applied by the Egyptian regime. In the meantime, technological developments have changed the way of coverage. News organizations are trying to find new ways to inform the public and become better than their competitors in order to survive. In addition, this struggling amongst the news outlets of the globe became more intense with the expansion of the Chinese media market. Chinese government is spending large sums of money for empowering its media companies. In this dynamic context, it is important to see the way of how international news organizations (Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily) decided to frame (the way of portraying individuals or events) one of the most crucial incidents of the Egyptian Arab Spring, the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. This can provide useful insight regarding the ways the media outlets can shape public perceptions. 5 Thus, the first chapter begins by defining media framing and presenting the new challenges that faces the field of journalism. The next chapter talks about the creation and the spread of international news organizations and the coverage of the Arab Spring, including the profile of the three news organizations of the study: Al Jazeera, BBC, and China Daily. Finally, the last chapter presents in detail the study of this dissertation and its findings. 6 Chapter 1: Mass media and revolutions: theoretical approaches Mass media role in providing frames and dominant interpretations to the audience is critical. As it is known, facts in journalism should be placed in a context in order to put emphasis on a specific angle or frame that could provide a “central organizing idea or story line that provides meaning” (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989, p. 143). According to Entman (1993, p. 52) “Framing essentially involves selection and salience. To frame is to select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation for the item described […] Frames, then, define problems - determine what a causal agent is doing with what costs and benefits, usually measured in terms of common cultural values, diagnose causes - identify the forces creating the problem; make moral judgments - evaluate causal agents and their effects; and suggest remedies - offer and justify treatments for the problems and predict their likely effects”. Moreover, “News frames are constructed from and embodied in the keywords, metaphors, concepts, symbols and visual images influenced in a news narrative” (Entman, 1991, p. 7). Subsequently frame-building indicates the elements that affect the basic aspects of news frames. The internal and external journalistic aspects regulate the framing issues of journalists and news agencies/organizations. Furthermore, it should be mentioned that there is a constant communication amongst social movements, journalists and the establishment. Those interactions and the provided frames are evident in the text of news stories. Apart from frame-building, there is also frame-setting which focuses more on the individuals’ prior knowledge and predispositions and the influence that is caused by his communication with the media’s frame. This is one of the reason why media framing can affect society and change attitudes and behaviours of each individual, leading to alteration of decision- making and political socialization (De Vreese, 2005). The eruption of the two World Wars changed not only the form and frames of warfare, but also the way journalists covered the conflict zones. The concept of hybrid warfare 7 that emerged in 2005 has been used a lot to describe Hezbollah’s combat tactics in the Lebanon war of 2006, and it is linked with the complexity of the current battlefield. The essence is that the enemies are no longer symmetrical (predictable, static, etc.), but asymmetrical: easily and continuously adaptable with unpredictable tactics. Today’s battlegrounds are likewise characterised by a modern information environment that holds a lot of information and data about potential or current targets, field operations, cyberweapons etc. In other words, in the conflicts of our times everything matters, even the framing and the