‘Al Jazeera is the largest and most controversial Arabic News Channel in the Middle East, offering news coverage 24 hours a day from around the world, with a focus on the hottest regions of conflict. The channel that sent shockwaves through the whole Arab world from its first day on air has become a global name which people, governments, and decision-makers cannot afford to ignore.” (1)
Jazeera’s in-depth global approach to journalism, allied with a commitment to giving ‘voice to the voiceless’, has won it numerous awards and plaudits over the years.’ (2) Al Jazeera is most known because it shows news straight from the countries itself and this was the first TV news station to do so. This was very effective because it gave them a great target audience of adults who wanted to hear it straight from the area in which the news is being taken from not word of mouth.
Al Jazeera Arabic started on November 1st 1996 soon after the closure of the BBC’s Arabic Language TV station. Al Jazeera started broadcasting for only 6 hours a day but that soon escalated to 12 hours a day by the end of 1997. And became the first independent news channel in the Arab world. The station’s headquarters are in Doha, Qatar, and it is affiliated with the Arabic-language Al Jazeera. ‘Al Jazeera’s first exclusive story from within the Arab region was in December 1998 when U.S and U.K air forces mounted raids against Baghdad over four nights. Saddam Hussein chose to announce his survival and speak directly to the Arab world on Al-Jazeera.’(3) Saddam Hussein said that he ‘Preferred Al-Jazeera for its credibility and wide audience in the Arab world. (4) Al Jazeera had made a major impact after that as it became a wide scoop that was first seen on their channel. They are widely known for starting to show news stories straight from the countries the stories come from and that alone is one of the major reasons Al Jazeera has become the respected global news station it is today. Al Jazeera is the most watched news channel on YouTube, receiving 2.5 million views per month. Launched on April 16, 2007, the Al Jazeera English YouTube site has more than 25,000 videos currently live on the English Channel. (6)
Differences between Al Jazeera and BBC world:
The differences between Al Jazeera and BBC world is that BBC have a chain of different news channels and they are well known due to being the first channel on TV. The BBC’s reputation has taken a huge impact on the way news stories are presented and more or less started it all. Although Al Jazeera has also created a massive impact following the BBC and you could debate which one is now better, as Al Jazeera creates a way for people to view stories straight from that country and they bring cultures together. The BBC is the largest broadcaster in the world whereas Al Jazeera is currently available in many countries around the world via satellite and cable. In January 2007, Al Jazeera English replaced BBC World on Yes, Israeli satellite television.(6) one of the other differences between the two is that the BBC doesn’t have adverts whereas Al Jazeera does. The BBC is popular especially because you don’t have to sit through and watch adverts which is a slight downfall for Al Jazeera. Although Al Jazeera has correspondence from around the world comparing an article about Brexit to the way Al Jazeera has taken it on is worded slightly different. BBC uses words such as “we” and “us” when talking about Brexit as this is a topic based in Britain. Whereas when Al Jazeera talks about the situation referring “Britain” because it’s not an English based news channel. Also the BBC when talking about British scenarios also has more to talk about on the subject as you can see here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38641208 in comparison to how much information Al Jazeera talks about the topic:
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2017/01/hard-brexit-uk-leave-eu-170117184219449.html
Similarities between Al Jazeera and BBC world:
The similarities between Al Jazeera and BBC world is that they both show news stories from around the world. They both are available 24 hours a day (Al Jazeera can be watched 24 hours a day and the BBC can be watched and viewed online anytime as they have constant updates). Both Al Jazeera and the BBC are positive globalizers as they create a way for cultures to come together and they find a way to present the news from different countries to create more of a connection between the story and the audience as it makes the audience feel more positive about the news information they are receiving and makes them feel a part of a different culture. Another way in which they are similar is that they both have guests come on the show to speak their own opinions on topics that are going on.
Al Jazeera is known as a global news channel as it broadcasts to more than 220 million households in more than 100 countries and they have a media network which has more than 4,000 highly experienced staff from over 70 nationalities making their newsrooms the most diverse in the world. As you can see from the picture below these are some of the places to which Al Jazeera broadcasts to.
Al Jazeera’s staff has been trained in a western journalistic style tradition; ‘wielding the expert knowledge and understanding of the Arab politics and audiences.’(4) Al Jazeera creates news stories from different places around the world so they can share the culture and news from different areas. This makes it global because it not only bring different cultures together they also have access to their website all around the world and you are able to view their news channel 24 hours a day wherever you are. It is also global because they have different correspondents from different countries reporting news daily from that country.
On the Al Jazeera website they show a list of previous and upcoming events that they have/will be holding. This is a great idea as it helps bring people closer to the stories and makes them feel more apart of it. Like for example one of their previous events is “Conference “Islamic Movements: Transformations after the Arab Revolutions” and this was held on the 21st of September 2016. They’re layout of their website makes it easier for people to access the in-formation they want.
To be able to feel even closer to Al Jazeera on their website you can watch their about talk to Al Jazeera as they weekly do one on one conversations with big leaders of the world, icons, influences and they also speak to others who have stumbled upon an accident or people who find themselves in odd events. This is a great idea to connect to the audience and also make them feel more a part of the news channel as they get opinions from well-known people and also information from regular people around the world like themselves.
Al Jazeera also have their own twitter pages so people can get constant updates from their social media app. This is a helpful way for them to keep people who are constantly on the move updated with the latest news. This also is an influence as to how they are a globalizer. They also have their own Facebook page to which people can follow them and keep updated with the latest news as and when they please.
‘The Al Jazeera Network Consists of:
1. Al Jazeera Satellite channel (Arabic)
2. Al Jazeera English
3. Al Jazeera Documentary
4. Al Jazeera Sport
5. Al Jazeera Mubasher (Live)
6. Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Centre
7. Al Jazeera Centre for Studies
8. Al Jazeera Mobile
9. Al Jazeera.net (the Arabic web site)
10. Al Jazeera English Online (the English web site)’ (6)
This shows just how global Al Jazeera has become as they continue to grow as a worldwide news station.
Al Jazeera are very popular for having a wide range of different cultures work for them and they also have a lot of diversities in the different cultural stories they take on. October 18th 2016 they had created an article on their website which shows their opinion on the cultural differences ‘Multilingualism: Speaking the language of diversity’ (5) which they lead to comment that ‘Knowing one or more foreign languages enables you to savour the world with different tongues. It can help broaden your horizons, make you appreciate the dizzying diversity of the world, while driving home that, despite our differences, we share many remarkable similarities.’ (5) This alone shows how culturally diverse they are and try to influence people to try to be just as diverse as they are.
The only issue with being a cultural news channel like Al Jazeera is that not everyone is as accepting. Some cultural classes may have some stereotypical comments about Al Jazeera as they are an Arabic news channel. Even though they are worldwide and broadcast from multiple countries around the world.
Al Jazeera censors anything that could be considered to the public as obscene or politically unacceptable.
Al Jazeera shows signs of obdurate traditional news values as they report news that everyone would listen to. Although being based as an Arabic channel not a lot of English people have probably heard of it or would choose it over a news channel like the BBC and this is where religion comes into the matter as even though Al Jazeera is a well-known popular channel some people are stereotypical and associate Al Jazeera as a terrorist news channel.
Al Jazeera is a globalizator as it has multiple news channels around the world and a website that is accessible from multiple countries. They also have their own radio station which is available to listen to live online at any time as is their news station which you can watch 24 hours a day both online and on TV. It is also a globalisator as it has increased their services over the years and also shows economic relations and cultural exchanged across the world as they share the news from different countries.
Al Jazeera has branded their logo and created it to be known all over the world. This also shows how Al Jazeera is a globalizator as they are well known by their logo.
Al Jazeera is not a form of hyperlocal journalism as they refer events on a small scale for example it might be a website that covers small neighbourhood or town news. For example Luton news today covers local news stories from Luton town and it is something to which worldwide news stations wouldn’t report. A hyperlocal journalism site might include an article about a local charity fund raiser or an incident that has taken place in the local town centre. Al Jazeera would only report news stories from around the world that are on a much larger scale of problems. They would rank news stories on most importance/ bad as bad news is what people most likely want to know about as they want to be aware of what’s going on in the world around them. Local news channels try to be more subtle and maybe would report something small that has gone in that area alone and they tend not to venture out of that area. Whereas global journalism (like Al Jazeera) share news from around the world that everyone would care about for example Trump becoming president that was a worldwide trend and news channels from all over the world was reporting about this, including Al Jazeera. Whereas a local news channel wouldn’t talk about Trump becoming president they would talk about an event that would be happening in that local area.
Al Jazeera has recently published an article about needing to ‘resist censorship of cyberspace’
‘Al-Jazeera satellite channel, bringing the Arab take on the “war on Terror” to global audiences. Despite constant attempts from the bush administration to censor and block access to Al-Jazeera’s reports, the Qatari network constantly expands its global activity and the spread of its counter-hegemonic reports at the expanse of western networks’ (7)
This article argues that the Al-Jazeera “contra-flow” poses the greatest challenge to the Western news hegemony in the history of global media, as it has the ability to challenge the Western perspective on a global level and sometimes even enforce images that portray the non-Western angle on Western stations
‘Al Jazeera has caused plenty of trouble by fostering debate about topics that many in the region – including many news organizations – threat as being outside the news media’s purview. On Al Jazeera everything from the role of women to the competence of governments is addressed often loudly. The stations motto is “the opinion and the other opinion” which might seem commonplace in the west but is exceptional in the Arab media world.’(8) This highlights Al Jazeera’s western take on their station.
Al Jazeera also work in citizen journalism as they have covered a variety of stories in different places where reporters where unsafe and not welcome in that area. Since mobile devices with video camera have taken off it have allowed citizens to submit videos to Al Jazeera through email or any smartphone apps that Al Jazeera has created.
“It’s all about empowering people to tell their own stories. That’s, I think, the philosophy here. The technology was probably mature enough around about 2008, with journalists being a bit more open to the idea, so that was the right time. I think everything just kind of came together.”(9)
Although citizens can send footage to Al Jazeera not all videos that are sent are able to be posted. They even cut some images out because they are simply too graphic to be shown to the public like for example the video they got of Gadhafi being killed was a citizen video which had to be edited by Al Jazeera’s editors as it was too graphic to show the public.
“A lot of the content we get is gruesome. It won’t make it to screen or to our websites. A tank opened fire on a building just recently. What happened in Houla, in Syria, you know, with the children. We had pictures and videos of people with their heads blown off just about.” (9) Riyaad Minty from Al Jazeera said.
Overall Al Jazeera is a globalized news station which is growing daily. It has created a reputation over the years which has influenced cultures to come together and it also makes the audience feel closer to other cultures too. They have created a way to connect to the people through social media to keep people updated with news 24 hours a day as well as being a 24 hour news channel. And have become one of the most popular news channels.
18.1.2017