Al Jazeera is the most famous Arabic media today. This is because they
have done some unique reports about The War in Afghanistan and the Iraq war. For example,
Al Jazeera reported about that local civilians have been injured by the American side in the Iraq war and also reported a message from Osama bin Laden. Al Jazeera is unique;
therefore many people might believe that Al Jazeera is a fair organization. However,
there are several reasons against this opinio. This post will discuss about the difference an the similarities between the Western media and Al Jazeera.
Is Al Jazeera biased?
The media is restricted by a lot of elements such
as politics, economics and culture; therefore, the media is always influenced
by the situation. In other words, bias and the media are strongly related
anyway. Al Jazeera was founded in the Arabic countries and by Arabic people; therefore
it is biased toward Arabic culture (El-Nawawy 2003).
Their base of view
is Arabic culture; therefore it is a different reporting style and the content of Al Jazeera is different to contents from
western media. However, even if the style is different still the stance that biased
towards the own culture is the same.
Al Jazeera is
biased towards Arabic cultures; however, it might still bring positive effects to
our society because when Al Jazeera reports about the Arabic side of the view about a war
or other political issues, people could compare between Western reports and Arabic
reports. It might cause multiple choices for people and it will be good source
of critical thinking.
The media should
try to avoid bias; however, this might be difficult. Therefore, people need to be critical
and the Al Jazeera is a good source of comparison.
Image source:
Refelences:
El-Nawawy,
M. 2003, ‘The battle for the Arab mind’, Al-Jazeera, the story of the
network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism 2003,
Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69, 217-218
September 11 News.com 2009, retrieved 28 August 2012, <http://www.september11news.com/>
I think that Al-Jazeera suffers from the perception of bias, as you mentioned the News Network was founded in Arabic countries and therefore they would present their news stories in the interest of the Arab world. Compare that with Fox News who represent the conservative values of America and you have a contrast of what the real story is. I personally think the presence of Al-Jazeera presents an interesting alternative to what would be reported in the Western Media. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post. You have presented a great discussion on the Arabic bias of Al-Jazeera, specifically the notion of Al-Jazeera mirroring Fox in bias, albeit an oppositional one. This you have supported with academic referencing, and a good choice of imagery and presentation. I do feel however that your post could have been even better with some specific examples of this bias. Furthermore, take care of spelling/typos and repetition. Finally, I agree with your point of view, though sadly I think media (both Western and Eastern) will always be some what one sided due to issues of ownership.
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