Persuasion, Media Discourse, and Image Making; Critical Discourse Analysis of Arab Gulf Media

Abstract

This comparative study aims to critically analyze the media discourse of Arab Gulf countries in terms of objectivity, persuasion, and national brands. It is also necessary to investigate the power relations in the Gulf media discourse and the ideologies adopted by the conflicting parties which aim to mobilize public opinion locally and internationally. Arab Gulf media outlets attempt to convince the masses of the legitimacy of the political agenda and foreign policies of Arab countries in the region. In many cases, the Arab Gulf regimes attempt to own hegemony and control over power relations by adopting an inflammatory media discourse capable of distorting the true image of other groups on the one hand and supporting the national brand and the foreign policies of the ruling families on the other. This complex relationship between the media discourse and the structures of power makes the task more difficult to uncover the deep link that constitutes the components of the adopted discourse and opens the door to many interpretations that need good textual and ontological analysis. Therefore, critical discourse analysis was used as a method of data analysis to understand the ideological attitudes during the online media coverage of both Aljazeera and al-Arabiya media networks. The stratified sample of this comparative study consists of 8 news reports retrieved from both websites. The comparative analysis reveals that the Arab media discourse employed by the conflicting parties is far from neutral especially when political crises arise between major powers as in the case of the Gulf dispute between Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and other countries. Al-Arabiya English has used an inflammatory discourse against the Qatari regime to create a negative image of Qatar's foreign policies, while Al-Jazeera English has adopted the Qatari narrative to refute the claims of supporting terrorism, spreading hate speech, and marketing extremist ideologies. However, both media outlets funded by Arab Gulf countries manipulate media content and meaning to mobilize public opinion and convince the international community of the legitimacy of their political agenda, foreign policies, and national identities.