WORLD CUP 2022 IN QATAR AS A STIMULUS OF SOCIO-POLITICAL DISCUSSIONS OF ARAB INTELLECTUALS

Abstract

The author analyzes the information discourse of the World Cup 2022 in Qatar through the prism of the liberal Arab media. It is assumed that the Qatari Championship turned out to be both a sporting and political event. The article highlights the main problems that formed the information agenda, as well as the vectors and trajectories of the interpretation and perception of the Championship by liberal analysts and experts. It is assumed that the Championship stimulated political and ideological contradictions between Arab experts. The author believes that Arab analysts formally used sports events to actualize the political, social and economic problems and contradictions of the Middle East in the information discourse. It is shown that the Championship underlined political contradictions, visualizing the lines of ideological demarcations between Arab intellectuals, who used sports as an information occasion for discussing political problems actively, including authoritarianism, democracy and human rights. The article analyzes the main vectors and trajectories of the politicization and ideologization of sport in the liberal segment of the Arab information discourse. The author presumes that the reaction of political elites to criticism of the liberal media was minimal, as the economic effect outweighed the reputational losses from liberal accusations. Therefore, it is shown that the reaction of the liberal media to the Championship 2022 in Qatar had a limited effect, contributing to the visualization of the liberal trend in the modern Arab world, highlighting the political and economic contradictions between the Arab states.