Moroccan Media Research Articles

Exploring Gender Constructs in Media Narratives

This paper seeks to examine the discourse of women who have experienced marital violence as depicted in Moroccan media. Specifically, we will investigate how these women justify their discourse through authorization, aiming to construct arguments that portray them as victims and vilify their abusive husbands. Our analysis focuses on content from Medi 1TV, particularly the talk show "Qesset Nnass" (the story of people), where women articulate their viewpoints through authorization, conveying messages that require contextual understanding for interpretation. Our research is guided by the premise that the interaction between media and audience is intricate and significant, serving as a platform for women to validate their experiences while challenging the actions of their abusers, and providing Moroccans with an avenue to express their perspectives on these issues. Consequently, we aim to assess the effectiveness of these women's persuasive efforts within the show. Given the nature of our topic, our research employs a combination of methodologies. While we utilize a qualitative approach to analyze the discourse of the women subjected to violence through direct observation, we also employ a quantitative method to examine audience comments. This methodological approach enables us to explore the relationship between media content and public opinion, shedding light on the extent of its mutual and direct influence.

Polarized framing of scientific uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco

ABSTRACT Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this paper investigated how legacy and social media’s framing of scientific uncertainty contributed to shaping public opinion regarding public decision-making orientations. For this aim, Al Ouala TV and 2 M TV were selected among traditional media channels for their wide viewership and governmental stance. Additionally, various social media platforms were selected based on their active role in COVID-19 discourse. Using a purposive sampling method, a qualitative analysis was conducted on media coverage of COVID-19, focusing on the framing of uncertainties surrounding virus transmission, face mask usage, and vaccination between March 1, 2020 and July 30, 2022. Drawing on framing theory-based content analysis, the study found that the media framing did not allow for resolving the complexities involved in communicating scientific uncertainty and corresponding public decisions. The active use of social media has actually fostered affective polarization in the related context of fear, worry, and distrust, increasing resistance to public decision-making orientations and negatively impacting perceptions and motivations to respond to COVID-19 measures. Implications for public health communication and policy are discussed.

THE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION OF MOROCCAN AND FRENCH SPORTS JOURNALISTIC ARTICLES CASE OF COVERAGE OF THE QATAR 2022 WORLD CUP QUALIFIERS

In this work, our aim is to verify some communicative strategies used in sports journalistic articles. To do this, we used a set of sports articles published in online newspapers. These are articles from the French and Moroccan press. More precisely, these are sports articles covering events linked to soccer competitions. For reasons of corpus homogeneity, the period chosen for data collection concerns articles covering the Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers. The choice of French and Moroccan media is justified by the comparative nature of our study.

Equal in Death?

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked new perceptions of death—dying has lost its disinterestedness and transpired to be a site of cultural, existential and political struggles, despite efforts to shelve the idea of an unavoidable death from everyday life. Moroccan media, in particular, has centered its focus on mass burials, over-crowded hospitals and spiraling death rates to amplify citizens’ fear of death and thereby coerce them to stay at home in concert with the WHO guidelines. Given their physical and emotional proximity to the virus, this article zooms in on semi-structured narrative interviews with COVID-19 patients from Fez, Morocco, to analyze the implication of their pre-, during- and post-contamination experiences on the novel perceptions of death and dying. It arrives at a pivotal result: the return of symbolic immortality upon recovery when ex-patients become heroes who have succeeded in sidestepping the horror that the media worked untiringly to convey.

The Covid Pandemic Discourse in Literature and Mass Media: A Socio-Linguistic Study (Moroccan Media as a Model)

تهدف الدراسة إلى تتبع الأثر الاجتماعي الذي خلفه تفشي وباء كورونا في الأوساط المغربية، والتغيير الذي أحدثه في منظومة الإعلام والتواصل، التي تُعدّ اللغة عنصرًا أساسيًا من عناصرها، مع الإشارة إلى الدور الإيجابي الذي يقوم به الأديب في التأريخ لمثل هذه الظواهر، والكشف عن آثارها ومخلفاتها. وقد اعتمدنا في ذلك منهجًا استقرائيًّا يقوم على الوصف والتفسير، مع الحرص على دراسة الموضوع من جوانب عديدة؛ لُغوية، واجتماعية، وتاريخية، ونفسية. وتكتسي هذه الدراسة أهمية بالغة كونها تحاول الإجابة عن أربعة أسئلة جوهرية، هي: ما الأثر النفسي والاجتماعي الذي خلَّفه تفشي وباء كورونا في المجتمع المغربي؟ كيف تصدَّى الإعلام المغربي لهذه الظاهرة؟ ما التحول الذي طرأ على منظومة الإعلام المغربي خلال الظهور الأول للوباء؟ كيف يمكن أن يكون الأدب مِرآةً للمجتمع برصده مثل هذه الظواهر والتحسيس بمخاطرها؟ وقد توصلنا من خلال هذه الدراسة إلى مجموعة من النتائج والتوصيات، والمقصد من ذلك كله هو إبراز الدور الإيجابي للإعلام في تدبير الأزمات والحد من آثارها، والدعوة إلى إعادة النظر في منظومة الخطاب الإعلامي المعاصر؛ حتى تكون أكثر تأثيرًا وفاعلية في التصدِّي للجوائح التي يمكن أن تعصف بالمجتمع.

كلمة العدد (الإنجليزي)

Ansaq carries on with its regular publications that include various high-quality scientific research papers. We are pleased to present in this new issue five research papers, in addition to a translated chapter of a book. These papers cover different fields of knowledge, as shown in the table of contents; some papers tackle translation, some examine poetry and its aesthetics, some investigate communication mechanisms, in addition to other fields. The journal is still interacting with the Corona pandemic (Covid-19) as an exceptional event that shook the entire world in an unprecedented way, the effects of which are still present and felt every day in various walks of life. The dangers of this pandemic are still visible and have not come to their end yet. Covid-19 virus imposes itself from time to time through its new variants, which announce their appearance in the East at times, and in the West at other times. Hence, Ansaq welcomes scientific research that looks into this cosmic phenomenon in the context of what is related to its fields of research, especially those that deal with this issue from interdisciplinary research angles, similar to the sociolinguistic study in this issue on the approach to the epidemic discourse in literature and media. The study takes the Moroccan media as a model for this approach. Given the importance of translation in its communicative aspect with other cognitive products, this issue includes a translated chapter of the book: Du Cerveau au Savoir (From Brain to Knowledge), which is one of the most prominent philosophical works of the American linguistic philosopher John Rogers Searle. It is worth noting that Ansaq has recently joined the “Marefaˮ database after achieving the criteria for accrediting the impact factor and reference citations “Arcif,ˮ which is compatible with international standards, amounting to (32) standards. The journal was classified in the field of Arts as (Q2), in media and communication as (Q3), and in humanities (interdisciplinary) as (Q3). Ansaq aspires diligently to occupy a more advanced position in this first Arab classification, and to become a (Q1) journal soon - God willing -. On the same level, the journal is working to become indexed in other international databases, in addition to the ones that currently list it.

Citizen journalism in Morocco: the case of fact-checkers

ABSTRACT Social networks are becoming a site of unprecedented diffusion of fake news and misinformation in Morocco. This fact does not only affect people as individuals but also undermines social order and cohesion in general. To fight back, a number of journalists and researchers have engaged in fact-checking processes to verify claims and information. In this regard, this study considers fact-checking as an emerging journalistic brand that has the potential to promote healthier public debate in the contemporary media environment in Morocco. For this reason, a qualitative approach is adopted to explore the nature of a group of Moroccan online fact checkers to understand their motivations, practices, process of production, and the impact they have made in the public sphere. The significance of this research resides in the fact that it tracks a trend in Moroccan media landscape and investigates its importance in creating communities of interest. Also, exploring this new online trend will help in providing a different perspective on the richness and diversity of content, and change how people think about the online media environment in Morocco.

The perception of self-censorship among Moroccan journalists

ABSTRACT Self-censorship, the deliberate suppression of one’s own right for expression, has lately become a systematically normalised practice in Moroccan media. Since privatisation of the press in the 1990s, critical reporting on sensitive matters of genuine public interest has not been as conspicuously scarce as it is today. Both content quality and normative social responsibilities of the press have been subverted because of excessive self-censorship. This paper draws on this problem to assess Moroccan journalists’ perception of their experience as self-censors. It gauges the personal, institutional, environmental, and discursive considerations that they recall while dealing with sensitive events and critical topics. The assessment draws on the assumption that self-censorship is a highly conscious experience whereby journalists are fully aware of the risks accompanying news reporting in Morocco. Their consciousness accordingly makes them forestall undesirable reactions from authorities and eventually either avoid certain topics completely or implement specific maneuvers when they have to report them. The paper uses a quantitative procedure to survey 120 journalists working in 9 popular newspapers and newsmagazines. The findings confirm the preset hypothesis relating the practice of self-censorship to journalists’ state of self-consciousness and absence of professional agency. The findings also underscore important implications like: (a) journalists’ socioeconomic profile as a potential predictor of their tendency to self-censor, (b) an extrapolated perception of gatekeepers and impermissible redlines, and (c) organisational culture as primary cultivator of self-censorship.

The representation of women in Moroccan television talk shows

ABSTRACTWomen’s representation in Moroccan media is still an understudied area of academic inquiry; Anglophone scholarship in particular is lacking in this domain. This paper aims to rectify the gap by examining the construction of women’s identity in Moroccan television talk shows. Using textual analysis, it investigates two television shows Bidoun Haraj and Mâa Nass, both hosted by women. The episodes for this analysis were selected based on the criteria of relevance and popularity. The analysis revealed that the episodes carry a pedagogical function: they inform and educate viewers about women’s rights, statistics, laws, studies, and government or civil society-led initiatives. They particularly bring to the fore sociocultural and legal injustices and obstacles women face in Moroccan society. However, solutions offered on-air provide a mixed picture of how women’s rights have developed so far, and how much traditional mores and practices still play a role in the position of women in Moroccan society. The episodes show the slow development of women’s rights and present proposals for future directions.

Acoso sexual callejero y estrategias comunicativas. Un análisis comparado entre España y Marruecos

El acoso sexual callejero es una forma de intimidación y control propia del sistema patriarcal que constituye un atentado contra los Derechos Humanos y está presente de forma generalizada en las sociedades actuales. En esta investigación se parte de la perspectiva de género para comprender el acoso como manifestación de la violencia de género para profundizar luego sobre las representaciones comunicativas que existen, tanto en la comunicación mediático-tradicional como en formatos alternativos. Todo ello partiendo de la hipótesis de que este fenómeno existe y se manifiesta con esquemas discursivos similares en las sociedades de referencia en este estudio: Marruecos y España. A partir del análisis se ha evidenciado que los medios de masas presentan discursos más conservadores y simplistas frente a enfoques y estrategias más radicales y conceptualmente aperturistas de la comunicación alternativa, sobre todo basada en la comunicación 2.0.

The Moroccan Media Field: An Analysis of Elite Hybridity in Television and Film Institutions

This study shows that Moroccan media elites allow for a continued influence of the French ex-colonial power in the television industry while making sure that the state's cultural agenda is preserved through censorship. I argue that elites' desire to reaffirm their position of power within Moroccan society, as well as international pressure toward democratization, makes them gravitate toward a specific type of French-Moroccan hybridity. The study unveils how the French media model is retrieved and readapted to provide possibilities for censorship, and allow for the government's control of the local media.

Discourse analysis of the representations of women in Moroccan broadcast news

An interesting area of research that as yet has received little or no attention is the study of the representations of women in Moroccan media [Ennaji, M., 1995. A syntactico-semantic study of the language of news in Morocco. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 112 (1), 97–112. Sadiqi, F., 2003. Women, gender, and language in Morocco. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Academic. Skalli, L.H., 2006. Through a local prism: gender, globalization, and identity in Moroccan women's magazines. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Van-Mol, M., 2010. Arabic media and corpus linguistics: a first methodological outline. In: R. Rassiouney, ed. Arabic and the media: linguistic analysis and applications. Boston, MA: Drill, 63–79]. This article is an effort to fill the gap in this research area and contribute to the ongoing debate about the status of women in Morocco by analysing discourse representations of women in Arabic television news on the two main Moroccan television channels: 2M and Al Aoula. Women's representations are considered at a large scale (macrostructure) and at a smaller scale (microstructures) [Van Dijk, T.A., 1988. News as discourse. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates. Richardson, J.E., 2007. Analysing newspapers: an approach from critical discourse analysis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan]. The results of our study showed the Moroccan television news programmes in Arabic on both channels favour two specific discourse perspectives: the conservative perspective which associates women with domesticity and traditional roles, and an alternative progressive perspective which associates women with modernity and economic development. Both empowering and disempowering elements are present in the two discourses.

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Constructing Arab Female Leadership Lessons from the Moroccan Media

How the Arab media construct Middle Eastern women as political actors, frame their leadership roles, and narrate their activities to the public are important questions largely ignored in the growing scholarship on women’s political participation in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Drawing on Nancy Fraser’s reflections on the politics of recognition and distribution (2007), I examine the construction of women’s leadership in Morocco during the four-month period leading to the local elections of June 2009. Analysis of 1,738 news items from five print media sources reveals that the “symbolic annihilation” of political women, a thesis traditionally applied to Western contexts, is disturbingly robust in Morocco. The Moroccan case alerts us that institutional mechanisms supporting women’s leadership might begin to address gender biases in the distribution of political power, but they do not guarantee the recognition of gender equality in the cultural sphere of knowledge production and opinion formation. Struggles over gender equity in Morocco and elsewhere in MENA should engage more fully with the politics of recognition given the disjuncture between women’s leadership competences and achievements and the dominant ideological frames constructing women’s leadership.

Understanding Morocco's ‘sanitisation campaign’ (December 1995 to may 1996)

The sanitisation campaign in Morocco was, in reality, a device to stabilise the existing political order and to prepare the ground for ‘alternance’. As such it was orchestrated by the established political authorities who ensured that it could not threaten the overall political order. Although it was a brilliant gambit in this respect, it also demonstrated the weakness of the Moroccan media and of civil society. It was, however, an essential preparation for the government that was brought to power in early 1998.