Media Power and Global Television News

The Role of Al Jazeera English

Saba Bebawi

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781784530860
• eBook ISBN: 9780857729354
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Communication Studies

The Middle East has been a particular focus of global crisis reporting. Yet, international coverage of these conflicts has historically been presented through a 'Western' perspective. The absence of Arab voices in the global public sphere has created a discursive gap between the Middle East and the rest of the world. The arrival of Al Jazeera English might, therefore, be regarded as an attempt to bridge this gap by broadcasting discourses from and about the Arab world. Using a framing analysis of selected news reports by Al Jazeera English before and after the so-called 'Arab Spring' protests, this book considers Al Jazeera English's position in the global news environment and identifies the extent to which it addresses this gap between the Arab and global spheres.

CHAPTER 1

NEWS NETWORKS AND THE ‘GLOBAL PUBLIC SPHERE’

Over the last 30 years, since the launch of CNN in 1980, satellite television channels broadcasting 24-hour news have mushroomed around the world and news networks have come to define the global news agenda around us. Focusing on humanitarian crises, political tensions, and breaking news, these international networks have sought to bring to the forefront issues and discourses that make up the mediated ‘global public sphere’. This opening chapter seeks to shed some light on the question of whether or to what extent developments in satellite news broadcasting – such as the inclusion of the Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera English (AJE) – have contributed to the realisation, or enlargement, of a mediated ‘global public sphere’ (Cottle, 2009). In order to do so, however, it is first necessary to critically engage with different theoretical definitions of, and approaches to such a mediated ‘public sphere’, in terms of the different ways in which the historical reality is understood as, on one hand, an ‘actually existing’ historical reality, and on the other as a conceptual basis for considering the role of media in facilitating democratic communication. Following this conceptual overview, the chapter goes on to consider the relation between these conceptions and contemporary debates on satellite news, which often deploy the concept of the public sphere, in order to understand the extent to which a mediated ‘global public sphere’ has been realised. Through a critical review of these debates, the chapter seeks to provide a mapping of the various debates and positions in relation to an ‘actually existing contemporary public sphere’. In doing so, it also seeks to develop connections with chapters to follow, by considering a framework for addressing alternative media content in terms of the degree to which it ‘contests media power’.

The Public Sphere – Perspectives and Definitions

In the last decades of the twentieth century, criticisms of the global domination of ‘Western’ media and the power they hold became entrenched in debates surrounding global news flows. However, with the development of satellite technology many developing countries have launched their own media operations in their own languages, targeting both local audience segments and diasporic audiences globally, leading to an increased focus on the significance of ‘diasporic public spheres’ (Thussu, 2005). More recently, the rise of English-language transnational satellite news channels targeting a global audience has meant that media from various parts of the world can, at least theoretically, now cater for audiences that are culturally different from their own. Such a phenomenon leads to the consideration of potentially new possibilities of the expansion of a ‘global public sphere’, as a result of the recent entrants into transnational broadcasting from parts of the world that were not previously represented (Demers, 2002; Lull, 2007; Volkmer, 1999), such as AJE.

Jürgen Habermas has offered an historic account of the public sphere which has been a basis for the emergence of numerous re-conceptualisations, hence it is necessary to provide a brief account of Habermas's model of the public sphere as a background to understanding the evolution of a possible ‘global public sphere’. Habermas conceptualised the power of deliberation within the public sphere through the role of national media in eighteenth-century Europe. Habermas's public sphere offers an important historical and theoretical model where he presents an eighteenth century ideal of a public space, informed by principles of equality and openness, and oriented towards the development of rationally debated, consensual positions on issues of collective concern. This ideal was generated by the ‘bourgeois public’ who, as a reading public that claimed new spaces and publications for exchanging ideas, opinions and arguments, operated independently from state authorities as a sphere of ‘civil society’. Habermas's account of the public sphere is outlined in his 1962 book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, where he discusses the emergence of a liberal bourgeois public in the eighteenth century as comprising the educated and influential elite of society in Western Europe (particularly England, France and Germany). Drawing on Marxist class analysis, Habermas labelled this section of society as the ‘bourgeois’ stratum, comprised of ‘the merchants, bankers, entrepreneurs, and manufacturers […] This stratum of “bourgeois” was the real carrier of the public, which from the outset was a reading public’ (Habermas, 1992: 23). Habermas describes this public sphere as follows:

The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labour (Habermas, 1992: 27).

Habermas describes the public sphere as a ‘specific domain’, representative of ‘the public’ in contrast to both the state and the private sphere, that emerged in opposition to the authorities of the eighteenth century. According to Habermas, its emergence marked a separation of the private and public domains and the rise of the ‘public sphere of civil society’ (Habermas, 1992: 23). This historic process of the rise of the public sphere was facilitated by the emergence of early finance and trade capitalism where ‘the elements of a new social order were taking shape’ (Habermas, 1992: 14). Merchants were no longer confined by the town and instead were associated with enterprising companies, thus creating a ‘bourgeois’ stratum of society whose interests were distinct from those of state rulers, despite the fact they consolidated states through the payment of taxation (Habermas, 1992: 23–24). Habermas describes how this ‘bourgeois public’ met in salons and coffee houses which constituted them as a public sphere, where there were shared certain criteria that, he suggests, were largely shared across otherwise the distinct social contexts of Western Europe (Habermas, 1992: 36–37). He enumerates these criteria as comprising the following common elements. Firstly, there was a bracketing of social status within these spaces of public debate, and an assumption of equality amongst all its members. Secondly, in these coffee houses and salons topics of debate were addressed that had not previously been publicly discussed – with particular reference to issues concerning the conduct of state and church authorities – that had themselves largely delimited topics and parameters of discussion prior to the establishment of the bourgeois public sphere. Thirdly, aware of the fact that they belonged to a larger public, bourgeois participants in this newly formed sphere of civil debate also sought to circulate their debates and discourses through publications, in journals such as the Addison and Steele's Spectator which ‘was the leading journal for circulating the cultural principles of liberal-bourgeois politics’ (McGuigan, 1996: 25).

Habermas argues that the public sphere has been in decline, relating this to the commercialisation of mass media which transformed the public sphere once more to an arena where the public no longer has access to contribute to public debate, but rather become consumers of ‘representative publicity’ (Habermas, 1992: 12–13). The news, therefore, followed the development of the business enterprise by similarly adopting characteristics of ‘concentration and centralization’ (Habermas, 1992: 186). Habermas also relates the commercialisation of news, arguing that ‘[t]echnological development in the means of transmission of news (after the telegraph and the telephone came the wireless telegraph and telephone and shortwave and radio) [which] has in part hastened and in part made possible the organizational unification and economic interlocking of the press’ (Habermas, 1992: 186–7). The power that the mass media hold in shaping public opinion, Habermas claimed, led to the media taking on the role formerly exercised by the feudal sovereign. Habermas describes this as the process of ‘refeudalization’, as follows:

In the measure that is shaped by public relations, the public sphere of civil society again takes on feudal features. The ‘suppliers’ display a showy pomp before customers ready to follow. Publicity imitates the kind of aura proper to the personal prestige and supernatural authority once bestowed by the kind of publicity involved in representation (Habermas, 1992: 195).

A key aspect in Habermas's argument, therefore, is that media power ‘emerged [as] a new sort of influence’ which was ‘used for purposes of manipulation’ (Habermas, 1992a: 437), where he describes this as ‘the manipulative deployment of media power to procure mass loyalty, consumer demand, and “compliance” with systematic imperatives’ (Habermas, 1992a: 452). Such manipulation, according to Habermas, is employed through the use of discourses which ‘imply power structures that are not only hidden but systematically latent, that is, structurally concealed from their participants’ (Habermas, 1992a: 478).

This historic account of the public sphere has, however, provoked various criticisms (for example Thompson, 1995; Calhoun, 1992; Eley, 1992). One of the key arguments is that Habermas's description of the public sphere tends to underplay, if not entirely dismiss, other civil society movements active within the general public that were also critical of the authorities, yet did not see themselves as part of the ‘bourgeois public’ (Thompson, 1995). As Jim McGuigan argues, the ‘radical, alternative public sphere, represented by popular newspapers such as The Poor Man's Guardian, had a powerful impact upon the bourgeois public sphere, not only in opposition but also as a source of progressive ideas’ (McGuigan, 1996: 26). A second point of criticism raised by Thompson is that Habermas fails to mention other periodicals that were representative of the time, thus tending to exclude the existence of other debates that were circulated. The third issue which Thompson identifies relates to the limitations of the bourgeois public sphere itself, which was dominated by wealthy, educated and male citizens, thus excluding other potential members of the public. This criticism of Habermas's public sphere mainly relates to class- and gender-based exclusions that ensured that, while the public sphere may have ‘in principle’ been inclusive, in practice it was a space of debate that was, in part, defined as much by its exclusions as the principles of inclusivity highlighted by Habermas.

These observations serve, in addition, to highlight another point of criticism raised about Habermas's model: its presumption that ‘the public sphere’ might exist as a singular space of rational debate animated by a desire to achieve consensus via the ‘force of the better argument’ (Habermas, 1990: 158–159). If, on one hand, as others claim (Negt and Kluge, 1993; Landes, 1988) multiple public spheres have existed, and if on the other criteria for judging arguments were, at least in part, determined by the particular class and gender characteristics of the bourgeois public sphere, then it follows that both the descriptive accuracy and the normative force of Habermas's account of the public sphere come into question. This has led others to develop models of the public sphere which seek to encompass a greater level of pluralism.

If, as discussed above, questions can be raised about the degree to which the eighteenth century bourgeois public sphere could be defined as a shared space of rational argumentation, it can be claimed that the disparity between the Habermasian ideal and contemporary reality has only widened. The validity of Habermas's model as a basis for engaging with today's media environment has, for example, been strongly questioned by Todd Gitlin who argues that ‘the public sphere’ is labelled as ‘the sphere, not a sphere’ (Gitlin, 1998: 168), and thus ignores the existence of smaller active and interactive spheres. Here ‘the unitary public sphere’, Gitlin argues, ‘is weak, riddled with anxiety and self-doubt, but distinct communities of information and participation are multiplying, robust and brimming with self confidence’ (Gitlin, 1998: 170). To support his case, Gitlin offers examples from the media industry which demonstrate the existence of a multiplicity of publics, particularly cable television which offers ‘targeted channels for targeted audiences’ (Gitlin, 1998: 171), thus reflecting the existence of demographically distinct audiences whose different interests and tastes are targeted by media producers. In addition to questioning the empirical accuracy of Habermas's model, Gitlin also stresses that pluralism within a multicultural society provides an image of a ‘segmented unity’ (Gitlin, 1998: 173), such that the theoretical validity of a singular ‘public sphere’ of debate may also appear questionable on democratic grounds.

While Gitlin does acknowledge the emergence of an increasingly global ‘interconnected world’, and draws on the example of ‘citizen groups which are organized by political affinity’ (Gitlin, 1998: 171), he remains concerned about whether the trend towards interactive ‘sphericules’ could pave the way for the materialisation of a space of shared democratic dialogue. As he states, ‘[w]hat is not clear is that the proliferation and lubrication of publics contributes to the creation of a public – an active democratic encounter of citizens who reach across their social and ideological differences to establish a common agenda of concern and to debate rival approaches’ (Gitlin, 1998: 173). Similarly, through his interest in forms of communicative public engagement and marketing used by various political groups that have developed sophisticated strategies of public communication, Clifford Bob (2008) describes the global sphere of civil society as a fragmented and politically fractious one, arguing (rather pessimistically) that rather than being oriented towards consensus, the contemporary public sphere is a conflictual space characterised by the attempts of various groups, seeking to gain attention and influence. He argues that the common belief that ‘new voices add to the marketplace of ideas’ is commonly aligned with assumptions that global civil society consists of harmonious and ‘like-minded’ groups, when in fact quite the reverse is true (Bob, 2008: 201). In this way, Bob follows Gitlin in suggesting that, in contrast to Habermas's model, the fragmentation of public spheres appears to offer limited prospects for the achievement of shared spaces of consensually oriented debate. He also suggests that, although it might produce plural domains of discourse, ‘civil society's conflictive nature does not in itself make it democratic’, since ‘[g]lobal civil society remains primarily an arena of elite, not mass, politics’, in large part due to increased access to communicative and financial resources available to elite interest groups (Bob, 2008: 201).

While Bob thus presents an image of contemporary public life as one where fractiousness and fragmentation belies idealistic conceptions of shared public debate, others have drawn on Gitlin's concept of ‘sphericules’ to consider spaces of debate that exist alongside what persists as the dominant public sphere of mass media representation in particular national contexts. Stuart Cunningham, for example, uses Gitlin's concept to consider distinctive spaces of communication of ethnic minorities that exist alongside, and contribute to, ‘the’ public sphere of ‘host’ societies (Cunningham, 2004: 153). Cunningham draws on this model to draw attention to ‘ethno-specific global mediatized communities’ which can be termed ‘sphericules’ since they:

share many of the characteristics of the classically conceived public sphere – they provide a central site for public communication in globally dispersed communities, stage communal difference and discord productively, and work to articulate insider ethno-specific identities – which are by definition ‘multi-national’, even global – to the wider ‘host’ environments (Cunningham, 2004: 153).

However, quite contrary to Gitlin and Bob who are pessimistic when it comes to the consideration of a dominant public sphere, others highlight public communication across communities of difference. Cunningham, for example, refers to diasporic communities relative to national cultures as being part of ‘wider “host” environments’. In this respect, where Gitlin and Bob appear sceptical about the possibility of shared spaces of public representation, Cunningham presents ‘sphericules’ as contributors to a ‘unity in diversity’. In all of these cases, however, the concept of ‘sphericules’ departs from Habermas's model because it acknowledges the existence of proliferating spaces of identity with their own distinctive characteristics, norms and communicative forms. This is important both as a basis of alternative description (the mediated public sphere cannot be conceptualised as a singular space), and in terms of its theoretical implications (one cannot appeal to universal norms of rationality as these are not, and are unlikely to be, universally shared across such a plurality of publics). In this respect, the recognition of ‘sphericules’ is a significant departure from Habermas's model of the public sphere, since it seeks to theorise how other voices serve to constitute a multiplicity of public spheres that may, or may not, produce mutual dialogue and debate.

By contrast to such models of fragmentation and ‘public sphericules’, a third model has sought to engage with how the existence of a shared dominant public sphere co-exists with, and may be transformed by, ‘counterpublic spheres’. Such a model has been elaborated in the work of Nancy Fraser (1993), who also proposes this model, in contrast to Habermas's framework, as offering a more empirically valid and politically productive means of theorising the public sphere. Fraser draws particularly on arguments that demonstrate that Habermas's bourgeois public was never the ‘main’ or only public, since ‘competing counterpublics’ were in operation well before the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including ‘nationalist publics, popular peasant publics, elite women's publics, and working-class publics’ (Fraser, 1993: 7). In addition, Fraser argues that the existence of a multiplicity of publics, rather than the ideal of a single, unitary public sphere as articulated by Habermas, offers a more democratic aspiration, since social inequalities typically do not allow subordinate groups within a single public sphere to have a strong voice as a result of different levels of power (Fraser, 1993: 14). Particularly, and more recently, Fraser (2007a) critiques Habermas's conceptualisation of the public sphere through national boundaries, especially in relation to his focus on national media, which neglects increasingly emerging global media. In regards to this, Fraser argues:

Structural transformation associated the public sphere with modern media that, in enabling communication across distance, could knit spatially dispersed interlocutors into a public. Tacitly, however, Habermas territorialized publicity by focusing on national media, especially the national press and national broadcasting. Thus, he implicitly assumed a national communications infrastructure, contained by a Westphalian state (Fraser, 2007a: 10).

Here Fraser argues towards a more transnational conceptualisation of the public sphere, a point I address further below.

Nonetheless, unlike Gitlin who questions the existence of a unitary public sphere, Fraser also refers to a ‘dominant public sphere’. However, in contrast to both Gitlin's fragmented account of ‘sphericules’ and Cunningham's account of sphericules operating within a ‘host’ public environment, Fraser's model provides a theoretical image of smaller spheres operating ‘outside’ the dominant public sphere. Fraser proposes the label of ‘subaltern counterpublics’ to describe publics which represent ‘parallel discursive arenas where members of subordinated social groups invent and circulate counter-discourses, so as to formulate oppositional interpretations of their identities, interests, and needs’ (Fraser, 1993: 14). The term subaltern, she explains, refers to ‘subordinated social groups’ such as ‘women, workers, peoples of color, and gays and lesbians’ who have ‘found it advantageous to constitute alternative publics’ (Fraser, 1993: 14). The term counterpublics, on the other hand, are publics which contest and compete with other publics, thus contributing to a representative sphere rather than a ‘single, comprehensive, overarching public sphere’ (Fraser, 1993: 14).

Fraser perceives subaltern counterpublics as formed on the basis of two principles. The first is that these spaces act as a means of identity where they are based on the interests and concerns of the members of that particular public. Such spaces operate through a set of shared discourses, and enable engagement in collective self-understanding and action. The second principle upon which the formation of such spaces is based is that they are created by groups that may seek to go beyond their own interaction to act as ‘counterpublics’, in attempts to gain access to broader publics, in order to publicise their own perspectives and contest the ‘main’ public sphere with the aim of transforming it. These ‘counterpublics’ thus represent sites of identity formation and sites for developing resources for communicative contestation. Thus, Fraser explains,

subaltern counterpublics have a dual character. On the one hand, they function as spaces of withdrawal and regroupment; on the other hand, they also function as bases and training grounds for agitational activities directed toward wider publics. It is precisely in the dialectic between these two functions that their emancipatory potential resides. This dialectic enables subaltern counterpublics partially to offset, although not wholly to eradicate, the unjust participatory privileges enjoyed by members of dominant social groups in stratified societies (Fraser, 1993: 15).

For Fraser, this notion of a public sphere not only paves the way for the democratisation of the dominant public space, but also allows these subaltern counterpublics ‘to articulate and defend their interests in the comprehensive public sphere’ (Fraser, 1993: 14). For our concerns, however, a particularly interesting aspect of Fraser's account is her suggestion that, to the extent that a proliferation of ‘counterpublics’ is enabled, this can facilitate an ‘expansion’ of the ‘comprehensive public sphere’:

insofar as these counterpublics emerge in response to exclusions within dominant publics, they help expand discursive space. In princi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Al Jazeera English and Media Power
• 1. News Networks and the ‘Global Public Sphere’
• 2. Al Jazeera as ‘Alternative’?
• 3. Discursive Media Power
• 4. Before the Arab Spring
• 5. Post-Arab Spring
• 6. Forces of Discursive Media Power
• Bibliography