Methodology in Leading Saudi Arabian Newspapers - Dissertation Example

? Table of Contents Table of Contents 1.Methodology 2 1. Interview Procedure 3 2. Ethical Consideration 5 Methodology The study requires analysis of the news content, in two leading Saudi Arabian newspapers- Alriyadh and Alyoum, related to the events in Bahrain occurring from February 14 to March 16 this year. The reason to select these two is: firstly, I want to use Rugh description (Rugh, 2004) of the newspapers loyalty and secondly, I chose alriyadh newspaper because it represents the official press of the Kingdom as it is published in the capital whereas alyoum newspaper is published from the eastern region-the oil area where the Shi’ites are located. I will use the gatekeeping theory from mass communication in this dissertation. The news, articles and editorials published during the period of February 14 till March 16, 2011 in the above two Saudi news papers will be searched out, read and analyzed to see how the Bahrain news was handled by the Saudi press. Thorough interviews will be conducted with the news handlers at each of the newspapers, with pertinent questions including the criteria for selecting the news, the sources from which they collect it, what kind of news they prefer to publish and whether or not the selection criteria have changed over the years.It will be important to establish whether outside influences, such as the government, alter the decision of whether or not to publish certain news items such as the Bahrain protest. These two newspapers will be compared against each other, making it easier to establish how appropriate the reported news is. All of the contents in the selected newspapers will be compared with those of the print media, electronic media or both. This process will help in checking the relevance of the news media in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, both of the newspapers’ operations will be investigated from the starting point to the finished product, as it is important to know exactly what happens to the raw data obtained by the news gatherers before it is finally published as a piece of information for readers. These observations will focus on each procedure undertaken in order to modify the news, from identifying the original source from which the news was obtained to how the news is presented to its readers. Finally, the factors that influence whether a piece of news is published or not must be highlighted. Working through this methodology will make it easier to see how the news is shaped in Saudi Arabia, and whether any fabrication exists. It will also provide insights into whether the news selection criteria has changed over the years, and if being a Muslim country changes the views of those responsible for selecting news and presenting it to readers. In addition, the problematic areas will be highlighted to enable the presentation of suitable and practical solutions. It will be important to identify the kinds of problems that can be addressed, and those that cannot be eradicated from the news selection procedure. In short, two research methodologies will be used in the study namely, interviews with the Saudi media journalists and the content analysis of the Saudi press that will include Alriyadh and Alyoum newspapers. Moreover, the theory of gatekeeping will be adopted as an analytical approach to study this process. 1.1. Interview Procedure Questions were developed in order to acquire a critical analysis, from the participants, of the coverage of the Bahrain events by the Saudi press. The questions were formulated with the objective to draw on the participants’ observation of the major Saudi institutions from politics, police, military and press. The important questions to be asked in the interview are provided below: 1. Please, rate the job done by the Saudi Press in covering the Bahraini events, particularly at the time of occurrence of the conflict? (Please select only one): (a) Excellent ---------( ) (b) Good ------------- ( ) (c) Fair --------------- ( ) (d) Not good ---------( ) 2. Please, justify your above selection: 3. Which media in Saudi Arabia covered the Bahraini events most adequately, particularly at the time of occurrence of the conflict? (Please select only one): (a) The Saudi Radio -------------- ( ) (b) The Saudi Television -------- ( ) (c) The Saudi Press --------------- ( ) 4. According to your personal observation, was the Saudi press the first source by which you followed developments about the conflict in Bahrain? Yes -------- ( ) No -------- ( ) 5. Which of the following was the prime source of news of the Bahraini events for you? (Please select just one): (a) The Saudi Radio -------- ( ) (b) The Saudi Television -------- ( ) (c) The Saudi Press -------- ( ) (d) Other source (such as, BBC, CNN, VOA) -------- ( ) Please state which source: ______________________________ 6. Which of these constraints were applicable to the press information and news in Saudi Arabia during the Bahraini conflict? (You can select as many options as appropriate). (a) Insufficient facts and information available to the Saudi press -------- ( ) (b) Coherence to the new information policy -------- ( ) (c) Co-operation with the Saudi government for dealing with the crisis by compiling the Saudi military strategies and tactics -------- ( ) (d)The potential interests of the enemy in Saudi military plans and psychological operations (e) Any other constraint(s)-------- ( ) 7. How necessary was it to get the news-report checked, censored and approved by the 'Joint Information Bureau' (JIB) by military information officers during the Bahraini conflict? (Please select just one). (a) Unnecessary -------- ( ) (b) Somewhat unnecessary -------- ( ) (c) Somewhat necessary -------- ( ) (d) Very necessary -------- ( ) 8. Which of the following justifications do you think are valid from the military perspective to monitor the news during the events occurring in Bahrain? (Please select as many options as appropriate). (a) Normally, a journalist would like to deliver news that excite and attract the reader -------- ( ) (b) Often, a journalist hides under the concept of objectivity -------- ( ) (c) Also, a journalist may be a 'spy' -------- ( ) (d) A journalist is not competent to appropriately deal with the war issues -------- ( ) (e) A journalist emphasize over the conflict rather than to emphasize over the resolution of the conflict for making his/her story -------- ( ) (f) Other reason -------- ( ) 1.2. Ethical Consideration Keeping in view the ethics of doing research, the identification and personal details of the participating journalists will not be revealed in this study. 1.3. Introduction to Gatekeeping The social psychologist Kurt Lewin (1951) initially invented the concept of the gatekeeper. He developed the theory of ‘channels and gatekeepers’ in order to explain the important factors of the social changes in communities. The Lewin’s concept of the gatekeeper has then been embedded in many scholarship fields such as sociology, political science, management, information science, and law (Putterman, 2005; Tushman & Katz, 1980). Moreover it has been implemented in the practical domains that include journalism for instance apprehending newspaper editors as gatekeepers which has been selected as the research approach for our study of Bahrain events. The other practical domains applying the gatekeeper concept are operations research, health science, and technology for instance apprehending consultants offering a second opinion or function as the channel between the customers and the services (Shoemaker, 1991). Furthermore, the focus over the gatekeeping in relation to the information and networks is even exceptional (Zittrain, 2006). 1.3.1. Theories of Gatekeeping Shoemaker (1991, p. 1) explains gatekeeping as: “Simply put, gatekeeping is the process by which the billions of messages that are available in the world get cut down and transformed into the hundreds of messages that reach a given person on a given day,” (p.1). In the communication literature, gatekeeping, is basically conceived as a selection process. The literature considers the gatekeeper in the context of Lewin’s concept in which it is applied to not only interpersonal coomunication but also mass communication (Shoemaker, 1991). Lewin carried out some experiments on group decisions and debated that group decisions rely extensively over the characteristics of social steering through gatekeepers. He defines that a gate is the entry to a channel and to its sections. Movements between the channel and its external environment as well as within the channel are governed through one or more gatekeepers or "impartial rules" (Lewin, 1951, p. 186). Subsequently, Shoemaker (1991, p. 2) describes the “in” or “out” decision point as a gate. The gatekeeping theory of Lewin has developed many studies and models in numerous disciplines endeavoring to explore the forces that investigate, facilitate, or limit the gatekeeping process, that is, the option to let the information to pass via the gate. The initial developmental years of the gatekeeping theories occurred primarily in the fields of communication and journalism in which the concentration was basically over the impact of the subjective traits (such as the personal feelings) of gatekeepers/editors on the gatekeeping (Snider, 1967). For instance, White (1950) proposed a basic model underscoring the gatekeeper as the core element that governs the flow of information. He debated that the news contents were rejected due to three reasons that are: personal feelings, insufficient space, and the earlier appearance of the news story. 1.3.2. Levels of Gatekeeping Shoemaker (1991) categorized the gatekeepers’ theories and models formulated since Lewin into basic five classes in terms of levels that are briefly described below: 1. The individual level considers the degree to which individuals are accountable for the selection of gatekeeping, and comprises of the individuals’ apprehension (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982), personality (Lewin, 1951), decision making (Gandy, 1982), values, role conceptions, background (Bass, 1969) and experiences. 2. The routines level (Gieber, 1956) represents those “patterned, repeated, scheduled practices for forms that are used by media workers in performing their jobs.” (p.48) 3. The organizational level constitutes internal factors that change through organization and occasionally through a group’s patterns of decision-making (Bantz, 1990). 4. The institutional levels basically emphasizes over the exogenous traits of organizations and their representatives influencing the process of gatekeeping such as political alliances and market forces (Donohue, Olien, & Tichenor, 1989). 5. The social system level determines the influence of culture and ideology over gatekeeping (Gramsci, 1971). During the end of 19 70's, various other disciplines commenced to use the gatekeeper term and also embedded it in to their own domain. The field of Management considers the gatekeepers primarliy as intermediaries (Schultze & Boland, 2000) or as "key individuals who are both strongly connected to internal colleagues and strongly linked to external domains," (Tushman & Katz, 1980, p. 1071). Information Science refers to gatekeepers as agents accumulating and disseminating information (Sturges, 2001) or as those who protect and preserve a community’s information (Agada, 1999). Table 1 given below presents the accumulated literature of Management, Information Science, and Communication. It includes factors influencing gatekeeping in its conventional sense and the correlations between gatekeepers as well as other factors as acquired from the communication, management, and information science literatures. Table 1: Factors Influencing Gatekeeping in Conventional Literature Subjective Factors Personal judgment The decisions of the Gatekeepers are extremely subjective – primarily in the literature of media studies (Snider, 1967) Trust Lack of experience and ambiguous credibility of a gatekeeper negatively influences the decision of gatekeeping of the gatekeeper (Shoemaker, 1991). In order to make use of information, trust over the gatekeeper’s competence level is essential (Allen, 1997) Traits of Information Visual The elements of information are less probably to be subjected to gatekeeping when they are visual traits (Abott & Brassfield, 1989). Volume, Quantity and Size Increasing: volume of information and quantity of available items as well as their size give rise to gatekeeping (Gieber, 1956). Clarity Positive correlation with the reception of news (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). External Constraints Cost A costly process raises the probability of gatekeeping. Time The tendency toward gatekeeping rises with proximity to deadline (Livingston & Bennet, 2003). Mechanical Production A problematic effort to create information leads to the development of gatekeeping (Gieber, 1956). Unavailable Technology The probability of gatekeeping rises with the decline in the availability of publication technology (Livingston & Bennet, 2003). Organizational Traits and Procedures Role The position of the actor (such as the news gatherer, reporter, processor, editor, linker, community leader) impacts the decision of gatekeeping (Livingston & Bennet, 2003). Policy Routines developing working correlation between reporters and the source evaluate the nature of gatekeeping (Livingston & Bennet, 2003). Threshold value Higher information value decreases the likelihood of passing gatekeeping (Galtung & Ruge, 1965). Standard The gatekeeping decisions get influenced by the standards of the profession (Bagdikian, 2004). Environment of the Institution Opinion leaders Greater probability to accept the definitions of opinion leaders, which influences the decisions of gatekeeping (Allen, 1977). Group consensus Gatekeeping gets directly affected by adopting a group consensus through professional interaction on daily basis (Bantz, 1990). Market pressure Optimizing profit and reducing expenditures influence gatekeeping (Donohue et al., 1989). Social Environment Newsworthiness An information item regarded as newsworthy is less probable to pass gatekeeping – primarily media studies (Shoemaker et al., 2001). Cultural Differences If the information is similar to the cultural preferences of the society then it is more probable to pass gatekeeping (Galtung & Ruge, 1965) Table 1 highlights one of the motivations to construct a theoretical framework suitable for an information society. All conventional models of gatekeeping neglect the contribution of those on whom gatekeeping is being applied (termed here as 'gated'). Communication tends to define gatekeeping as a single dimensional and a top-down process (Shoemaker, 1991). Although the management science addresses gatekeepers in relation to organizations (that is some sort of a professional network) (Katz, Tushman, & Allen, 1995), and the information science primarily addresses gatekeepers in relation to communities or professionals (Metoyer-Duran, 1993) however the prime emphasis remains over the contribution of the gatekeeper instead of determining how networks and information (both technological and human) influence the relationship between the gatekeepers and the gated, as well as its affect on the gated. Since no vocabulary has been found in the literature, which recognizes these stakeholders thus it illustrates that traditional models have been negligent or passive in treating the gated. 1.3.3. Gatekeeping Attribute-Political Power Information control is the gist of gatekeeping. In many cases, information control process is an indication of the power struggle of stakeholders for attaining their political interests. One cannot evaluate gatekeeping without considering the involvement of the political power of the stakeholders. The topic of power has been investigated in a well established array of researches that have diverse sources (Hardy & Clegg, 2006). The Weberian school (Weber, 1947) provides a more positivist perspective of it, which addressed power as the potential to make others do what you would like them to do, without even taking in to account their will or desire. Later on, Dahl carried on with this perspective as he described power as: "A has power over B if he can make B to do something that B would be reluctant to do otherwise" (Dahl, 1957, p. 80). The term used for this school of thought is pluralism. References Abott, E. A., & Brassfield, L. T. (1989). Comparing Decisions on Releases by TV and Newspaper Gatekeepers. Journalism Quarterly, 66, 853-856. Agada, J. (1999). Inner-City Gatekeepers: An Exploratory Survey of Their Information Use Environment. 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