Conclusions on Saudi Media - Dissertation Example

?7. Conclusions It is possible to conclude that the agenda of the Saudi print media during the Bahraini conflict dictated the views of the Saudi government about the performance of the Saudi media during the conflict in Bahrain and in this study we could give the agreement and disagreement in the perspective related to satisfaction and dissatisfaction of the treatment of the Bahraini conflict by the Saudi print media. The findings of this study are stated below: There exists a gap and suspicion in the Saudi print media in between the Saudi journalists and the Saudi Military regime during the coverage of the Bahraini event. This dominance of the external or foreign sources and the Saudi regime on the Saudi information media played a major influence. In the context of the political dimension and its correlation with the Saudi media, we infer that it is impossible to segregate the function of the information media from the general policy of the Saudi government, which is a written press policy. The SPA - Saudi Press Agency contributed as an intermediary between the agenda of the Saudi Arabian government and the work of the Saudi information media. The Saudi Ministry of Information appoints Editor-in-Chief who decides that what should be published and should not be published in the Saudi press and he is also completely accountable in front of the legal prosecutor of the state. The purpose of adopting this measure is to ensure that the newspapers in Saudi Arabia follow the path that has been designed for them so as to preserve the Saudi Arabian society as a conservative Islamic society, in its nature. The research findings through the content analysis shed light on why the Saudi press paid emphasis to the Bahraini conflict from the perspective of the military regime in Saudi Arabia. Firstly, the Saudi Arabian journalists were obligated by the Saudi Ministry of Information to provide state perspective or agenda to the Saudi people and Saudi society as a whole. Greater attention is given to the news belonging to the industrialized countries of the world such as the UK and the US. On the reasons for the dominance of Western and American news content could be the 'chess game' of politics as the Saudi Arabia supports these states and their governments. The 'geographic proximity', political and trade factors had influenced the amount of coverage given by the Saudi Arabian print media to the conflict in Bahrain. The Saudi media is viewed as an instrument of the state policy since it is governed indirectly by the Saudi government. It is can be expected that the policy of the Saudi government would be carried out from the media itself without showing any resistance. More particularly, the coverage of the activities of the Saudi government by the Saudi press would be positive in tone. Research Categories When creating categories for the content analysis, the newspaper content was classified with respect to the expanded and reformulated version of categories employed by Stevenson, et al. (Stevenson et al., 1990: 197-199). A brief description of these categories is provided below: Category A is classified as the main news topics, that include political, economic, military/defence, social service, education, religion, sport, crime/law/justice, natural disasters/accident, ecology/environment, multiple issues and many others. Category B is classified as the type of news. The selected types of news can be further divided into three categories: local or domestic news, international news that involves KSA and some other country irrespective of its geographical location and foreign news that has no association with KSA. Category C is classified as the tone of the main news topic, which can be further classified as either positive or negative. This judgment was based on whether the news and its tone were favourable to the interests of KSA and the US. Therefore, the news items that emphasised only the causes or issues (such as discrimination, injustice, etc.) behind the situation in Bahrain were classified as having a negative tone. Conversely, items were classified as having a positive tone if they supported and focused on the actions and policies, whether diplomatic or military-based, of KSA as its strategic partner, the US. Category D is classified as the theme of the news items or the leading stories. This can be defined as the core subject or concept in a piece. The themes of the leading stories and the news items can also be categorised as either positive or negative. The tone of each article also determines its theme as either favourable or unfavourable to KSA and the US, with respect to the same criterion explained above. Category E is classified as the personnel, which refers to the governments of KSA and the US, the government and opposition in Bahrain and the governments of other countries, particularly the Arab States. Moreover, various other personnel categories, such as the individual or institutional, multi-regional and unidentifiable personnel from domestic, international and foreign levels were used. Category F is classified as the geographical locations. These were identified to be KSA (separate from the Middle Eastern region as a district entity for the purpose of this study), the Middle East, Europe, America, Africa, Asia, the related multi-regions and the unidentifiable geographical locations. Category G is classified as the source of the news. The sources of the news articles were categorised as: - the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) - newspapers’ own staff - the major international services (Reuters, Agence France Press (AFP)) - the Associated Press (AP) - the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) - the United Press International (UPI) Together with other media—both domestic and foreign—public officials, private citizens, other agencies, multiple sources and unidentified or anonymous sources. It was attempted to maintain the independence of the main categories, but some were further classified into sub-categories. Once the categories had been defined, and the details of the sources of the individual news stories recorded, I began encoding these sources into the above stated categories. Seven distinct data sheets were formulated for each newspaper to support systematic and quantitative encoding, with each sheet representing one of the seven categories of the research. The constructed week approach fulfilled its purpose and the data samples of the two selected Saudi newspapers were taken for four consecutive periods or weeks, and four additional days up to March 16, 2011. Thus, 60 issues were included in the study. The concept was not to acquire data and estimate the percentage of items found in each category for each newspaper, but instead to determine observation techniques, coding approach and the research process. The reliability was ensured through the following measures: The boundaries of the research categories were well-defined and detailed. Articles in the data sample obtained within the first week of the study were checked to ensure the research categories were clear and adequate to cover the variety of news items to be classified. A total of 171 individual news items were analysed, and I as a researcher am satisfied and confident that this sample size is adequate for recording the nature of the Saudi media coverage of the recent events in Bahrain. Furthermore, the sample was divided into four consecutive periods that enabled us to capture the changes taking place during the conflict, which might have influenced the content of the Saudi press. The categories of classification were clear and generally allowed for straightforward implementation. Using the data obtained in the content analysis, tables were formulated to illustrate the outcomes for almost all of the previously mentioned categories. Frequencies have been employed for the core news topics, and the tone, theme and type of news item and leading news article. Frequencies, percentages and order of rank were employed for the personnel, the geographical location and the source of the news. This was necessary to analyse the data and rate the performance of each of the two Saudi newspapers with respect to the selected research categories, through which we can determine the similarities and differences between the publications. It is possible to compare their constructed statistical tables and, more importantly, to investigate the research problem and test the research hypothesis. The tables were helpful in answering the research question and were also used to represent the outcomes of the investigation, as they included the statistical summaries of the data obtained through the research. The tables illustrated the distribution of the news articles with respect to the category or type of the news in each newspaper. It is important to note that the estimation of the sub-category of ‘unidentified’ or ‘other’ under the categories of source, personnel and geographical location of the news content has been excluded from the scope of the study, to allow for more precise results with which to test the research hypotheses. The findings of Saudi press content analysis as per the coverage of Bahraini conflict by alriyadh and alyoum newspapers were recorded with respect to the main topics of the news and their tone, theme and type. It was generally observed that coverage given to Bahraini conflict was almost similar in the two selected Saudi newspapers although the proportion of news articles found in the two newspapers was different from one another. The findings of this content analysis are summarized below: The political and military developments in the Bahraini conflict were extensively covered in the two selected newspapers in comparison to other news topics. The stories related to Bahrain were positive in tone and tend to be from foreign sources. However, the stories linking Saudi Arabia directly to Bahrain were acquired from the Saudi Press Agency. Both the selected newspapers reported the intervention of Saudi Arabia in to Bahrain, through the Peninsula Shield Forces, as justified and lawful. Alriyadh newspaper decribed the security of Bahrain as the security of Saudi Arabia in its coverage of the conflict. Both the newspapers described the events in Bahrain as a sectarian conflict that involved the minority Sunni and the majority Shiah. Read More