Analysis of Saudi Arabia Press - Essay Example

1.4. The Research Thesis A high level of control was implemented by the government over the dissemination of news information and news to the press in Saudi Arabia during the events occurring in Bahrain. Therefore, to start with, the Saudi press remained controlled, applying no pressure on to the state authorities in relation to their handling of the Bahraini events and abstaining from the criticism of other governments. The Saudi government desired to be viewed as central to the social structure whereas the Saudi print media was to serve as a gatekeeper of what the Saudi people should think about. Then, it may be hypothesized that the function of the system of print media in Saudi Arabia was in accordance to the authoritarian press model, by which the press is considered as "a servant of the state and it is responsible for a larger part of its content to the power figures who are in charge of the government at any particular time" (Siebert, Peterson & Schramm, 1963: 3). Indeed, if this model is applicable to the Saudi print media then the hypotheses given below would be likely to hold true: H1 a: The developments in the field of politics and military/defence in Bahrain would be extremely newsworthy than any other news topics. H1 b: The type of news, for the political and military developments in the Bahraini conflict, would be largely domestic instead of being external, international and/or foreign. H1 c: The tone of the news, for the political and military developments in the Bahraini conflict, would usually be positive instead of being negative. H2: The individual newspapers, within the Saudi print media, would offer similar levels of coverage to the different themes that have been presented by the news items. H3: The coverage of Saudi print media would depend more heavily on the Saudi government officials than on other personnel in relation to the news about the Bahraini conflict. H4: The Saudi print media would emphasize on the Bahraini conflict news stories that emerge in the Saudi Arabian region, rather than those emerging from other geographical locations. H5: The Saudi print media would heavily rely on the domestic sources for their news presentations during the Bahraini conflict, which are namely their own staff, the Saudi government officials and the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), rather than on any other external or foreign sources. H6: The tone of the leading stories or articles of the printing press in Saudi Arabia would be more positive rather than being negative. Indeed, it may be questioned that whether the Saudi Arabian print media served completely in line with the authoritarian press model. Therefore, it is proposed that this model alone is too simple to explain the role played by the print media in Saudi Arabia. This is due to the fact that the flow of information is affected by the following three variables, which are: The hierarchy of nations; The economic associations and the cultural affinities, and; The information and news conflicts (Hester, 1973: 242-3). These variables directly affected the Saudi print media during the coverage of the conflict events in Bahrain. Firstly, in relation to the national hierarchies of power, it must be conceded that in countries like the Western Europe and the USA, there exist profound interest groups that are able to exert significant influence in dealing with other small or big nations. They are commercial centers, according to Iyengar & Kinder (1987: 153-4): “the major capitals of the western Europe and north America and the major trade posts in the colonial territories have always housed the most of the media and agency correspondents. It is the regular generation of the news in routine from such news capitals, instead of the occasional generation of the news from the news provinces that outlines the shapes and the boundaries of the contours of the news atlas”. In particular, the news from the USA and Western Europe, dominated the coverage of the Bahraini conflict. As noted by Vandijk (1988: 42), it had always been that "the US being the strongest country in the world in terms of both military and economics, received all attention in the wires of the agencies, out of which two are American namely, AP and UPI". Despite the fact that UPI had been in decline by the start of 1990s, the other big American player entering in to the scene is CNN. The coverage news was also affected by the economic associations and the cultural affinities among the nations, for instance between the Saudi Arabia and Bahrain or other Islamic countries such like Pakistan where the language, the religion and other certain aspects of life are the either same or similar, which encourages the flow of news among these nations. The other factor associated with the availability of news and information about the conflict in Bahrain. It is certain that with so various countries concerned with the conflict, whether they in favor or against the Bahraini protests, the flow of news among these nations would not only shape but also indicate the thinking of the nature of the conflict. As the Saudi Arabian journalists were surrounded by the journalistic capabilities of the BBC, the CNN and the other foreign media, thus, they would have no choice but to ascertain that they did their own bit in the flow of information. Moreover, the other indirect variables like the lack of skills and experience of the local journalists, the influence of government (information) policy and the communication facilities that brought further difficulties for the Saudi print media. In this relation, it is proposed that the Saudi print media would rely more in the coverage and structuring of it news on the external sources like AFP, Reuters, UPI, and AP rather than on local sources like the SPA and their own staff. This could be due to the difficulty of getting government respondents, either because of the lack of confidence between the journalists and the authorities or due to the government system. In this scenario, it is logical to assume that the Saudi print media would not pay any attention to news stories about the Bahraini conflict emerging from the SA region as compared to those emerging from other geographical locations like the UK and USA. In addition to this, the Saudi press would rely more heavily on the personnel other than the officials of Saudi government for Bahraini conflict news. Consequently, the political as well as the military developments would be viewed as more newsworthy as compared to the other news topics related to the Bahraini events, and the type of news would extensively be international and/or foreign instead of being domestic. The occurrence of different themes would differ from one newspaper to another however the coverage would be likely to be positive in tone and in favor of the Saudi Arabian government and the UN resolutions related to Bahrain. The main or the leasing stories/articles of the Saudi newspapers that indicate the editorial perspective and analysis distinctively, would emphasize predominantly on Saudi Arabia, the Allied Coalition, the Arab World, Bahrain, anti-UN resolutions and military and economic issues, and those associated with the conflict. On these themes, the items would be more positive rather than being negative in tone. Therefore, the Saudi journalists would have faced difficulty in covering the Bahraini conflict independently, objectively and in keeping a balance while carrying the news. Hence, it is interesting to investigate the performance of the Saudi print media during the occurrence of Bahraini events, in the view of authoritarian press theory. This will allow us to evaluate the extent to which any such theory was applicable and to advance the understanding of the role of the Saudi press. 1.5. Significance of the Study This research derives its significance from its contribution to knowledge, originality, and potential value in practice as an input factor for the future formulations of the Saudi press policy. Why it is important to study the press function and the performance of the Saudi print media during the conflict? Starck (1973: 145) has debated that: ‘It would seem effective to study the press function for 2 main reasons, which are both associated with change. First reason is that the basic communications policies at the developing nations are being formulated to ascertain that the media will conduct the prescribed functions usefully in a certain politico- socio- economic milieu. Second reason is that there is the requirement for institutions in all societies to constantly readjust to a rapidly evolving environment. In both cases, it would seem that the media would endeavor to consider that how their audiences feel in relation to what function the media should be completing rather than to what the functions were or have been.’ Saudi Arabia being a heavily regulated Muslim State offers an extensively fertile ground for the researchers of communications, who study the performance of their media, which incorporate changes that could take place in the conflict, as there is a strong link between the ideology of the Saudi government and the press in the context of the place that it holds in the contemporary Saudi society. The Saudi print media is in an influential position in view of its sheer size, political and cultural weight, as it is governed by the Saudi government. Thus, it is of interest to determine that how such an organization functions, what role it is intended to play, what factors influence it, and how it can best perform that role. The contemporary world represents numerous economic, political, and social conflicts, and there exist economic blocks at the global level that means a block of consuming countries and a block of producing countries. In the wake of new groupings, the countries must make use of the evolving opportunities. Although there are political struggles in the world however we still require a greater a comprehensive strategy and understanding for dealing with these changes. The world has been increasingly getting globalized and interdependent. Therefore, the print media as an instrument, both inside and outside Saudi Arabia, requires to be prepared for the present and treat issues, in particular for the political issues that is, more critically, to know whether the available evidence justifies the conclusions that have been drawn from it. The print media serves as an important intermediary between the public and the decision-makers and it may help to shape the correlation between them. The question emerges that what is to be the correlation between the Saudi Arabian people and the Saudi government, and where does the print media fit into this relationship? This research will endeavor to argue on this issue and aspires to assist in determining some solutions. By discussing the performance of the Saudi press in the coverage of the conflict in Bahrain, this research will assess the validity of the press theory as well as the other concepts raised by communications’ researchers in the context of the role of the press in society. The performance of the Saudi print media during the Bahraini conflict has not been studied previously. Therefore, it is expected that this study will develop a foundation for other studies in this respect, not only of the Saudi press but also in the broader context of culture, media and society. 1.6. Limitations of the Study Any exploratory study with respect to the Saudi press is expected to encounter some difficulties, particularly since no such study has been carried out previously. The major reasons behind this are that: the lack of confidence of Saudi scholars in studying such a sensitive issue, lack of experience of the Saudi researchers as well as the difficulty in acquiring access to the relevant information and material in the context of such a sensitive or politicized issue. Moreover, any research project witnesses limitations of scope that must be kept in mind while formulating and understanding the study’s outlines. The first limitation is related to the study of population. The research samples were taken from the two leading newspapers in Saudi Arabia, namely the Al-riyadh and Al-yaum newspapers. They have been selected due to the fact that they represent the leading figures and that they were nearer to the reality of what has been taking place in the context of the press during the Bahraini conflict. The opinions presented in these newspapers provide us a general picture about the environment of the Saudi Arabian print media. The limitation of this study is associated with the evaluation of the content of the Saudi Arabian print media. This analysis was limited to only two national daily newspapers in Saudi Arabia that are al-Riyadh and al-Yaum as mentioned above. Moreover, only the front pages of the two newspapers along with their editorial pages have been selected. Therefore, inevitably, potentially interesting as well as the relevant information or news from other pages of the above mentioned two Saudi newspapers that may have published on other pages have been excluded from the data sample. This was done keeping in mind the limitation of the time available. However, it may be debated that the front pages and the leading stories or articles would represent only the main events and attitudes that have been covered and expressed, respectively, in the two selected Saudi newspapers. In addition to this, the detailed coding of the themes of the items was helpful in overcoming this limitation. Nevertheless, one important point to note is that the researcher all by himself was the only coder in this research, which might be regarded as one of the limitations of the research, however the debate here is that the researcher followed the Wimmer & Dominick’s (1983) two steps that means he described the category boundaries, and then he carried out a pilot study. Therefore, the researcher believes that it was not necessary to include another coder. The last limitation of the study was that it did not take in to account the influence of the performance of the Saudi Arabian print media on the Saudi people. The simple reason for doing this was that this research was aimed towards the investigation of the attitudes and the behavior and not the cause and effect. However, in entirety, it was not felt that the inevitable limitations of this research impair the acquired data. The methods and organization of this research may be regarded as an appropriate way of achieving the objectives of the study. Read More