Does Al Jazeera make a difference? The framing of the Iranian election 2009 by Al Jazeera Arabic and CNN International

Authors

  • Susan Schenk University of Technology Dresden
  • Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa University of Technology Dresden

Keywords:

Iran election, political news, news frames, Arab and Western media, contra-flow

Abstract

The election in Iran 2009 caused a serious crisis in Iranian society. The news media around the world reported about alleged manipulation, election fraud and other irregularities. “Where is my vote?” became the rallying cry of Iran’s opposition. This paper presents a cross-national comparative media analysis of news reporting on the Iranian election and the subsequent national and international reactions. It focuses on how a controversial political event was covered by two of the world's leading television news broadcasters: Al Jazeera Arabic and CNN International, with a particular focus on Al Jazeera. Two theoretical frameworks were adopted: a contra-flow approach – Al Jazeera as an alternative source of news – as well as its role with respect to democratization. Two flagship news programs were analyzed over a six-week period in summer 2009. With quantitative framing analysis as the central methodology (using statistical factor analysis), we focused on the content of 66 television news stories.

Author Biographies

Susan Schenk, University of Technology Dresden

Susan Schenk (MA) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Technology Dresden, Germany. Her research interests include international and intercultural communication, media use by migrants, and research methods in applied communication science. Her master’s thesis, “Comparing Islam Coverage of Al Jazeera English, CNN International and BBC World: Topics and Stereotypes in the International News Coverage,” was published 2009 and was awarded the Lohrmann medal by the University of Technology Dresden.

Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa, University of Technology Dresden

Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa (MA) is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Technology Dresden. He writes his thesis on “Students’ Exposure to Political News on the Internet and Political Awareness: A Comparison between Germany and Egypt.”

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How to Cite

Schenk, S., & Khalifa, M. (2011). Does Al Jazeera make a difference? The framing of the Iranian election 2009 by Al Jazeera Arabic and CNN International. Global Media Journal - German Edition, 1(2). Retrieved from https://globalmediajournal.de/index.php/gmj/article/view/130

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2011): Autumn/Winter 2011: Special Issue: Integration Discourses in the Media

Section

Peer-Reviewed Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2011 Susan Schenk, Mohamed Ahmed Khalifa

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.