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The Syrian War: Portraits with Political Meanings: A Content Analysis of Al-Jazeera’s Coverage of the Intra-Syrian Peace Negotiations
Dalarna University, School of Education, Health and Social Studies, Political Science.
2019 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

The aim of this study is to analyse the contents in texts about the intra-Syrian peace negotiations, as well as identify latent political meanings, through examining how the sides of the war are portrayed in al-Jazeera´s coverage. Dr Zainab Abdul-Nabi suggests in her analysis of al-Jazeera´s coverage of another event in the Syrian war, namely the chemical attack in Ghouta, that al-Jazeera has a catalysing role in the Arab Spring when covering the Syrian war in particular. This study continues along those lines that Abdul-Nabi suggests by analysing the coverage of another event in the Syrian war – the UN-led intra-Syrian peace negotiations. Purposefully, this study should increase the awareness of how political meanings could be hidden in texts. The theory of agenda setting, a theory by Walter Lippman which was further developed by McCombs and Shaw, is used in this study: media set the agenda by inserting certain portraits of how things are and what the society should be concerned about. Content analysis is the method used to perform this study, following Halperin and Heath´s model. By interpreting articles from an influential media source – al-Jazeera – the analysis shows that the examined texts portray the opposition as protagonists against a brutal government, plausibly making the media source a part of the war since the texts attempt to set the agenda that a certain side is the protagonists and another is the antagonists. Underplaying the potential capacities of the peace negotiations and not compromising with the other side is evident, as well as holding the other side responsible of the hostilities in the war, in the texts, hence having a catalysing role with its coverage in the war. Also, the texts tend to leave out details concerning the other side (the government side), portraying the opposition to be representing the people..

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2019.
Keywords [en]
Syria, war, al-Jazeera, content analysis, qualitative, political meaning, peace negotiations, government, opposition, agenda setting.
National Category
Political Science
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-30784OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-30784DiVA, id: diva2:1354985
Available from: 2019-09-26 Created: 2019-09-26

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
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  • vancouver
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  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
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