The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News

Editorials are often viewed as the mouthpiece of newspapers which reveal embedded elements such as social and cultural contexts, background of editorial writers and ideological beliefs of a newspaper in a society. Readers not only communicate with the editorials, but the former also interpret them s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Afzal, Naeem
Format: Thesis
Language:en
en
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/1/s93633_01.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/2/s93633_02.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1833436715406065664
author Afzal, Naeem
author_facet Afzal, Naeem
author_sort Afzal, Naeem
building UUM Library
collection Institutional Repository
content_provider Universiti Utara Malaysia
content_source UUM Electronic Theses
continent Asia
country Malaysia
description Editorials are often viewed as the mouthpiece of newspapers which reveal embedded elements such as social and cultural contexts, background of editorial writers and ideological beliefs of a newspaper in a society. Readers not only communicate with the editorials, but the former also interpret them subjectively. Yet, not much is known about how the media content is produced. Given that the Arab Spring has not been fully examined in the editorials, this study explores how editorials of mainstream English language newspapers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia portray the uprising. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, the study examines the voice of a non-Arab (Pakistani) newspaper, The News International, and an Arab (Saudi) newspaper, Arab News, with a view to understand the Arab Spring. Data for this qualitative study consist of fourty-eight editorials collected, during the period of high media coverage of the Arab Spring, from January 2011 to December 2012. The data are analysed based on van Dijk‘s concepts of schematic categories of editorials, ideological square and rhetorical devices utilised in the media discourse and the three modes of persuasion, namely, ethos, pathos and logos. The findings reveal that the editorial writers in both newspapers positively portray the Arab Spring as a movement of 'change‘. The writers oppose the authorities in the affected countries through negative other-representation (them) and favour the protesters, who demanded change, through positive self-representation (us). The study also reveals how the newspaper rhetoric shares the protesters‘ emotions and justifies their demands to remove the dictatorial regimes. As a conclusion, the study contributes to the critical understanding of how newspaper editorials can (dis)empower the readers through the use of carefully constructed discourse.
format Thesis
id my.uum.etd-6811
institution Universiti Utara Malaysia
language en
en
publishDate 2017
record_format eprints
spelling my.uum.etd-68112021-04-28T03:31:07Z https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/ The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News Afzal, Naeem HM Sociology. Editorials are often viewed as the mouthpiece of newspapers which reveal embedded elements such as social and cultural contexts, background of editorial writers and ideological beliefs of a newspaper in a society. Readers not only communicate with the editorials, but the former also interpret them subjectively. Yet, not much is known about how the media content is produced. Given that the Arab Spring has not been fully examined in the editorials, this study explores how editorials of mainstream English language newspapers in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia portray the uprising. Using a critical discourse analysis approach, the study examines the voice of a non-Arab (Pakistani) newspaper, The News International, and an Arab (Saudi) newspaper, Arab News, with a view to understand the Arab Spring. Data for this qualitative study consist of fourty-eight editorials collected, during the period of high media coverage of the Arab Spring, from January 2011 to December 2012. The data are analysed based on van Dijk‘s concepts of schematic categories of editorials, ideological square and rhetorical devices utilised in the media discourse and the three modes of persuasion, namely, ethos, pathos and logos. The findings reveal that the editorial writers in both newspapers positively portray the Arab Spring as a movement of 'change‘. The writers oppose the authorities in the affected countries through negative other-representation (them) and favour the protesters, who demanded change, through positive self-representation (us). The study also reveals how the newspaper rhetoric shares the protesters‘ emotions and justifies their demands to remove the dictatorial regimes. As a conclusion, the study contributes to the critical understanding of how newspaper editorials can (dis)empower the readers through the use of carefully constructed discourse. 2017 Thesis NonPeerReviewed text en https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/1/s93633_01.pdf text en https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/2/s93633_02.pdf Afzal, Naeem (2017) The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News. Doctoral thesis, Universiti Utara Malaysia.
spellingShingle HM Sociology.
Afzal, Naeem
The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title_full The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title_fullStr The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title_full_unstemmed The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title_short The media portrayal of Arab Spring in newspaper editorials : the case of Pakistani The News International and Saudi Arabian Arab News
title_sort media portrayal of arab spring in newspaper editorials : the case of pakistani the news international and saudi arabian arab news
topic HM Sociology.
url https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/1/s93633_01.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/2/s93633_02.pdf
https://etd.uum.edu.my/6811/
url_provider http://etd.uum.edu.my/