123. Name: Ali Ahmadi Title: The Image of Contemporary Iranian Identity through the Discourse of Arab and Western Television (the Cases of BBC, CNN, France 24, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya) Institution: Université de Lyon 2 Country: France Date: 2014 Language: French Abstract: This study investigates the representation of contemporary Iran through the discourse of Arab and Western news channels. The comparative study of different news channels is an excellent opportunity to analyze different representations of the ‘other’ by studying how these channels construct different images of identities through stereotypes and ideological contrast between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This study used a comparative analysis of the discourse of Western and Arab transnational television channels. On the western side, the investigation looks at BBC, CNN and France 24, and on the Arabic side, the analysis included Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya channels. The aim is to identify the ways in which these channels depict the ‘other in their news coverage, in this case the Iranian identity. Globalization has introduced the ‘other’ into the very heart of the ‘local’. The stereotypical representations and images of Iran in television channels seem to reestablish the spatial, political and socio-cultural distances between countries, and seem to reproduce Western superiority especially in the coverage of American channels. The Arabic channels however, focus on a strong religious, racial and ethnic orientation when covering Iran.
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