162. Name: Sana’a M.H. Ahmed Title: Arab Satellite News Channels and their Role in Setting the Political Agenda: Analytical Study of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya Institution: Sudan University for Science and Technology Country: Sudan Date: 2017 Language: Arabic Abstract: This study looks at the Arab satellite channels’ coverage of the Darfur issue, which attracted a great local, regional and international interest, along with an unprecedented media coverage. The study focuses on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya as the two news channels with the highest viewership in the Arab world, specialized in news and political programmes. The wide media coverage these two channels provided for the Darfur issue during 2014-2016 made them set the news agenda for the rest of Arab and international media. Their news treatment also contributed, to varying degrees, to raising the political awareness among Arab publics and united the feelings of Arabs towards this issue. The research findings showed that Al Jazeera channel received the highest percentage in terms of objectivity and impartiality in dealing with the Darfur issue both in news and programme coverage, with a big difference compared to Al Arabiya Channel. The study also found that Al Jazeera deploys reporters in all the hotspots around the world and its coverage of the Darfur issue was neutral and unbiased in favor of any of the conflicting parties.
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