44. Name: Zoe Maria Pace Title: Looking through the Mirror: Finding Hybridity in Al Jazeera English’s Journalism Meta-discourse Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), University of London Country: United Kingdom Date: 2008 Language: English Abstract: The study of news agencies has been abandoned due to academia’s inability to move beyond dichotomous understandings of media systems. Today, players like Al Jazeera English challenge binary comprehensions of media flows by neither fitting into the ‘media imperialism’ nor the ‘media globalization’ debate. This investigation merges the fields of cultural hybridity and journalism meta-discourse to create a more nuanced, less polarizing method of analysis. The study applies a critical discourse analysis to understand how Al Jazeera English represents, sustains, and creates hybridity within its narratives. The findings reveal that metanarratives of hybridity in Al Jazeera English are created through rhetorical strategies, which interact with the West. These interactions performatively resist, yet adopt Western forms of ‘being’. The simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the West is a way to create identity in a (re)colonizing media environment. The research suggests keyways in which future studies can effectively situate Al Jazeera English within academic literature. Overall, this study aims to provide an entry point towards merging two contrasting theories to avoid universalizing assumptions of media systems and explicate how power is created beyond the West.
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