99. Name: Jaafar Bouzomita Title: The Iraq War in Big Media: Al Jazeera and the BBC Institution: Université de Caen Basse Normandie Country: France Date: 2011 Language: French Abstract: This dissertation is a comparative analysis of the global media coverage of the 2003 Iraq war. It takes as a case study the BBC and Al Jazeera. The researcher chose to focus on these two channels because the BBC has longstanding experience of providing reliable news, with international standards of impartiality and objectivity, while Al Jazeera’s professionalism rebalanced the North-South flow of information and became an alternative media reflecting a new construction of news. The study covers the first week of the war (21-26 March 2003) and includes online and television coverage of both channels in order to examine the issues of communication, manipulation, propaganda, and the visual representation of the war. The main argument of the study shows that the discrepancies between Al Jazeera and the BBC are relevant from a political point of view. Even though both outlets strive to be global and present themselves as culturally neutral, the difference between their narrative constructions is considerable. As the cultural context determines the narrative construction of the war, the standards of impartiality, independence and objectivity are subject to cultural framings and interpretations.
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