Today, those defending Al Jazeera may well boldly stress its con- tribution to shaping the modern Arab political and media spheres, and its dynamic coverage of several important stories in the region. On the international stage, Al Jazeera has proved, on many occasions, it has the necessary capabilities to compete with the leading international media networks, including BBC and CNN. According to observers, it has even affected the course of international politics in specific hotspots includ- ing Afghanistan, Somalia, and the Middle East at large (1) . This chapter investigates the reasons behind Al Jazeera’s success as a pan-Arab media project, and examines the role of its media dis- course in building what Acting Director General Mostefa Souag calls “fact-based truth” (2) . This editorial policy frames the Network’s in- house processes “to provide the truth as factually proven, paying no much attention to its abstract or philosophical meaning” (3) . This policy “adopts fact-based journalism, which is translated on the ground in re- porting the true events regardless of stands taken by different parties” (4) . How successful this policy has been in building a true pan-Arab aware- ness of the key issues? Has this approach managed to form an audience and an Arab public sphere favourable to social and political change? To answer these questions, this study suggests the relationship between Al Jazeera and its audience evolved chronologically and dynamically according to a tripartite logic that has been conditioned by various so- cial, political, and media factors. These factors can be explained in the following three equations:
- Shock and provocation - Knowledge and shaping - Affiliation and change
(1) Shawn Powers, The Geopolitics of News: The Case of Al Jazeera Network (PhD thesis, University of Southern California, 2009), pp. 13-14. (2) Factual truth is coined by Mostefa Souag, the Acting Director General of Al Jazeera Media Network, in an interview with the author. He also conceptualised the role of that concept in streamlining Al Jazeera’s editorial policy, Doha, 7 March 2021.
(3) Souag, Interview , Ibid.
(4) Ibid.
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