such an influence is far from close to that of Al Jazeera’s, since the latter has financial and wide-ranging logistical deployment capabilities. An even lower level of influence goes to CNN. Al Jazeera’s quality cov- erage of major events in the Arab region in particular, has been instru- mental in raising political awareness and building a vibrant Arab polit- ical sphere, in which people have been able to exchange ideas on the political change in the Arab world. Equally, Arab diaspora, whether in Europe, U.S., or elsewhere, have also taken part in these debates on Al Jazeera’s various platforms. Al Jazeera’s influence continues to grow and increasingly involves international audiences as the Network keeps diversifying its content and expanding its operations to cover interna- tional issues trough multi-language channels and digital platforms (1) . First: Shock and Provocation The shock and provocation equation is based on the fact that Al Ja- zeera spurred the Arab audience to engage with major developments in the Arab World during the 1990s, especially between the launch of the network in 1996 and the 9/11 attacks five years later. Media networks need to define who their viewers are and have a plan in place for com- municating with said audience. Al Jazeera has always been eager to de- velop an exceptional relation with its viewers and other recipients of its media content. A relationship that brings about a kind of psychological and knowledge shock to move them away from the state of submission they have been experiencing under the conventional one narrative Arab media. This shock has taken the form of a new media product with which the Arab audience had not been familiar on state-run TV services. This shock was also used to rid viewers of the influence and negative impact of the already established systems of knowledge and values across me- dia organisations in the Arab World. Against this backdrop, Al Jazeera introduced a new media discourse that prioritizes news of interest to the largest segments of society. This new approach in dealing with news adopts a hierarchy based on newsworthiness, as per the internationally recognised media standards, rather than on the importance of the source
(1) See, Thomas J. Johnson and Shahira Fahmy, “The CNN of the Arab World or a Shell of Terrorists? How Support for Press Freedom and Political Ideology Predict the Credibility of Al Jazeera among its Audience”, International Communication Gazette , (October 2008).
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