est and fascination by a variety of academic institutions representing most of the world’s population. In terms of the number of countries and universities in which research on Al Jazeera has been done, we found more than 200 universities in more than 50 countries (1) . 17 of these are in the Arab world: Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain. The rest are United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Greece, Cyprus, Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Austria, Hunga- ry, Russia, Turkey, South Africa, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Singa- pore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Philippines, India, China, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. In some universities, the study of Al Jazeera is offered as part of the larger curriculum on journalism, with financial assistance allocated for students who take part. The doctoral program launched and financed by Bournemouth University to study comparative media coverage of the Arab Spring by Al Jazeera, the BBC and Reuters is an example (2) . Nevertheless, the interest in Al Jazeera was not limited to the traditional academic com- munity with its well-known disciplines, but also extended to other insti- tutions, such as the U.S army colleges and academies (3) . The growing interest, particularly by researchers from outside the Arab world, has significantly contributed to establishing Al Jazeera’s status within the global academic community. And as Al Jazeera be- came a leading institution competing with significant media networks
(1) See the appendix at the end of this chapter: “Master and PhD theses on Al Jazeera (lan- guages, universities and countries”.
(2) http://multimediajournalism.info/2011/07/01/phd-studentship-news-the-internet-and-the- arab-spring/
(3) See for example, Col. Shawn Stroud, “The Rise of Al Jazeera: The Need for Greater En- gagement by the U.S. Department of Defense”, Military Review , (July-August 2014). See also. Col. Steven Carney, reporting from Qatar: This is Al Jazeera , (The U.S. Army War College, 2006).
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