promised the interests of those who tried to prevent the delivery of the Network’s media message. The author employs various research tools, including interviews with Al Jazeera staff members who lived through these encounters or were affected by them, and analysing statements and other official documents issued by the Network in this regard. The author also explores mechanisms developed by Al Jazeera at differ- ent times, to tackle certain challenges and respond to the accusations levelled against it. Such mechanisms were necessary to introduce rad- ical changes to its working environment both in the newsroom and in the field. 1. Stigmatisation and American Aggression against Al Jazeera The concept of symbolic interaction of Cooley and Mead has a contemporary manifestation that sociologists call “nomenclature theo- ry” (1) or the “sign and mark” or “stigma”. It is a situation in which cog- nitive, emotional, and behavioural dimensions reflect the mental image a particular discourse may formulate. People usually behave according to images they have in their minds and any change to those images would necessarily entail a change in behaviour (2) . The basic logic of this theory is that a person who breaks the law or violates the common norms is officially “stigmatised” by one of the agencies in the commu- nity (3) . If a group or an opposition figure is described in the media as an extremist or criminal, that group or person would unconsciously be associated with illegality, while the ruling class is always described as legitimate (4) . The majority of the research works on stigma have been discussed by sociologists who employed social normative methods to understand how people attribute values to certain taxonomies and as-
(1) See, Melvin L. DeFleur and Sandra Ball-Rokeach, Theories of Communication , (Allyn & Bacon, Inc. 1990).
(2) Ali Ajwa, Public Relations and Mental Image , (Cairo, World of Books, 2003), p. 8.
(3) DeFleur and Ball-Rokeach, Ibid, p. 353.
(4) Mohamed Abdul Hamid, Media Theories and Influence Trends , (Cairo, World of Books, 3rd Edition, 2004), p. 322.
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