Global Media Contra-flow from the Perspective of News Communication-Take Al Jazeera as an Example
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DOI: 10.25236/ssehr.2022.013
Corresponding Author
Yaqing Zhang
Abstract
With developing nations’ progress, the media contra-flow has progressively captured the attention of scholarly circles and the world at large. Al Jazeera (www.aljazeera.com) is current affairs and English-language news television station that broadcasts around the clock. The station broadcasts in both the Middle East and throughout the world, and it is regarded as one of the most common TV media in modern non-western nations to achieve media contra-flows. As the 21st century becomes an era of multiple voices, multimedia, and multi-directional flows, it is accompanied by the gradual politicization and nationalization of the media, which has taken on the nature of public power. The public sphere has shifted from criticism to the glorification of reality. The media became a tool of political opinion, and criticism and reason faded from the public sphere. As a media tool that represents Arabic culture, Al Jazeera’s Arab orientation and independent mind add new values to global media cultures and are a challenge to the dominant western media culture. This study investigates the current situation of global media backlash via the lens of news communication and aims to investigate the nature of global media backlash. This paper would focus on the case study of Al Jazeera by taking the opportunity of regional conflicts, looking into how a contra-flow media style, such as Al Jazeera, stands out in the Western media environment and presents a tractable reference value for non-Western countries' international communication by finally analyzing Al Jazeera's communication limits in the media contra-flow based on empirical study findings. The study concludes that the global media contra-flow, as one of the expressions of the multipolarity of the worldwide political landscape, reflects the voice of emerging nations, which in part reverses international information imbalance and cultural hegemony. Al Jazeera's ascent has enhanced and fostered political multipolarity and multiculturalism.
Keywords
Al Jazeera, contra-flow, global media, news communication, political and cultural hegemony, counter-hegemony