"Brand Al-Jazeera: a critical analysis of Al-Jazeera's self-branding and use of audience participation during the Arab spring"
Date
2014-06-13
Authors
Hoosen, Aneesa Goolam
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Abstract
Al-Jazeera English has elicited much attention since inception as a result of the station’s
pioneering stance in the middle-east. Propagating a liberal media model with the first English
based medium to set-up headquarters in the region, Al-Jazeera English exists as unique across
both local and foreign media-scapes. In combining two previously separated fields of media
studies; audience participation and branding the research seeks to explore the role of new media
technologies in audience participation and the extent to which they form crucial elements of the
network’s brand imaging. It does so in the wake of the Arab Spring using the Egyptian
Revolution as the case study to explore Al-Jazeera English’s Facebook commentary and flagship
programming. Drawing on themes like an anti-US sentiment and the alternative ‘Other’ the
dissertation unpacks what has come to constitute brand Al-Jazeera in an age of convergence and
social media where identity constitutes various factors.