Images of Explosions
A film by Jana El Amine, Essam Ahmed, and Malisha Baiers
Supervision: Dr. Claudia Kozman and Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Shami
Two different countries, two different explosions, two different reasons in one scene, one tragedy, and the same agony. The Beirut Twenty Twenty Explosion and the Yemen Sana’a Big Hall Twenty Sixteen explosion are destructive events that shook the capital cities of Lebanon and Yemen.
While almost all countries around the world heard about the Beirut explosion, few knew about the Sana’a Hall explosion. Why would pan-Arab media focus on one explosion but not a similar other, considering their aim is to cover all the issues of the Arab world at all times?
A quick look at the coverage of the two explosions shows a clear bias among pan-Arab media, with heavy focus on covering the Beirut explosion versus an almost complete neglect of the Sana’a Hall one. Besides the frequency of coverage, an analysis of the two events also reveals a clear difference in the appearance of certain themes between the two explosions.
The Beirut explosion was heavily covered in more than 50 news stories in less than 5 days, most of which came from 4 different pan-Arab media. One reason could be the nature of the Beirut explosion:
Claudia Kozman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism, Director of Research at the Institute of Media Research and Training, Lebanese American University:
“It was a tragic event that cost so many people so much. Human lives were lost and properties were damaged. An entire section of Beirut is now forever changed.”
“This sensational story included many of the elements that we call newsworthiness. Many of the people’s values that make a story worthy to be a news story. For example, it was a sudden event; this is what we call deviance in research. Something that deviates from the norm. It was a break in the routine; something that is novel. This is very interesting for journalists.”
In contrast, only 6 news stories about the Sana’a Hall explosion appeared in the same pan-Arab media outlets over a two-week period. Consequently, a few people had heard about it.
The reason is that Qatar was a part of the Saudi-led Arab coalition fighting against Al Houthis, claiming to restore the Yemeni legitimate and internationally recognized government. Yet, both Aljazeera and Al Hadath, that reflect and support Saudi Arabia policy, ignored it.
Claudia Kozman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism, Director of Research at the Institute of Media Research and Training, Lebanese American University:
“For international media, Yemen is a place that has a lot of war, so more explosions, less explosions; it is not gonna change much about their coverage.”
“So you are basically boxing people and labeling them under one or two titles. So if anything more than this label, if anything above this label happens then it is not that interesting because this is the box you are putting them people in. And if more of what is in the label in that box happens it is also not news because it is the norm it is the routine to cover this area from this perspective.”
Due to the variance in the coverage of both explosions, a deeper analysis was necessary to understand the themes included in the coverage of the pan-Arab media Al Araby TV, Al Mayadeen, Al Jazeera and Al Hadath.
To detect the themes, we based our analysis on the generic frames created by media scholars Holli Semetko and Patti Valkenburg, who were cited in more than 3,500 research articles. Besides the five frames of responsibility, conflict, human interest, morality, and economic consequences, we let the content guide us on any new emerging themes.
In the coverage of the Sana’a Hall explosion, the stories mainly included conflict and responsibility themes revolving around the conflict between Al Houthis and the Saudi-led Arab coalition.
In the Beirut explosion, however, the majority of the news stories included human-interest themes with human faces, stories and sufferings, as well as social and economic consequences of the explosion on the economy as a whole and society in specific. The responsibility theme was also frequently used in the Beirut explosion allowing journalists to raise questions on who is responsible for what.
What could be the reason behind using those different themes?
Denijal Jegic, Ph.D., Post-Doctoral Researcher, Multimedia Journalism Instructor, Lebanese American University:
“So if you look at the landscape of media that is available in Arabic, for Arabic speaking audience, we can find different motivations, different ideologies and of course different political economies that play a role in how these media outlets work on a regional or international scale. Of course, looking into that would of course require to discuss the ownership restrictions on freedom of speech and of course the individual media landscapes and media systems in the countries in which each outlet is situated.”
Although Al Jazeera is considered independent, it is owned by the state of Qatar through the funding it receives from Qatar Media Corporation. Similarly, Al Araby TV is also owned by Qatar. Qatar was known for its neutrality in the Yemen war; however, during the time of the Sana’a Hall explosion, it was more sympathetic with Yemen and the Houthis rather than Saudi-led Arab coalition, especially after leaving the coalition during the siege. As for its relationship with Lebanon, Qatar does not have a direct affiliation with the Lebanese government, however, it has a good relationship with Lebanon and its politicians.
Similarly, Al Mayadeen was also sympathetic with the Houthis when it came to the Yemen war coverage, due to the fact that it is backed by and financed by the Syrian government and Iran, and highly influenced by the Lebanese political party Hezbollah.
In contrast, Al Hadath is owned by a Saudi businessman and supports Saudi Arabian policies, which made it more sympathetic towards the Saudi-led Arab coalition in the coverage of the Yemen explosion.
Understanding the effect of partisanship on media content requires a deeper understanding of the role partisan affiliations play in the coverage of controversial events, and in determining the themes media use when covering such events.
Claudia Kozman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Multimedia Journalism, Director of Research at the Institute of Media Research and Training, Lebanese American University:
“The explosion was an accidental event that was so mysterious that it required digging into. So this is where some media outlets they focused entirely on the who which is who is to blame, who is behind this. So they presented the story mostly through their political lenses.”
“Now the media outlet is sympathetic or is owned by people who are in power it would shy away from heavy coverage instead it would focus on probably human-interest just saying that people lost their homes and people have lost their lives and there is so much going on.”
“Now the Yemen story is different, mainly because it is a war situation between two opposing sides. Plus the Yemen story aligns more with the political and the direct interest of pan-Arab media, which most of them let us say some of them are owned by Saudi Arabia which is directly involved in the Yemen war. In most wars there are clear sides and pan-Arab media having clear political leanings and having their ownerships it is so simple for them to say we side with this side and not the other one.”
“Follows that, they might not be always always able to talk about who is responsible; so this is where they would cover the entirety of the war which means focusing on the different frames. They would focus on the human-interest frame, the morality frame”
For this report, we reviewed 50 news stories covering the Beirut and Sana’a Hall explosions within 2 weeks of the events. However, we performed an in-depth analysis of 18 news stories only, since the data quickly reached a saturation point. These 18 stories were split between 6 about the Sana’a Hall explosion and 12 about the Beirut explosion. In addition to the conflict and responsibility themes, we uncovered in the coverage of the Sana’a Hall explosion, a third of the stories included human faces or narrated the issue from a human-interest angle. These stories often included interviews with people who were around the explosion or were affected by it.
Regarding the nature of usage of the responsibility theme, channels affiliated with the Houthis attributed responsibility to the Saudi-led Arab coalition directly or indirectly, while channels affiliated with the Saudi-led Arab coalition attributed responsibility to the Houthis in the mis-information and the crisis.
Lastly, all the stories covering Sana’a Hall included conflict themes between the Saudi-led Arab coalition and the Houthis due to the conflict being the main reason behind the explosion.
As for the Beirut explosion, more than half the news stories included a human face and covered the effects of the blast on families, kids, and houses of people through interviewing them, quoting them, or taking videos of their reactions and speeches. The political affiliations of the channels did not have a clear effect on the inclusion of human themes.
The responsibility theme was used in half the stories covering Beirut, where it was divided between attributing responsibility to government parties or to people responsible at the port. Channels affiliated with Hezbollah (which is Al Mayadeen in this case) attributed responsibility to specific port-related officials while defending Hezbollah, while channels affiliated with Saudi Arabia and Qatar attributed responsibility to the government as a whole.
Finally, regarding the morality theme, less than a third of Sana’a Hall-related stories and a quarter of the stories covering Beirut included morality themes, irrespective of the channel’s political affiliation. These revolved mainly around calls for action and the need to punish the people responsible for this crisis.
Many reasons contribute for the coverage of the Sana’a Hall explosion and the Beirut explosion to differ in pan-Arab media. Even when two explosions in Arab countries are of the same size and have similar effects, the images portrayed vary due to political reasons, the news values that drive journalists, and the situation in which a country stands. Moreover, Yemen is not accessible for international media which makes it hard for journalists to get and develop stories on the ongoing war since March 2015.
Sometimes, a story is just not newsworthy enough to be covered by the media; other times, focusing on specific aspects and images of a story is a matter of preference and support to existing ideologies.
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