scholarly journals The Driving Restriction on Saudi Women: Critical Analysis of Modality in Arabic Online News Discourse

Author(s):  
Farah Nadia Harun ◽  
Muhammad Marwan Ismail ◽  
Anissa Daoudi ◽  
Paul Thompson

In a society mostly dominated by man, Saudi women faced many restrictions compared to man as they have legally been barred from doing many things by themselves or at least without a male guardian. One of these restrictions is car driving, which was supported by the Islamic pronunciation (fatwa) made by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia. Over the last twenty years, there are a lot of struggles recorded by the mass media between the group demanding more rights for Saudi women and the conservative preserving the fundamental of Saudi's culture based on strict Islamic teaching. Hence, this paper examines the way modern standard Arabic online news of Al-Jazirah (AJ) of Saudi Arabia and BBC Arabic (BBCA) of United Kingdom portrayed the restriction of car driving on Saudi women. This paper aims to analyse the ways that language is exploited in BBCA and AJ to report on struggles around the driving restriction on Saudi women, particularly in the used of modality as one of discourse construction strategy utilised by the news outlets. Therefore, the paper will examine the corpus data consists of online news articles published by BBCA and AJ between 2010 and 2014 using corpus data mining software ‘AntConc 3.1’. The quantitative result of corpus data then will be analysed using a qualitative approach based on the textual-oriented Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Fairclough and media discourse of Ruth Wodak. The result shows that the two news outlets have a different way of portraying the restriction of driving on Saudi women according to their political agendas and ideologies. Hence reveal the hidden agenda and ideologies of Arabic online news discourses around the issue of driving restriction and the Saudi women in general.

Sains Insani ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Farah Nadia Harun ◽  
Muhammad Marwan Ismail

Saudi women face many restrictions compared to other Arab or Muslim women as they have been barred (legally and or culturally) from doing many things by themselves or can only do some activities with the presence of a male guardian. Over the last two decades, there are many struggles recorded by the mass media, particularly the newspapers and the satellite channels. The media has been reported on the debates between groups demanding more rights for Saudi women and the conservative groups preserving the fundamental of Saudi's culture heavily based on the Islamic teaching and values. Hence, this paper examines the way modern standard Arabic online news of Al-Jazirah (AJ) of Saudi Arabia and BBC Arabic (BBCA) of United Kingdom portrayed the challenges faced by Saudi women in their involvement in international sporting events. This paper aims to analyse the ways that language is exploited in BBCA and AJ to report on struggles around the participation of Saudi women in sports, particularly in the used of presupposition strategies as one of discourse construction strategy utilised by the selected news outlets. Therefore, the paper critically examines news articles published by BBCA and AJ between 2010 and 2014 using a qualitative approach based on the textual-oriented Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Fairclough, media discourse of Ruth Wodak and Discourse and ideology of Van Dijk. The preliminary result shows that the two news outlets have a different way of portraying the restriction of Saudi women' participation in international sporting events according to their ideologies. Thus, at the end of the study, the researchers reveal the outlets' stand on this issue. Hence, highlight the hidden ideologies at the back of the struggles in the construction of Arabic online news discourses around Saudi women in general.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 745-756
Author(s):  
Muhammad Marwan Ismail ◽  
Farah Nadia Harun ◽  
Wan Moharani Mohammad ◽  
Nurhasma Muhammad Saad ◽  
Sulaiman Ismail

December 2019 marked the emergence of a deadly virus known as Covid-19. Since then, we have been battling the virus, which has infected more than 250 million people and killed 4.5 million globally. The pandemic has become the headline of almost every media outlet, local and international news agency. Hence, this article aims to examine the Arabic online news discourse of the event by focusing on the verbal processes strategically utilised in reporting the pandemic in Malaysia. This study's data consists of Modern Standard Arabic online news published by Aswaq (aswaqpress.com) news portal between January and July 2021. Aswaq provides Arabic news and information on Malaysia to the Arab world. Hence, the information provided by the portal is vital in portraying Malaysia to Arab audiences, particularly in framing the way Malaysia deals with the Covid-19. The study employs corpus linguistics analytical tools using corpus software AntConc 3.5.8 (2019). Then, the quantitative result will be analysed using a qualitative approach based on the textual-oriented Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Fairclough (1992). It is shown that Aswaq has strategically utilised various verbal processes to report on the word said and articulated around the pandemic. The diversity of verbal processes usage indicates different connotations that hint at different strategic approaches in reporting the news. Hence, it may lead to uncovering the outlet stance of the event. Finally, the study will present suggestions for other related studies in the future.


Author(s):  
Shrouq Al Maghlouth

In recent years, Saudi women have been empowered on plenty of levels which were not easily available at the dawn of this century. In the last two decades, social change has been initiated, constructed and distributed discursively on both governmental and non-governmental circles; with the topic of women's inclusion in unconventional work environments provoking controversial positions between the heterogenous society of Saudi Arabia. The current paper offers a critical discourse analysis on how these diverse positions are reported metaphorically in blog posts written by bloggers presenting themselves as supporters of change and women empowerment. Such posts were written between 2009 and 2011; thus, documenting the very early support and opposition to this topic, which has also intensified drastically after King Salman -the current Saudi monarch- ascended to throne in 2015, following the death of the late King Abdullah. Keywords: social change, critical discourse analysis, women empowerment, Saudi Arabia


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-357 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tariq Elyas ◽  
Abdulrahman Aljabri

There has been a tremendous interest in the Western media concerning the status of women in Saudi Arabia. The recent reform in women’s rights and guardianship system has Western media gone into motion frenzy. A few research has been done on the representation of Saudi women in Arabic newspapers, but there is a scarce of research in Western English newspapers to date. This article exercises a critical discourse analysis approach to investigate the language used in three famous Western newspapers to uncover the hidden ideologies behind the representation of Saudi women’s guardianship system. To this end, van Dijk’s (2004) analytical framework was employed to reveal the underlying ideologies of six reports by The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Toronto Star. The findings show that the three newspapers have expressed the notion of “otherness” in their descriptions of Saudi Arabia and Saudi women. Furthermore, the newspapers have shared the employment of consensus and negative other-presentation to portray Saudi women as being oppressed and subordinate.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 305-319
Author(s):  
Jenita Jenita ◽  
Asep Saepudin ◽  
Lucky Radi Rinandiyana ◽  
Tine Badriatin ◽  
Ramon Arthur Ferry Tumiwa

The government formed the Work From Bali (WFB) initiative aimed at State Civil Apparatus (ASN) to help the tourism sector on the Island of the Gods to revive due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The government has decided to hold the Work From Bali (WFB) program in the Nusa Dua area of ​​Bali. The Nusa Dua area of ​​Bali is managed by a State-Owned Enterprise (BUMN), in particular the Indonesian Tourism Development Agency. This study aims to uncover the discourse on Work From Bali (WFB) news in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. The method used in this research is critical discourse analysis by van Dijk. The unit of analysis of this research is Kompas.com online news related to Work From Bali (WFB) in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in the period 27 May 2021 to 31 May 2021. The results show that the news discourse that appears related to Work From Bali (WFB) in In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is an economic discourse in boosting tourism in Bali. However, these efforts still require re-examination so that social considerations do not arise that focus on activities that must be carried out in Bali.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312199951
Author(s):  
Ayça Demet Atay

Turkey’s membership process to the European Union has been a ‘long, narrow and uphill road’, as former Turkish Prime Minister, and later President, Turgut Özal once stated. This study analyses the representation of the European Union–Turkey negotiation process in the Turkish newspapers Cumhuriyet and Hürriyet from 1959 to 2019 with the aim of understanding the changing meaning of ‘Europe’ and the ‘European Union’ in Turkish news discourse. There is comprehensive literature on the representation of Turkey’s membership process in the European press. This article aims to contribute to the field by assessing the representation of the same process from a different angle. For this purpose, Cumhuriyet and Hürriyet newspapers’ front page coverage of selected 10 key dates in the European Union–Turkey relations is analysed through critical discourse analysis.


Journalism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146488492110568
Author(s):  
Arif Hussain Nadaf

The Indian government on 5 August, 2019, unilaterally removed Article 370 of its constitution that provided autonomous status to the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. In order to pre-empt any backlash, the authorities put the entire region under strict lockdown and imposed a complete communication blackout including suspension of internet, mobile, and landline phone services. The Indian media vociferously covered the issue of higher “national interest” with no counter-narrative from local news media in the region. Using Van Djik’s socio-cognitive model, the study conducted comparative critical discourse analysis of the headlines from two major Indian online news publications; the English daily The Times of India and the Hindi daily Dainik Jagran to identify the discursive strategies adopted by these newspapers after the revocation of the Article 370. The study aimed to understand how Indian newspapers were shaping the discourse when the Indian government imposed communication restrictions and lockdown in the region. Through CDA, the study located the discursive strategies in the headlines and the ideological standpoints they reflected while covering the Article 370 controversy. The CDA found that the headline discourse in both the news publications was characterized by aggressive nationalistic assertion reinforcing domestic legitimacy for the government’s decision. The analysis further showed substantial evidence for the cultural distances between the English and Hindi language news discourse. Unlike English headlines, the Hindi headlines contained explicit linguistic subjectivities and were overtly hyperbolic in recognizing and blending itself with the nationalist assertion and socio-political expression around the abrogation of Article 370.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-71
Author(s):  
Arianty Visiaty ◽  
Yumna Rasyid ◽  
Miftahulkhairah Anwar

ABSTRACT   The study aims to examine the ideological representations that appear in the news in the media. The analysis of this research uses the CDA Van Dijk concept. The data of this research is the news entitled “DKI Mengklaim Perluasan Ancol untuk Publik” published in TEMPO Newspaper, Monday July 6, 2020. From the analysis, this news shows support for the reclamation policy of the Ancol area of the DKI Jakarta Government. Besides, it is known that this news represents the ideological strategy of capitalism. Keywords: Critical Discourse Analysis; Van Dijk model; ideology


2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veera Kangaspunta

The aim of this article is to approach one specific environmental topic and the public debate around this topic from a user-oriented perspective – through online news comments. The article analyses online news and comments sections from three Finnish online newspapers concerning the mining accident of Talvivaara company in November 2012. Discourse and discursive legitimation strategies are used as analytical tools with the focus of critical discourse analysis. The study aims to solve what kind of discourses the public debate contains and how these discourses are connected to certain legitimation strategies. In addition, the article also continues the conceptual deliberation about the concept of the public as a group of people participating in public discussion. The study shows that Talvivaara news and news comments consist four main strategies, authorization, rationalization, moral evaluations and mythopoiesis, used for legitimation, relegitimation and delegitimation. However, the parties differ in the way they utilize these strategies and different discourses. Consequently, online news commenting appears as a unique part of the public debate about the topic, rather than remaining marginal flaming. The users tend to absorb the role of the public as a part of the public showdown about the shared issue.


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