TY - JOUR

T1 - Al-Mayadeen

T2 - The Construction of an Enemy Image

AU - Crone, Christine Aster

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - This article investigates how threat narratives and enemy images were constructed at thepan-Arab news TV station, al-Mayadeen, during the station’s first year on air. I argue that the construction of an enemy image takes places as a fine interplay between threat narratives of existing political and ideological positions on the one hand, and current affairs on the other. Al-Mayadeen started broadcasting in 2012, counteracting both the new influential narratives of young activists calling for democracy, and the Sunni Islamist trend that followed; both groups became central elements in a process of ‘Othering’ at al-Mayadeen, dividing the Arab world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. AlMayadeen relaunched the question of Palestine, while the well-known threat narrative of Israel was equally promoted although adjusted to ongoing political and military developments in the region.Integrating the rising new actor, the Islamic State, a renewed enemy image was constructed where Israel and the Islamic State came to constitute two faces of the same enemy.

AB - This article investigates how threat narratives and enemy images were constructed at thepan-Arab news TV station, al-Mayadeen, during the station’s first year on air. I argue that the construction of an enemy image takes places as a fine interplay between threat narratives of existing political and ideological positions on the one hand, and current affairs on the other. Al-Mayadeen started broadcasting in 2012, counteracting both the new influential narratives of young activists calling for democracy, and the Sunni Islamist trend that followed; both groups became central elements in a process of ‘Othering’ at al-Mayadeen, dividing the Arab world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’. AlMayadeen relaunched the question of Palestine, while the well-known threat narrative of Israel was equally promoted although adjusted to ongoing political and military developments in the region.Integrating the rising new actor, the Islamic State, a renewed enemy image was constructed where Israel and the Islamic State came to constitute two faces of the same enemy.

M3 - Journal article

VL - 10

JO - Global Media Journal. German Edition

JF - Global Media Journal. German Edition

SN - 2196-4807

IS - 1

ER -