The geopolitics of the news: The case of the Al Jazeera network.

摘要

News and information have always been critical factors in the conduct of international relations and the negotiation of political power in the international sphere. Yet, the increasingly ubiquitous nature of global telecommunications infrastructure and the ease and speed with which content can be exchanged around the world have altered the scope of players involved who are able to shape geopolitical calculations. Whereas militarily powerful and resource-rich nation-states were the primary articulators of political power in generations past, today's network society provides a new playing field for determining how international prestige and power is ordered, and thus how international relations are conducted.This study examines how the Al Jazeera Network helped to foster the rise of a microstate, Qatar, into a regional geopolitical force. At risk of becoming a colony of either the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or Iran just 15 years ago, Qatar now demands global attention and has emerged as a critical actor in the region's ongoing political and religious conflicts. Drawing from over 30 interviews with members of the Al Jazeera Network's Arabic and English news broadcasters, including the current and former managing directors, the study examines the precise strategies behind Al Jazeera's growing popularity in the region and beyond, discussed in the context of the geopolitical aspirations of Qatar and its regional rivals. The project concludes by arguing that Qatar's investment in the Al Jazeera Network, including Al Jazeera English and its numerous sports and children's channels exemplifies a larger trend towards the convergence of different media networks. This convergence of networks of influence---particularly media and financial networks---is a primary means of achieving power and influence in the network society, and no country is moving faster towards this form of networking power than Qatar. Qatar's investment in the Al Jazeera Network is thus part of its continued effort to build a network of media, financial, and military "nodes" in order to promote a foreign policy seemingly guided by Immanuel Kant's famous 1795 treatise, Perpetual Peace.