Al Jazeera's Influence On Qatar's Foreign Policy And Relationship Building

Qatar is the wealthiest nation in the world with largest natural gas and oil reserves.However,Qatar is better known for Al-Jazeera,which has been sponsored by the Qatari royal family.Functioning as "CNN in the Middle East",Al-Jazeera is the first around-the-clock covering service in the Arab world,crossing the global network.Thanks to Al-Jazeera,Qatar has become a highly regarded diplomatic power from a small Arab country which had been obscured for many years.And Al-Jazeera enjoys the highest discourse power in the region in terms of its inciting effect of reversing the information flow of the mainstream Western media.A batch of the BBC elite disbanded from the Middle East channel was recruited by Al-Jazeera.Their Western media values and journalism brought professionalism to Al-Jazeera.Combining the bold and novel topics of the programmes with the sensitive and salient interviewers,Al-Jazeera strengthened its objectivity and credibility perceived by the audience.With the most favorable advantages,Al-Jazeera obtained great achievements through capitalizing on the War in Afghanistan and Iraq.Simultaneously,Qatar began expanding its Niche Diplomacy to create secure environment and hoist its international image.Up until the Arab Spring in 2011,Al-Jazeera's reputation for objectivity and credibility was dramatically damaged due to its radical orientation and selective reportage.It was denounced as an instrument of Qatar.Furthermore,since June 5,2017 when Saudi Arabia and other four countries took the lead in rupturing diplomatic ties with Qatar,Qatar has experienced a difficult period of "diplomatic avalanche".According to the 13-point request list for lifting the blockade,Qatar was required to shut down Al-Jazeera and other bureaus around the world,as well as cut all the relations with various terrorist groups.As a matter of fact,Al-Jazeera Arabic(AJA)and Al-Jazeera English(AJE)are remarkably distinct in terms of reporting methods,productive concepts,news frameworks and communicational position.In the case of covering on the Turkish election in 2007,the content in AJA was more extensive than in AJE,albeit the coverage in both languages generally appeared to be balanced and neutral.Nonetheless,significant differences in coverage did emerge.Two news accounts in English seemed to favour the secular opposition to the AK Party while five news accounts in Arabic seemed to favour the AK Party.The contradictory report suggests Al-Jazeera strives to present a neutral and objective international image to the global audience through capitalizing on AJE while on the other hand it expresses its interests in the Gulf via AJA to win the recognition of the Arab audience.Why does Al-Jazeera,giving top priority to journalistic professionalism,at whiles appear to be a propaganda channel of terrorist extremists? According to the two cases of report on the Turkish election and the "Arab Spring",the reality is far more complicated than the imagination.The conformance with Qatari diplomatic orientation should take part responsibility,while to some extent Al-Jazeera has reshaped Qatar's foreign policy.Spontaneously,it is still "the BBC of the Arab world."...