The Syrian conflict in the eyes of the media : A single case study of how Al-Jazeera news agency represents the Syrian conflict of 2011

Sammanfattning: Media representations of conflicts and events are constructed in different ways and by different media in this world. Media is a very important actor in real-life politics, since problems could be represented in different ways, which provides different constructions, meanings and understandings in this world. Representation theory and more specifically ‘what is the problem represented to be approach’ implies as a theoretical tool in this research regarding Al-Jazeera’s’ representation of the Syrian conflict of 2011. The aim with this research is to analyze how Al-Jazeera news agency represents the nature of the conflict in Syria of 2011. The research is qualitative and uses Al-Jazeera’s articles as data material, all articles are analyzed during the first three months of the conflicts representation. As a result to this research, the Syrian conflict is represented by Al-Jazeera news agency from a specific point of view. The conflict is represented as a domestic political problem facing a force of overwhelming power that oppresses the Syrian citizens of expressing any political opinions. Al-Jazeera highlights a representation of a lack of democracy and freedom in the country where peaceful protestors are being tortured by the regime whenever they are demanding political changes. The cause of the conflict is according to Al-Jazeera embodied in the incident with some young boys expressing their liberal political opinions regarding the Arab Spring, however imprisoned and tortured by the state force. To briefly summarize the main findings of this research, Al-Jazeera represents the Syrian conflict as a conflict of domestic political oppression from the governments towards the Syrian population.