Representation of international views on the 2009 Iranian election: A study of BBC world news and Al Jazeera English

This paper provides a comparative analysis on the news reporting style of BBC World News (BBCWN) and Al Jazeera English (AJE). BBCWN was selected to represent the mainstream Western group of global media traffic, and AJE was selected to represent the contra-flow group of global news media. The global event of the 2009 Iranian presidential election was chosen as a case study. The conceptual framework of this study was based on the global media thesis of flow and counter-flow in 24-hour news channels. The central question of the thesis investigates how international views were reflected in the BBCWN and AJE coverage. The news reporting of the 2009 presidential election by both networks were subjected to the qualitative method of discourse analysis. The study found that the BBCWN's coverage represented more voices from the US and the UK and tended to highlight the tension between Iran and the West more. In contrast, AJE's coverage tended to play down the Iran vs the West confrontation. The network sometimes took a more anti-Western stance by highlighting the view from Russia that suggests the role of Western powers in orchestrating the postelection protests.