NOT ALL VIEWERS OF ARAB TV NETWORKS DEVELOP ANTI-AMERICAN FEELINGS
Research press release courtesy of Jeff Grabmeier, (614) 292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.edu

Erik Nisbet, assistant professor, is lead author of a new study finding that Arab television networks such as Al Jazeera do not promote anti-American feelings among all their viewers, despite the fears of some Americans. Nisbet conducted the study with Teresa Myers, a post-doctoral researcher in communication. Their research is online in the journal Communication Research and will appear in a future print edition.

Nisbet’s and Myers’ research, based on surveys of nearly 20,000 residents of six Arab countries, suggests that while watching networks like Al Jazeera fuels anti-American feelings in some viewers, it actually reduces such sentiment in others.

The results suggest that it is too simplistic to blame the Arab media for stoking resentment and hatred of America. Whether Arab TV networks inflamed anti-American passions depended on how those surveyed defined their main political identity – specifically, whether they saw themselves primarily as Arab nationalists, Muslim nationalists or as devoted primarily to their own country.

The researchers used data collected between 2004 and 2009 by Zogby International and Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland. Telhami and his colleagues conducted surveys of 19,036 residents across six Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

Read the entire press release at http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/arabmedia.htm