Credibility

El-Nawawy and Iskandar place significant value on the concept of credibility when evaluating Al-Jazeera as a news network as well as the content it airs. Therefore, there are two levels on which credibility operates: the macro-level, whereby a network is considered credible by a larger audience or population, and the micro-level, whereby individuals appearing on the network are taken seriously and their message is effectively transmitted to whoever is watching.

El-Nawawy and Iskandar frequently mention the fact that Al-Jazeera’s global popularity indicates its newfound credible status. “The perception of serious uncensored coverage of Arab and world events,” they write, “presented by Arab anchors and announcers and packaged in a familiar style, helps nurture this sense of Arab community” (66). The Arab community is, presumably, the one which helped launch Al-Jazeera to fame once enough viewers in enough Arab states began to show interest in the network and turned...