THE REPRESENTATION OF IRAN-SAUDI CONFLICT IN THE NEWSPAPERS REGARDING MINA HAJJ STAMPEDE: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ON THE ARAB NEWS AND THE TEHRAN TIMES

Abstract

The Hajj 2015 shows a significance flashpoint of the long-term history of tension between Tehran (Iran) and Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) regarding the Hajj: Iran and Saudi Arabiaexchanged the accusation of standing behind the tragedy of Hajj stampede in Minna SaudiArabia, 2015. Printed media is the crucial for ideology production; this study focuses on therepresentation of the Iran-Saudi conflict on Hajj stampede 2015 in two newspapers, namely theArab News and the Tehran Times newspapers. The study uses a critical discourse analysis,mainly macrostructures analysis by Van Dijk (1980 & 1983). Three texts have been chosenfrom each newspaper and the macro-rules (selection, deletion, generalization, andconstruction) have been used to decrease the information in the micro-level yielding macropropositions in the macro-level; the global topics/themes of the discourse. Ten macrostructuresin the second level of analysis were identified from the Arab News newspaper out of 30 macropropositions in the first level and 21 macrostructures in the second level of analysis out of 43 inthe first level of analysis from the Tehran Times newspaper. The results showed that the Tehran Times newspaper has represented Saudi Arabia more negatively by 66.7% than the Arab Newswhich represented Iran negatively by 50% of the total texts. This indicates the ideologicalsignificance boundary between the ‘us’ and ‘them’ in both newspapers. In addition, the resultsshowed that there is an Islamic ideological competition for taking the Islamic leadershipbetween the Shi’a ideology of Iran and the Sunni Wahabi of Saudi Arabia in the Middle Eastand the Arab World. The study suggested that the discourse of Hajj must be separated from thepolitical discourse between Iran and Saudi Arabia because whenever there is a politicaltension there is a Hajj conflict.