The Manufactured Clash: Role of Arab State-Media in Conflict Resolution in the Gulf

The paper focuses on the role of Arab state-media in conflict resolution in the Gulf. Drawing from the media theory coined by Noam Chomsky, the paper highlights the agenda-setting model of media and analyzing the various meanings of ?conflict?. To further contextualize this theoretical discourse, the case-study of Press TV (Iran) and Al Arabiya (Saudi Arabia) have been chosen for the time-frame from January ? May 2019. Firstly, the paper would describe the genesis of the respective media channels, their soft-power approach and how they categorically exacerbate the Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry. The political, economic, social and cultural aspects of the rivalry are mediated, often manufactured to impact the cognitive psychology of the natives, thereby creating acrimony, sectarianism and hatred. Secondly, in the above mentioned time-frame, the news pieces, features, documentaries and interviews published/broadcasted would be studied through the research methodology of content analysis. After understanding the psychological imperative of manufacturing news to further escalate conflict, the works of the above mentioned scholars would be contextualized to gauge the intention and impact of both the media channels. Towards the end, drawing from the analytical discourse of how media plays a significant role in conflict-resolution would be understood. The frame of reference for this dichotomy (of both perpetrating and resolving conflict) is a serious discourse that needs to be utilized to chalk-out practical solutions. The paper would also highlight the respective challenges faced by the media itself, due to it being the government?s mouthpiece and lacking democratization within itself, which further escalates the Iran-Saudi Arabia rivalry. Towards the end, the paper would focus on the necessary limitations faced due to the functioning of the deep-state in both Iran and Saudi Arabia, which is difficult to academically scrutinize due to the lack of empirical and descriptive sources. Highlighting this challenge, the paper would further explain how media?s role becomes more essential. Questioning the normative fallacy in understanding the media?s role in conflict-resolution, the paper fills the research gap currently prevalent in this discourse to endow further political suggestions, solutions and resolutions in the Gulf politics.