Local satellite channels: their role in news coverage of the Libyan Crisis: a field study of university students

Abstract

The Libyan media has changed dramatically in recent years. This thesis is designed to verify several elements specifically the patterns of media consumption, the credibility of news coverage and the extent to which it contributes to resolving the political-military crisis in Libya, which began in February 2011. The thesisexploredthe patterns of local and international television news services operating by way ofvarious media, broadcasts,publications,and the relationship between Libyan students' consumption of variousnews media platforms. In this context,the news consumption habits among young people wereverified, paying particular attention to their use of local news services that are broadcast via satellite channels.In addition, this study included several interviews with experts, academics and technicians specialised in the field of media, as well as students from the University of Tripoli. The questionnaire was distributed to university students via the Internet, which was the objective of the field study. Using the interview tool, 25 interviews were conducted with academics, media professionals and students from the university, who were interviewed through the available means of communication.The study established that news coverage of the political and military crisis in Libya took a negative trend in contributing to a solution for the crisis, despite the large number of local satellite channels after the uprising of 2011.Nonetheless, these channels did not adhere to the standards of transparency, credibility and neutrality in the transmission of news coverage regarding the crisis in Libya.As reported in the field study results, statistical analysis indicated that there are demographic differences as regards to news consumption defined partly by the news platform (TV vs. radio vs. Internet and all varieties of press publications) and partly by the type of news provider (services) - local TV news vs. Arabic and foreign). The findings concerning the increasing impact of international satellite broadcasting news services and the demand for local television news services to establish ways to make them distinctive in a way that delivers alternative but still pertinent and valuable news sourceswere discussed. Concerning the credibility of the news,at the local level, the following channels, specifically, Libya Al-Owla, Libya International andLibya 24 attained the highest level in terms of viewing and follow-up in general.Whereasforeign channels, such as the BBC, Russia Today and Sky News achieved the most pertainingto monitoring. The position relating to news coverage of the crisis in Libya was negative, aswere the low levels of credibility on local and Arab satellite channels.

Date of Award	Nov 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bedfordshire
Supervisor	Victoria Carpenter (Supervisor) & Lawrie Hallett (Second supervisor)