A Discourse Analysis of Aljazeera's Documentary 'Struggle over the Nile
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Date
2014-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Given the fact the politics of the Ni le is full of tension, mistru st, anxiety, mystery, and
diplomatic confrontation among the downstream and upstream riparian countries particularly
between Ethiopia and Egypt since time immemorial, thi s study examines how Aljazeera's
documentary series ' Struggle over the Nile ' represents of the Ni le riparian countries that
attempt to establish their causes over the usage of the Nile river. Post Stru ctural di scourse
theory is used as the theory and method for the analysis.
The study uses qua litative approach on the ba ses of textual ana lysis, u si ng di scourse
analytical tools. The corpus of media texts is se lected based on purposive rather than random
sampling. [t consists of three documentary se rie s under a major title ' Struggle over the Nile',
on is sues of the Nile River and the relations among riparian countries struggling to secure ยท
their share from the river. The method for the analysis of the text is through the three type s of
text analysis , namely analysis of the meaning, the rhetoric and construction of subjectivity.
This stud y outlines the fact that documentaries are products o f indi vidual rather than absolute
truth as the filmmaker is in direct contro l of arranging the sequences, omitting material,
forming arguments and presenting ideas thus making it important to assess fi lmmaker point
of view. Due to this fact t h is s tudy revea ls that Aljazeera's documentary demonstrated the
dilemma of the down s tream countries to maintain the status quo that resulted in their fai lure
to bring the needed coope ration over the use of the Ni le waters. There was a clash between
th e upstream riparian countri es id eas of the bringing cooperation . Downstream countries
expressed an antagonistic approach towards the downstream riparian countries; they opposed
the modification of co lonial agreements of 1929 and 1959. They wanted others to respect
those legal frameworks as binding. Most of the informants of the documentary episodes were
from Egypt and Sudan albeit the story affects other Nile basin countries. Therefore, the study
concludes that the documentarian has to accommodate the interes t of both parties in conflict
to atta in objectivity.
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Keywords
Aljazeeras Documentary, Struggle over Nile