News reports, being mass media products, should aim at objectivity and impartiality, but in reality, they serve the interests of the groups they represent; therefore, it is impossible to eliminate the influence of their attitudes. Analyzing news reports from a linguistic perspective using CDA helps to understand the linguistic and contextual features reflected in the language of these reports. In this section, we describe the interplay of corpus-based analysis and CDA to identify media representations of women in the Saudi Arabian military.
Text analysis is the central part of Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. The following keyword and concordance analyses show the linguistic and contextual features of the reviewed news reports. According to Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, the lexical features of the corpus should be described in the description stage. The concordance list shows the words before and after the term “Saudi women” and indicates the context in which this term appears. Van Dijk (2013) believes that the relationship between keywords and social aspects may reflect certain social meanings. Thus, keywords reflect the position or attitude of news producers and news agencies. Finally, by analyzing the concordance list, quantitative results can be generated from the corpus (Figure 1), and then qualitative analysis can be performed using the concordance and file display functions.
The selected keywords are divided into two steps. First, there are topic-related words such as women, Saudi women, military, and army. These words explain the impact of the news of the policy change on the world and how representative media in each country receive this information in relation to Saudi Arabia and political relations. The news of Saudi women joining the Saudi Arabian army has attracted a lot of attention from neighboring and distant countries around the world. Secondly, the discussion on this step taken by Saudi Arabia reflects how this news reverberates around the world. The word “women” in the keyword list shows that newspapers, especially from Western countries, relate this news to past observations before 2015. For example, business newspapers used the word “rights” to remind readers of the existing status of Saudi women in Saudi Arabia.
In this section, we first provide an overview of the attitudinal framework of the 29 newspapers investigated based on the previous analysis. These attitudes reflect the different political stances of each newspaper and their attitudes regarding the topic of women’s military enlistment in Saudi Arabia.
Attitudes expressed in news reports are not random expressions but are strategically selected and designed to exert power in order to influence readers’ attitudes and behavior. Van Dijk (2013) suggests that manipulating the minds of others, including their knowledge and opinions, is a form of exercising discursive power. These strategies allow readers to rely on logical reasoning, moral judgment, and emotions.
In the next section, we consider the findings of words in context and collocations to understand general patterns in reporting on Saudi Arabian women’s military enlistment. The analysis identifies three patterns in the portrayal of Saudi Arabian women using short excerpts from news reports as examples.
Pattern 1: Advocacy
In the headline of the Arab News article “Saudi Women Invited to Join Military” published on October 3, 2019, Saudi women are described as “invited,” a point asserting that Saudi women are now welcome in this field. Saudi women are described as women who can “promote.” The report states, “This is the first time they will be considered for more senior ranks.” The expression “more senior ranks” suggests that Saudi women have not been deprived of high status in the past. Furthermore, the positive perspective expressed by the report is seen in the assertion that this measure was taken to “empower Saudi women and expand the role they play in society.” The reference to “Saudi women” is surrounded by the positive words “empower” and “expand,” reflecting Saudi women’s active participation in society even before this decision was made.
The Indian newspaper Business Today, published on February 22, 2021, also commented positively on the move. The title, “Saudi Arabia Allows Women to Join Military” indicates neutrality, but the author’s word choice throughout the article indicates positivity. The article provides details of the military forces that Saudi Arabian women can join, including the Saudi Arabian Army, the Royal Saudi Arabian Air Defense Force, and the Royal Saudi Arabian Navy. The article states that “By introducing reforms that allow Saudi Arabian women to advance in various fields…Saudi Arabian women will increasingly be able to take up jobs that have previously been limited to men.” The article sees the move as an opportunity for the advancement of Saudi Arabian women and hopes that it will lead to more opportunities for empowerment. The use of positive words such as “promotion” and “increasingly” leads to this conclusion.
Surprisingly, the US news media Unipass reports this news in a positive light. The headline, “Saudi women join the military with pride,” published in 2022, combines the word “proud” with “Saudi women” and praises the country’s decision. The article acknowledges the country’s commitment to employment equality: “Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 includes promoting gender equality…More ambitiously, in 2018 the kingdom opened jobs to women.” The words “promote” and “ambitiously” reveal the positive attitude held by the news reporter. This differs from the general style used by many news reporters in Western media, which is mainly characterized by stereotypes found in the second pattern (i.e., the subjective pattern). The above excerpts show positivity in three different sources: Western, non-Western and local newspapers.
Pattern 2: Subjectivity/Bias
A prime example of media bias in portraying Muslim women, especially Saudi Arabian women, is this sentence from an article on the BBC website published on February 26, 2018. The title “Saudi Arabia allows women to join the army” gives a neutral impression. The use of the phrase “conservative Muslims” links the lack of employment opportunities to Islam. “The decision to recruit female soldiers is one of a number of reforms strengthening women’s rights introduced in recent months in the conservative Islamic kingdom.”
Rather than viewing this decision as a turning point that will lead to further changes in women’s rights, the article limits the discussion to other rights not afforded to women in Saudi Arabia, such as the issue of male guardianship, using hyperbolic overtones such as “Saudi Arabia’s discriminatory male guardianship system” and “women must obtain permission to travel.” It is important to note here that these previous barriers are now recognized nationwide as having been resolved and removed.
The UK-based newspaper The Times, published in 2021, also presents a similar biased view. Like other articles with a biased positive tone, the title is neutral and short: “Saudi Arabia allows women to serve in army”, meaning the title does not necessarily reflect the author’s attitude. The article explains that the move comes amid “a new phase in attempts to reform the country’s ultra-conservative social norms”. The use of the word “ultra-conservative” indicates a biased tone.
A similar subjective tone can be seen in an article published in the Italian newspaper PIME-AsiaNews in 2021. While the headline “Riyadh approves women for military service” is neutral, the text uses negative terms such as “Sunni monarchy” and “Wahhabi Islamic fundamentalist views” to describe Saudi Arabia.
In these articles, instead of positively praising or celebrating the news of Saudi women joining the military, Western media portrayed their participation as the product of a struggle and noted other obstacles that had to be overcome. The words “conservative” and “Muslim” imply that religion is a factor impeding women’s progress.
Besides biased articles that blame religion for slowing the progress of women in Saudi Arabia, there are articles that refer to social and political constraints. For example, an article in the LAD Bible published on February 22, 2021, states that “women’s rights remain a cause for international concern” and “Saudi Arabia was the last country in the world to ban women from driving cars.” The author’s word choice is negative: “women’s rights” is associated with “international concern” and “Saudi Arabia” is described as “the last.”
Many biased publications state that some other rights still do not exist. For this reason, developments are portrayed as having come after struggles. Women’s rights in Saudi Arabia have clearly expanded under the rule of King Salman bin Abdulaziz, and under the rule of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Many restrictions have been lifted or relaxed, but many people remain stuck in the past and refuse to acknowledge these changes.
Pattern 3: Neutral
A prime example of neutral reporting is found in the 2021 Kama Press newspaper in Afghanistan. The word “gradually” in this statement, “Employment is gradually opening up to women,” indicates that Saudi women are not restricted from working and that changes in employment opportunities are occurring gradually. Saudi women are allowed to pursue professions that fit the needs of society. For example, jobs in education and medicine are some of the opportunities already available to Saudi women. Then came Saudization, which created more employment opportunities and, as a natural consequence, created additional jobs for Saudi women.
Gulf newspapers such as Al-Arabiya, Times of Oman, and Gulf News, which mainly focus on reporting news and employment status, have a neutral tone. Another neutral viewpoint comes from Women Security, a news outlet based in the US and the UK. Unlike the general subjective viewpoints that shape the Western media, the article reports on this achievement of Saudi women without giving the impression of leading. The article states that “it will increase the number of women in the government and private sector” without making any subjective comments on the reasons for allowing Saudi women to join the military. It also goes on to state about security-related jobs recently available to Saudi women, saying that “Women will now be able to join the Army, Royal Air Defense Force, Navy, Royal Saudi Strategic Missile Forces, and the Military Medical Service.”
These findings indicate that the prejudice of viewing Saudi women as victims is primarily held by Western countries, which confirms the claims of other researchers (e.g., Bashatah 2017; Brewer et al. 2003; Anctil Avoine and Lida 2016). This may be due to the negative portrayal of Arab Muslims that increased after September 11, 2001 (Allen 2010; Petley and Richardson 2011; Schrag and Javidi 1997; Wilkins 2004). This latest study provided a useful snapshot showing that the tone of some Western news reporters has shifted slightly to a neutral or supportive tone regarding Saudi women, praising the country’s rapid changes (e.g., Security Women, 2022; Unipath, 2022). It may take a long time to change stereotypes. Newspapers should focus on reporting only facts and reporting outside stereotypes to increase the credibility of their reports.
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