Arab World English Journal (AWEJ) Volume 11. Number4  December 2020                                           Pp.128-143
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no4.9

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Representing Kingdom’s Makeover after Vision 2030: A Corpus-Driven Analysis of
American Media Discourse

 

Ansa Hameed
Department of English, College of Science and Humanities, Alkharj
Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia 

Ismat Jabeen
Department of English, College of Science and Humanities, Alkharj
Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

Naeem Afzal
Department of English, College of Science and Humanities, Alkharj
Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

 

Abstract:
Saudi Vision 2030 is a scheme; the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has formulated to realize its mainstream economic, social, and administrative goals. Accordingly, the Kingdom strategizes to implement this transformative Vision. The current research aims to analyze how American media has reported several events, actions, and policies in line with Saudi Vision 2030. Thus, the question posed is how an image of the transformative Saudi Kingdom has been presented by American media discourse, in line with Vision 2030. The study is substantial for the Kingdom to ascertain how the world has responded to its Vision. Moreover, in a world with media as a dominant directing agency, it is imperious for the Kingdom to keep an eye on its image in the global community. The research is primarily a quantitative study based on the corpus approach to study the designated media discourse. A specialized corpus of 150,000 words is compiled and analyzed through a variety of corpus tools. The results reveal that American newspapers have given limited representation of the Vision and related activities. Their media usually highlights the pre-existing features of the Kingdom. On the other hand, there are very occasional references to some new aspects like the transformation of the economy, promotion of tourism, revision of the society, etc., which are being implemented in the Kingdom. The study suggests that the Kingdom needs to brief the Western world for an enriched campaign of its contemporary image.
KeywordsAmerican newspapers, corpus analysis, media representation, Saudi Vision 2030, transformation

Cite as: Hameed, A.,  Jabeen, I., & Afzal, N.  (2020).  Representing Kingdom’s Makeover after Vision 2030: A Corpus-Driven Analysis of American Media Discourse. Arab World English Journal11 (4) 128-143.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no4.9

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3477-156X
https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/vol11no4.9

Dr. Ansa Hameed is currently working as an Assistant Professor at Prince Sattam Bin
Abdulaziz University, College of Science and Humanities, AlKharj. She has received her Ph.D.
degree in Linguistics (English) from NUML, Islamabad in January 2013. Her areas of interest
are Ecolinguistics, Sociolinguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Syntax. ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3477-156X