This study examines journalistic role performance in sports news in five Arab countries in relation to country, geographic frame, platforms, and sources. The comparative content analysis of three journalistic roles – loyal-facilitator, watchdog, and infotainment – in Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) relies on 874 sports news stories from 40 print, broadcast, and online outlets, sampled in 2020 through a constructed, two-week stratified-systematic approach. Results point to variations in all roles as a function of some predictors more than others. Specifically, the UAE tended to be the most loyal/cheerleader, whereas Qatar led in the infotainment role. Loyalty was also apparent across the region in domestic news that was more loyalist than foreign news. Sources mattered in that political sources tended to predict higher levels of loyalist content, while sports sources did not have any impact on any role. Sources’ viewpoint of diversity, on the other hand, revealed multiple perspectives to be associated with more infotainment and watchdog content. The results indicate the loyalist cheerleader role that sports journalists in the West have been associated with for decades also applies to the Arab region, suggesting sports journalists behave in a similar manner irrespective of their country of origin.

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五个阿拉伯国家的体育新闻：跨平台和来源的新闻角色表现的比较研究

本研究考察了五个阿拉伯国家体育新闻中记者角色的表现，涉及国家、地理框架、平台和来源。对埃及、科威特、黎巴嫩、卡塔尔和阿拉伯联合酋长国 (UAE) 的三种新闻角色（忠诚促进者、监督者和信息娱乐）的比较内容分析依赖于 40 个印刷、广播和在线媒体的 874 篇体育新闻报道，通过构建的、为期两周的分层系统方法在 2020 年进行抽样。结果表明，所有角色的变化更多地取决于某些预测因素。具体来说，阿联酋往往是最忠诚/啦啦队长，而卡塔尔则在信息娱乐方面处于领先地位。整个地区的忠诚度在国内新闻中也很明显，比外国新闻更忠诚。消息来源很重要，因为政治消息来源往往会预测忠诚度内容的更高水平，而体育消息来源对任何角色都没有任何影响。另一方面，消息来源的多样性观点揭示了与更多信息娱乐和监管内容相关的多种观点。结果表明，西方体育记者几十年来所扮演的忠诚啦啦队长角色也适用于阿拉伯地区，这表明体育记者的行为方式相似，无论其原籍国如何。