“Afghanistan in the Grip of the Taliban”: the Structure of Arabic News Headline

Abstract

News from online media portals has advantages over traditional media in establishing credibility and influencing its readers. This study aims to investigate the structure of Arabic online media discourse in the header: أفغانستان تحت حكم طالبان: الأمم المتحدة تجمع مليار دولار للمساعدات الإنسانية on the news portal www.bbc.arabic.com. This study employs a descriptive qualitative method in conjunction with Teun A. van Dijk's critical discourse analysis theory. The findings of this study indicate that the discourse structure of Arabic online media under the heading: أفغانستان تحت حكم طالبان: الأمم المتحدة تجمع مليار دولار للمساعدات الإنسانية meets the criteria established by Teun A. van Dijk's model of discourse structure analysis, which includes macro structure (overall meaning of the text by fathoming the topic), superstructure (sees the text based on its plot), and microstructure (which examines the word choice, sentence structure, and writing style).