Dr. Khalid Hajji, researcher at the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies in Doha, Qatar, who spoke at an Arab media conference at King's College in London, June 2008. Photo: Rasmus Steen/IMS.

A new study raises debate over the fact, that the Arabic and English versions of Al Jezeera News, the regional satellite channel based in Dohar, Qatar, are not true copies of one another. On the contrary, they are tailored to fit their audiences' cultural background. Misleading the audiences or simply bridging a cultural gap? This was debated at a recent conference about Arab media at King's College in London

Al Jazeera is arguably one of the world's most controversial television stations, known by many in the west as the station that puts Osama bin Laden on air. Despite, or perhaps thanks to, being called the mouth piece of al Qaeda by many westerners, Al Jazeera has been tremendously successful. The network crowned its success by launching an English language channel nearly two years ago. But contrary to what many might expect, audiences do not get the same information if they happen to be avid listeners of the network's English and Arabic satellite services.

Leon Barkho is a research fellow at the Jönköping University in Sweden and he is about to publish an academic study on the Al Jazeera's concept and how it differs from the BBC, CNN and other multilingual broadcasting organisations.

As Barkho points out, Al Jazeera in English is an independent entity, with different editorial guidelines. This is an entirely different set up compared to for example the BBC where the concept is based on one policy for the entire organisation.

The idea of two highly autonomous channels is reflected through the entire production process; there are two separate editors in chief and it's not uncommon that two separate Al Jazeera crews cover the same news event, however using two separate satellite links while they are only a stone-throw apart. Although they belong to the same network, the channels are set up as almost totally independent entities.

Dr. Khalid Hajji is a researcher at the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies in Doha, and as he puts it the Al Jazeera in Arabic should reflect "the beat of the Arab street". When doing so the language factor is obviously a crucial aspect, and within Al Jazeera there's a strong belief that different languages need very different channels.

According to Dr. Hajji, it's all a question of rhetoric and at Al Jazeera English there's a need to bridge the cultural gap.

Mr. Barkho's research shows that the concept of Al Jazeera is in fact unique, since its production is culture specific.

But what does this concept-bound news policy mean for the audiences? Is there a risk of viewers feeling betrayed once realizing that there are two different coverage and two different representations of the same event by the same network particularly at the level of discourse and agendas?

According to Dr. Hajji the policy should be seen only as a service to the public, and he doesn't see any risk of losing credibility due to the different editorial policies. He argues that credibility lies with the audiences.

According to Mr. Barkho Al Jazeera does not only represent two languages but also two different discourses. In practice this means that similar events in Iraq and Palestine, for example, might be described very differently. According Mr. Barkho, Al Jazeera describes this unique editorial policy as "the explanatory paradigm" which it believes is one of the best tools to interpret events on the ground as seen by the participants and not reporters or their organizations.

This policy is certainly worlds apart from what we're used to, but as Dr. Hajji states; "Perhaps Al Jazeera English should be less defensive - as in stopping justifying itself all the time. We are who we are and we give our version of things".