Paratextual framing of trans-edited Saudi news reports on the BBC and the Xinhua (2023)

Abstract

Since the launch of Vision2030, 2023 has marked significant transformations in Saudi Arabia, particularly in sports, culture, and technology. This has significantly increased the reporting of international news agencies on such events, which is, however, absent in the literature of translation studies. There is a notable gap in the literature regarding the role of mediated paratexts in news trans-editing within the Saudi context. This paper examines how recontextualized paratexts from Saudi sources contribute to gatekeeping and reframing the perception of Saudi Arabia in global media, focusing on the comparative case studies on the BBC and the Xinhua. The paper draws on

narrative strategies of selective appropriation and labeling as a methodological framework. The dataset involves a parallel corpus of 304 reports in English and Arabic from the BBC and the Xinhua published between January and December 2023. The findings reveal that paratextual frames play a crucial role in shaping how each news agency perceives the transformations in Saudi Arabia through remarkable reframing in the thematic selections.