WITHDRAWN: Public Relation’s influence on Websites’ News Flow of the Emirates Newspapers

Abstract This study aims at investigating how public relations can influence the news flow of newspaper websites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). It gives an overview of how far quality journalism can be affected by public relations press releases. It discusses the influence of public relations departments and private agencies on journalists and their ability to produce balanced, comprehensive, and accurate news content. The study also focuses on how the platformization of the news has affected the process of news production and writing.The study uses framing theory and the information disorder theory to investigate how PR practitioners and agencies influence the news flow of newspaper websites. This study uses a qualitative and quantitative approach with semi-structured in-depth interviews technique. It analyzed 587 items published in six UAE newspaper websites. The researcher conducted nine interviews with professionals and journalists from local newspapers, and public relations practitioners. The finding of the study indicates that PR news accounts for almost 50% of the news published on UAE news websites. It also revealed that there is a strong relationship between PR departments in different organizations and the mechanism of information flow to the various publications and media outlets. It may be argued that PR not only represent a main source of news stories for newspapers’ websites but also influence news style and framing.