An Examination of a Jordainan Public Figure’s Alleged Defamatory Statement

This paper aims at analyzing an accusation of defamation of the Jordanians in a talk show by a public figure. The person accused of defaming the Jordanians is the former head of the Jordanian royal court, Yousef Aldalabeh. The alleged defamatory statement examined in the current study is a description of the relationship between the king of Jordan and his people as a shepherd/sheep relationship. This statement was claimed to be of offensive nature by many Jordanians. To support or refute this accusation, 318 comments on Facebook regarding the use of the phrase ‘shepherd and sheep’ by Aldalabeh were examined. The comments were divided into two general categories. In the first category of comments, this phrase was viewed as being defamatory, whereas the second encompasses comments in which the phrase was found to carry no defamatory meaning. The analysis revealed that 70.8% of the sample of people how commented on this statement found it to carry a defamatory meaning, whereas 29.2% commented that there is no defamatory element in it. Stating that Aldalabeh was not successful in expressing what he has in mind but meant no offense was the most frequent way for indicating that the statement is not defamatory. On the other hand, insulting Aldalabeh, using sarcasm and arguing that he misinterpreted the metaphorical sense of the disputed statement were associated with the highest frequencies for referring to it as being defamatory.