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This chapter aims to provide the reader with a general information about the development of the Arab media. The development of Arab media into three historical phases: the colonial phase, the post-colonial phase and the 1990s phase. The colonial phase was geared towards developing media technologies in order to promote the colonial propaganda message. The post-colonial phase was, however, different in its focus and approach. It was characterised by ‘the dominant paradigm’ and attempts to shape media as a tool in order to serve national transformation and independence. The 1990s phase witnessed the proliferation of satellite channels globally, and this had an impact on the Arab world, which in turn started investing in the expansion and development of the Arab media. The chapter contextualizes the discussion about Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Hurra and clearly highlights the code of practice that governs the Arab media in general.

The book has shed light on the development and diversity of the Arab media. The historical background has aimed to acquaint the reader with the nature and type of development the Arab media has undergone. The main factors that have impeded the early stages of development of the Arab media have also been examined. An insight into the past history of the Arab media has helped us to understand current Arab media broadcasting. The global and regional competition could be said to have contributed to the emergence of a new Arab media landscape. The transnational media have broken all taboos and crossed all red lines. In a summary, the new transnational media has introduced the Arab public to a new media culture: a culture of accountability, responsibility and respect of other opinions. Such achievements are very modest, however, when compared with the major achievements of the Western media.

This chapter explores the impact of global media practice on the Arab media. The drastic changes on the global media stage have had undeniable repercussions on the way the Arab media operates. The global operation of the media has opened the Arab media market to competition, and this has had some very positive effects on the development of the Arab media. The satellite Arab media has created a culture of debate and discussion in the Arab world, where different views are appreciated and respected. Although some of the state-run media do still follow the traditional broadcasting system, the new transnational media have adopted a global outlook, breaking all borders, barriers and taboos. Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and other transnational channels have demonstrated ability in that coverage.

No discussion of the political, economic, democratic, or developmental arena of a country or region is complete without a discussion of its media system. The ideal relationship is a symbiotic one, where political systems provide freedom of expression and access to information while the resulting healthy environment and participatory civic society help fuel democracy and development. Media systems are complex enough when addressing one country, and certainly a major challenge when addressing the “Middle East” in the larger sense of including non-Arab countries. Although the traditional press is no longer as important, it is believed that electronic media systems have been the active agents of change during the last twenty years, principally because the main factors involved are satellite television and new media, particularly the internet.

This chapter discusses the media as tools of empowerment in the Arab world. It covers the role of the media in strengthening civil society, education, and political participation. The chapter also addresses the way online media can be used to support good governance. Reforming media institutions and practices is a key issue for the chapter. To this end, it offers recommendations regarding media ownership as well as journalistic practices, with special focus on the role of women in terms of both media representations and media practice. The chapter presents several examples of best practice across the Arab world that can be used as a basis for reforming the media sector in the region.

This chapter aims to place Arab journalism in a contemporary context, in order to chart the questions, which should inform future research on the Arab media scene. A secondary aim is to help unravel the hierarchal system within the Arab news media.

The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the emergence of journalism and mass communication as an academic discipline in the Arab universities, while providing a critical evaluation of Arab as well as western scholarship on Arab media.

Arab media used to be almost unheard of until the war on Afghanistan in 2001. Since the independence of most Arab countries, the role of the media, both print and audio-visual, has been to safeguard Arabic culture and unity. Today, the Arab world is undergoing a radical media change, featuring the launch of satellite and cable television channels. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of the broadcasting differences between the different Arab channels and focuses on both the discursive practices of these channels and the sociological aspects that contribute to their formation. Aside from a historical analysis of the development of the Arab media, this book also argues that the analysis of discourse can be used as a starting point to examine the ideological stance of media organizations.

The Arab media landscape has been transformed by the liberating effects of social media, the growth in local media, and the challenges to news and information hegemony. Two issues animate this chapter: one concerns the durability of such changes and the resistance through these continuities, and the other concerns the best ways to understand and evaluate the current media landscape. Are these changes unique and unprecedented, or are they part of a trend in regional and global media integration, marketization, and convergence, and what is their place in the history of Arab cultural production? This chapter is an attempt to develop elements of a more systematic evaluation of the political economy of current Arab media and explores the central nodes of production and circulation and their function in affecting changes or maintaining continuities in an increasingly complex and interconnected Arab media landscape.

Marc Lynch examines the paradoxes of Arab media—in which he includes TV channels, radios and newspapers, both national and transnational, as well as websites and social media outlets, all of which form a single ‘media ecosystem’—which both proved crucial to the uprisings and contributed to the failure of democratic transitions. While discussing the significant differences that exist among Arab countries, he shows that the media’s susceptibility to political capture (by regional actors or domestic forces) and its tendency to magnify fear and uncertainty helped fuel the political polarization that would eventually tear the democratic transitions apart.

The Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU) functions as a state broadcaster under the strict supervision of the Ministry of Information. To transform ERTU into a public broadcaster, Egypt should first abolish its Ministry of Information. ERTU’s Board of Trustees needs to be restructured to include reputed professionals with a vision to transform ERTU into a public broadcaster. The Board should abolish the current ERTU Charter and Code of Ethics and establish new ones. ERTU needs to operate with the interests of the public rather than the regime in mind. The new Charter should guarantee ERTU independence and establish criteria whereby ERTU should focus on non-commercial political, social, and cultural content that caters to all sectors of society. The new Charter should abolish the designation of ERTU as the sole broadcaster in the country and allow for the establishment of private terrestrial channels. ERTU should become financially independent from the state, with the public providing funding through subscriptions or taxes. The number of channels operated by ERTU should be decreased to one or two, and the staff provided with training and an efficient media strategy to follow. Research should be constantly utilized to study audiences and viewership habits.

This chapter focuses on media coverage of bin Laden and how it depicted his relationship with his wives, particularly the sixth one, Amal Assadah, who was rumored to have shielded bin Laden when the American commandos shot him. It argues that the main difference between the coverage in Arab media versus Anglo-American news media is that the former focused on the issues surrounding bin Laden and his family, foregrounding the wives' support of bin Laden as part of their duty as virtuous Muslim women. Anglo-American media, however, chose to focus on the image of bin Laden as a sexual being, thereby contributing to the myth of bin Laden as a neurotic evil. Both regions focused on these wives as mainly emotionally or religiously motivated to follow bin Laden rather than on their political and ideological motivations. The chapter begins with a brief discussion about the role of myth in the news-making process, focusing on the myths surrounding bin Laden's sexuality. It then presents examples of pan-Arab and Anglo-American coverage.

Information infrastructure provides new avenues for collective action. Since the commercialization of digital media, information infrastructure has become a formative space for nurturing and organizing social action. Since 2007, social media have added the additional dimension of allowing individuals to manage their own social networks and to push and filter political information along these links to family and friends. Prior to the Arab Spring, past cascades did not have the benefit of commercialized communication networks and technologies, such as social media and mobile telephony, to draw in the wisdom of the crowd and smart mob mobilization. In contrast, the Arab Spring is one of the most impressive examples where laterally organized collective action projects combated vertically organized state bureaucracies.