Contributing Editor Paul Cochrane looks at the historical origins and current techniques of Saudi influence on the Arabic media landscape.

Enough already with the 'media dialogues' between Arab and Western journalists. The fortunes spent on these conferences could be put to much better use in cooperative lessons-learned networks and long-term training programs, argues Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.

October 2007. Speaking to Arab Media & Society’s George Weyman in July 2007, Sue Phillips, London bureau chief for Al Jazeera International, reflects on the network’s first year and the changes and challenges that lie ahead.

October, 2007. In a segment by George Weyman, the BBC’s World’s media correspondent Sebastian Usher discusses the Alan Johnston kidnapping in Gaza and the dynamics of journalist kidnappings in the world today.

George Weyman gives an in-depth look at the popular Egyptian blog Two Pairs of Eyes, and argues that its bloggers seek to re-formulate but not reject dominant social values.

When is a joke in Lebanon not funny anymore? When it mocks Hassan Nasrallah and stokes highly tense sectarian sentiments, demonstrates Contributing Editor Sune Haugbolle. (Features Video)

Andrew Hammond looks at the structures of Saudi Arabia’s media influence and the formal and informal pressures it can bring to bear on media outlets to secure their desired coverage.

“While many contributors present fresh ethnographic research and �their weak arguments, inconclusive results and poor editing undermine the collection as a whole,” argues Anna Swank in her review of Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and Public Life.

Mustafa Kabha’s work falls well short of its considerable promise to chart the influence of Arabic news media on the evolution of the Palestinian National Movement in the tumultuous years that culminated in the Revolt of 1936-39, argues Aaron Jakes in his review of The Palestinian Press as Shaper of Public Opinion, 1929-1939: Writing Up a Storm.

BBC Monitoring Text of report in English by Syrian News Agency SANA website ["Sit-in in front of UN headquarters in Damascus" - SANA headline] Damascus, 19 Aug ( SANA ) - A sit in was staged yesterday evening before headquarters of the UN mission in Damascus in protest against the …