Tensions between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arab countries resurfaced with a vengeance in May 2017. The latest escalation came in response to statements allegedly made by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in support of Iran as the region's power broker, and …

Read an excerpt of Marwan Kraidy's latest book The Naked Blogger of Cairo here. On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, a strange sight appeared on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Close to city hall, passersby saw a four-meter high gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a suit, legs firmly planted …

On November 21, 2016, the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, Oxford hosted the roundtable and launch of Public Culture and Islam in Modern Egypt: Media, Intellectuals and Society (London: I.B.Tauris, 2016) with myself and Morgan Clarke (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford) who is a social anthropologist …

I am writing a book that will be called Confronting Terrorism. It examines the evolution of terrorism that culminates, for now, in the Islamic State’s ability to hold and “govern” substantial amounts of territory. This requires me to immerse myself in both the literature of terrorism and to view, from a distance, the nasty realities of this topic. I do not pretend to be as intimately involved as are the people who must live under terrorism’s darkest shadows every day. But I think a lot about how terrorism’s presence changes our world...

One way of getting to the “root causes” of terrorism and religious extremism in the Middle East is to examine the thinking of the mother organization of all groups and movements espousing violence and terrorism. Fortunately, the history of the Muslim Brothers is well researched. The revelations of the organization reflect a great deal of inconsistencies between the general and the specific: public pronouncements and specific documents, theory and practice, English and Arabic.

تناول د.حسن علي محمد أستاذ الإعلام بجامعة المنيا من خلال ورقة بعنوان "الإعلام والإرهاب الإشكاليات والتحديات" الدور الذي لعبه الإعلام في تغذية العنف والإرهاب والتطرف، من خلال استغلال الإرهابيين له في تسويق أغراضهم وغاياتهم وتوظيفها في تضليل الأجهزة الأمنية، واكتساب السيطرة على الرأي العام عن طريق نشر أخبار العمليات الإرهابية التي يقومون بتنفيذها

قد طرق أ.أيمن إبراهيم، مذيع ومقدم برامج فى شبكة تليفزيون النهار، ملفًا خطيرًا بعنوان "إعلامنا والإرهاب بعد 25 يناير" حيث أسقط القضية على أرض الواقع في مصر في محاولة للإجابة على عدد من الأسئلة التي أثارتها حالة التصادم بين الداخلية ونقابة الصحفيين حول دور الإعلامي والصحفي في منظومة الوطنية والدفاع عن مؤسسات الدولة، بل والدور الأهم في الحرب على الإرهاب الخطر، وأسباب نجاح الدولة بإعلامها في مواجهة إرهاب فترة التسعينيات وعدم تحقق ذلك الآن

Ramzy Baroud casts a critical eye on the current state of Arab media, where the idealistic hopes of the Arab Spring and the promise of digital media have fallen far below expectations. Instead, he argues, we are witnessing a media war, where evolving geopolitical dynamics and economics determine who has a voice and what narrative is conveyed. Coupled with a crisis of professionalism, Baroud laments that any attempt at an equitable media platform in many Arab countries has for now been largely defeated.

In a short and critical read, Amr Khalifa draws attention to the Egyptian state’s influence on shaping the narratives propagated by national and local media, particularly television. Using initial coverage of the 2011 Revolution as a jumping off point, Khalifa argues that the same mechanisms for controlling the media have been used and reused by successive governments, and reflects on new limitations on freedom of expression, which he argues are more stringent than those seen under Gamal Abdel Nasser.

Matt Duffy reflects on the state of journalism education in the United Arab Emirates before and after the Arab spring. His experience as a communications professor at Zayed University, followed by his unexplained expulsion from the UAE, reaffirms the increasingly bleak environment for media freedoms in the region.