[Editor�s note: This article is an excerpt from a policy paper entitled "New Media New Politics? From Satellite Television to the Internet in the Arab World" published by The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998. If you would like to order a copy of the publication, see http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/pubs/pp.htm] Rise …
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Localizing the Global in India: New Imperatives for International Communication Scholarship in the Satellite Era
As innumerable media corporations execute decisions made in boardrooms (where "globalization" and "deregulation" are the mantras), the challenges facing international communication scholars become veritable riddles of the Sphinx. They watch in bewilderment as transborder commercial satellites pulverize the protective, monopolistic, state-controlled broadcasting regimes of erstwhile colonies of South Asia. They …
Read More »Localism in the Era of Globalization and New Technologies: Implications for the 21st Century
As we come to the end of the 20th century and look forward to a new century and a new millennium, it is exciting to think of the opportunities facing those in media or media-related industries. However, with those seemingly endless opportunities awaiting the media professional in the new millennium …
Read More »Nilesat 101 Channels
Source: Dr. Hussein Amin, Member of the Higher Committee for Specialized Nilesat Networks, the Egyptian Radio and Television Union, Cairo, Egypt. The biggest development in transnational broadcasting in the Arab world this year was the launch of Nilesat, not only Egypt's first national satellite but also the first satellite owned …
Read More »CNE in Egypt: Some Light at the End of an Arduous Tunnel
During the 1990s, the Middle East has experienced an explosion of growth in new media services, especially those delivered by satellite. The Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), Orbit, Arab Radio and Television (ART), Emirates Dubai TV, and Egypt's Spacenet have all become well-known entities in the region (Bulloch 1995). Most …
Read More »Digital Platforms in the Middle East
The Middle East has no fewer than four competing digital television platforms fighting for viewer loyalty: ART/1st NET, Orbit, Star Select, and Gulf DTH/Showtime. Four years ago there was no subscription TV. The few direct-to-home (DTH) satellite channels were all free-to-air and offered little threat to the monopoly state-run national …
Read More »Transnational Media and Regionalism
The Arab League's headquarters in Cairo lie just a few hundred meters away from the city's statue of Simon Bolivar. The two represent monuments to desires for regional autonomy and unity—desires that time has proved easier to conceptualize than to implement. Yet a half century after the founding of the …
Read More »Media Explosion in the Arab World: The Pan-Arab Satellite Broadcasters
By TBS Senior Editor S. Abdallah Schleifer It's so easy to be overwhelmed by the impact of television, particularly in this decade of digital multichannel satellite platforms and particularly in an Arab world, where reading as a serious engagement beyond the newspaper and the weeklies seems to be approaching some …
Read More »Uses and Gratifications of Satellite TV in Egypt
Extract from a thesis submitted to the Journalism and Mass Communication Department, The American University in Cairo, June 1998 Introduction When Marshall McLuhan spoke of the global village, he clearly had the web of electronic networks that encircle the world in mind. Certainly, instant communication on a world- wide basis …
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