The US presidential election of 2004 attracted an unprecedented amount of international media attention, perhaps nowhere more so than in the Arab world, where the impact of American policy has made itself acutely felt in the three years since September 11. Concerns over the war in Iraq, combined with frustration …
Read More »Report on the 58th Annual Middle East Institute Conference: “The Use and Limits of Power in the Middle East”
Panel: "Media Diplomacy: Who Controls the Control Room?" National Press Club, Washington, D.C. 5-6 October 2004 By far the most lively panel during October's annual Middle East Institute (MEI) conference in Washington, D.C., was "Media Diplomacy: Who Controls the Control Room?" featuring interesting insights from independent filmmaker Jehane Noujaim and The …
Read More »On the Role of Media in the Current Transition Phase in Iraq
Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 29-30 September 2004 Iraq has suffered decades of war and brutal dictatorship which have left the country weak and exhausted. The situation in post-war Iraq is unstable, Iraqi civil society has been destroyed, and the economy is …
Read More »Arab Satellite Broadcasting: An Alternative to Political Parties?
Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 29-30 September 2004 Thinking about Arab Satellite Broadcasting (ASB), I soon realized that there is no theoretical base for it. Hannah Arendt, the great German political thinker, argued that theory is for weak brains-but I have Max …
Read More »Remarks in Response to Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 29-30 September 2004 Thank you very much. I am actually very proud to talk after Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who is one of those people who inspired our thoughts when we were students--political science students at Cairo …
Read More »Keynote Address – The Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World
The Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 29-30 September 2004 What I would like to do today is put the issue of the media in some perspective, both analytical and historical. Then I will put some thoughts on the table about the extent …
Read More »Conference Report: International Academy for Media Science (IAMS) “Arab Satellites in a Changing World”
Movenpick Hotel 22 - 24 June 2004 Cairo, Egypt Though thousands of words are spoken and written each year about Arab satellites, scholars have rarely ventured into the means of analyzing their conceptual structures to ask the stakeholders about their views on the pressing socio-economic and political issues. Moreover, while …
Read More »Reaching the Arabs through Alhurra: US Chooses Easy Way Out?
After comprehensive investigations by expert panels, US public diplomacy officials have succeeded in figuring out why US public diplomacy targeting the Arab world have failed: it is the Arab media and more specifically the pan-Arab television channels, with Al Jazeera as the main culprit. In his State of the Union …
Read More »The Gulf Media Mood: As Good As Ever
Usually when I get to Qatar I check into a hotel and make my way over to Al Jazeera. Not this time around. This time, my first stop was the new Ritz Carleton, where I stayed there for the next couple days to attend a conference on development and democracy …
Read More »The Future of Al Jazeera
Over the past seven years Al Jazeera has introduced a new culture and a new paradigm into the Arab world. A culture and a paradigm that rest upon the free exercise of journalism and public affairs broadcasting. During the early days of Al Jazeera it was something exciting to have …
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