In October 2005, more than 500 media development professionals from dozens of countries gathered in Amman, Jordan for the first summit of the Global Forum for Media Development, a new alliance of organizations involved in media training activities around the world.  The location of the gathering was significant: Jordan’s King …

Thomas, Amos Owen. Imaginations & Borderless Television: Media, Culture and Politics Across Asia. New Delhi, India: Sage, 2005. Paperback. 290 pages. ISBN: 0-7619-3395-6. $23.50. Reviewed by Samaa Aly El-Batrawy This book is about exploratory research into the growth and development of transnational TV in Asia, analyzing its impact on advertising industries in …

"Anyone who tells you they are not scared silly is lying,” retired Annahar publisher Ghassan Tueni, the living symbol of Lebanese media independence, said in mid-autumn as we sat in his office overlooking Beirut’s port and newly reborn downtown. “We built this glass tower as a symbol of the new Lebanon. Now …

Over the last decade, Middle Eastern history has happened, in large part, on Al Jazeera.  The Qatar-based satellite channel had the only foreign reporters inside Iraq when U.S. forces launched a four-day assault, known as Operation Desert Fox, in 1998. In October 2001 its cameras -- the only ones inside …

Since its inception, mass media in its various forms (newspapers, radio, television, etc.) has been used as both a tool of nation-states as well as a weapon against them. The power of the press to influence opinion and help interpret reality for its constituents has created conflict over what constitutes …

Shortly after Algeria's presidential election last April, the Ministry of Communications abruptly ordered correspondents for Dubai-based broadcaster Al Arabiya and its rival, Al Jazeera, to suspend news operations in Algiers indefinitely. No convincing explanations were given, but Algerian officials had complained bitterly about Al Arabiya's election coverage and were apparently …

It has been a year and a half since US-funded Arabic satellite channel Alhurra started broadcasting on 14 February 2004. Even before the channel's launch, it was a magnet for controversy -- many in the Arab media denounced it as propaganda while some Washington insiders questioned the decision to spend …

By Morand Fachot, European Broadcasting Union Communications Service Over 400 news professionals and executives representing the world's major news organizations, safety experts, and media specialists gathered in Vilamoura, Portugal, for the third edition of the News Xchange conference in mid-November. With media coverage of the Middle East--in particular of the …

Cambridge Arab Media Project: The Media and Political Change in the Arab World, 29-30 September 2004 Good morning everybody. Let me start by expressing my gratitude at being invited to this event and also for the very strong start that we had last night, which makes my job easier this …

The United States Government's new Arabic-language satellite television channel claims to be bringing something new to the Arab world. The message is impossible to miss, as it is incessantly hyped in the clumsily cued station promos: If you look, you must surely see; a new horizon; a new window on the …