A number of war-themed reality shows have become enormous hits in Iraq since the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime and the subsequent proliferation of satellite channels throughout the country. State-run Al Iraqiya has a hit on its hands with the controversial Terror in the Hands of Justicein which captive insurgents confess …

The media landscape in Iraq has undergone a radical transformation since state-run Iraqi television abruptly went off air following the US-led invasion in March 2003. With no state television and the ownership of satellite dishes banned by the Baathist regime, Iraqis were, quite literally, starved for information. As a result, …

BREAKING NEWS : Jihadi TV Al Zawraa in Europe? TBS Publisher Lawrence Pintak: Insurgent TV Coming to a Satellite Near You? "A controversial TV channel that is the voice of Iraq's anti-American insurgents looks set to open another front in the propaganda war against the U.S. The head of Al-Zawraa, which airs footage …

A quick glance at the top 40 most requested songs on the Web site for the popular Arabic music video channel Melody Hits TV reveals the latest and greatest from stars such as Lebanon’s Nancy Ajram—infamous for her sexually suggestive videos—as well as others like America’s rapper Eminem and Egypt’s crooner Tamer …

Sitting, as I do, in that strange no-man’s-land between journalism and academia, I am frequently struck by the gap separating theory and reality. That’s true when it comes to Middle East politics—it was, after all, neat theories of democratization disconnected from regional realities that led to Iraq's current woes—and it’s …

Tracking Sami Yusuf's move into the mainstream is key not only for understanding Sami Yusuf as an Islamic artist but also as a useful index for how Muslims see themselves as participants in Western modernity. Christian Pond asks, will they, as encouraged by Sami Yusuf, choose the path of Islamizing modernity? Or will they choose the more complicated path of modernizing Islam?

In the wake of controversy triggered by Super Star and Star Academy, some observers have hailed reality television as a harbinger of democracy in the Arab world. Marwan Kraidy looks at the political implications of a new and popular genre hitting Arab satellite television.

The long-anticipated English-language Al Jazeera International (AJI) is due to launch in the second quarter of 2006. TBS’s new senior editor Lawrence Pintak talked with AJI’s managing director Nigel Parsons, to find out about the hopes riding on the new channel as well as the challenges facing it. TBS: Let’s start with some basics. Why are …

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 …

Abstract This paper examines the commercial and cultural reasons the dubbing of American films and television programs, common throughout much of the world, remains non-existent in the Arab World. Despite a marked surge in the number of Arabic-language television stations in the last ten years, and much need for quality …