The Courting of Al-Jazeera

While Washington asked the emir of Qatar to "rein in" Al-Jazeera, American networks were headed to Doha in search of a deal. It's nearly midnight in Doha, and we are in a cafe on a pier jutting out over the shoreline of the Persian Gulf. The cafe is empty and …

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Mohammed Jasim Al-Ali, Al-Jazeera Managing Director

TBS first spoke with Al-Jazeera Managing Director Mohammed Jasim Al-Ali in Cairo in June 2000 for an extensive interview about the channel, its startup, and its plans. With Al-Jazeera making news around the globe for its coverage of current world events, TBS Senior Editor S. Abdallah Schleifer and Managing Editor Sarah Sullivan …

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Defining Vision: The Battle for the Future of Television

Brinkley, Joel (1998). "Defining Vision: The Battle for the Future of Television." New York: Harcourt Brace & Company. 447 Pages. ISBN: 0-15-600597-2. US$27 [hard cover], US$12.00 [paperback]. Reviewed by Dr. Ralph D. Berenger, the American University in Cairo In the early 1980s US broadcasters faced two major headaches spawned by …

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Interactive Television: TV of the Future or the Future of TV

Jens F. Jensen and Cathy Toscan, eds. (1999). "Interactive Television: TV of the Future or the Future of TV." Aalborg : Aalborg University Press. 278 pages. ISBN 87-7307-625-2 [hardcover]. Reviewed by Dr. Brendan Murphy, School of Contemporary Communications, Central Queensland University, Rockhampton, Australia. The discipline of media studies has evolved …

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Communication Education in ASEAN

Ang Peng Hwa and Sankaran Ramanathan (2000). "Communication Education in ASEAN." Singapore: Asian Media Information and Communication Centre. 366 pages. ISBN 9971-905-79-05 [paperback]. Reviewed by Dr. Ali Parandeh, Information Technology Consultant, Malaga, Spain. Why do we educate, how do we educate, and what is the desired end product of such …

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British Television: A Reader

Buscombe, Edward, ed. (2000). "British Television: A Reader." Oxford. Oxford University Press. 348pp. ISBN 0-19-874265 [paperback] Reviewed by Prof. Mike Richards, Department of Media and Communication, University of Central England, United Kingdom This is a collection of fifteen papers, which, though captured within a volume entitled "British television," is actually …

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From the Editors

As the TBS editors spent the summer planning our special coverage of the Arab world, we had no idea that the question we were asking—how Arab news organizations cover the world, who their audiences are, and which organizations are shaping up as key players in regional media—would suddenly take on …

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