Abstract Since its foundation in 1996 until the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, the Qatar-based and funded channel, Al-Jazeera, was considered by many media and politics scholars as a major element of a “pan-Arab public diplomacy” and even a “virtual state.” The main reasons behind Al-Jazeera’s success as an effective …

Tensions between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other Arab countries resurfaced with a vengeance in May 2017. The latest escalation came in response to statements allegedly made by Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in support of Iran as the region's power broker, and …

 Mention art, culture, and creativity and you’ve got Kuwait-based Nuqat’s seventh conference boosting innovation, promoting entrepreneurship, uncovering censorship, and serving as a teaching platform.  This year’s three-day conference entitled “The Seventh Sense: Powering the Creative Economy,” delved into the capacity of the brain to come up with new ideas through discussions …

Protect your borders – one critical lesson of the Syrian war that Saudi Arabia is taking close to heart. The Syrian regime proved lethally effective in the art of crushing internal dissent. Its use of informal militias among multiple agencies of security and military, its Arab nationalist propaganda, the projection …

Magdalena Maria Karolak looks at the output of Bahraini bloggers and concludes that although the bloggers initially contributed to civil society activism, the polarization of Bahrain society has since penetrated the blogosphere itself.

Evelyn Thai discusses whether Al Jazeera meets the criteria to qualify as 'alternative media' and finds that the Qatar-based channels are arguably unique. “But as transnational news networks proliferate, a theory that accounts for the alterity of transnational media would contribute greatly to an understanding of how mass media continues to evolve.”

The financial crisis in the United Arab Emirates has tested the limits of media freedom in the country, and many of the participants, especially government and the media, have fallen short..Sam Potter describes how the local press in the UAE has handled the financial crisis and wonders how long the practice of self-censorship can continue when alternative sources of information are so readily available

The Yemeni government’s refusal to let journalists and foreign observers into the Sa‘ada governorate has helped prolong and intensify the stop-go fighting that has plagued Yemen’s mountainous north since 2004, argues Maysaa Shuja al-Deen.

The newest Persian language satellite network made a splash in the Iranian blogosphere when it began broadcasting in January. But just how far can the BBC go in the face of hostility from Tehran and without local bureaus, asks Contributing Editor Paul Cochrane.

While somewhat limited in locating middle class youth within Iranian society, Varzi’s brilliant work interrogates the relationship between ethnography and processes of fictionalization, writes Jennifer Riggan.