During the 2006 Lebanon War, bloggers were able to influence the agenda for traditional media coverage more than ever before. But they will not overtake mainstream media anytime soon, argues Will Ward.
Read More »World Affairs
Interview with Nigel Parsons, Managing Director of Al Jazeera International
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 …
Read More »Cultures in Orbit
Parks, Lisa. Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Paperback. 256 pages. ISBN 0-8223-3497-6. $22.95 Reviewed by Lamees M. El Baghdady Cultures in Orbit is a critical paradigm of both television and cultural studies. Unlike previous research, which has focused mainly on direct satellite broadcasting and …
Read More »Imaginations and Borderless TV
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 …
Read More »A New Media Order
Chalaby, Jean K. (Ed.). Transnational Television Worldwide: Toward a New Media Order. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. 264 pages. Paperback. ISBN 1-85043-548-0. $24.95. Reviewed by Ralph D. Berenger When legendary American broadcast news pioneer Edward R. Murrow first saw a demonstration of television in the 1940’s as an extension of radio, he …
Read More »Is Al Jazeera Alternative? Mainstreaming Alterity and Assimilating Discourses of Dissent
In its nine-year history, the Arab satellite news network Al Jazeera has been the subject of much debate. From glorification to vilification, the station has been described as “radical” by its detractors and as an “alternative” medium by its admirers (El-Nawawy & Iskandar, 2003, Miles, 2005). Since the launch of …
Read More »Letter from the Editor: Al Jazeera is Not a Medium!
The Al Jazeera Television Network captures the attention of those interested in Arabic-language satellite television broadcasting like nothing else. Approximately half the articles submitted to Transnational Broadcasting Studies over the past two issues were about Al Jazeera. To some degree this is understandable. The network is important and influential. Observers claimed an …
Read More »‘The Perfect War’: US Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 1990/1991
In this article, Nicholas Cull reviews the performance of the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990-91. He concludes by contrasting the effective US use of public diplomacy during this period with the problems encountered following 9/11.
Read More »TBS 14: Satellite Chronicles
TBS continues its month-by-month record of events in the Arab and Islamic satellite world as reported in the press and by BBC Monitoring. December 2004 to May 2005 December 7 MBC Children's Channel Walid al-Ibrahim, president of Dubai-based Middle East Broadcasting Center's board of directors, announces that the station …
Read More »Technical Review: Cabsat 2005
This year's CABSAT attracted around 400 companies from some 50 countries and a number of national pavilions, including the UK, China, Germany, and Korea. The event focused on three main sections: Cable & Satellite, Communications, and Broadcast & Production. It also marked the kick off of the first Middle East …
Read More »