William Youmans analyzes the debate in Burlington, Vermont, over whether the local cable TV company should or should not carry Al Jazeera English. He concludes that Burlington was a special case, rather than the harbinger of a breakthrough into the US market for AJE.

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 …

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 …

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DUBAI -- There was a big splash when MBC moved out of Battersea several years ago and took up quarters in its elegant lagoon-side section of the Media City complex here (see New MBC: The Marriage of Elegant Professionalism and Emirati Glitter, TBS 9). The move was followed by another stir …

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 …

In a March 25 interview with The Washington Post, American Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice marveled at the contribution of satellite television to the emerging democratic trend in the Middle East and the world. Watching the Lebanese protestors in the streets, she argued, inspired people around the globe to take matters …

In a fast-changing world, easy observations remain in consciousness long after they have become invalid. So it is with the conceit that Al Jazeera put Qatar on the map and not visa versa, or the variant that Al Jazeera is more important as a regional power than the State of …

Moller Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge, UK 28-30 September 2004 Does transnational broadcasting media impact political change in the Arab world, and if so, in what way and to what extent? This question lies at the heart of the ongoing discourse about Arab satellites and their role in opening and defining …

After comprehensive investigations by expert panels, US public diplomacy officials have succeeded in figuring out why US public diplomacy targeting the Arab world have failed: it is the Arab media and more specifically the pan-Arab television channels, with Al Jazeera as the main culprit. In his State of the Union …