Arab Digital Journalism

Responding to urgent calls to de-westernise Media and Journalism Studies and shed light on local agencies, this book examines digital journalistic practices in the Arab region, exploring how Arab journalists understand their roles and how digital technologies in Arab newsrooms are used to influence public opinion. Drawing on dozens of articles penned by Arab media professionals and scholars, supplemented with informal conversations with journalists, this book reviews the historical development of digital journalism in the region and individual journalists’ perceptions of this development. While technology has provided a new platform for citizens and powerful agents to exchange views, this text examines how it has simultaneously allowed Arab states and authorities to conduct surveillance on journalists, curtail the rise of citizen journalism, and maintain offline hierarchal forms of political, economic, and cultural powers. Mellor also explores how digital technology serves to cement Western hegemony of the information world order, with Arab media organisations and audiences judged to be mere recipients, rather than producers, of such information. Arab Digital Journalism offers an important contribution to the emerging field of digital journalism in the Global South and is a valuable resource for students and researchers interested in media, journalism, communication, and development studies.

In this consideration of media practice in the Arab region, Mohammad Ayish and Noha Mellor explore the changing status and function of journalists and journalism given the new realities of reporting in the digital age. The authors draw on focus group discussions, interviews, and social media traffic surveys to examine how social and new media have been integrated into Arab and pan-Arab newsroom operations and harnessed to enhance engagement with an empowered audience. Efforts to engage with audiences in social space, Ayish and Mellor argue, are part of a broad and long-waged information war aimed at winning hearts and minds in the MENA region. Social platforms present excellent opportunities to engage with audiences, but the extent to which such opportunities can be realized are hamstrung by limits on free expression and online access—and vary significantly from country to country and from media channel to media channel. Overall, Reporting in the MENA Region paints a comprehensive and contemporary picture of how today’s Arab journalists perceive and use digital media.

This volume provides a comparative analysis of media systems in the Arab world, based on criteria informed by the historical, political, social, and economic factors influencing a country’s media. Reaching beyond classical western media system typologies, Arab Media Systems brings together contributions from experts in the field of media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to provide valuable insights into the heterogeneity of this region’s media systems. It focuses on trends in government stances towards media, media ownership models, technological innovation, and the role of transnational mobility in shaping media structure and practices. Each chapter in the volume traces a specific country’s media – from Lebanon to Morocco – and assesses its media system in terms of historical roots, political and legal frameworks, media economy and ownership patterns, technology and infrastructure, and social factors (including diversity and equality in gender, age, ethnicities, religions, and languages). This book is a welcome contribution to the field of media studies, constituting the only edited collection in recent years to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of Arab media systems. As such, it will be of great use to students and scholars in media, journalism and communication studies, as well as political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in the MENA region.

This book looks into the role played by mediated communication, particularly new and social media, in shaping various forms of struggles around power, identity and religion at a time when the Arab world is going through an unprecedented period of turmoil and upheaval. The book provides unique and multifocal perspectives on how new forms of communication remain at the centre of historical transformations in the region. The key focus of this book is not to ascertain the extent to which new communication technologies have generated the Arab spring or led to its aftermaths, but instead question how we can better understand many types of articulations between communication technologies, on the one hand, and forms of resistance, collective action, and modes of expression that have contributed to the recent uprisings and continue to shape the social and political upheavals in the region on the other. The book presents original perspectives and rigorous analysis by specialists and academics from around the world that will certainly enrich the debate around major issues raised by recent historical events.

This is the first book that looks into the state and role of investigate journalism in the Arab world. It explores the vital role the media could potentially play in informing and empowering society, to assist in opening up the communicative space in a region where this has previously been taboo.

Mobile Disruptions in the Middle East identifies trends in mobile media use in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates and, more broadly, explores their impact on the nature of digital journalism. Mobility has long been an important aspect of life in the Middle East; therefore a study of this region presents a unique opportunity to examine the role of mobile media and its future directions. Basing its analysis on original research, including multiyear surveys and case studies, the book reveals patterns of audience engagement with mobile media in the Gulf area, with particular emphasis on online journalism. The research also illustrates how and to what extent media organizations are developing and delivering content uniquely designed for mobile media and consumption. Drawing on these findings, the authors look at possible developments in mobile media content strategies, including those for news content, as wearable and other emerging media forms enter the marketplace. Mobile Disruptions in the Middle East provides an important insight into a region that is both globally active and mobile-first, yet whose use of digital media is historically under-researched. As a result, the book helps to advance understanding of consumer preference for content types on mobile media, especially in relation to the transformation of journalism.

Since September 11, Arab and American journalists have been trading barbs, accusing each other of bias and a lack of objectivity. But is news coverage in Arab countries all that different from American coverage? The Making of Arab News draws comparisons, including examples of Arabic news language and their English translations, to show how Arab news values have been Americanized and how these values are reflected in the language used in the Arab news. Noha Mellor further discusses claims that the current development in the Arab news media could be the first step toward democratization.

Modern Arab Journalism offers a new outlook in studying Arab news media. It approaches its subject from an innovative angle, asking a series of key questions: * How is Arab journalism different from or similar to journalism in other countries? * What defines the tasks of journalists? * Who has access to this field? * How is power distributed inside the field of Arab journalism? * When were the media programs launched at Arab universities and what characterizes them? Although the field of Arab journalism has received tremendous attention from the public as well as journalistic circles around the world in recent times, this book presents the first detailed exploration of the area, opening up a new research agenda and challenging the concepts taken for granted in Arab media scholarship.