Arab Media Systems

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 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. [Elib].

This handbook provides the first comprehensive reference book in English about the development of mass and social media in all Arab countries. Capturing the historical as well as current developments in the media scene, this collection maps the role of media in social and political movements. Contributors include specialists in the field from North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Each chapter provides an overview of the history, regulatory frameworks and laws governing the press, and socio-political functions of the media. While the geopolitical complexities of the region have been reflected in the expert analyses collectively, the focus is always the local context of each member state. All 38 chapters consider the specific historical, political, and media trajectories in each country, to provide a contextual background and foundation for further study about single states or comparative analysis in two or more Arab states. Capturing significant technological developments and the widespread use of social media, this all-inclusive volume on Arab media is a key resource for students and scholars interested in journalism, media, and Middle East studies.

Since September 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many television viewers in the United States have become familiar with Al Jazeera as offering an alternative take on events from that presented by mainstream U.S. media, as well as disseminating anti-American invective. Westerners have tended toward simplistic views of Arab newspapers, radio, and television, assuming that they are all under government control and that freedom of press is non-existent. William A. Rugh, a long time observer of the Arab mass media, offers a more nuanced picture of the Arab press as it relates to the political situation in the Arab world today. Although governmental influence over the media is stronger in the Middle East than in Europe or the United States, Rugh argues that there is more diversity in the Arab media than most people in the West realize. In reality, the Arab media are coming to reflect the diversity and wide range of opinions of those within the Arab world itself. In particular, the advent of privately owned Arab satellite television in the 1990s has led to significant liberalization of the media throughout the region. Rugh concludes that a democracy of ideas and voices is slowly growing in the Arab world, and he remains guardedly optimistic about the positive role the Arab media can play in processes of democratization and nation-building.

Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World offers a broad exploration of the conceptual foundations for comparative analysis of media and politics globally. It takes as its point of departure the widely used framework of Hallin and Mancini's Comparing Media Systems, exploring how the concepts and methods of their analysis do and do not prove useful when applied beyond the original focus of their 'most similar systems' design and the West European and North American cases it encompassed. It is intended both to use a wider range of cases to interrogate and clarify the conceptual framework of Comparing Media Systems and to propose new models, concepts and approaches that will be useful for dealing with non-Western media systems and with processes of political transition. Comparing Media Systems Beyond the Western World covers, among other cases, Brazil, China, Israel, Lebanon, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Thailand.

This book provides a clear and authoritative introduction to the emerging Arab media industries in the context of globalization and its impacts, with a focus on publishing, press, broadcasting, cinema and new media. Through detailed discussions of the regulation and economics of these industries, the authors argue that the political, technological and cultural changes on the global media scene have resulted in the reorganization of the Arab media field. They provide striking examples of this through the particular effects on media policies, media technology and the content and genres developed for the new generation of media consumers. As part of the book's overview of the contemporary characteristics of Arab media, the authors outline the development of the role of modern Arab media from a tool of mobilizing the public to a tool of commercial and symbolic profit. Overall, the volume illustrates how the Arab region represents a unique case where the commercialization and liberalization of selected media industries has gone hand in hand with continuous state intervention and an increasing self censorship. Written for students without prior knowledge of the topic, Arab Media will be essential reading for all interested in the contemporary global media industries.

This book presents an analysis of the current Lebanese media system. From a theoretical angle, it discusses the extent to which this system can be analyzed using the ideal types put forth by Hallin and Mancini in their seminal work Comparing Media Systems. Sarah El-Richani assesses the complex dimensions developed by the two scholars and utilizes their work as inspiration for a process of remodeling, amending the sub-indicators to identify salient factors and suggesting a new model. Featuring the views of over 60 stakeholders, this book gives a rare, critical, and concise account of the Lebanese media system.

Proto-State Media Systems explores how decisions by contemporary violent extremist groups create, develop, and sustain media systems. Focusing on the cases of al-Qaeda and ISIS, this book showcases how standard media systems theory fails to fully explain the media systems of these organizations as a basis for building a revised theoretical lens that comprehends these emergent systems in the 21st century global media context. Utilizing constitutive and online networking theories, Winkler and El Damanhoury explore how militant proto-states create lasting, adaptable, identity-based systems that work to attract and sustain the attention of followers. The groups' appeals to transhistorical and transpatial identity formations in their media products reveal new insights about community formation and how we analyze media systems in the proto-state context. Recognizing that nation-states no longer exercise monopoly control over online and offline media systems, Proto-State Media Systems investigates how certain violent extremist groups bent on establishing sustained territorial and governing control over populations have revolutionized the media environment of the 21st century.