Media And Democracy In The Middle East

This edited volume examines the current challenges to media freedom and democratisation in the Middle East. The book revisits the relationship between media consumption and activism in the region, providing thorough analyses on the appropriation of social media for political engagement. Since the outburst and spread of what was known as the ‘Arab Uprisings’ in 2010, the political and media landscapes in the Middle East region have dramatically changed. The initial hope for democratic change and governance quality improvements has faded, as several regimes in the Middle East have strengthened their repressive tactics toward voices deemed critical of governments’ practices, including journalists, bloggers, and activists. The crumbling Arab media scene has also reached an abysmal low, with little to no independence, and public perception of basic freedoms in the region has significantly dropped, as has trust in media and government institutions. This book examines current challenges to media freedom, political participation, and democratisation in the region while reassessing the dynamic relationship between media use and political engagement, amidst a complex political environment accompanied by a rapidly changing digital media landscape. This book’s relevance will appeal to varied audiences, such as scholars and students of journalism, communication, political science, and Middle Eastern studies. It will also prove to be an invaluable resource for organisations dedicated to the research of political communication, media freedom, and use patterns of nontraditional, or new, media.

The mass media in the Arab world and the Middle East have undergone profound changes since the beginning of the 1990s. The chapters in this volume cover basic issues such as control, ownership, and development and culture in the context of mass media and society.

By using an analytical and comparative approach, this book explicitly shows how the censorial culture grew as the media developed in this region. This book also shows the possibility for emerging models of media in the Middle East that highlight a direction toward democracy and the application of laws and regulations.

Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring brings together some of the most celebrated and respected names in Arab media research to reflect on the communication conditions that preceded and made the Arab uprisings possible.

This edited volume offers the first extended, cross-disciplinary exploration of the cumulative problems and increasing importance of various forms of media in the Middle East. Leading scholars with expertise in Middle Eastern studies discuss their views and perceptions of the media’s influence on regional and global change. Focusing on aspects of economy, digital news, online businesses, gender-related issues, social media, and film, the contributors of this volume detail media’s role in political movements throughout the Middle East. The volume illustrates how the increase in Internet connections and mobile applications have resulted in an emergence of indispensable tools for information acquisition, dissemination, and activism.

This book argues that Internet diffusion and use in the Middle East enables meaningful micro-changes in citizens' lives, even in states where no Arab Spring revolution occurred. Using ethnographic evidence and taking a comparative perspective, it presents a grass roots look at how new media use fits into the practice of everyday life. It explores why citizens use social media to digitally route around state and other forms of power at work in their lives. This increase in citizen civic engagement, supported by new media use, offers the possibility of a new order of things, from redefining patriarchal power relations at home, to reconfigurations of citizens' relationships with the state, broadly defined. The author argues that new media channels offer pathways to empowerment widely and cheaply in the Middle East.

In this book, leading international scholars examine the way new media is reshaping lives and politics. Covering topics from women's rights to terrorism, and countries from Israel to Saudi Arabia, these authors explore the global and regional ramifications of the proliferation of communication technologies and the information they disseminate.

In 2011, the international community watched as citizens mobilized through the Internet and digital media to topple three of the world's most entrenched dictators: Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, and Qaddafi in Libya. This book examines not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the longer history of desperate-and creative-digital activism through the Arab world.