Media and Information
The media’s most recent monster
Events surrounding the Moroccan woman in Verona who turned up at a public swimming pool wearing a ‘burkini’ have been widely reported by the Italian media. This is a very significant example for understanding how an extremely serious issue can become trivial and tabloid gossip. The crux of the problem concerns social control over the female body in the public sphere. Its media exploitation, however, is also used to distract from what should be the real priorities in a serious debate on the integration of immigrants.
Twittering for Change
Countless Iranians have taken to the streets, challenging the outcome of the country's recent presidential poll, and forcing Iran's powerful Guardian Council to agree to recount disputed votes. A fortnight ago this would have not seemed possible. What are the implications for the rest of the Middle East: states where the outcome of elections is invariably a foregone conclusion, and others where the concept of an election - free or otherwise - is non-existent? Anxiously watching, oppressive regimes in the region may be trembling at the thought that events currently unfolding in Iran will, at some point, spill over to their own oppressed populations.
The Iceberg facing Public Diplomacy: A triangle of arrogance, ignorance, and obnoxious management
It is very important to assess how audiences in the region perceive the Arabic TV services of International Satellite Broadcasters such as Deutsche Welle, France 24 and Russia Today. Most of the time, foreign Arabic-speaking channels fail "to win the hearts and minds" of the Arab public for three reasons: arrogance, impatience, and lack of listening from the communicators' side. Foreign Offices must be humble enough to admit mistakes. The Arab public is more likely to expect propaganda and spin rather than truth from TV channels like Deutsche Welle, France 24, or Russia Today.
The International Debate
The great international press has considered Israel's reaction legitimate, but questions the "proportionality" of the attack as well as its effectiveness. Some see it as a last example of unilateralism, while others (French philosopher Glucksmann) described the debate on its "disproportionality" as "hypocritical". Tariq Ramadan and Michael Walzer have expressed their opinions as has the Italian intellectual Adriano Sofri writing that “The children and youngsters of Gaza who will survive the bombardments will not have a reasonable and Ghandi-like future”.
The Current Wars in Iraq
As one looks back over the past six years of public debate about the war in Iraq one sees a shifting array of justifications for fighting it. Too often, misperceptions have filled the empty space. But many of these misperceptions have not been random or merely the product of a uniquely American strain of intellectual laziness or ignorance. Rather, they have been the product of the nature of contemporary television and calculated efforts to shape perceptions. Television has been used as an instrument of deception aimed at people ill-equipped to defend themselves against highly charged but intellectually bankrupt and mendacious claims made repeatedly by the Bush administration and its neoconservative allies in US Congress and the political intelligentsia. News in the United States too often is what officials say it is.
Journalism in times of conflict. A weapon of war
How badly can media affect relations between the Muslim world and the west? Well, very badly. The same is done by politicians or by we who are ordinary citizens. Ayman Al-Zawahiri once said that “More than half of the battle is taking place on the battlefield of the media.” And Donald Rumsfeld declared: “A single news story … can be as damaging to our cause … as any other method of military attack.” After 9/11 these feelings of disconnect, this sort of war of the words increased. The fact was that Arabs, Europeans and Americans had very different perspectives of the conflict, and this is particularly true in the US where we have essentially seen no other viewpoint.
On the Public Sphere, Deliberation, Journalism and Dignity
“We are facing a generation who is getting all its information online. The consequence is that one’s points of reference are so multiple that they may not intersect and a common world may not emerge. But fragmentation can also bring effervescence - says Seyla Benhabib, philosopher and Professor of political science and philosophy at Yale, interviewed by Karin Wahl-Jorgensen - One medium that is in great crisis is television. I would like to see a citizens’ forum, rather than these continuously self-referential talking heads and so-called experts. We extend the boundaries of our sympathy by understanding the conditions of others who may be radically different than us – she concludes – At its best journalism does this; it extends your vision of the world by making you see the world through the eyes of the others.”
The blessing of Skype and the satellite ghetto
My father was an immigrant in France during the fifties and at the start of the sixties. For seven years he had no way of speaking to his family. Fortunately for me, my immigration experience today is drastically different from his; I call my parents on my mobile when I want and thanks to Skype I speak to my sister almost every day. I can share emails, voice messages, text messages, photos and videos with relatives and friends all over the world. But when immigrants abuse globalisation it also creates narrow-mindedness and ghettoisation. I know many immigrants who follow television programmes from their own countries every day thanks to satellite channels, and in this setting the globalisation of communication can stand in the way of an immigrant’s integration process.
Blogging in Egypt
With the increasing importance of citizen journalism on the Internet, which has burgeoned since blogging started to gain popularity in 2003, the new media are not only impacting mainstream journalism but the political process itself. Last year the World Bank reported that Egypt, with more than 4 million Internet users, had the highest rate of Internet access among non-oil Arab states. But having expanded access, Mubarak is now trying to reassert state authority over cyberspace by expanding the state security service into the virtual public arena. The more promising hope of the Internet for citizens in their quest for political reform lies in the potential for blogs to galvanize, inspire and organize.
Global Media, Reset Doc International Conference in Doha
From mass-media and satellite TV to the spread of blogging, from vertical to horizontal communication. Reset Doc, in cooperation with the Center for International and Regional Studies (Georgetown University), will host an International conference addressing the issue of how TV and other media shape the mutual (in)comprehensions between peoples belonging to different cultures and faiths.
The Al Jazeera revolution
“We lay down the revolution”. In this interview, Faisal Al-Kasim, a well-known face of Al Jazeera and manager of the much discussed programme, “The Opposite Direction”,tells Resetdoc the philosophy of television in Qatar (“We were the first to deal with such delicate issues, politics culture and religion”), defends himself from the critics and attacks Western media: “I don’t think they are doing their job. The Western media are directed by political and commercial interests, and many Arab people think that Western media are manipulated by an Israeli lobby. We are sending many journalists and correspondents to Europe to give us a fair impression of the situation in the West and I think you should do the same”.
“Islamic and yet modern television”
“So many people are spreading hate and fighting, that we feel we should spread peace and love by means of the true message of Islam. We only represent moderate and modern Islam”. Tareq Al-Suwaidan, producer of a new religious channel in Kuwait (Al-Risala), tells us about the goals of their television programme: “We show that being Muslim also means appreciating beauty, as Muslims we can enjoy ourselves, live in peace and love everyone – says Al-Suwaidan, Kuwaiti businessman who lived in the United States for 17 years. Thanks to new forms of media, freedom of expression has taken a huge step forward in comparison to twenty years ago. I truly believe that in 20 years the Arab world will be very different, more modern, and able to compete with the leaders of the world”.
The Arab press attacks “the umpteenth American farce”
A tight chorus of voices in the Arab world has derided the Annapolis initiative as “the umpteenth farce” organised by the United States. Pessimism is the leitmotiv of the Arab press. 'Azmi Bishara of Al-Hayat writes: “It has become clear that Annapolis is merely an inauguration of negotiations which will follow at a later date. How many more times do we need to inaugurate negotiations? What have the Arabs who attended Madrid been doing up until now? Negotiating! And whilst they have been negotiating Israel has been filling up the occupied territories with colonies.” According to Rajah al-Khoury of the Libanese daily Al-Nahar, “the conference will be merely another step in the disastrous course that American diplomacy has undertaken in the Middle East.”
“I saw them fighting. They have lost a battle, but they haven’t lost the war”
“I arrived when the army started becoming mean”. Tony Birtley, correspondent for the broadcaster Al Jazeera International, was the only foreign journalist of a major television to stay in Myanmar in September during the pacific protests lead by the Burmese monks against the military junta. He filmed using a small camera and was able to catch significant moments of the clashes between the protesters and the military. “It’s true, I took some risks but the story was huge and for 20 years nothing as powerful has happened in Myanmar. Now that I’m back, I feel very strongly about the people I left behind who helped me and who talked to me, risking their lives”.
The Arab press applauds Rabat
The Arab newspapers, commenting on the results of the Morrocan legislative elections, have accused Western analysts of ignorance of the political dynamics of the Arab world. Ridhi Kefi, in the Tunisian newspaper Le Temps sees in the result of the vote a confirmation of Morocco's capacity to progress along the path to democracy, albeit at its own pace and without unsettling its own secular balance: “For us Tunisians, who share our Arab-Islamic and Maghrebin identity with the Moroccans, these results offer lessons which is would be good not to ignore.” For the Libanese Al-Safir, comparisons between the PJD and the Turkish AKP cannot mask the fact that the PJD does not possess the same capacity to mobilise the people as that of the Turkish party.
How Al Jazeera is challenging and improving Egyptian journalism (Part Two)
Al Jazeera has adapted to a dispersed audience and fed its around-the-clock 24 hour news with bulletins that stand out through their innovation, their opposition to the status quo, and their ability to cross traditional boundaries. Not only has it exploited the emergence of a new 'information society' in the last decade of the twentieth century, but it has also accelerated such changes and helped to usher in a new era of competitive professionalism. Based on ethnographic research in Egypt, this paper focuses on how Al Jazeera has influenced change in the field of journalism in Egypt. The imperative of competition and emphasis on professionalism have caused exponential changes which have significant implications concerning the power of the state and the control of public opinion.
Hossein Dehbashi: portrait of a young artist
Through his films he has told the other side of the story in Iraq, the side of the victims, and of the innocent dead. Today he continues to describe the world as seen through his eyes, the eyes of a young Iranian artist. Thanks above all to Youtube.com, the site which permits the uploading and downloading of short films from across the world, Hossein Dehbashi has made a name for himself, and is today one of the most interesting documentary film makers on the international scene. It is no coincidence that, from the other side of the Atlantic, he was recently invited to a conference on the media within the Arab world, organised by the Center for Middle East Studies at the University California, Santa Barbara.
The role of religion in the Arab new media
In Egypt, the Islamist movement has always been excluded from state-controlled television as part of a wider strategy of isolating religion from popular programming. Islamists have been typically represented as hypocritical, corrupt, inept, and often buffoonish characters who are intolerant, sexually repressed and unproductive, and who never act in nation’s best interests. The Egyptian state-controlled media continues to promote this segregation, and yet Islam has now found not one but many places for itself, with the advent of transnational satellite broadcasting in the Arab world accompanied by an explosion in private, commercial television productions with Islamic themes.
How Al Jazeera is challenging and improving Egyptian journalism (Part One)
Al Jazeera has adapted to a dispersed audience and fed its around-the-clock 24 hour news with bulletins that stand out through their innovation, their opposition to the status quo, and their ability to cross traditional boundaries. Not only has it exploited the emergence of a new 'information society' in the last decade of the twentieth century, but it has also accelerated such changes and helped to usher in a new era of competitive professionalism. Based on ethnographic research in Egypt, this paper focuses on how Al Jazeera has influenced change in the field of journalism in Egypt. The imperative of competition and emphasis on professionalism have caused exponential changes which have significant implications concerning the power of the state and the control of public opinion.
Yigal Carmon: “How we give a voice to reformist Muslims”
Yigal Carmon, former colonel of the Israel Defense Force and former counterterrorism adviser to ex-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was, in 1998, the sole founder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), and remains its president. With its headquarters in Washington D.C., its principal aim is to translate the Arab media. American media organizations, such as CNN, the BBC and the Washington Post usually refer to MEMRI for translations. Through this interview we try to shed light on how MEMRI works and why it has sometimes been criticized by the Western media, which Mr. Carmon has accused of being false and misleading.
Your Letters
“I disagree with Martha Nussbaum. Islam is not compatible in its current form with democracy. Does she believe these women live in isolated pure Islamic enclaves that exist as parallel societies with no cross fertilization from other cultural groupings in India?”, asks our reader Ignatius Chamberlain. “Martha Nussbaum is totally disingenuous. To take one issue, her objection to the ban on the ‘wearing of traditional dress’, which she finds ridiculous because we deal all the time with people who are covered, e.g., surgeons – writes Elizabeth Powers - Let that surgeon wear a face mask into a bank and see if people don't treat him as a security risk”. Send us your opinion. Write to us at doc@resetdoc.org.
The Arab world behind Royal, Chirac’s true heir
The Arab press views Sarkozy and Bayrou with suspicion, considering them both, and above all Sarkozy, to be too close to Israel and the United States. The Tunisian newspaper Le Temps criticises the ambiguity of Ségolène Royal, who it sees as attempting to make a difficult compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The majority of the newspapers view the end of Chirac’s term with nostalgia, and consider his political line most likely to be followed not by his party colleague, Sarkozy, but by the Socialist candidate. “In any case,” comments a resigned Al-Hayat, “the end of Chirac’s mandate marks a huge loss for the Middle East.”
Free Daniele Mastrogiacomo - He Is Only A Journalist
The Repubblica correspondent Daniele Mastrogiacomo has been kidnapped in Afghanistan, where he was simply carrying out his work as a journalist, in search of news. His newspaper has published a message in Italian, English, Arabic, Pashtu and Farsi. Voices of support and solidarity are arriving from all over the world. If you would like to add your signature, click here. Here is the text of the appeal: “Daniele Mastrogiacomo is a Repubblica journalist. He has no links of any kind to any military organisation, nor to any secret police or intelligence services of any kind, or of any country. Mastrogiacomo has been in Kandahar since Sunday the 4th March exclusively and solely to write news reports.”
“Big Love”: When Polygamy is a Western Way of Life
Polygamy is not just an Islamic custom. It is indeed also practiced in the West, at the heart of the very West Islamists dislike most: the United States of America. An American TV channel has been airing a series that portrays a fictional fundamentalist Mormon group practicing polygamy. The show has been very successful and TV specialists view it as a way of reflecting on the meaning of family life. Mormons – the real ones – didn’t appreciate it much. Although it is just fiction, the show has perfect timing and it makes us think about ourselves: our own imperfections, our own dark sides.
“And we are washing our hands of it” – the disappointment of the Arab press
“The situation is plunging into crisis, the US is using every means possible to increase its influence in the Horn of Africa, and yet for the Arab world Somalia does not exist. The Arabs have failed to confront the Somali crisis, and have washed their hands of it.” Thus the Libanese daily Al Hayat criticizes the indifference of the Arab world towards the fate of a country which has been a member of the Arab League since 1974. It is an opinion which seems to be shared by the majority of the Arab-speaking press. “Perhaps,” comments the newspaper Al-Safir, “Arabo-Islamic states are hoping that this action will enable the Americans to combat terrorism”.
CNN, France 24, Russia Today: the Global Battle is On
France has just launched France 24, its first international news channel that will challenge BBC World and CNN. It was nurtured by French President Jacques Chirac, who would have liked an outlet for French views during the war in Iraq. It broadcasts in French and English, but there plans to add Spanish and Arabic in future. France 24 comes after two new entries on the global scenario, Russia Today and Al Jazeera International. The latter, with its Arabic version, goes on competing with Al Arabiya for pan-Arab audience. The Qatar-based network is also planning an Urdu channel and its slogan is: “If it’s newsworthy, it gets on air, whether it’s Bush or Bin Laden”.
TV News that make world worse
How does our television describe us? And how, above all, does it describe other cultures, especially the more remote? An expert on American TV unmasks a mechanism of reality distortion, that sees only chaos and disorder in the non-occidental world, emphasizing drama, emotion and crisis, and inspiring in its audience the sensation that the world is out of control and that there is no chance to restore order. This logic, in many ways, is also very clear in Italian news. How do we escape from such a world parody? By watching the BBC (or by surfing the web)?
Al Jazeera speaks English. But how?
Two months after the début of Al Jazeera International, the English-speaking channel launched by Arab Al Jazeera, Resetdoc clarifies the state of all-news satellite channels with some Arab media experts. Different opinions and expectations, one only certainty: whether loved or hated, the information labeled Qatar never leaves anybody indifferent. A fresh, long-awaited network Al Jazeera International is a direct competitor of the CNN and BBC news channels. It plans to out-flank them by addressing all English speakers whether Arab or not, an audience it will reach via satellite, cable and internet.
"We are the only Arab speaking European TV station"
Uninettuno is not only a collaborative enterprise between universities and business for the provision of distance learning university courses. It is also a satellite TV station (RaiNettunoSat) which communicates Italian culture to the Arab world. And, in the proud words of its director, Maria Amata Garito, is “the only Arab speaking European TV station”. Thanks to satellite technology and to agreements with no less than 31 Mediterranean universities in 11 countries, the lectures of the very best Arab professors are broadcast via Uninettuno throughout the Arab world (“even across the desert”).
Facing the truth
Media can determine whether or not we’ll face a clash of civilizations. “One Sunday, there was a nice, friendly gathering of around three thousand Danish people and Muslim immigrants. But there was no tv to capture it. The media was busy looking for 20 idiots who had promised to burn a Koran" so writes Guido Rampoldi, a journalist of the Italian newspaper la Repubblica. "Europeans got the impression that all the Muslims of the world were burning Danish flags, and Eastern people that all Europeans like to humiliate Muslims”.