Middle East media in major flux

Satellite television has been the primary driver or catalyst of the changes going on in the Arab media sphere, says the session’s moderator — Keith Porter from the Stanley Foundation. Porter positions panArab news channels like Jazeera and Arabiya as the spearheaders of this move towards a much more aware and accountable media regionwide,

Rami Khouri — editor at large of the Lebanese Daily Star newspaper — continues this conversational thread by arguing that Arabia and Jazeera are more balanced than any US organization in the way they present more than one point of view on issues like the war in Iraq, for instance. Khouri is so sure of this that he says he is willing to bet a double felafel (or roast beef if thats your fancy) on this point.

Khouri clarifies what he calls an important misconception — that its not that the media that is deliberately inciting anti american sentiment in the region, because this media is just a true mirror of that sentiment among a significant portion of the public. He also denies that Jazeera is a mouthpiece of al Qaeda.

300 million people in 23 countries can absorb even more serious news channels, says Salah Negm, who is working on a new project to establish a BBC Arabic TV channel.

Meanwhile, via a live satellite feed from Iraq, Zuheir Al-Jazeiry of Awsat al-Iraq talks about how the sudden boom in media outlets there may have confounded people at first, but with time the public began to clearly identify the leanings of each organization based on their editorial line.

Jihad Ballout of Al-Arabia argues that the emergence of more channels has also helped improve the work habits of Arab journalists, since healthy competition — which did not really exist in the region previously — tends to do that.

Michael Craig of the Stanley Foundation sees the new media landcape as a reflection of an emerging rebirth of Arab nationalism, which many had already declared dead.

The discussion then moves in the direction of whether or not this newfound and active information society will actually result in more political participation, more audience participation, more interaction between media and society, etc. Too many subjects, not enough time… In any case, the answers may still not be there, but what is clear is that the region’s media landscape will never be the same.

TAG: wemedia