The Press in the Arab Middle East


Book Description

Middle Eastern newspapers evolved in the 19th century and were shaped during a period of accelerated change into a unique political, social and cultural role. Drawing on a wealth of sources, this study explores the press as a fundamental Middle Eastern institution.




Arab Media


Book Description

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.




Arab Media Systems


Book Description

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.




News Media in the Arab World


Book Description

News Media in the Arab World: A Study of 10 Arab and Muslim Countries is based on ongoing research at the Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester, and has investigated the rapidly changing nature of the news media in Arab countries. They have investigated the role of newspapers and television in news provision and the impact of new media developments, most especially the emergence of the internet as a platform for news distribution and of international satellite television channels such as Al Jazeera. Examining the constantly developing nature of news, the collection contains separately authored chapters produced by the researchers responsible for each original analysis, covering Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Based on original primary and secondary research, this will be the first empirical-based collection to blend perspectives from both the Western and Arab nations.




Music and Media in the Arab World


Book Description

Frishkopf, Michael: Introduction: Music and media in the Arab world and music and media in the Arab world as music and media in the Arab world : a metadiscourse. - S. 1-64 Nassar, Zein: A history of music and singing on Egyptian radio and television. - S. 67-76 Abdel-Aziz, Moataz: Arabic music videos and their implications for Arab music and media. - S. 77-89 Wassimi, Mounir al-: Arab music and changes in the Arab media. - S. 91-96 Cestor, Elisabeth: Music and television in Lebanon. - S. 97-110 Ulaby, Laith: Mass media and music in the Arab Persian Gulf. - S. 111-126 Abdel-Latif, Yasser: Music of the streets : the story of a television program. - S. 129-136 Grippo, James R.: What's not on Egyptian television and radio! : locating the 'popular' in Egyptian Sha'bi . - S. 137-162 Elmessiri, Abdel-Wahab: Ruby and the checkered heart. - S. 163-172 Kubala, Patricia: The controversy over satellite : music television in contemporary Egypt. - S. 173-224 Barghouti, Tamim al-: Caliphs and clips. - S. 225-230 Armbrust, Walter: What would Sayyid Qutb say? : some reflections on video clips. - S. 231-254 Darwish, Hany: Images of women in advertisements and video clips : a case study of Sherif Sabri. - S. 255-263 Khachab, Walid El-: Arab video music : imagined territories and the liberation of desire (or sex lives in video (clip)). - S. 265-275 Abdel-Fattah, Wael: The biographies of Stalets today : revolutions in sound and images. - S. 277-290 Meizel, Katherine: Real-politics : televised talent competitions and democracy promotion in the Middle East. - S. 291-308.




Arab Media


Book Description

Ever since the events of 9/11, great attention has been paid to Arab mass media by politicians, experts and journalists around the world. Many have argued that Arab media has been the catalyst for various political and social developments ranging from democracy to political radicalization and from Westernization to Arab and Muslim cultural renaissance. Much of the debate, however, has been too narrowly focused-particularly on the famous TV network al-Jazeera. This leaves the majority of the dynamic Arab media unnoticed. Moreover, the existing scholarly literature on the subject often lacks theoretical and empirical sophistication, and it is these gaps that this book addresses. Kai Hafez has invited the best scholars on the subject, from around the world, to participate, with the aim of evaluating, revising, and stimulating the academic debate on Arab media. Arab Media: Power and Weakness is comprised of research synopses (comprehensive overviews over the current academic literature and "blind spots" of research in one of the above mentioned fields); original empirical research; and theoretical papers. The result is a comprehensive handbook of up-to date research and scholarship on this important and fast-changing subject, which will be of use to all students and researchers of the contemporary Arab world.




The Arab Jews


Book Description

This book is about the social history of the Arab Jews—Jews living in Arab countries—against the backdrop of Zionist nationalism. By using the term "Arab Jews" (rather than "Mizrahim," which literally means "Orientals") the book challenges the binary opposition between Arabs and Jews in Zionist discourse, a dichotomy that renders the linking of Arabs and Jews in this way inconceivable. It also situates the study of the relationships between Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews in the context of early colonial encounters between the Arab Jews and the European Zionist emissaries—prior to the establishment of the state of Israel and outside Palestine. It argues that these relationships were reproduced upon the arrival of the Arab Jews to Israel. The book also provides a new prism for understanding the intricate relationships between the Arab Jews and the Palestinian refugees of 1948, a link that is usually obscured or omitted by studies that are informed by Zionist historiography. Finally, the book uses the history of the Arab Jews to transcend the assumptions necessitated by the Zionist perspective, and to open the door for a perspective that sheds new light on the basic assumptions upon which Zionism was founded.




The Rise of the Arab American Left


Book Description

In this first history of Arab American activism in the 1960s, Pamela Pennock brings to the forefront one of the most overlooked minority groups in the history of American social movements. Focusing on the ideas and strategies of key Arab American organizations and examining the emerging alliances between Arab American and other anti-imperialist and antiracist movements, Pennock sheds new light on the role of Arab Americans in the social change of the era. She details how their attempts to mobilize communities in support of Middle Eastern political or humanitarian causes were often met with suspicion by many Americans, including heavy surveillance by the Nixon administration. Cognizant that they would be unable to influence policy by traditional electoral means, Arab Americans, through slow coalition building over the course of decades of activism, brought their central policy concerns and causes into the mainstream of activist consciousness. With the support of new archival and interview evidence, Pennock situates the civil rights struggle of Arab Americans within the story of other political and social change of the 1960s and 1970s. By doing so, she takes a crucial step forward in the study of American social movements of that era.




Arab Media in the Information Age


Book Description

A collection of conference papers analyzing the Arab media's influence in shaping Arab public opinion and Western perspectives of the Arab world.




Printing Arab Modernity


Book Description

During the nineteenth century, the American Mission Press in Beirut printed religious and secular publications written by foreign missionaries and Syrian scholars such as Nāṣīf al-Yāzijī and Buṭrus al-Bustānī, of later nahḍa fame. In a region where presses were still not prevalent, letterpress-printed and lithographed works circulated within a larger network that was dominated by manuscript production. In this book, Hala Auji analyzes the American Press publications as important visual and material objects that provide unique insights into an era of changing societal concerns and shifting intellectual attitudes of Syria’s Muslim and Christian populations. Contending that printed books are worthy of close visual scrutiny, this study highlights an important place for print culture during a time of an emerging Arab modernity.