"Libyans and Tunisians have grown weary of coverage that represents the interests of those who run or fund the channels and consequently place little trust in the media. Perhaps as a result of these limitations, the audiences are savvy and discerning consumers who “shop around” to access informa
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tion and verify what they have found. People desire the media to do more than highlight problems. They want it to discuss solutions and act as a force for good rather than foster division. The degree to which this is possible varies by state." (Executive summary)
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"Television viewing is ubiquitous in Egypt and by far the most common source of information for its residents. Nearly all (98.8%) Egyptians have a working television in their home, while just 37.9% of Egyptians have a radio. The percentage of Egyptians with a radio in their household is down signifi
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cantly from 2012, when nearly half of the population (49.7%) reported having one. Internet access at home is up slightly from 22.3%, but remains fairly limited, with one in four Egyptians (25.5%) having Internet access in their household." (Page 1)
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"Internet freedom around the world has declined for the fourth consecutive year, with a growing number of countries introducing online censorship and monitoring practices that are simultaneously more aggressive and more sophisticated in their targeting of individual users. In a departure from the pa
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st, when most governments preferred a behind-the-scenes approach to internet control, countries are rapidly adopting new laws that legitimize existing repression and effectively criminalize online dissent." (Page 1)
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"Examining the opportunities presented by the real-time generation of new, relatively unregulated content online, Uncommon Grounds evaluates the prominent role that new media has come to play in artistic practices – and social movements – in the Arab world today. Analysing alternative forms of c
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reating, broadcasting, publishing, distributing and consuming digital images, this book also enquires into a broader global concern: does new media offer a ‘democratisation’ of – and a productive engagement with – visual culture, or merely capitalise upon the effect of immediacy at the expense of depth? Featuring full-colour artists’ inserts, this is the first book to extensively explore the degree to which the grassroots popularity of Twitter and Facebook has been co-opted into mainstream media, institutional and curatorial characterisations of ‘revolution’ – and whether artists should be wary of perpetuating the rhetoric and spectacle surrounding political events." (Publisher description)
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"Entertainment Media Use in the Middle East is the result of survey research in six Arab nations involving more than 6,000 face-to-face interviews in nationally representative samples—citizens and expatriates alike—and conducted in Arabic, English and French. The result is a portrait of how peop
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le in the six countries, selected to represent the larger Arab world, make use of entertainment media in their daily lives and what they think about it." (Introduction)
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"[This publication] re-emphasizes the important contribution that broadband Internet can make and assesses the status of existing infrastructure in at least 18 MENA countries. While there is significant potential across the region, the take-up of broadband Internet has been slow and the price of bro
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adband service is high in many countries. In large part, this stems from market structures that, too often, reflect the past when telecommunications were treated as a monopoly utility service. The report finds that there are gaps in infrastructure regionally with no connectivity between neighboring countries in some cases. Similarly, there are gaps within countries exacerbating the (digital) divide between rural and urban areas. Broadband Networks in the Middle East and North Africa examines the regulatory and market bottlenecks that are hampering the growth of the Internet." (Back cover)
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"Self-censorship habits are entrenched in the practices of Egyptian journalists, who largely perceive their role as servants of political masters. Even though the debate on reforming media was high on the agenda during the time of the revolution, this subservient perception did not change. Journalis
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ts were still struggling to cope with a new environment where they could operate without instructions. The deep political polarization between pro-Islamists and pro-liberals under the Brotherhood rule transformed media into the favourite platform for political spin. The newfound liberty was translated into a chaotic expression of unfounded views and rumours [...] Egyptian media reform requires a complex operation involving both legal reform and institutional review of media practices and professional standards." (Executive summary)
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"This Global Information Society Watch tracks the state of communications surveillance in 57 countries across the world – countries as diverse as Hungary, India, Argentina, The Gambia, Lebanon and the United Kingdom. Each country report approaches the issue from a different perspective. Some analy
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se legal frameworks that allow surveillance, others the role of businesses in collecting data (including marketing data on children), the potential of biometrics to violate rights, or the privacy challenges when implementing a centralised universal health system. The perspectives from long-time internet activists on surveillance are also recorded. Using the 13 International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance as a starting point, eight thematic reports frame the key issues at stake. These include discussions on what we mean by digital surveillance, the implications for a human rights agenda on surveillance, the “Five Eyes” inter-government surveillance network led by the US, cyber security, and the role of intermediaries." (GIS website)
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"This book focuses on eight films by some of the nation's best-known directors, including Man of Ashes (1986), Bezness (1992), and Making Of (2006) by Nouri Bouzid, Halfaouine (1990) by Férid Boughedir, The Silences of the Palace (1994) by Moufida Tlatli, Essaïda (1997) by Mohamed Zran, Bedwin Hac
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ker (2002) by Nadia El Fani, and The TV Is Coming (2006) by Moncef Dhouib. It explores the political economy and social, historical, and psychoanalytic dimensions of these works and the strategies filmmakers deployed to preserve cinema's ability to shape debates about national identity. These debates, the book argues, not only helped initiate the 2011 uprising that ousted Ben Ali's regime but also did much to inform and articulate the aspirations of the Tunisian people in the new millennium." (Publisher description)
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"We are pleased to be sharing with you the second yearbook on media and information literacy and intercultural dialogue. The first MILID Yearbook was published in June 2013 [...] The theme of the 2014 Yearbook is Global Citizenship in a Digital World. Global citizenship assumes ease of participation
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in global spaces in which persons are media and information literate and are equipped with competencies and attitudes to deal with the multi-faceted nature of a mediated world in which information is no longer bound by space or time. The unprecedented access to and use of media and Internet technologies for communication and collaboration especially among youth, suggest that effective strategies must be found to enable active critical inquiry and effective media production." (Foreword, page 7)
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"Despite the importance of media ownership transparency for both the individual and the state, only two of the surveyed countries—Italy and Romania—address media transparency directly in their constitutions but in both cases the focus is on transparency of fi nancial sources not ownership. In th
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e Turkish Constitution the state is empowered to require information as a precondition to publication. None of these constitutions therefore impose an express positive obligation on the state to ensure that the public has access to information on media ownership. Although the Constitution of Norway does not expressly refer to media ownership transparency, Norwegian media ownership rules, which do provide for ownership transparency, refer back to the provisions on freedom of expression in article 100 of the Constitution. These impose on the state a positive duty to create conditions that “facilitate open and enlightened public discourse”, thus underlining the link between freedom of expression and media ownership transparency." (Key findings, page 3)
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"With essays on audiences in ancient Greece, early modern Germany, Soviet and post-Soviet Russia, Zimbabwe, contemporary Egypt, Bengali India, China, Taiwan, and immigrant diaspora in Belgium, each chapter examines the ways in which audiences are embedded in discourses of power, representation, and
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regulation in different yet overlapping ways according to specific socio-historical contexts." (Publisher description)
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"This is the first collection to de-Westernize the scholarship on women, politics and media by: 1) highlighting the latest research on countries and regions that have not been ‘the usual suspects’; 2) featuring a diverse group of scholars, many of non-Western origin; 3) giving voice through pers
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onal interviews to politically active women, thus providing the reader with a rare insight into women's agency in the political structures of emerging democracies. Each chapter examines the complex women, politics and media dynamic in a particular nation-state, taking into consideration the specific political, historic and social context. With 23 case studies and interviews from Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, this volume will be of interest to students, media scholars and policy makers from developed and emerging democracies." (Publisher description)
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"Masudul Biswas and Carrie Sipes perform a comparative content analysis of Twitter and Facebook posts from a sample of Syrian and Libyan activist groups. By considering online content in the context of post-revolution Libya and the continuing upheaval in Syria, the authors shed new light on online a
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ctivist agenda-setting. They find that while social media is used as a tool to maintain and expand momentum during revolution, in a post-revolution climate the same media serves as a venue for idea-sharing and political discourse." (www.arabmediasociety.com)
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"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." (Publisher description)
"Today the relations between Arab audiences and Arab media are characterised by pluralism and fragmentation. More than a thousand Arab satellite TV channels alongside other new media platforms are offering all kinds of programming. Religion has also found a vital place as a topic in mainstream media
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or in one of the approximately 135 religious satellite channels that broadcast guidance and entertainment with an Islamic frame of reference. How do Arab audiences make use of mediated religion in negotiations of identity and belonging? The empirical based case studies in this interdisciplinary volume explore audience-media relations with a focus on religious identity in different countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, and the United States." (Publisher description)
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