"To thrive in a marketplace that is increasingly competitive, slower-growing, and dependent on personal recommendations, companies must develop strategies that engage, grow, and monetize their most valuable customers — i.e., their fans. To do so, they must combine excellent content with breadth an
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d depth of distribution, and then bring it all together in an innovative user experience, in which the content is discoverable easily on an array of screens and at an attractive price. Simply capturing the natural growth in consumers and their uptake of services and content with existing approaches is no longer sufficient. Across the industry, the resulting quest to create the most compelling, engaging, and intuitive user experiences is now the primary objective for growth and investment strategies — and technology and data lie at their center." (Executive summary)
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"The internationally acclaimed films Persepolis and Waltz with Bashir only hinted at the vibrant animation culture that exists within the Middle East and North Africa. In spite of censorship, oppression and war, animation studios have thrived in recent years - in Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco,
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Palestine, Syria and Turkey - giving rise to a whole new generation of entrepreneurs and artists. The success of animation in the Middle East is in part a product of a changing cultural climate, which is increasingly calling for art that reflects politics. Equally, the professionalization and popularization of film festivals and the emergence of animation studios and private initiatives are the results of a growing consumer culture, in which family-friendly entertainment is big business. This book uncovers the history and politics that have defined the practice and study of animation in the Middle East, and explores the innovative visions of contemporary animators in the region." (Publisher description)
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"This book gives readers a glimpse into how Al Jazeera has strategically cast its journalists as martyrs in the struggle for Arab freedom while promoting itself as the mouthpiece and advocate of the Arab public. In addition to heralding a new era of Arab democracy, Al Jazeera has become a major infl
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uence over Arab perceptions of American involvement in the Arab World, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the rise of global Islamic fundamentalism, and the expansion of the political far right. Al Jazeera's blueprint for "Muslim-democracy" was part of a vision announced by the network during its earliest broadcasts. The network embarked upon a mission to reconstruct the Arab mindset and psyche. Al Jazeera introduced exiled Islamist leaders to the larger Arab public while also providing Muslim feminists a platform. The inclusion and consideration of Westerners, Israelis, Hamas, secularists and others earned the network a reputation for pluralism and inclusiveness. Al Jazeera presented a mirror to an Arab world afraid to examine itself and its democratic deficiencies. But rather than assuming that Al Jazeera is a monolithic force for positive transformation in Arab society, Fridays of Rage examines the potentially dark implications of Al Jazeera's radical re-conceptualization of media as a strategic tool or weapon. As a powerful and rapidly evolving source of global influence, Al Jazeera embodies many paradoxes--the manifestations and effects of which we are likely only now becoming apparent. Fridays of Rage guides readers through this murky territory, where journalists are martyrs, words are weapons, and facts are bullets." (Publisher description)
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"Global Media Giants takes an in-depth look at how media corporate power works globally, regionally, and nationally, investigating the ways in which the largest and most powerful media corporations in the world wield power. Case studies examine not only some of the largest media corporations (News C
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orp, Microsoft) in terms of revenues, but also media corporations that hold considerable power within national, regional, or geolinguistic contexts (Televisa, Bertelsmann, Sony). Each chapter approaches a different corporation through the lens of economy, politics, and culture, giving students and scholars a thoughtful and data-driven guide with which to interrogate contemporary media industry power." (Publisher description)
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"Satellite TV channels from the Middle East started beaming into Eritrea from 1996, and the Eritrean youth are avid consumers of the global messages from across the borders. Following an in-depth interview method as a research technique, using an unstructured, openended questionnaire, the present st
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udy presents how ethnicity and religion play a role in making meaning out of the messages of Middle East-based Arabic TV channels among lowland Tigre-/Arabic-speaking Eritrean youth aged 18–25 years. The researchers have observed the way foreign TV channel programmes have influenced family norms, social roles for women, sexual norms, lifestyles and music preferences of young Tigre viewers. The study concludes that Islam and Arabic language are two important factors influencing the lowland Tigre youth in picking up Arabic channels as they reinforce the same culture and traditions apart from creating Pan-Arab identities among the Arabic-/Tigre-speaking youth, at the same time preserving the indigenous culture from the influence of the West." (Abstract)
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"Der Atlas stellt anhand von Texten, Grafiken und Illustrationen die wichtigsten Ereignisse und Protagonisten der sozialen und politischen Umbrüche in der arabischen Welt vor. Er beleuchtet speziell auch die regionalen wie globalen Auswirkungen. Dabei kommen ganz wesentlich Journalisten und Wissens
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chaftler aus den jeweiligen Ländern zu Wort." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"Offers up-to-date insights into the state of library and information science (LIS) in the Middle East and North Africa. Covered topics include information literacy, intellectual property, LIS education and research, publishing and more. This timely contribution thus presents vital areas of research
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on a region that receives relatively little coverage and is currently experiencing rapid and significant changes." (Publisher description)
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"ZenithOptimedia predicts global ad expenditure will grow 4.6% in 2016, reaching US$579 billion by the end of the year. This will be a 0.7 percentage point improvement on 2015: 2016 is a ‘quadrennial’ year, when ad expenditure is boosted by the Summer Olympics, the US presidential election and t
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he UEFA football championship in Europe. The global ad market has enjoyed stable growth since 2011, with growth rates ranging between 4% and 5% a year, and we expect it to maintain this pace for the rest of the forecast period." (Page 1)
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"The development of new and social networking sites, as well as the growth of transnational Arab television, has triggered a debate about the rise in transnational political and religious identification, as individuals and groups negotiate this new triad of media, religion and culture. This book exa
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mines the implications of new media on the rise of political Islam and on Islamic religious identity in the Arab Middle East and North Africa, as well as among Muslim Arab Diasporas. Undoubtedly, the process of globalization, especially in the field of media and ICTs, challenges the cultural and religious systems, particularly in terms of identity formation. Across the world, Arab Muslims have embraced new media not only as a source of information but also as a source of guidance and fatwas, thereby transforming Muslim practices and rituals. This volume brings together chapters from a range of specialists working in the field, presenting a variety of case studies on new media, identity formation and political Islam in Muslim communities both within and beyond the MENA region." (Publisher description)
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"Citizen Media and Public Spaces presents a pioneering exploration of citizen media as a highly interdisciplinary domain that raises vital political, social and ethical issues relating to conceptions of citizenship and state boundaries, the construction of publics and social imaginaries, processes o
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f co-optation and reverse co-optation, power and resistance, the ethics of witnessing and solidarity, and novel responses to the democratic deficit. Framed by a substantial introduction by the editors, the twelve contributions to the volume interrogate the concept of citizen media theoretically and empirically, and offer detailed case studies that extend from the UK to Russia and Bulgaria and from China to Denmark and the liminal spaces within which a growing number of refugees now live.A rich new domain of scholarship and practice emerges out of the studies presented. Citizen media is shown to embrace both physical and digital interventions in public space, as well as the sets of values and agendas that influence and drive the practices and discourses through which individuals and collectives position themselves within and in relation to society and participate in the creation of diverse publics." (Publisher description)
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"This study identified three local or subregional incidents that led to heated debates on Twitter: a video shared on Twitter of the sexual assault of a woman on Cairo’s Tahrir Square in June 2014, anti-fracking protests in southern Algeria in early 2015, and Saudi Arabia’s military intervention
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in Yemen in March 2015 [...] By closely tracing how Twitter debates on these three issues unfolded and conducting interviews with agenda setters for these debates, this study sheds light on Twitter’s role in important social and political discussions as well as on the scope and patterns of Twitter networks. In other words, it highlights the various ways Twitter is being utilized by ordinary people, activists, media outlets, and officials, and it provides an idea of the political impact they can have via Twitter." (Page 5)
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"This report contains the collected, examined, and produced information on the fundamental characteristics of the media and communication industries, whenever possible, in the MENA region as a whole. It typically includes 14 countries from Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean to Oman on the Arab Gulf. F
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ive MENA countries have been selected for more detailed information: Egypt, Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In probing the media landscape, we examine large and small countries from North Africa and the Gulf; some that are quite stable, some more turbulent; media-rich and media-poor with different regimes and degrees of media regulation. So, this report finally complements our surveys of the media audience with a close and systematic look at the media content offering, its production, and distribution. This report consists of sections for each individual medium as traditionally defined: television, film, radio, magazines, newspapers, and recorded music. With the ongoing (but not total) migration of traditional media to digital platforms, digital has a section of its own." (www.mideastmedia.org/industry/2016/about/#s68)
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"This report is the fifth in a series of annual reports designed to capture key developments and data related to usage of social media in the Middle East. The past year has seen the continued growth of visual-led social networks, especially in the more affluent Gulf region. Meanwhile, the discernibl
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e growth in mobile social users(+66% notes the creative agency We Are Social) emphasizes the increasing primacy of the mobile social experience. For many users, mobile is the only way that they interact with social networks. Mobile platforms, for millions in the region, will also offer their first online experience. Recognizing this, companies like Facebook have launched Facebook Lite, an Android app targeting users on slow networks (and with small dataplans). Their Free Basics program allows customers on the Zain network in Jordan and Asia Cell, Korek and Zain in Iraq avoid data charges when using Facebook on their mobile devices. Will other providers follow suit? Yet, for all the positives, the social experience in some parts of the region remains beset with challenges. Networks and services can be blocked – both temporarily and permanently – and issues around freedom of expression persist." (Introduction)
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"This report presents an evaluation of the utility of social media for conducting research, monitoring and evaluation in the MENA region, using a case study approach. The Twitter based reaction to the reported cancellation/reduction of food provision by World Food Programme (WFP) for Syrian Refuges
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was taken as the case study [...] The application of frequency analysis to the case study showed that information regarding ebb and flow of the popularity or awareness of the cuts to the WFP could be obtained from Twitter. Spikes in popularity or awareness on Twitter related to key reports in the media relating to the cuts. These spikes were subjected to further analysis using topic classification. Simple topic classification was performed on the spikes identified in the frequency analysis. Wordclouds are simple but effective methods for viewing the high-level discussion on social media. Words are sized in the wordcloud based on their frequency – the bigger the word, the more frequently it is used. The accounts @60Minutes and @bbcworld were dominant in the visualizations, confirming the broadcast reaction on Twitter. To further refine the analysis these Twitter accounts were visualised in retweet networks. Social Network graphs were used to visualise interactions between accounts posting about cuts to the WFP on Twitter. The size of nodes (accounts) in the graphs corresponded to amount of interactions with other nodes (accounts), indicating their relative importance in propagating information about the cuts to the WFP on Twitter. The graphs also identified nodes (accounts) that acted as bridges for information to travel from one Twitter community to another." (Executive summary)
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"Der junge Deutsch-Araber Jaafar Abdul Karim ist ein Star im arabischen Programm der Deutschen Welle. Simone Schlindwein, Afrika-Korrespondentin der taz, sprach mit ihm über Journalismus in Zeiten der Radikalisierung im In- und Ausland." (Seite 30)
"The aim of this article is to introduce and examine the work of Christian media, mainly the satellite television channels, in the Middle East. The reason for focussing only on the satellite channels is because the television channels are still the main players and have attracted more attention, esp
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ecially since television programs have adapted multi-layered media platforms. As a result their audience can choose when and how to view their preferred programs. Therefore, in this paper, firstly, I will briefly describe the general understanding of the function of media technology in the Middle East. Secondly, the Arabic and Farsi Christian channels will be introduced together with their functions. Thirdly, the importance of Christian media will be discussed in three segments: Christian manifestation in the region; a voice for peace, hope and healing; an alternative belief system for the disillusioned and seekers. This section will also give a critique of the work of Christian channels. I will conclude that Christians, as well as the region, are in need of hearing the voice of Christ who speaks of hope, faith and love in order to bring peace into the devastated Middle East. It follows that Christian media have a great opportunity and responsibility to present voices of hope and courage, to restore the forgotten history of Christ within the cultures of the Middle East, and to disciple the seekers of the truth." (Abstract)
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"This study provides a snapshot of refugees’ experiences regarding communication and information at different points on their journey. It examines the communication behaviours and priority information needs of refugees in three areas: on their journey, in “transit” camps in Greece, and in Germ
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any, for those who have reached this key destination country for refugees. The research consists of interviews with refugees and with humanitarian agency officials in Greece and Germany. The study examines how refugees access and use information, and presents the concerns and challenges faced by humanitarian agencies in addressing their needs. A total of 66 refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq participated in the qualitative study in formal and informal camps in Greece. An additional 13 interviews took place in Germany – capturing the voices of those who had completed their journey. A total of 16 focus group discussions were also conducted. Participants were asked to tell the story of their journey so far, focusing particularly on the information and communication they needed and used at different stages. In-depth interviews with 41 humanitarian actors in Greece and four in Germany captured their understanding of refugees’ communication needs." (Executive summary)
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"Television executives and producers are busy for 11 months of the year, preparing for the do-or-die one-month television season: Ramadan. This ninth month in the Islamic lunar calendar is at once a period of religious devotion and a time for the television industry’s best productions. It is a tim
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e when viewership soars, advertising rates peak, and television programs become topics of daily conversation. During Ramadan, programmers mostly provide Musalsalat (serials) that emphasize habitual viewing with the use of character development over multiple episodes, cliffhangers, strong emotions, and highly charged plots. Over the last few years, Ramadan programs have become popular with all segments of the society: young and old, rich and poor, females and males." (www.mideastmedia.org)
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