"This book argues that Internet diffusion and use in the Middle East enables meaningful micro-changes in citizens’ lives, even in states where no Arab Spring revolution occurred. Using ethnographic evidence and taking a comparative perspective, it presents a grass roots look at how new media use f
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its into the practice of everyday life. It explores why citizens use social media to digitally route around state and other forms of power at work in their lives. This increase in citizen civic engagement, supported by new media use, offers the possibility of a new order of things, from redefining patriarchal power relations at home, to reconfigurations of citizens’ relationships with the state, broadly defined. The author argues that new media channels offer pathways to empowerment widely and cheaply in the Middle East." (Publisher description)
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"Children, defined internationally as under-18s, account for some 40 per cent of Arab populations and the proportion of under-fives is correspondingly large. Yet studies of children's media and child audiences in the region are as scarce as truly popular locally produced media content aimed at child
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ren. At the very time when conflict and uncertainty in key Arab countries have made local development and diversification of children's media more remote, it has become more urgent to gain a better understanding of how the next generation's identities and worldviews are formed. This interdisciplinary book is the first in English to probe both the state of Arab screen media for children and the practices of Arabic-speaking children in producing, as well as consuming, screen content. It responds to the gap in research by bringing together a holistic investigation of institutions and leading players, children's media experiences and some iconic media texts. With children's media increasingly linked to merchandising, which favours US-based global players and globalizing forces, this volume provides a timely insight into tensions between differing concepts of childhood and desirable media messages." (Publisher description)
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"Der Begriff "Weltmusik" war in den 1980er Jahren die gängige Beschreibung für Musikstile, die aus westlicher Perspektive "exotisch" wirkten. Er stand für unterschiedlichste musikalische Traditionen, die oftmals nicht viel mehr gemein hatten, als dass sie plötzlich für den westlichen Markt inte
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ressant und doch mit den dortigen Hörgewohnheiten kompatibel waren. Diesen Prozess der kulturellen Globalisierung und Aneignung bezeichnen Kritiker als koloniales Relikt, schreibt die Vermarktung von "Weltmusik" doch zuweilen die globalen asymmetrischen Machtverhältnisse fort. Nichtsdestotrotz haben es Labels, Privatleute und Communities geschafft, Hörern auf der ganzen Welt diverse Musiktraditionen näherzubringen und kulturelle Vermischungen und Transfers zu bewerkstelligen. Zusehends richtet sich der der Blick nun auf die vielfältigen, eigenständigen und unbequemen Sounds beispielsweise aus Afrika, Lateinamerika oder Asien und den hybriden Charakter vieler transnationaler Musikproduktionen, die eine "Weltmusik 2.0." oder einen "Global Pop" begründen. Dieses Buch stellt Konzepte und Diskurse sowie Akteure, Ausprägungen und Erscheinungsformen der abseits des Mainstreams bestehenden globalen Populärmusik vor und erhebt dabei nicht den Anspruch, die unermessliche Fülle regionaler Sounds zu dokumentieren oder gar zu systematisieren." (Verlagsbeschreibung)
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"La nature de l’enseignement et l’évaluation de la pertinence du choix des formateurs sont également sujettes à caution. En effet, 54,3 % des participants estiment que les contenus dispensés ne sont pas adaptés au contexte national. D’une certaine manière, ceci est confirmé par les form
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ateurs eux-mêmes puisque 82,3 % d’entre eux estiment ne pas connaître, ou très peu, les réalités du journalisme en Tunisie. D’une certaine manière, ceci est confirmé par les formateurs eux-mêmes puisque 82,3 % d’entre eux estiment ne pas connaître, ou très peu, les réalités du journalisme en Tunisie. De nombreux élèves ont été amenés à mettre en cause, ouvertement (pendant les sessions) ou dans le cadre des entretiens, le caractère décontextualisé ou inadapté des formations. Au-delà, il existe une corrélation entre les évaluations négatives des formations et le nombre de formations suivies par les participants. Ceux qui ont suivi plus de cinq formations (18,9 % de l’ensemble des participants) estiment à 86,3 % qu’elles ne sont pas adaptées pour plusieurs raisons : elles ne sont pas coordonnées ou harmonisées; ce qui est enseigné d’une formation à l’autre présente des aspects contradictoires; les méthodes ne sont pas praticables dans leur rédaction. Enfin, l’évaluation des formations ne semble pas pouvoir contribuer à adapter plus finement les formules pédagogiques puisque la prise en compte de la mise en pratique des contenus dispensés, sur la courte ou la moyenne durée, ne fait pas partie du protocole des opérateurs. La viabilité et l’assimilation des contenus in situ ne sont donc pas prises en considération." (Paragraphe 25)
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"Maestri and Profanter highlight that the methodological approaches adopted in this volume are both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. Focusing on the changing relationship between the dynamics of Arab communication spaces and the role of Arab women both in and through the media, the introduct
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ion reveals the editors’ ambitious task to link a series of chapters reflecting applied research on highly sensitive and pivotal issues. The influence of new technologies and feminism is seen as an important historical determinant of the human development process in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Maestri and Profanter highlight the rise of new convergences between secular and Islamic aspirations in the Arab female world and in their media and cyberspheres, where education is confirmed as a vehicle of mutual respect." (Extract)
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"Media freedom is still a fragile compromise in Tunisia and institutions and their rules are not as sustainable as one might wish for. The success of the transition process ultimately depends on the commitment of all elites to devote themselves to holding on to democracy. As could be observed in sev
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eral stages of the transition process, it was often the willingness of the political elites to make democratization work, even at the expense of their own power shares, which was essential for mastering the ride on the bumpy road of transition. However, in comparison to all other countries in the region Tunisia has found a way to negotiate its future without militant means, and, as Roxane Farmanfarmaian (2014, page 662) concludes, "a stage of no return is widely felt to have been achieved". Thus I can conclude optimistically that Tunisia's media transition might indeed become a success story." (Conclusion)
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"The prospect of a new Libyan constitution offers an opportunity for consolidated, clear and robust legal protections for freedom of expression. However, the current Constitutional Draft contains significant legal loopholes and establishes institutions of uncertain power. The failure of the Constitu
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tional Draft to adhere to international minimum standards, let alone seek to ensure best practices, means that it may ultimately further weaken human rights, including freedom of expression." (Executive summary)
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"This edited collection argues that the connective and orientation roles ascribed to diasporic media overlook the wider roles they perform in reporting intractable conflicts in the Homeland. Considering the impacts of conflict on migration in the past decades, it is important to understand the capac
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ity of diasporic media to escalate or deescalate conflicts and to serve as a source of information for their audiences in a competitive and fragmented media landscape. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, the chapters examine how the diasporic media projects the constructive and destructive outcomes of conflicts to their particularistic audiences within the global public sphere. The result is a volume that makes an important contribution to scholarship by offering critical engagements and analyzing how the diasporic media communicates information and facilitates dialogue between conflicting parties, while adding to new avenues of empirical case studies and theory development in comprehending the media coverage of conflict." (Publisher description)
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"This book provides empirical analysis of the day-to-day use of online platforms by activists in Egypt and Kuwait. The research evaluates the importance of online platforms for effecting change and establishes a specific framework for doing so. Egypt and Kuwait were chosen because, since the mid-200
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0s, they have been the most prominent Arab countries in terms of online and offline activism. In the context of Kuwait, Jon Nordenson examines the oppositional youth groups who fought for a constitutional, democratic monarchy in the emirate. In Egypt, focus surrounds the groups and organizations working against sexual violence and sexual harassment. This book shows how and why online platforms are used by activists and identifies the crucial features of successful online campaigns. Egypt and Kuwait are revealed to be authoritarian contexts but where the challenges and possibilities faced by activists are quite different. The comparative nature of this research therefore exposes the context-specific usage of online platforms, separating this from the more general features of online activism. Nordenson demonstrates the power of online activism to create an essential 'counterpublic' that can challenge an authoritarian state and enable excluded groups to fight in ways that are far more difficult to suppress than a demonstration." (Publisher description)
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"This book examines under what scope conditions foreign policy actors adopt media logic. The authors analyze media logic under three specific scope conditions: uncertainty, identity, resonance. First, they lay out the general adaptation of media logic in the general debate of the UN General Assembly
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1992-2010. They then explore the adaptation of media logic in Finland, Sweden and the United Kingdom concerning the cases of humanitarian intervention in Côte d’Ivoire and Libya, both in 2011. The results indicate the need to move beyond the assumption of a general process of mediatization affecting politics in total. Instead, they point in the direction of a nuanced process of mediatization more likely under certain scope conditions and in certain political contexts." (Publisher description)
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"Nadia Sraieb-Koepp shares her experiences designing participatory media campaigns and visual strategies that helped facilitate the democratic transition in Tunisia in 2011. She offers her thoughts about the need for inclusive social media strategies designed to counter recruitment messages targetin
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g youth by violent extremists." (Introduction to part 5, page 241)
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"Morocco’s 2015 Press Code eliminates prison as a punishment for speech offenses. This, on its face, represents progress for freedom of expression in a country where journalists and ordinary citizens have been locked up for “insulting” the king, questioning Morocco’s claim over Western Sahar
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a, or rapping about police corruption. The Red Lines Stay Red: Morocco’s Reform of its Speech Laws analyzes the laws governing speech offenses in Morocco and finds that the recent overhaul falls well short of securing freedom of speech as guaranteed by international conventions and Morocco’s own 2011 constitution. Imprisonment as punishment for crossing Morocco’s famous “red lines” – causing harm to Islam, “territorial integrity,” the institution of the monarchy, or the person of the king – is alive and well. While the new press code punishes “red line” offenses only with the suspension of publications, judges can, thanks to new provisions of the penal code, still hand down prison sentences for these offenses. In addition, the penal code continues to mandate prison sentences for other speech offenses such as “insulting” state institutions or state agents, and broadly defined notions of “praising terrorism,” “casting discredit on judicial decisions,” and “inciting hatred or discrimination." (Back cover)
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"Egyptian journalists' most important role orientations are to be a detached observer, to report things as they are, to provide information people need to make political decisions, to let people express their views, to motivate people to participate in political activity, and to provide analysis for
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current affairs. As the reasonably low standard deviations indicates, there is little disagreement among journalists as to the importance of these roles. The least important journalistic roles among Egyptian journalists were to convey a positive image of political leadership (21.4%), support government policy (22.1%), and to provide entertainment and relaxation (35.2%). Still, a majority of journalists in Egypt found it important to influence public opinion, advocate for social change, monitor and scrutinize political leaders, and support national development. On the other hand, journalists were not as supportive of interventionist role orientations such as set the political agenda and providing advice, orientation and direction for daily life." (Journalistic roles, pages 1-2)
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"With a focus on young Egyptian women, this article explores the different ways it becomes possible to reconcile a Muslim identity with a cosmopolitan openness towards the world. Informed primarily by transnational television, these women articulate a divine cosmopolitan imagination through which th
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ey form multiple allegiances to God, the nation and global culture simultaneously. Thus, a close analysis of their regular consumption of transnational television helps challenge linear and somewhat naturalized preconceptions of how Muslims articulate perceptions of self and others. In the articulation of both their cosmopolitan imagination and religious identities, young Egyptian women have become skilled negotiators, moving within and between mediated and non-mediated discourses. They move physically within a grounded place that sets the moral boundaries for bodily existence, yet shift subjectively between disembedded spaces of mediated representation, often providing new contexts for meaning and inclusivity. The result, for young Egyptian women, is a divine cosmopolitan imagination." (Abstract)
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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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"The markets we do include are a very diverse bunch, from the very closed and politically tightly controlled such as Laos; through a large number of nations on the African continent which have seen a sudden improvement in digital infrastructure thanks to the landing of several new submarine intercon
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tinental fibre optic cables over the past few years; and not forgetting markets like Trinidad & Tobago, which seems to enjoy a large choice of TV channels to serve a relatively modest population; or indeed Iran, fresh from its welcome back into the international fold following the suspension of UN sanctions in January 2016. For each market, we give some economic data sourced from the IMF, as well as our estimates and forecasts for advertising expenditure and growth in its ad market to 2018. We also provide a short commentary setting out an overview of the media market in question." (Page 1)
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