Modern Arab Journalism Problems and

MODERN
ARAB
JOURNALISM
Problems and Prospects
NOHA MELLOR
Modern Arab Journalism
Modern Arab Journalism
Problems and Prospects
Noha Mellor
Edinburgh University Press

© Noha Mellor, 2007
Edinburgh University Press Ltd

22 George Square, Edinburgh
Typeset in 11/13 pt Stempel Garamond by

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printed and bound in Great Britain by
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3411 8 (paperback)
The right of Noha Mellor to be identified as author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Contents
List of Figures and Tables ix
Introduction 1
Journalism and Critical Theory 2
Journalism as a social field 3
Western theories for non-Western practices 4
The road not taken 6
1 Media: The Bridge to Globalization 9

Globalization as hybridity 10
Struggle over power 15
Hybridity as a national project 20
Visibility: the motif for action 26
Reflexivity: the fuel of change 31
Media as a bridge 34
Challenging tradition 38
Conclusion 40
2 The Arab Journalistic Field 42

Bourdieu’s contours of a field 44
Pan-Arabism 48
From scarcity to abundance 50
Internal hierarchy 55
Popularity of the field 58
Gendered newsrooms 60
Access to the field 63
Institutional identity 66
Measuring success 67
vi Modern Arab Journalism
Analytical framework 69
Conclusion 71
3 Journalism as a Beacon for Democracy 73

The Habermasian ideal 74
An idealized Arab public sphere 75
An ideal citizen 77
Arab solidarity 80
A rational debate out of the rational sphere 84
The role of media in the public sphere 86
A discourse community 88
Why does language matter? 90
The heated debate around language 92
Conclusion 96
4 The Dichotomy of the Public/Private Sphere 97

Urban news 98
A private appeal to a privileged public 104
Layers of the private sphere 109
Local is bad, global is good? 112
Conclusion 115
5 Global Media, Global Public Sphere? 118

The global public sphere: a dialogic arena 120
Arab journalism and modern polity 121
Hybridity in Arab media 123
The journalistic identity 127
A journalistic milestone 130
Émigré press as hybrid media 132
Dates to remember in a global war 137
Conclusion 139
6 Truth Martyrs 140

Journalist as onlooker 142
Journalist as auditor 147
Journalists as truth martyrs 154
Conclusion 162
7 Arab Journalism as an Academic Discipline 165

Rise of media education 166
Difficulties in research and staffing 170
Contents vii
Arab methodologies 171

The positivistic paradigm 173
Arab critique 175
Al-Jabri’s pan-Arab project 177
An Islamic epistemology 179
Role of academia 182
Western scholarship: a role model? 184
Conclusion 189
Conclusion 191
The scholarly endeavor 192
The road ahead? 193
Notes 195
References 220
Index 239
Figures and Tables
Figure 1.1 Dialectic relationship between structure

and agents 18
Figure 2.1 The distribution of power among Arab
news media 69
Figure 3.1 The ideal citizenry 79
Figure 4.1 Layers of the private sphere 111
Figure 5.1 Hybridity as intersection of exteriority
and interiority 125
Figure 6.1 The distribution of journalistic roles 159
Table 4.1 The public versus private realms 103

Table 4.2 Examples of different local outlets 110
To Arab women . . . the real heroes
Introduction
If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet,
then you must write it.
Toni Morrison
If the buzzword for the past decade was “globalization”, for this
decade it is “Middle East”, a region that has usually been associated
with a fair amount of violence and turmoil since the independence
of its states. Knowledge and research about this region, particularly
the Arab States, has recently moved from a focus on politics and
history into the field of media and popular culture. This shift has been
made possible because of the increased interconnections brought
about by globalization and the technological leap that has made access
to information and news concerning this region fast and easy. The
emergence of new Arab media outlets marking an Arab presence on
the world communication scene has further stimulated the change.
Recent research has moved beyond the thesis of the clash of civiliza-
tions into a new “clash of voices”, wherein the Arab voice is constantly
compared with Western voices, making the representations on Arab
screens versus those seen in Western media the focal point of media
research.
Despite the volume of publications about Arab media, our know-
ledge about this particular field is still limited in many aspects, and
there are many questions that are still unanswered; alas, they have
never even been posed. What is more, the issue of Arab journalism in
particular has been sidestepped in Western scholarship, which tends to
favor issues of representation, public diplomacy or media policies.
This book diverges from the viewpoint adopted in the existing litera-
ture and offers a new outlook on studying Arab news media, explor-
ing the road not taken in contemporary scholarship. In particular, this
2 Modern Arab Journalism
book focuses on Arab journalism, a rather under-represented research

topic in Western scholarship.
The main aim of this book is twofold: provocation and stimulation.
I aim to challenge current Western scholarship on Arab media, point-
ing out its limitations and the break with the tenets of Critical Theory.
I also aim to utilize this provocation to stimulate new research direc-
tions, treading the deserted road in current Western scholarship on
Arab media.
Journalism and Critical Theory

Journalism and mass communication research has been the focus of
social theory for decades. Zelizer1 summarizes the trends in the socio-
logical inquiry of journalism moving from administrative, behaviorist
research into the critical research developed by European scholars. She
divides the trends in sociological inquiry into three stages:
1. The first stage of sociological inquiry tended to focus on jour-

nalists’ interaction with each other and thereby it regarded
journalism as “the practices of those with the power to determine
the experience of others.”2
2. The second stage was concerned with the impact of organiza-
tional constraints on the journalists’ practices and norms.3
3. The third stage focused on the ideology and hegemony of these
practices and norms. Journalistic output then was a manifestation
of power as it is reflected in society, which prompted researchers
to evaluate issues of representation and access to media in their
analyses.
Zelizer also points to a fourth trend, namely the political economy

approach. Here, the focus is on the dilemma of journalists caught
between political powers on the one hand, and economic power – that
is, news conglomerates – on the other.4 Although this approach has
provided new insights by linking the impact of political power with
that of a market economy, it has not made clear the link between
“the daily routines of journalism and the larger political economy of
society.”5
On the whole, social theory helped add journalism to the research
agenda, seeing it as an independent social field wherein journalists
act according to structural constraints “inside and beyond the news
setting.”6 It is precisely here that Bourdieu’s field theory may provide
Introduction 3
a fresh framework with which to analyze Arab journalism as a social

field. Although On Television, Bourdieu’s sole work that addressed
journalism as a field, did not really provide such a precise outline, his
research collaborators argued that Bourdieu’s earlier works on cultural
reproduction and the logic of practice have already provided the
contours of such a framework. This book draws on field theory in as
much as it focuses on the power struggle present on the Arab media
scene and highlights the interplay between the journalists (agency)
and structure (resources), which I believe has been ignored in recent
Western scholarly works on Arab media. It highlights the distribution
of power among actors engaging in the field of journalism, and shows
how they constantly seek to reorganize their positions in the field,
both regionally and globally. This is not to say that this theory, or any
Western-developed theory for that matter, can be applied uncritically
to the Arab context; rather, Western theories may indeed be put to test
in the account “of the experience of countries outside the Anglo-
American orbit.”7
Journalism as a social field

Field theory provides a useful framework for the analysis of differen-
tiation, which is crucial to the late modernity research agenda, where
the fragmentation of “spheres of action (e.g. the fields of politics, eco-
nomics, religion, cultural production)” is the norm rather than the
exception.8 The advantage of field theory, as formulated by Bourdieu’s
research disciples, is that it values the role of active agency, not
passive dupes, thereby parting company with previous theories such
as hegemony, which would usually arrive at functionalist conclusions.
In particular, field theory argues that agency does not automatically
“reinforce the power status quo, but under certain conditions may
actually transform power relations in other fields.”9 More importantly,
Bourdieu sees journalism as a field that influences and is open to the
influences of other fields in society; thus, “all fields of cultural pro-
duction today are subject to structural pressure from the journalistic
field [as a whole], and not from any one journalist or network execu-
tive, who are themselves subject to control by the field.”10
Perhaps the most important advantage of field theory, and one that
directly addresses the purpose of this volume, is that it allows a com-
parative approach.11 Clearly, the study of the Arab journalism field is,
in and of itself, important; but juxtaposing it with other external fields,
such as the American journalism field, will prove a valuable research
exercise if the purpose is to challenge existing (Western) theories or

their applicability in non-Western contexts. Rodney Benson12 provides
an example of such a comparative analysis; he rightly points out that
showing the differences cross-nationally does not necessarily have to
relate to different cultural traditions, but perhaps more importantly
relates to the position of journalism as occupying a social field vis-à-vis
other fields nationally and vis-à-vis a global field of journalism.
Moreover, field theory can indeed provide a framework for the
analysis of historical change on the media scene. For instance, the past
decade has witnessed a huge development on the Arab media scene,
and yet no sophisticated explanations have been given to account for
this change. Central here is the role of journalists themselves in chang-
ing the news norms and practices. In other words, we need to inquire
into the mechanisms that have shocked the field from within and have
forced it to adapt in tandem with other political and cultural changes
in the overall field of power.
Western theories for non-Western practices

As I will point out in Chapter 7, Western theories developed to
account for changes in Western societies cannot be used uncritically to
analyze non-Western societies, a point raised by several Arab scholars.
Although I base the following discussions on Bourdieu’s insights, I am
fully aware of their shortcomings and the implausibility of applying
his views across-the-board to the Arab context. Rather, field theory is
meant to serve as a first building block in a long research plan, which
should help refine the theoretical contours to match those conditions
that are unique to the Arab media.
There are, for instance, a number of points that should be taken into
consideration when applying field theory to the Arab journalism field.
First, it is hard to match Bourdieu’s suggested homology between pro-
ducers and consumers, “meaning simply that they constitute distinct
but parallel social spaces, organized around the same basic divisions
between economic and cultural capital.”13 This view suggests a match
between the distribution of cultural capital on both the producer and
consumer sides. However, despite their lack of cultural capital, for
example, verbal skills or education, Arab audiences may still follow the
news and current affairs programs communicated primarily via the
elevated written variant of Arabic. So, for instance, a recent study
found that viewers with a low level of education and a low income tend
to watch channels such as al-Jazeera even more than do those with a
Introduction 5
higher educational level and income,14 despite the fact that al-Jazeera
and other pan-Arab news media tend to center on complex political
issues communicated in an elevated style (see Chapters 3 and 4). This
then poses a challenge to the homology theory in that there is a con-
tradiction between the distribution of cultural capital, that is, educa-
tion and verbal skills, and the economic capital.
Indeed, Arab journalistic practices can be distinguished from the
Anglo-American journalistic culture, which has come to depend on
simplified language. Indeed, the Arab news genre is the only media
genre dependent on the written variety of Arabic, or Modern Standard
Arabic (MSA). As mastering this language variant requires years of
schooling, it inevitably constitutes a large part of the journalist’s cul-
tural capital. Yet, the rising number of new entrants to this profession,
combined with the deterioration of MSA in the national curricula
among younger generations, may result in drastic changes in Arab
journalistic practices.
Second, Bourdieu seems to overestimate the power of the economic
field. For instance, the changes on the French media scene, which
Bourdieu indicates, may be caused not by commercialization per se
but rather by the centralization of the French media, which allowed
one channel (TF 1) to maintain a large share of the audience following
its privatization.15 On the other hand, Arab media, as will be discussed
in more detail in the following chapters, are characterized by both
decentralization and commercialization: so what would determine the
distribution of audience share among the various outlets? Would these
outlets compete to provide populist content to attract audiences, or
would they draw on certain cultural elements that do not necessarily
translate into economic profit? Moreover, while national news media
outlets are centralized in terms of geographical locations (usually the
capital and large cities) and ownership, the so-called pan-Arab media
are dispersed across the region and Europe, particularly London.
How, then, would de-centralization affect the journalistic culture in
each country, and how would the movement of journalists from a
national to a pan-Arab sphere reinvigorate or, conversely, weaken
existing practices?
Third, as pointed out by Nina Eliasoph,16 analysis of media pro-
ducers should not replace analysis of the laity. She wonders if field
theory, concerned with the study of institutions, can provide a proper
framework to study the public, which “is not normally called ‘an
institution’.” As she rightly wonders, should the struggle always be
about “power and hierarchy” or is it about “making moral sense of the
world”?17 In light of Eliasoph’s remarks, it is important to ask how the

Arab media would consolidate or exclude a certain moral sense of the
world.
Fourth, assuming that the ultimate goal of social theory is to point
out how to “free” journalism from the shackles of politics or econom-
ics,18 how would Arab journalists, distinguished by their cultural
capital, avoid isolating themselves in a self-centered world? Could
they not simply serve as a new hegemonic force imposed on the less
privileged laity, rather than as a force to involve the laity in joint
debates and discussion (see Chapters 3 and 4)?
Events such as 9/11 and 7/7 pushed the Arab media towards the top
of research plans inquiring into the role of the media in agitating or
assuaging civic unrest. Yet, current attempts to study the Arab media
tend to focus on issues of representation rather than on the unique role
of Arab journalists in the perception of their role vis-à-vis their audi-
ences and vis-à-vis political power. Crucial here is the way journalists
perceive their role and how this perception would consolidate or
weaken the media’s effect on promoting diversity and hence tolerance
for others.
Finally, field theory may indeed seem to favor production over
consumption, focusing on the role of producers/journalists rather than
on that of consumers/audience,19 and a pitfall that should be avoided
in future research is that of tightly binding together fieldworks among
Arab audiences and those among journalists. Indeed, such fieldworks
may help further develop and validate the above observations.
The road not taken

This book addresses questions that have been left unanswered or have
never even been posed. For example, how is Arab journalism differ-
ent/similar to the journalism fields in other countries? What defines
the tasks of journalists? Who has access to this field? How is power
distributed inside the Arab journalism field? When were the media
programs launched at Arab universities and what characterizes them?
As the field of Arab journalism is vast, I confine my discussion to the
pan-Arab media, although I provide some comparative examples
between pan-Arab and national media in order to illuminate the con-
current division and interdependence among them.
This volume begins with a discussion about the impact of global-
ization on the Arab media, thus setting the context for the arguments
of the following chapters. At issue here is the view that focuses on the
Introduction 7
contradictions in the Arab media scene, for example, the availability of

conservative programming at religious channels versus scantily-
dressed women on entertainment channels, and the availability of
news channels highlighting the regional and global political issues
versus the reality TV genres that have invaded several Arab variety
channels. As I argue in Chapter 1, the rationale behind this seeming
contradiction is based on the view that sees hybridity as being out of
sync with native Arab culture. I show, however, that hybridity has
always been deployed as one significant tool for Arab development
projects, with Arab intellectuals as the ideal embodiment of this
hybridity. I also discuss the means by which media can be used as a
bridge to connect social classes, serving as a new source available to
the lay majority in their struggle to reallocate power in the overall
social scene.
Central to this book are Arab journalistic practices and how they
may influence and be influenced by the internal struggle among media
professionals in local and pan-Arab media outlets. Chapter 2 sets the
theoretical framework of the analysis of pan-Arab media based on
Bourdieu’s field theory, in as much as it addresses the struggle for
power on the Arab media scene. It is the struggle among news media
outlets over the status of the agenda-setter, a struggle between the news
sector and the entertainment sector wherein the former attempts to
consolidate a pan-Arab identity while the latter pulls towards diversity
and plurality. Central to this discussion is the means by which actors
(agents) accumulate cultural capital in their profession and how this
capital can be transferred to other fields, for example, politics. I resume
this discussion in Chapters 5 and 6 with a focus on journalism as a
global field, and the position of Arab journalists (at least as they see it)
vis-à-vis Western journalists. Central to this discussion is the issue of
identity and how it has been sidestepped in recent works on the global
public sphere. By identity, I mean the professional identity of journal-
ists in East and West and that identity’s relation to the distribution of
power or capital among them. This discussion will be supported by a
qualitative case study of news texts from pan-Arab newspapers. More
specifically, I show how Western reporters served as an example of
authentic eyewitnesses, whose testimonies were revered among pan-
Arab newspapers. I also show the boundaries drawn between Western
and Arab journalists and how some Western journalists, although
acknowledging an imagined professional community encompassing all
journalists worldwide, tend to position their media as the role model
for Arab media outlets to follow.
Recent research on Arab news media highlights the role of these

media in fostering a healthy pubic debate and forming a so-called Arab
public sphere. I discuss the contours of this public sphere in Chapters
3 and 4, shedding new light on the kind of conditions or institutions
needed to establish firmly the debate culture as well as the parameters
of such a debate. Chapter 4 focuses on the content of news and debate.
It shows how a sharp distinction between private and public spheres
has resulted in a split between pan-Arab news media on the one hand
and the national/local media on the other, with the former focusing on
the abstract/general and the latter on the concrete/local. I argue that
the theorization of the public sphere seems to sidestep a more inter-
esting theorization of what constitutes the “private sphere.” I argue
that the private sphere can embrace several layers, depending on the
interpretation of what is “domestic and intimate.”
Chapter 7 presents a much-needed discussion on the role of Arab
media scholars as both educators and researchers. I first present the
problems in the education and research milieu in Arab universities;
then I present an innovative and unprecedented discussion of the epis-
temological roots of Arab media research, that is, its overt reliance on
quantitative methodologies. The second part of the chapter discusses
the role of Western Arab media scholarship and whether it really con-
tributes to the field of media studies in general and Middle East media
studies specifically.
Rather than providing neat typologies or models of Arab journal-
ism, this volume presents the questions that are under-represented and
under-researched in Western scholarship regarding Arab media. Thus,
it aims to open up a new research agenda and challenge concepts that
are taken for granted, such as the pan-Arab identity.
Finally, I hope that this volume will serve as a guide on an inspira-
tional journey through the intricate pathways of Arab journalism as a
field of power.
Chapter 1
Media: The Bridge to Globalization
Do globalization and Arab culture represent an oxymoron? Judging

by the typical image of a sheikh carrying a cell phone, or the contra-
dictory images of a belly dancer vis-à-vis a religious fundamentalist,
it may be argued that Arab societies need to undergo a renewed search
for identity, exemplified by a general inability to hybridize a Western
signifier with a native signified in a meaningful way.
Hybridity, then, can pose a threat to traditional values, particularly
with the sweeping trends of consumerism, which turned the veil, for
one, into a fashion business. Thus, several shopping centers have been
established in Cairo, for instance, catering for the new “liberal veiled
women,” much to the irritation of traditional Muslim preachers.1
Western signifiers have also penetrated the Islamists’ world, as we
see more and more of them adopting a modern high-tech lifestyle, as,
for instance, in Turkey:
As can be observed in the Turkish context, not only are Islamists using
the latest model of Macintosh computers, writing best-selling books,
becoming part of the political and cultural elite, winning elections, and
establish private universities, but they are also carving out new public
space, affirming new public visibilities, and inventing new Muslim
lifestyles and subjectivities.2
Thus, the oxymoron lies precisely in the inability to hybridize, or

rather in the oddity of hybridizing a traditional core with a foreign
periphery in an age characterized by increasing globalization or
interconnectivity. Although globalization has been discussed in
various Arab scholarly works, there is little knowledge among Western
scholars of these Arab views. The aim of this chapter is to discuss
the rival narratives of globalization and its impact as communicated
in the works of Western and Arab scholars alike. Rather than

seeing globalization and Arab culture as an oxymoron, I argue that
hybridity was indeed part and parcel of the development plans of the
Arab States following their independence in the second half of the last
century.
Hybridity has been part of the national plans to modernize and
beautify the national and even regional image, and central to these
plans are two institutions, namely education and the media: the former
to sustain the notion of an imagined community and hence national
belonging, and the latter to help to sustain a sense of cultural togeth-
erness and harmony. The above oxymoron of hybridity, however,
underestimates the ability of individuals to manipulate resources in
order to increase the amount of power available to them, and hence the
subsequent social change. Indeed, this view can be rejected for its
essentialism, that is, seeing native identity and foreign features as
blocks that can be mixed and matched without changing the very basis
of each block or changing the overall “rules of the game.”
I begin my discussion by reviewing some Arab scholarly works on
globalization that exhibit this essentialist view of hybridity. As a the-
oretical basis of my argument, Giddens’ theory of structuration com-
bined with Bourdieu’s field theory are chosen for their equilibrium
between agency and structure. I shall illustrate this dialectic relation
between structure and agency in subsequent sections, discussing the
process of hybridity as articulated by the elites in the post-colonial
Arab States. The period following the independence of the Arab States
was indeed a period of “searching for identity,” a period that, in my
view, serves as a point of departure for the discussion of the impact of
globalization on Arab culture and media.
Globalization as hybridity
Robertson3 sees globalization not as a new phenomenon, but as a
process that has been taking place for decades. However, the current
interest in it is basically due to the consciousness of this phenomenon
as manifested in the emergence of global issues debated across world
regions, for example, human rights. The view of globalization as a
process that intensifies global consciousness is echoed in Waters’ def-
inition of globalization as a “social process in which the constraints of
geography on economic, political, social and cultural arrangements
recede, in which people become increasingly aware that they are reced-
ing and in which people act accordingly.”4
Media: The Bridge to Globalization 11
In the Arab region, globalization is one of the concepts that have

caused what Georges Tarabishi5 calls “ideological inflation.” Several
publications and special issues of cultural magazines have been dedi-
cated to the discussion of this phenomenon. Globalization here is seen
as a celebration of capitalistic values.6 It is regarded as a chaotic phe-
nomenon that does not have any historic roots in any cultural identity
and cannot even offer individuals a new sense of identity.7 Among the
reasons claimed to lie behind the fear of the effects of globalization on
local culture are the spread of consumerism and similar lifestyles spon-
sored by multinational corporations (the “Coca-Cola-ization” or
“McDonaldization” phenomenon) and the fact that American cultural
products have invaded different regions where they promote American
values and lifestyle. Although globalization entails the exchange of
goods and ideas at political, economic, and cultural levels, the cultural
exchange (or the symbolic exchange) is argued to have a stronger effect.8
Several researchers, both Western and Arab,9 agree on the nature of
globalization, particularly in its independence from time and space.
Globalization has been attributed to four different concepts: interna-
tionalization, liberalization, universalization, and Westernization (for
which read: Americanization).10 The latter concept has probably been
the most widely used among Arab researchers when debating the
impact of globalization.
For instance, al-Kahtani11 conducted a media analysis of four Arab
and four US daily newspapers. He searched the newspapers
for instances of globalization and Americanization: in the Arabic
data, he found examples of globalization dominant in culture news
(45 percent), less dominant in economic news (31 percent) and even
less in the political sections. In contrast, American newspapers
contained most instances in the economic sections (36 percent), and
almost equally in both cultural and politics sections, with 19 percent
and 17 percent respectively.12 The conclusion is that globalization has
a larger impact on Arab cultural heritage than on the political and
economic processes in the region. Mona Abaza confirmed this when
she wrote that globalization “has become interchangeable with
Americanization.”13
For Awatef Abdel Rahman,14 the consequence of globalization will
be rather the accentuation of the gap between the North (developed
world) and the South (developing world), and hence the dependence
of the latter on the former. The cultural products of the developed
world (meaning the West and particularly the USA) may be used by
the people of Third World countries as a means of escapism rather
than as a means of encouragement to participate in public debates. The

Egyptian writer Saad Edeen Wahba once wrote that the presence of
McDonald’s restaurants in Cairo was an American conspiracy to
corrupt Egyptian youth.15 Another Arab writer wrote in Al-Hayat that
500 satellite channels accessed by Arabs belonged to the West and thus
were aimed at disseminating Western values and norms.16
Al-Yasin,17 another Arab scholar, sees cultural globalization as a
major challenge for Arabs. Negative effects lie probably in the
exchange of cultural and media products, as it is generally assumed that
the center (the West) will be the main exporter, that the periphery (the
East) will be the main receiver, and that messages coming from the
center may contain values deemed to be threatening for local cultures.
Al-Jabri18 explains the Arab attitude to the West as being dual in
nature: on the one hand, Arabs associate the West with colonization
and hegemony, but on the other hand it is also associated with
freedom, modernity and science. Western (American) cultural prod-
ucts are flowing into the Arab region and with the emergence of satel-
lite channels, Arab governments can no longer control the content
offered by these channels.19
In a later publication, Al-Jabri20 traces the root of the word “glob-
alization,” linking it to the USA, meaning the process of “gener-
alization” and expansion. He deduces that the term implies the
dissemination of a certain lifestyle, that is, the “American model.”21
The direct outcome of this expansion is the gap between the wealth
accumulated by the rich countries and the deprivation of the poor
countries, a gap that is even evident among people belonging to the
same society, that is, the gap in salaries among workers sharing the
same qualifications. Globalization, al-Jabri adds,22 is an ideology that
aims primarily at erasing the national memory and national belonging
or, as he puts it,
the globalization world is a world without a nation-state, or without a

nation and without a state. It is a world of corporations and networks; a
world of subjects or “doers”, those in control, and objects of consump-
tions imposed on them, be it the consumption of food, drinks, canned
products, images, data, movements and even silence. Cyberspace has
become the new nation . . . it is the space which is made by the commu-
nication networks to encompass economics, politics, and culture.23
Western and Arab scholars share the view that globalization means
the “commodification of culture” and hence the loss or damage of the
authentic fabric, which may be an indirect reason for the rise of

fundamentalism in an attempt to protect and maintain “tradition.”24
This view is illustrated on the cover of Benjamin Barber’s book Jihad
vs. McWorld (1995), which features a veiled woman, with only her eyes
exposed, holding a can of Pepsi in her hand. This was supposed to be
a sign of the paradoxical situation of globalization, wherein tradition-
alists might attack Americanization (and consumerism) and yet keep
on consuming American products. However, there are at least two
reasons why Arab consumption of Western, or particularly American,
products cannot necessarily be interpreted as contradictory to the
sense of tradition.
First, while it is true that Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise,
there has scarcely been any analysis of the deep structure that lies
beyond the mechanism of this movement. Stuart Hall25 has identified
two reaction strategies to globalization: 1) translation and 2) tradition.
The former entails strategies to develop new signifiers and introduce
them to the original culture, while the latter is a means of looking back
to the original heritage and history rather than looking at the situation
in the present. Local cultures do not necessarily reject global identi-
ties and/or brands. The challenge, as seen for instance by Arabs,
cannot be reduced to being merely a choice between adopting foreign
texture into the traditional fabric or rejecting it totally and indulging
in a search for a past identity instead. Foreign brands, such as Coca-
Cola, have been localized.26 Even Barbie dolls have been made in an
Arabic version.27 The same applies to media in connection with the
emergence of new (Western) genres in the news and entertainment
industry. Furthermore, Wheeler28 showed that the Kuwaiti feeling of
national identity was not negatively affected by the presence of
foreign media or the Internet. In fact, Kuwaitis regard it as an impor-
tant element of their national identity to be open to global links and
new technologies.
Besides, fear of Americanization was marked not only among Arabs
but among Europeans as well. Four hundred European intellectuals
inserted a petition in six European newspapers demanding the exclusion
of cultural works from the GATT agreement in order to protect their
European cultural products against the “supremacy of Hollywood.”29
Second, the claim that Arabs fear globalization is indeed a new phe-
nomenon. For instance, Mona Abaza30 argues that Egypt experienced
this hybridity centuries ago, long before the proliferation of the
concept of globalization. An Arab scholar pointed to the fact that
globalization was not at all a fearful concept to Arabs during the peak
of Islamic civilization, and indeed one of them wrote of the attitudes

of Muslims at that time:
Secure with their own identity and self-definitions, Muslims were never
loath to take for their own use, and build on, the scholarship of others.
They were not, for example, threatened by exploring Greek philosophy.
As a vibrant, cultivated people, they in fact translated it into Arabic (and,
as it turned out, ended up preserving it for posterity by doing so). They
not only mouthed, but actually lived the Arabic proverb: “Seek knowl-
edge though it may be located as far away as China.”31
Thus, rather than accepting the simplified account of globalization as

a process of recent intense exposure to Western media products, it is
important to recall that the process of exposure to these products has
been ongoing for decades and is indeed happening at present. For
instance, Rachty and Sabat32 showed that during the period from 1965
to 1969, Egypt alone imported 80 to 90 percent of its films, mostly
from the USA. The importation of these cultural products was rein-
forced by the advent of television (in the 1960s) and the increasing
importation of foreign material to fill the empty programming slots.
One main characteristic of the accounts of the above views of Arab
culture in the globalization age is their essentialism. In other words,
these views see globalization as a sweeping process imposed upon
rather “passive,” not to mention powerless, recipients rather than
acknowledging the recipients’ power in “decoding” the incoming mes-
sages. Such views presume the stability of an “Arab” identity as a fixed
notion, whose mingling with foreign elements may result in the agents’
confusion and the deterioration of their sense of belonging. This,
again, is an underestimation of the agents’ awareness of their position
in an overall “field of power” and their continuous struggle to re-
define this position.
In sum, hybridity is not, as some may argue, the oxymoron of Arab
culture; rather, globalization can be seen a process of transformation,
particularly at the cultural level. The transformation can be seen as a
catalyst for development as a result of a complex process of diffusion
and hybridity affecting culture at various levels.
The dilemma for Arab citizens, including the media professionals
who are at the center of this book, is not how to reconcile the modern
with the traditional; it is instead how to keep on adhering to the rules
of the game while manipulating the game itself for the interest of indi-
viduals and/or the community. The following section fleshes out this
dilemma, drawing mainly on Bourdieu’s and Giddens’ works, in order

to argue for the need for agents to enter into a continuous struggle over
the allocation of resources as well as the imposition of norms.
Struggle over power

Central to the following discussion are the notions of reflexivity and
visibility. I draw on Bourdieu’s theory of practice as well as Giddens’
structuration theory as a basis for the analysis of these notions in an
Arab context. The choice of these two theories, in particular, is
grounded in their capacity to combine theory and practice, or abstract
assumptions with empirical data. In other words, both views seem to
reconcile the difficulties associated with previous social theories
that failed to account for the role of active agency operating within
objectified structures or resources.
One of Bourdieu’s legacies was practice theory, which stresses the
social agents’ practical dispositions or habitus constrained by the rules
of the field in which they are situated. Fields, then,
engender and require certain responses, “hailing” the individual to

respond to themselves and their surroundings in specific ways to the
point of habituation. “Habitus” is the collective term for this array of
dispositions. Thus, the field instantiates us as subjects and reproduces
social distinctions via the enactment of habitus.33
Yet, agency is still bound rather than enabled by the habitus, and thus
it may be constituted as an agency incapable of reflecting.34
Giddens35 sees structure and agency as working in a dialectic rela-
tionship, in as much as the acts of agency reproduce the structure.
Agents here are knowledgeable and have the ability to discard, replace,
or indeed alter, structure including institutions, traditions, and norms.
This is what Giddens refers to as the duality of structure. Agency and
structure are then closely related, with the latter reproduced via the
repetitive actions of the former. Structure includes means of significa-
tion (for example, media), legitimization (for example, moral codes),
and domination (power).
Sewell36 elaborates on the structuration theory and offers a more
detailed account of structure. The aim here is to account for social
change, and show how structure can generate transformation.
Structures, Sewell argues, refer to rules or schemas as opposed to
resources, which are the effect of structure.37 According to Giddens,
structures and agents’ practices operate in a dualistic relationship,

shaping and reproducing one another. In this sense, they “far from
being opposed, in fact presuppose each other.”38 The knowledgeability
of agency stems from the agents’ ability to use the structures
and resources available in a creative way. Sewell replaces Giddens’ term
“rules” with the term “schemas” in order to encompass rules, norms
and procedures that can be transposed to other fields and situations in
which they have not been conventionally applied. Thus, structures
depend on the intersubjectivity among agents to act upon the available
rules and resources.
Sewell divides resources into two types: human and non-human.
The first refers to knowledge and affection and the latter to animate or
inanimate objects. They are both
media of power and are unevenly distributed. But however unequal

resources may be distributed, some measure of both human and non-
human resources are controlled by all members of society, no matter
how destitute and oppressed. Indeed, part of what it means to conceive
of human beings as agents is to conceive of them as empowered by access
to resources of one kind or another.39
He then proposes five maxims through which social change can be

analyzed. The first maxim is the multiplicity of structures, which refers
to the agents’ ability to apply different and even incompatible schemas,
as well as access diverse forms of resources. The second maxim is the
transposability of schemas, which, given the agents’ knowledgeability,
refers to the agents’ capability of extending and creatively transposing
schemas into new contexts. Given that the consequences of transposi-
tion are never predictable, the third maxim then refers to the unpre-
dictability of resource accumulation. This could be related to the
“unintended consequences” of action, in Giddens’ terms. One may
add here that this unpredictability is an inherent element of any social
field, for every action, no matter how mundane or sophisticated it is,
may result in unpredictable consequences. In this sense, unpre-
dictability differs from “risk”, which, in Giddens’ and Beck’s terms, is
one characteristic of late modernity.
The fourth maxim refers to the “polysemy of resources” or the
various meanings attached to resources in the agents’ minds, which
then determine their interaction. The fifth maxim is the “intersection
of structures”: structures enable as well as constrain agents, whose
actions may then end up reproducing the social order. For instance, the
discourse of modernity resting on the mix between a modern format

and indigenous content, as I argue below, has at once made possible the
establishment of skyscrapers and the parallel expansion of unlawful
housing. Another example is the notion of pan-Arabism, enforced by
the newly formed Arab States with the aim of disseminating the feeling
of unity among laypeople while simultaneously accentuating the dif-
ferences among Arab peoples as defined by the legislative order.
Combining Bourdieu’s theory of practice with Giddens’ structura-
tion theory, Sewell suggests the hybridization of Giddens’ reflexivity
and Bourdieu’s habitus. Seen in this light, agents, although free to
innovate and navigate across fields, are still contained by overall field
rules and norms, defined a priori as part of the game. Thus, those with
the strongest capital have access to more resources, which enables
them to define and, if necessary, re-define the rules of the game in order
to maintain their power. Adopting Bourdieu’s theory of practice
makes it easier to see every social field as a separate empirical unit with
its own rules, without losing sight of the fact that all fields are still con-
tained in the same social space. For instance, the analysis of the Arab
social space is not confined to the analysis of the apparent tensions
between modernity versus tradition in media formats; rather, what
counts is the kind of appropriations that have been brought about by
this struggle for power in each field and how it interacts with other
fields, that is, what kind of journalists have come to dominate the jour-
nalistic field. In sum, mixing the notion of reflexivity with the notion
of habitus accounts for the agents’ ability to realize opportunities and
to re-shape their role in the game.
According to Giddens,40 late modernity is characterized by the
interconnection between extensionality (or global impact) and inten-
tionality (or the personal position). Agents reflect continuously over
their future by drawing on their experiences and comparing them with
their present situation. Reflexivity is one of the three elements identi-
fied by Giddens41 that explain the dynamic process of modernity: sep-
aration of time and space, disembedding of social institutions, and
reflexivity or the continuous monitoring of social activities in the light
of newly acquired knowledge. Furthermore, Giddens points out that
“the reflexivity of modernity extends into the core of the self. Put in
another way, in the context of a post-traditional order, the self becomes
a reflexive project.”42
Reflexivity is entrenched in the resources/structure or even a struc-
ture in itself, in as much as the agents’ aim of monitoring is closely
related to the overall aims and ambitions legitimatised by the structure
(doxa). Hence, it is the rules within each field that define the ultimate
goal, for example, the goal of visibility or acknowledgement.
Viewed against this backdrop, it is necessary to see structure and
agency not as operating according to a push–pull relationship; rather,
it is a dialectic relation wherein the structure and resources have even
unintentionally resulted in the opening up of new possibilities for
agents. Moreover, agents are knowledgeable and capable of mixing cre-
atively the capital and borrowing from others to function in the overall
game.
Figure 1.1, based on Giddens, 43 illustrates this dialectic relationship.
The agents are motivated by the basic goal or aim of recognition and
esteem. This goal is discursively rationalized and communicated
within the overall field, for example, the discourse of modernization.
The dominant discourse here may lead to unintended, unpredictable,
or undesired consequences which force the agents with the largest
share of power to re-define and re-rationalize their action. The power
of reflexive monitoring lies in its being an intuitive act directed at
reaching the maximum benefit for the agents despite the restraints
imposed by them.
The resources (for example, nation-state, education, urbanization,
open market) are based on and defined by the social interaction among
agents. The development of global, electronic, and new media has
accelerated changes in social life, as agents now are “likely to acquire
Field of power
Unacknowledged Agent
conditions of
action
Unintended
Reflexivity, rationalization consequences
and motivation of action of action
Other fields
Media as a
bridge to other
fields
Structure/resources
Figure 1.1 dialectic relationship between structure and agents in an overall field of power
(based on Giddens, 1984)
information and symbolic content from sources other than the persons
with whom they interact directly in their day-to-day lives.”44 This web
of interconnected sources of information has indeed added to the
“unpredictability” of interactions among agents connected across dif-
ferent spatial contexts.
The media then have come to form a new resource that facilitates the
agents’ movement to and from other fields while serving as a commu-
nicative platform to disseminate the norms and rules that restrain these
movements. The media serve as a bridge to other fields of power; they
comprise a new form of interaction and discursive reflexivity. Using the
media, agents are able to change their position within the field even
temporarily. Metaphorically, the media serve as a theater stage on which
the agents rehearse the rules of other fields, and become acquainted
with different rules of the game. In sum, the media can be seen as a set
of intersected resources, enabling and constraining at the same time: the
media connect people and accentuate their belonging to one unified
imagined community while enabling their movement across diverse
and unrelated fields, which threatens the foundation of this community
(see, for example, Chapter 3 on language). For instance, journalists can
use the resources available to them within the field of media to navigate
across and become acquainted with the rules in the field of politics.
They can later use this accumulated knowledge to transform their posi-
tion within the overall social field of power by transacting their pro-
fessional capital to the field of politics (see Chapter 2).
Another example is the use of the media as a resource through
which laypeople become acquainted with other lifestyles, not neces-
sarily to imitate them later but to be able to live them even temporar-
ily, such as the way ordinary people from humble backgrounds
participating in reality TV programs on pan-Arab TV channels have
managed to transcend their habitus and act as stars even for a short
time span. The increasing reflexivity then allows this transcendence
from contrasting habitus, although the overall rules of the field may
not allow this transcendence to be sustained for a long time.
The real power lies in the agents’ ability to manipulate the domi-
nant norms and discourses enforced within the field in order to justify
their acts against these very norms and discourses. I elaborate on this
power below, using the veil as one example of a norm/rule that may be
imposed by an overall structure, but which can be used by women as
a means to act against patriarchal dominance within their social field.
Having the above model in mind, I argue below that the transfor-
mation of social life in Arab societies through the media as a resource
has been fueled by this increasing reflexivity among agents who now
see their lives as “reflexive projects.” This reflexivity does not refer to
the “luxury” or freedom of choice; rather, it refers to the increasing
awareness of one’s position within the field combined with and inten-
sified by increasing knowledge of other fields. This knowledge is
communicated by the media as one modern resource, as well as by
other forms of interaction with, for example, tourists from immedi-
ate and/or distant geographical spaces, or through migration to these
spaces.
Crucial to my discussion below are two terms: visibility and reflex-
ivity. Visibility refers to the motivation of the agents to gain more
power via recognition; this, as I argue below, has been the motivation
behind post-colonial Arab governments’ decisions to hybridize the
local and the foreign in order to form a new modern image of their
nations. The main aim is to build a bridge linking East and West, rather
than to copy the Western model slavishly or to indulge in a romanti-
cized admiration of one’s heritage. Education and media are the key
building blocks for this bridge: the former to spread a sense of
national/regional identity and the latter to consolidate the vision of
progress as envisaged by the governing elites. The problem, though, is
that this vision is based on an essentialist view of identity as a static
unit, easy to mould without changing its core element. It also discards
the consequences of reflexivity, or the continuous process of reflec-
tion, the ability to monitor one’s actions, to weigh up consequences,
and to be aware of the impediments as well as the potential resources
available. Indeed, as I argue below, a losing strategy in this process is
to yield to, or accept, the essentialist classification of identity (that is,
native versus foreign), while a winning strategy is to keep pushing this
classification to its limits.
Hybridity as a national project

Several Western scholars see the process of globalization as “a complex
mixture of homogenization and heterogenization.”45 Globalization, in
this view, does not entail the triumph of one meta-discourse or the
meta-narrative of one civilization or culture,46 as it is also accompanied
by the process of localization47 because recipients in different societies
may interpret one particular media message in a variety of ways
according to their cultural background. Communication, for instance,
undergoes a process of localization, where the content is localized in
order to be incorporated into the local (receiving) cultural context. The
localization process is perhaps the strongest suggestion offered by

Arab intellectuals to join this new “juggernaut world” successfully.
Here, it is essential for Arab societies to adapt and indeed enhance a
mosaic and hybrid cultural fabric by localizing and nationalizing
imported content.
This hybridity was propagated by the Arab nation-state during the
1950s and 1960s, following the independence of several Arab States,
namely, Egypt, Tunisia and Iraq in the 1950s and Algeria, Syria, Sudan
and Libya in the 1960s. The first task for the newly formed nation-
states was to gain legitimacy and sustain a sense of shared (imagined)
identity among their citizens in order to mobilize all efforts towards
the modernization project. To reach these goals, special attention was
given to new forms of institutions, such as education,48 as well as the
media; both institutions play a decisive role in enforcing a sense of
national belonging to a unified political community, rather than stress-
ing apparent diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, and class. The
attention given to mass education has resulted in a remarkable expan-
sion in the number of primary and secondary school pupils during the
1950s and 1960s, for example, in Egypt, Morocco, and Oman.49
Plans to spread education to all citizens were seen to counteract
directly the colonial powers’ previous attempts to hinder the establish-
ment of higher educational institutions, thus maintaining the colonists’
intellectual superiority. In fact, the socialist movements that swept the
region during the first half of the last century had relied on education as
the only path out of the backwardness that was, by and large, associated
with the previous regimes. For instance, Lord Cromer (who ruled Egypt
from 1883 to 1907) “tried unsuccessfully to deflect demands for more
education into interest in simple elementary schooling for the masses”
rather than sponsoring the establishment of a university,50 which pushed
a group of educated citizens to establish the university as a private insti-
tution, thus adopting Cromer’s discourse of “private initiative” to coun-
teract his attempt to put off the project. It was for this reason, perhaps,
that some Arab scholars were suspicious of the hybridity with Western
culture, and even cast doubts on the motivations of Orientalists or the
Western scholars who taught at the Egyptian University (currently
Cairo University) following its founding in 1908.51
Education was also deployed as a means by which the state secured
a constant supply of public servants and spread the ideals of the social-
ist system. For instance, employment in the public sector soared in the
newly formed states: in Egypt, there were 250,000 employees in 1952
but this number reached up to 1,200,000 in 1970, and in Sudan it went
from more than 176,000 in 1955 and 1956 to well over 400,000 in
1977.52 In Algeria, the former president Hourai Boumedienne’s reign
was known as the “bureaucratic dictatorship” for applying politics
similar to those of Nasser in Egypt.53
It was difficult for the new states, however, to unify the education
system, with the inheritance of “a variety of schools: some public,
some private, some modern, some traditionally Islamic; some teaching
through the medium of Arabic others through that of a European lan-
guage, usually English or French.”54 Despite attempts to unify the
system, the language schools continued to attract the middle- and
upper-middle classes, producing a new type of elite – that is, the
Anglo- or Franco-Arabs – who feel at ease in an Arab as well as a
Western milieu, or as Hourani put it:
An elite which tended to perpetuate itself lived, not – as it had done in

an earlier generation – in an English or American or French cultural
milieu, but in an Anglo-Arab or Franco-Arab one, knowing two or
three languages well, at home in Arabic but acquiring its high culture and
knowledge of the world through English or French (and increasingly
through English, except in the Maghrib).55
The tension, then, was not between modernity projects as articu-

lated from below (laity) and executed from above (politicians); the
tension was between the heritage of colonial times being rejected by
some intellectuals while admired and cherished by the middle classes.
For instance, elite jobs in the Algerian public sector required the
French language, which heightened the tension between arabophones
and francophones in Algeria.56
Thus, the educational field kept serving as a stage for a struggle for
power and the allocation of resources between, on the one hand,
those who embraced Western culture as a role model and, on the
other, those who held on to religious education, hailing it as the
emblem of the native self. It is important to stress that the struggle
was for power rather than being merely a manifestation of the tension
between the opposite views of modernity and tradition. Supporters
of the new educational institutions wanted a counterpart to, for
example, al-Azhar, which was regarded as “outdated”, and even Dar
al-Ulum, an educational institution that mixed Western educational
curricula with a religious curriculum, was regarded as second best.
Students of the newly established Egyptian University, for instance,
prided themselves on their knowledge of cutting-edge research,
thereby dwarfing the curricula taught at Dar al-Ulum and al-Azhar.

The famous Egyptian writer and former dean of the Faculty of Arts,
Cairo University, Taha Hussayn, recalled his scorn of Dar al-Ulum’s
curricula when talking to his cousin, himself a student of the latter
institute:
I had not forgotten a day when I was arguing with my cousin, then a
student at Dar al-‘Ulum, and he, the Dar al-‘Ulumi, had said to me, the
Azharite: “What do you know about knowledge, anyway? You’re just
an ignoramus, versed in mere grammar and fiqh. You’ve never had a
single lesson in the history of the Pharaohs. Have you ever heard the
names of Rameses and Akhenaton?”. . . But now, here I was in a uni-
versity class-room listening to Professor Ahmad Kamal . . . talking
about ancient Egyptian civilization . . . Here he was making his point by
reference to words from ancient Egyptian which he related to Arabic,
Hebrew and Syriac, as the evidence required . . . No sooner had I
accosted my cousin than I drew myself up in proud scorn of him and
that Dar al-‘Ulum about which he had been preening himself. “Do you
learn Semitic languages at Dar al-‘Ulum?” I queried. My cousin replied
in the negative. Whereupon I proudly explained hieroglyphics to him
and how the ancient Egyptians wrote, also alluding to Hebrew and
Syriac.57
The knowledge of one’s historical background is one of the invalu-

able gifts of education, a gift that should be combined with knowledge
of other cultures/languages as well. In a column in al-Ahram in 1933,
the Egyptian encyclopaediaist Ahmed Attiyatallah had expressed his
admiration of the Westerners’ knowledge of ancient Egyptian history
and his embarrassment at his own lack of this knowledge. He recalled
his visit to a Birmingham school in England, which coincided with a
lesson on the history of the Pharaohs. The English teacher, excited to
have a guest from the land of the Pharaohs, offered Attiyatallah the
opportunity to continue the lesson, an offer that he politely declined,
as he felt embarrassed to admit his lack of knowledge of his country’s
history.58
Thus, progress and modernization via education necessitated the
successful hybridity of Western intellectual progress and native his-
torical and ethical backgrounds. That was also the reason why foreign
languages have always been regarded as an important element in
achieving progress. The Egyptian academic Ahmed Amin (who joined
the Egyptian University in 1926) recalled the advice passed on by his
professors, who saw the mastery of another language as a prerequisite

for widening one’s intellectual horizons:
These professors used to tell us always that he who was limited to Arabic
saw the world with one eye only, but when he learnt another language
he saw the world with two eyes.59
Education, then, was regarded as the fastest path to knowledge, and

hence power. In fact, I argue that education is an important cultural
capital in Arab societies, more important than class or wealth. Lamont
and Lareau60 discuss the methodological problem related to
Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital. In order to operationalize the
concept of cultural capital, the researcher must see the relevance of this
capital in the person’s particular environment, and see whether it is
used as a means of exclusion and hence an exercise of power. Lamont
and Lareau see Bourdieu’s framework as implying “that lower class
standards are not autonomous, and that dominated groups have been
eliminated from the competition for the definition of the legitimate
culture.”61 The power of cultural capital, as they see it, is the power to
exclude people through symbolic imposition. Thus, exclusion is the
main dimension of cultural capital, and it is manifested through self-
elimination or the adjustment of one’s aspirations; or by assigning
those with less cultural capital to the “less desirable positions.”62
Thus, cultural capital is one of the resources available to the agents
to use, intentionally or unintentionally, or even manipulate to enhance
their chances of success. Contrasting the cultural capital as analyzed in
French studies versus that in American ones, Lamont and Lareau show
that knowledge is an important cultural capital valued in the French
setting, but not particularly in the American one, where “purchasable
signals” have more value than the “culturally acquired ones.”63
Likewise, this can be seen in the way education is portrayed in Arab
popular culture genres such as TV serials, where “characters’ desires
for money and luxury lead them to compromise their principles and to
go astray, only for them to be found out and confronted, if not con-
demned, in the end.”64 Thus, education rather than wealth constitutes
a significant cultural capital in the Arab context.
In order to succeed in their modernization project, the new regimes
sought to fight the old signifiers of primitivism. For instance, despite
the socialist rhetoric adopted by Nasser’s regime (1952–70), the
Egyptian government of the time saw part of its mission as being the
need to replace the rather primitive image of Egyptians with a new
modern one, for instance, by encouraging use of the “popular suit” to

replace the robe usually associated with peasants.65 The peasants and
marginalized, once portrayed as the “true sons” of the nation and the
bearers of authentic values, are used to being portrayed as the center
of backwardness that can only be lifted up by joining the educated elite
in the capital, Cairo.66 The plan to modernize the image of Cairo was
carried further by Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, who worked hard
on rebuilding Cairo to resemble Western (particularly American)
cities. His plan invoked criticism and resentment, particularly among
Islamists, which paved the way for religious discourse to proliferate as
an alternative discourse of morality opposing the state privatization
and capitalist projects.67 Sadat’s response, ironically, was to deploy the
same discourse by immediately implementing the Infitah (Open
Door) economic policy while stressing his role as the “believing
leader.”68
Western European cultures were also the yardstick by which the
newly formed Arab States measured their cultural success in hybridiz-
ing the native fabric with exotic patterns. This was shown, for instance,
in the attention given to folkloric art and the call to modernize it by
incorporating into it Western elements. Following independence, the
Egyptian government, for one, expressed interest in folk arts as well
as in progressive arts such as ballet, and in 1957 the Center for Folk
Arts was established under the Ministry of Cultural and National
Guidance.69 One leading dance troupe at that time was the Reda
Troupe, whose members came from well-off middle-class families.
The troupe’s main dancer, Farida Fahmy, was half British and half
Egyptian, and, despite her affluent background, has since come to
symbolize the authentic bint a-balad (or native citizen).70 The troupe
members managed to show this successful hybridity between East and
West in films such as Love in Karnak, where they appear as fully
capable of communicating in foreign languages, and wearing modern
clothes.71 Their performances were supposed to present the authentic
folkloric Egyptian dances, although the dances were in fact altered
forms of native dances.
Hybridity was also evident in other arts, such as music. Arab musi-
cians, particularly in Cairo, which led the music and film industry
during the first half of the twentieth century, depended on tatwiir or
the evolution of the music as a process of modernizing the local music.
This process “has strong connotations of Westernization. It implies
bringing the music closer to the rank of . . . ‘international music’, the
ultimate exemplar of which is European art music.”72 Thus, composers
could mix Western music with the native tones “without necessarily
becoming less Egyptian or less Arab.”73
Education has been the cornerstone of the progress project, as well
as being synonymous with knowledge, and hence with power. Even in
the most conservative Arab societies, such as Saudi Arabia, education
was seen as the means to mobilize the nation and to regenerate a new
image of the kingdom. The Saudi government has undertaken the task
of building new schools and offering scholarships to Saudi students to
study overseas. This process is still ongoing, with the kingdom’s plans
to build some 2,600 new schools as well as other technical colleges and
training institutes by 2012, besides offering 10,000 Saudi students full
scholarships abroad, mostly to the USA.74
However, the opening up of new resources, and the unpredictabil-
ity of these resources, has unintended consequences as well: education,
as well as the media, as the new form of interaction, provided the
agents with new powers as well as new constraints. The new sources,
as well as the new Infitah (Open Door) policies, which replaced the
socialist policies in the 1970s and 1980s, and the new oil boom in the
Gulf countries, have unintentionally exacerbated this tension between
agents and resources.75 Education encouraged people to doubt and to
raise questions, while the media facilitated the meeting with foreign
cultures and foreign lifestyles. The newly educated elite in the conser-
vative Gulf countries rival the power of the religious Ulama, who used
to enjoy a great position in society in their capacity to offer guidance
and consultancy on how to live, behave, raise children, and work
according to God’s laws. In Oman, Islam was taught at school, which
made it a “subject that must be ‘explained’ and ‘understood’.”76 Young
Omani in particular tend to interpret and justify their belief rather than
taking it for granted, as opposed to the old generation who may “pray
and sacrifice, but they do not know why.”77
Visibility: the motif for action

By hybridizing the native with the foreign, the Arab States have made
it clear that they did not really desire insulation or isolation, but rather
the visibility and ability to have an impact on other cultures. Visibility,
as I argue here, is a crucial element in building the authentic national
(Egyptian, Lebanese, Syrian, and so on) as well as regional (Arab,
Islamic) identity in an age characterized by increased globalization
and interdependence. Indeed, Arab countries have been competing
to be the perfect East–West hybrid: Egypt has profiled itself as the
Hollywood of the East, Lebanon as the Paris of the East,78 Dubai as

the modern commercial cosmopolitan country (or Dubai Inc.) and
Qatar as the host of freedom embodied in the Emir’s project, al-Jazeera
Satellite Channel, as well as the Doha debates, which are advertised as
“a public forum for dialogue and freedom of speech in Qatar.” The
debates are hosted by the former BBC presenter Tim Sebastian.79
Dubai, for one, launched several international events to gain more
visibility on the world scene, for example, the Dubai World Cup horse
race, with the aim of “putting Dubai on the map”, as argued by the
executive chairman of Dubai Holding, which oversees most of the
Emirates’ investments.80 Several Arab governments have established
free media zones to host foreign and regional media institutions, grant-
ing them full operating freedom and total exemption from taxes and
fees. Dubai Media City (DMC), for instance, serves 550 media organi-
zations, among them CNN, Reuters, Sony, McGraw Hill Publishing
and the Arab satellite channel, MBC.81 The vision behind DMC is “to
make Dubai a media and technology hub for the region,”82 or as Saeed
al-Muntafiq, the chief executive of DMC, put it: “Our vision is not to
be a regional base for broadcasters, but to be one of four or five global
bases for broadcasting as we move forward over the next few years.”83
In the same vein, the Jordanian government established a free media
zone serving the Jordanian Media City Company,84 while the Egyptian
government decided to draw on Egypt’s cultural capital in the region
by investing in Media Production City, “envisioned as a ‘Hollywood
of the East,’ ” as well as a Media Free Zone.85
In order to accelerate the modernization project, Arab govern-
ments encouraged the establishment of super-malls, such as the French
hypermarket Carrefour, built in Cairo, where “around eleven million
people are living in unplanned housing; slums without sewerage and
running water.”86 Consumerism, then, serves as the embodiment of the
Western lifestyle (for example, shopping malls) and is an essential com-
ponent of the modernity project, which connects for instance the Saudi
city Jeddah to American cities such as Sacramento rather than to the
old Jeddah.87 The Cairo World Trade Center, a huge shopping mall,
was built “through the cleaning up or pushing away of the popular
quarter and getting rid of the ‘ashwaiyyat [or stigmatized housing]
surrounding it.”88 These ‘ashwaiyyat are usually depicted as the land
of disorder and deformity.89 The Egyptian elites condemn “the spread
of decadent culture,” which results in an increase in “ugly brick houses
with inadequate water supplies and sewerage and taxis . . . in the coun-
tryside.”90 Although the government would punish several of those
poor citizens who built these ‘ashwaiyyat by destroying these stigma-

tized houses, some of the citizens realized that unlicensed extensions
to their houses could be saved if they invested in making chic annexes,
adding thereby to the new modern face of the city.91
Moreover, the elites maintain the exclusion of the less privileged
groups by legitimizing the differences due to academic capabilities
rather than by specific social habitus ingrained in the person’s social
milieu. For instance, the present Minster of Education in Egypt,
Gamaleddin Moussa, expressed this view when he was asked about the
government’s plan to reduce illiteracy:
There are 12 million people in Egypt who are illiterate – they are mostly
in the rural areas and the majority are women. The main problem is that
these people do not have the will to learn, with customs and traditions
being the main obstacles (emphasis added).92
Lila Abu-Lughod93 provides another example of an Egyptian TV

program called 100 percent, aimed at encouraging 100 percent literacy
in Egypt. In one episode about child labor, the TV presenter inter-
viewed children who were thrown into the labor market despite their
young age, blaming them, rather than their families or the social care
system, for their not pursuing school education in order to be able to
get better jobs and hence higher incomes.
Exclusion is also evident on the cultural scene, where popular music
genres such as shaabi or rai and rap music have been looked down
upon by the well-established “cultured” artists.94 Songs in these genres
express resistance to “middle-class respectability,”95 and have proved
very popular despite being censored by the state media. Following
their success in Europe, the North African (particularly Algerian and
Moroccan) rap and rai singers, however, have managed to ally them-
selves with some of the “cultured” Arab singers in popular duets, while
shaabi singers such as the Egyptian signer Shaaban Abdel Rahim
are still regarded as the epitome of vulgar culture. Yet, because of
Abdel Rahim’s popularity in Egypt, the fast-food giant McDonalds
attempted to turn to him for product campaigning,96 thereby adding
an authentic indigenous color to its American-rooted product. The
shaabi singer has also deliberately sought recognition by meddling in
politics, the essence of the public sphere, with his anti-Israel songs,
which secured him “instant stardom.”97
In this modernity project, the new educated elite have become the
undisputed experts who shape the modern face of the national/regional
culture and promote it in global/cosmopolitan mainstream culture. It

is these intellectuals who act as the gatekeepers of indigenous culture,
sieving and weighing up incoming trends before accepting or rejecting
them. Their main aim is to create modern collective visibility in a global
world market, while concealing primitive past images. This modernity
project served as a door, to borrow Simmel’s metaphor:98 it is a door to
enter into a foreign place and become familiarized with the Other while
retaining the freedom of exiting through that door at any time, and
hence controlling the impact of the foreign resources. In this sense, it
also requires essentialist categories and identities, which enable the
agents to move smoothly between East and West (and across fields of
power) without losing track of their internal mission to bring the best
of the two worlds together and, above all, without losing the sense of
their native roots. The main motivation of the elite was to reallocate
resources and gain recognition in the global field of power.
However, the Western idea of a nation-state individualizes the citi-
zens, who are now freed from their immediate communities. Slavish
application of the same notion ignores the fact that peoples in the Arab
States “are deeply embedded in communities in families, in ethnic,
racial or other social grouping.”99 This has resulted in a new tension:
the marginalized population, excluded from this elite’s modernity
project, entered into a continuous struggle not to attain “autonomy”,
but rather to attain visibility, as Bayat100 argues. These are the same
groups that are left out of the elite, as well as scholarly, accounts.101
These are also the same groups that serve a double function in Arab
societies: they serve as the epitome of the authentic cultures, while rep-
resenting the raw material that needs be lifted up from the slums and
refined to match the new modern face of Arab States.102
One important ingredient of the new modernity project has been
urbanization; newly formed governments have poured financial and
political resources into Arab cities, in an attempt to create new metro-
politans to serve as centers of progress. However, increased urbanization
has led to increasing migration from rural regions to the cities, thereby
introducing rural citizens to city life, with its new opportunities:
The increasing size of the population, the migration from the country-
side into the city and the growing numbers and power of the national
bourgeoisie – landowners, merchants, owners and managers of factories,
civil servants and army officers – affected the nature of urban life in
many ways. With the coming of independence, the indigenous middle
class moved into quarters that formerly had been inhabited mainly by
Europeans, and the rural migrants moved into the quarters they had
vacated, or into new ones. In each case, there was a change in customs
and ways of life: the middle class took to living in a way that formerly
had been typical of the foreign residents, and the rural migrants adopted
the ways of the urban poor.103
Thus, cities were an important part of urbanization and modernization

projects, with the construction of “public monuments to legitimize the
young state”; consequently, the numbers in Arab urban settings have
skyrocketed, constituting more than half of the population, who now
compete over scarce state services.104
The growth of slums was noted even in wealthy Arab States, such
as Saudi Arabia. One Saudi artist expressed this idea in his painting of
Jeddah, the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia. The artist Abdullah
Idrees shows in his painting “Untitled” the low standard of buildings
accommodating the low-income foreign labor force and the city para-
lyzed by pollution; he even used rough paper to help reinforce this
idea.105
Thus, although the rationale behind the urbanization project was to
“beautify” the cities as the new “faces” of the new Arab States, the
project unintentionally resulted in the creation of the so-called ‘ash-
waiyyat (or stigmatized) housing driven mainly by the rural popula-
tion’s desire to “survive and live a dignified life.”106 The phenomenon
is still proliferating; for instance, Cairo has more than a hundred spon-
taneous communities housing more than seven million people who
claimed “cemeteries, roof tops and the state/public land on the out-
skirts of the city, creating largely autonomous communities.”107
Even the shopping malls, proudly built as a sign of modernity, have
been used by Arab youth as a place to form new relationships and as a
Western-style luxurious shelter from a polluted, overcrowded, and
traditional space surrounding the malls.108 The new malls provided a
more “democratic” space to break up borders among classes and
gender. The new social space provides new possibilities to negotiate
the project of the self and mould it according to the surroundings.
According to Bayat, the very notion of a “civil society” discards
such communities, which are quiet and dispersed but can be
mobilized in collective action, despite their lack of leadership or
clear ideology. This collectivity, however, can be “more extensive
and effective than conventional institutions outside the state.”109
Hadj-Moussa110 provides an example of such informal networks in
Algeria. By the end of the 1990s, when ownership of satellite dishes
was a collective act, neighborhoods of about 100 to 200 families each

would come together and divide the cost of a collective satellite dish
among them. A caretaker would be elected to oversee the installation,
and another would keep the amount. The result was a gradual change
of allocation of resources, as Bayat states, “by initiating gradual ‘mol-
ecular’ changes, the poor in the long run ‘progressively modify the
pre-existing composition of forces and hence become the matrix of
new changes.’ ”111
Reflexivity: the fuel of change

Far from being a straightforward process, however, this modernity
project has been fueled by the increasing reflexivity not only among the
new elite but also among laypeople. Success and acknowledgement was
the motivation shared by the powerful as well as less powerful agents;
each party played the game of hybridity and learned how to manipu-
late the resources available to serve their goal of attaining recognition.
The continuous rise of education opportunities among the masses,
as well as their familiarity with foreign cultures via the media and via
migration has constituted a challenge, not only to elite developmental
projects but also to well-established traditions and values. Reflexivity
here serves as a catalyst in facilitating a change fuelled by the countries’
exposure to extensional lifestyles and norms. Thompson sums this up
by saying,
The development of the media also deepens and accentuates the reflex-
ive organization of the self in the sense that, with the expansion of sym-
bolic resources available for the process of self-formation, individuals
are continuously confronted with new possibilities, their horizons are
continuously shifting, their symbolic points of reference are continu-
ously changing.112
In a particular reference to Lull’s study113 among Chinese viewers,

Thompson reminds us that viewing other cultural forms can be a
means by which the audience “get a sense of how people live in other
parts of the world, a sense which could give them a point of compari-
son to reflect critically on their own condition of life.”114
It is important, however, to recall that, although the media played
and still play a crucial role as one main resource, their power lies in
being a new form of interaction added to the interpersonal interac-
tion accelerated after independence, particularly given the increasing
migration of Arab citizens as an imported labor force either to the Gulf

markets or to Western societies, not to mention increasing interper-
sonal interaction with foreign tourists.
Elite projects to modernize the national and regional images by, for
instance, importing new program content did not take into account the
unintentional use of this new content on the lives of the laity. Another
illustration of this point is how the Internet, which the Arab intellec-
tual elites consider a means for further development,115 has been
deployed by the Arab youth population as a dating forum.116 This can
be regarded as a paradoxical process of the “relaxation of norms,” as
Abaza117 calls it, with specific reference to the increasing percentage of
urfi (or informal) marriages as a legitimate means of sexuality. Urfi
marriage, in particular, has become a prevalent phenomenon among
Egyptians, particularly young people, and the number of those pre-
ferring this kind of marriage to traditional marriages is estimated to be
more than 30,000.118 The contracts are drawn up not only among
Egyptian men and women, but also among the Egyptian youth and
Arab nationals from the region. For instance, young women from
humble quarters such as Imbaba in Cairo, best known for hosting
militant Islamists, enter into informal marriage contracts, urfi mar-
riages, with Gulf tourists, with the contracts lasting up to the end of
the tourists’ holidays.119 Egyptian intellectuals and men of religion,
however, regard this kind of marriage a form of concubinage because
young people usually marry in secrecy without the knowledge of their
families, not to mention that the law (at least until recently) does not
automatically accept the legitimacy of children from this kind of mar-
riage unless the case is brought before the court.120
The opportunities provided for women in connection with the new
discourse of education and progress have made women more aware of
their rights, pushing them to challenge the status quo even in small
steps. Fargues,121 for instance, argues that despite official reports that
confirm the low empowerment of Arab women, the continuing
decline in the birth rate among generations attested to the opposite.
Thus, the following of Islam did not prevent the decline in births. He
argues that education and women’s entry into the labor market has had
an impact on this, with more and more women never marrying. The
scarcity of resources available has also indirectly helped reduce the
phenomenon of polygamy due to the financial problems in affording
a suitable martial residence.122
Moreover, Mona Abaza123 offers an illustrative anecdote about the
tendency of several Egyptian saleswomen and cashiers working in the
new Western-style malls in Cairo to remove their headscarves upon

arriving in the malls and to replace them at the end of the working day,
thus re-negotiating a religious identity that may seem unfitting in this
new hybrid space. These women, then, possess a vast knowledge of
moving across social spaces and fields (of work, home) with ease.
Conversely, those who adhere to the veil may also do this as a defense
mechanism, as Abu Odeh124 argues. In this case, the veil is a means of
avoiding harassment in the street or workplace, using Islam as a dis-
course to declare chastity and to fight harassment as a signifier of male
dominance.
Moreover, young Saudi women have protested against the increas-
ing unemployment rate among female graduates in the country, a
frustrating trend given that the number of women graduates is escalat-
ing.125 In addition, Saudi women, despite living in a conservative
society, rebelled after watching televised images of American and
Kuwaiti women driving cars across the Saudi border (while the Saudi
state denies Saudi women the right to drive). Saudi women demon-
strated, using Islam as their main argument, defying the men of reli-
gion to find a Koranic reference that speaks explicitly against women’s
right to drive cars.126 The rebellious women drew on the official dis-
course of religion as a means of justifying their resistance, thus casting
doubt on the official exegesis of the holy script.127 Saudi women used
to organize collective demonstrations demanding the right to drive.128
Likewise, some Qatari women, who were granted the right to drive
only a decade or less ago, tended to challenge the rather unjustifiable
law long before they were granted that right. The Qatari psychother-
apist Mouza el-Maliki, the first Qatari woman to stand for local elec-
tions in Qatar, recalled her challenging the laws in the 1980s, when it
was forbidden for women to drive. The laws did not stop her from
driving her car, with the result that she was caught several times, yet
she always had a challenging answer to the policemen:
I just tell them [the police] OK . . . what you are going to do, take me to
jail, thank you very much, because I want to go to jail to write papers
about the prisoners there. You want to give me a ticket, I’ll pay it; you
want my license, I don’t have one.129
With the increase in their educational and career chances, women

now feel more independent, which may be seen as a threat to tradition,
for “society’s morals are endangered as the entire fabric of virginity,
honour, and chastity is worn away from within.”130 This was also the
case when 15-year-old Saudi schoolgirls were left to burn because they
were not wearing their headscarves and the correct dress, abaya. The
kingdom’s religious police stopped the girls from leaving the blazing
building, which resulted in a wave of criticism in the Saudi media
against the kingdom’s powerful mutaween (or religious police).131 In
general, as Yamani132 argues, young Saudi men and women are skept-
ical about the government and its policies because of decreasing eco-
nomic standards and resources available to their generation compared
to those that their fathers’ generation enjoyed.
To recap, education has been the path taken by the new nation-state
to keep up with the Western modernization project. Education, rather
than wealth or class, has become the main attribute of the new Arab
elites. Therefore, Arabs are more likely to accept an expert opinion, as
long as it is attributed to a well-educated source. For instance, Arab
students “have learned that somebody who is more qualified, more
educated, and more expert than they are in matters of education should
be responsible for decisions relating to their education.”133 Thus,
education is one important cultural capital that rises above even wealth
in class distinction. That was illustrated when fifteen well-educated
Egyptian young women carried a law suit against the Minister of
Culture and officials in the censor’s office, as well as the police, for pre-
venting them from getting permission to work as belly dancers in the
night clubs. The young women graduates, including one working on
her doctoral thesis, refused to work in their fields, attracted by dreams
of quick profits in the belly dancing profession.134 Distinguished by
their education as their cultural capital, these women openly declared
their aspiration to wealth to complete their accumulated social capital,
even if it meant a challenge to the rigid structure. Their cultural capital
armed them with the confidence to seek a profession commonly seen
as a form of prostitution, thereby re-defining the profession of belly
dancing while working openly to re-distribute the economic capital by
cutting across the social stereotypes that relate dancing with ignorance
and education with chastity.
Media as a bridge
In September 2005, after more than two decades of life under author-
itarian rule, Egyptians could vote in the first presidential election in
which poll was open to more than one candidate. Despite the fact that
the 77-year-old President Mubarak secured himself a fifth term,
observers praised the role of the media in “managing” the elections. In
fact, the Egyptian cabinet had announced that the state media should
play a new role in that historic election by allocating equal time to all
ten presidential candidates, including the President. Although the state
television channels allocated 30 minutes’ coverage for each candidate,
some commentators considered that the core message was still the
same and nothing fundamental had changed.135
This debate, however, points to a new role claimed by the Arab
news media, which serves as a window onto other worlds, practices
and lifestyles as well as acting as a mirror that reflects a new, hybrid
image of the self. This indeed is in line with the visions of the
nineteenth-century cultural entrepreneurs, dominantly Lebanese and
Syrian Christian immigrants, who sought to transmit Western culture
to Arab societies as a sign of progress and development.136
The media embodied this hybridity project, and were seen as a main
tool in the hands of Arab governments following independence. Arab
governments then realized the potential of deploying the communica-
tions sector as one means of spreading their mission to “educate their
audiences” (for example, in Saudi Arabia).137 For instance, Lila Abu-
Lughod138 argues that the former Egyptian president Gamal Abdel
Nasser had a mission “to educate and inform”, and that he used
television as an integral tool in this mission; thus, “a major part of
programming included shows with developmental and educational
themes.” This is what Abu-Lughod terms development realism, inso-
far as it “idealizes education, progress and modernity within the
nation.”139
Moreover, the last decade has also witnessed an explosion in the
number of satellite channels, particularly those committed to enter-
tainment, financed by Saudi and other Gulf business tycoons. Arab
television officials tend to see their main task as providing entertain-
ment and hence “relief” to their audience, rather than burdening them
with serious discussions.140 In fact, entertainment programming has
thus been seen as harmless and can hardly “incite people to speak up
about their problems or make their demands in demonstrations.”141
Satellite channels are now seen to be a ticket to the West, bringing
Western-style television journalism, entertainment programs, and
Western lifestyles to Arab living rooms, to compensate for the inabil-
ity of the majority of poor Arabs to access Western countries for
tourism, study, and so on. As for those who can afford this access, they
feel they “no longer need to travel abroad.”142
Yet, for media-owners and policy-makers, the media were seen as a
means to prove the success of hybridization through the incorporation
of a foreign format with indigenous content. One Egyptian intellectual

expressed this view when he said that the true Egyptian identity lies
“in the ability to Egyptianize ‘the other’.”143 Moreover, Chaker144
gives further support to the same idea by confirming the possibility of
maintaining indigenous cultural heritage while opening up to an eco-
nomically interdependent world. He offers Dubai Media City as one
successful illustration that “is surely likely to be in the business of gen-
erating wealth” while conforming to “the socio-cultural values of the
Arab world.”
News and current affairs programs are also hailed as the source of
knowledge and education, with one Algerian viewer justifying his con-
sumption of news as being “for learning with the goal of education in
mind.”145 This is perhaps why the recent bombings of al-Jazeera (a
news channel), which were alleged to be deliberate attacks by the USA
forces, further enforce this view of a Western Other that seeks to
hinder the dissemination of information, hence knowledge (power), to
the native citizens. News in particular is usually associated with a
serious genre; this is due to the traditional roots of the genre, a product
of intellectual elites.146 The solemnity of the news genre is manifested
in its linguistic code as well as the choice of topics usually deemed as
serious (see Chapters 3 and 4).
However, the media serve as a source that facilitates the monitoring
of one’s image in the Other’s eyes. For instance, one Algerian viewer
protested about what was shown on French news broadcasts about
Algeria:
I am affected by it. I can’t help it. On election day, why didn’t they go
see the intellectuals, the students, educated people? They went to see the
people dressed in rags with holes in their shoes and who didn’t know
how to speak French. Why? [very loud] Europe, the French, has pre-
conceptions. They believe we live that way!147
In sum, the media are the virtual bridge to other social fields and
through which agents reassess their position. As mentioned previ-
ously, the media, metaphorically speaking, are like a theatre for
rehearsing other roles. For instance, Lila Abu-Lughod148 recounts an
example of an Egyptian village woman who would decide what to
wear in her trip to the city based on what she saw in a TV series about
urban life; thus, she would replace her head clothes with a modern
hijab, thereby “erasing her village identity.” In other words, she would
utilize the media as a means to know the rules of the game in the city.
Tourism has also been a form of interaction with the Other, and has
offered a window onto different lifestyles. For instance, one young
Saudi man expressed his confusion on seeing differences among cul-
tures in Arab states, saying,
In the open, in tea and coffee houses, we saw Egyptians openly dis-
cussing and debating political issues. It had never occurred to me before
that ordinary people need to discuss such issues among themselves. I
mean, if they are not the ones who are ruling the country, why should
they bother themselves with such issues? What impact would they have?
I was horrified to hear them express their negative opinions of their
leaders. In Saudi Arabia, we never do this. I am still not sure what I think
about it all, but such provocative behaviour (fitna) could lead to chaos.149
In addition, Ouis150 showed the result of the high exposure of Gulfies,

citizens of the Gulf countries, to Western culture and lifestyles. Her
informants proclaimed their puzzlement with the claim that a modern
Western lifestyle should contradict their indigenous culture, as
expressed by a young woman from the UAE: “But we take the best
from both, why do we have to choose?”151 Another young man
expressed a similar view exemplifying the compatibility of Eastern and
Western elements by referring to his own Western outfit:
I am writing to you now and I’m wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a cap and
at the same time I’m smoking a light Marlboro cigarette with a can of
Pepsi next to me, does this make me Westernized? No, I’m not, I still feel
as a normal UAE national.152
For him, then, what matters are the social relations as the sine qua non
of the formation of identity rather than mere appearances. This can be
documented in Middle East societies where gender relations, for
instance, have been subject to this power of reflexivity, as Yaquobi153
illustrates, using reality TV as an example. Hawa Sawa was a reality
program produced by the Lebanese company, Breeze, featuring eight
women living alone, cooking, shopping, and showing their skills as
future wives. The program targets young men who will watch and call
up to meet the girls. According to a recent study on the impact of this
program on youth values, a good percentage of young Egyptian
women confirmed their willingness to participate in such a program in
order to get a husband. As for young men, the majority seemed to
entertain the idea of using such a program as a convenient means to
find a life-partner.154 Moreover, the majority of young interviewees

involved in this study confirmed that reality TV programs have indi-
cated to them the paramount role of physical appearance as a means to
success and happiness. In fact, another study155 pointed to a new trend
in Arab societies of resorting to plastic surgery as a means of enhanc-
ing one’s appearance. Among the Arab States, Lebanon is now the
beauty center in the region, with 60 percent of patients in plastic surg-
eries being non-Lebanese.156
Thus, youth take advantage of media and technological advances to
reorganize their roles, even if they challenge traditional customs. For
instance, youth find in the new technology of SMS a means of com-
munication, and even dating, which has paved the way for the rise of
tens of music/SMS channels broadcasting music videos while having
an SMS scroll bar moving across the screen with messages exchanged
between men and women. Some of the messages are overtly sexual,
carrying even “marriage proposals.” And although some of the chan-
nels, such as Amuzicana, attempted to oversee the SMS traffic by using
special software to remove phone numbers and e-mail addresses from
the messages, the youth keep on finding “ingenious” ways of commu-
nicating; for example, messages may include poetry asking readers to
count the letters of every word, which add up to the phone number of
the sender.157
Challenging tradition
A study among young Egyptians158 showed that young people are in
need of role models in their lives, not so much because they want to
imitate them but rather to consult them. Asked to rank their role
models in life, the prophet Mohammed, perhaps unpredictably, was
not even ranked among the top five; rather, the late Egyptian religious
preacher Mohamed M. Shaarawi, best known for his use of everyday
parables in his exegesis televised talks, topped the list. He was followed
by Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud, famous for his televised program Science
and Faith.159 Furthermore, intellectuals themselves have redefined the
status of religious institutions by continuously questioning their legit-
imacy. For instance, Abdel Wahab al-Effendi160 scorns al-Azhar for
issuing what he calls “on demand fatwas,” as a direct response to al-
Azhar’s fatwa calling for Muslims in France to abide by French
(secular) laws and regulations. The fatwa came in the wake of a heated
debate following the ban by the French authorities of the wearing of
hijab in public schools.
It is no surprise, amidst this fervor to identify with contemporary

problems and roles, that a young preacher like the Egyptian Amr Khaled
achieves stardom as the new “tele-evangelist” of the Arabs. Khaled
touches on the youths’ desire to control their life project; his preaching
appeals mostly to the middle- and upper-middle classes, but it is claimed
that his popularity is spreading among the vast lower classes as well. His
preaching, available on his multi-lingual website, calls for youth to
define their “target in life” and reach it, calling them “life makers.”161
Moreover, Muslim women have also claimed a share in this stardom, so
medical doctors such as Heba Qotb are frequent guests in Arab media
outlets, commenting and giving advice on intimate sexual problems
among spouses, using the mixed discourse of science and religion.162
Khaled’s call for self-development is not, however, confined to the
religious programs; rather, a new wave of personal development pro-
grams have come to dominate the Arab media scene, for instance,
Smarts Way, a new TV satellite channel that “aims to affect its Arab
viewers by impacting on the self development of their souls, thoughts,
behaviors and career choices.”163 The experts hosting the main pro-
grams include human resources and self-help gurus such as Dr. Saleh
al-Rashed and Dr. Ibrahim al-Faqih, as well as the tele-evangelists Amr
Khaled and the Kuwaiti Tarek Suwaidan, with the latter known for his
books on strategic management.164 The rationalization of establishing
such a channel is anchored in Islamic discourse, referring particularly
to the Koranic verse, “Verily never will Allah change the condition of
a people until they change it themselves (with their own souls)” – The
Thunder Surah, verse 11.
So, individualist discourse encourages the realization of the life
project fueled by continuous reflexivity. Agents then seek to transform
social reality within the constraints of the hegemonic discourses. This
reflexivity was shown in a study conducted amongst Arabs in several
Arab countries165 about their concerns, be they political, social, or
economic. The study was an update of an earlier survey among
Arab nationals conducted in the 1980s, which showed that the
main issues that preoccupied Arabs then were the Arab divide, the
Palestinian–Israeli conflict, social and economic backwardness, and
dependency on the First World. Moreover, democracy occupied the
last place on the list of the six main concerns. The survey of the 1990s,
however, showed that new issues came to the fore, for example,
economic/technological challenges, environmental and demographic
issues, social problems. Democracy, however, ranked as low again,
albeit with a higher percentage than in the earlier survey.
The researcher who conducted this survey, Saad Eddin Ibrahim,

lamented over this list, particularly the ranking of democracy, won-
dering if there is something deeply entrenched in the Arab culture that
makes it anti-democratic. This survey (in both its earlier and updated
versions) shows a developmental stride amongst Arabs, who are now
more concerned about inward problems, for example, demographic,
social and economic problems, or issues that touch their daily lives and
work, rather than distant and complex issues. This, I argue, is a sign of
the increasing reflexivity that triggers more concern about immediate
issues, particularly those related to risk, therefore democracy might
rank low because the risk associated with it is hard to calculate; in other
words, if the gap between rich and poor is an important issue for Arab
citizens, they might nevertheless find it difficult to relate this directly
to the lack of democracy or free elections, tending instead to see it
as having a causal relationship with purely social and/or economic
factors. The role of tradition and cultural heritage then acquires a less
significant role while individualization increases in importance, given
the recent improvement of education and the standard of living.166
Conclusion
The modern Arab nation-state has brought about radical changes in
Arab societies, offering new resources and opportunities to the laity,
for example, mass education and the mass media, while opening the
door to new kinds of risks that threaten the established hierarchy of
power within those same societies. Thus, while hybridization has been
one of the Arab governments’ strategies to promote modernization, it
has also been a source of fear over losing native heritage to “sweeping”
Western values. In fact, it can be argued that this fear of hybridity in
an Arab context resembles the Western (particularly European) fear of
the “sweeping” influx of immigrants; in both cases, the openness to the
Other’s world, hybridization or immigration, although advocated in
the public discourse, is feared for its unpredictable and unintended
consequences. In other words, hybridity here is another resource
available for the agency enabling the agents to work on shifting the
power roles and the re-allocation of resources.
The process of hybridity – that is, Arabization – is used by Arab
intellectuals (expert systems) to transform the face of their nations and
thus gain visibility on the world scene. Less visible (and less powerful)
groups, however, resort to their closed networks, fighting for recogni-
tion in local and regional spheres. Thus, there is a continuous struggle
to legitimize the demands of each group by objectifying certain cul-

tural practices: established artists snub shaabi art, journalists in main-
stream media snub the tabloid press, and so on.
As I argue above, the laity is an active agency that has managed to
move across fields and feel empowered. This reflexivity has indeed
been the most vital factor in recent changes in the Arab region. The
process of globalization can then be seen to take place in different
layers and at a different pace across the Middle East. The process
involves the flow of culture from outside the region, thereby forming
pressure on existing traditions, a pressure that entails threats as well as
opportunities for the lay citizens and for their interaction among each
other.
In sum, what the Arab elites want is to build and keep a “bridge”
that separates them from the West while giving them the chance to
return when they want. Moreover, the elites see the laity as inevitably
vulnerable to foreign impulses, while the laity, although acknowledg-
ing their lack of sufficient cultural capital to sieve the incoming
impulses, strive to get their share of recognition using the available dis-
courses, for example, religion or development. For the lay majority,
however, the bridge serves as a door that connects them to the world
out there, a world that they cannot access in practice, but can access
through the media, and rehearse living in, albeit temporarily. This kind
of bridge is like Abul Ella bridge in Cairo, separating and yet con-
necting two starkly different areas: one called Zamalek, an area inhab-
ited by the rich and the celebrities, and the other called Bulaq,
inhabited by poor and humble people. Young Bulaqis used to claim
that they were from the rich area, Zamalek, “because only ‘a bridge
separates’ the two neighborhoods. Although the Nile and a huge
socioeconomic gap separates Bulaq from al-Zamalek, people focus
more on the bridge that connects the two areas.”167
Chapter 2
The Arab Journalistic Field*
Notwithstanding several recent publications about Arab (news)

media,1 there is still a knowledge vacuum about the Arab journalism
field: for example, access to the field; reasons for its popularity; how
Arab journalists, particularly in the so-called pan-Arab media, per-
ceive their role and how can this be related to changes in Arab media.
Most of the recent studies, on the other hand, have focused on what is
seen as the “phenomenon” of Arab satellite channels (notably al-
Jazeera), which are immediately considered to be a new commun-
ication challenge to American media hegemony,2 and a modern
anti-Western mouthpiece. Whilst attempts have been made to survey
some of these changes,3 they only presented a general (quantitative)
overview of the educational and social background of samples of Arab
journalists, merely analyzed the profession in terms of the degrees the
journalists held. What was needed, however, was to unravel how jour-
nalists construct their occupation – for instance, an investigation of
their habitus or the dispositions that give these journalists a “practical
sense” of the field in which they work. Also needed is an analysis of
how the proportion of the cultural capital possessed by a specific pro-
fessional group of journalists can be transacted into other fields, for
instance, politics.
Arab journalism is a rich research field, for it embraces a profession
known for its contradictory images. This chapter aims to place Arab
journalism in a contemporary context, in order to chart the questions
that should inform future research on the Arab media scene. A sec-
ondary aim is to help unravel the hierarchical system within the Arab
news media. As an analytical tool, Bourdieu’s field theory is argued to
provide a fresh framework in which to study Arab journalism as a
social field congruent with other fields in society, such as the political
and economic fields. Another aim of this chapter is to critically
The Arab Journalistic Field 43
examine recent works on the Arab news media, showing their short-
comings and their tendency to sidestep the analysis of power distribu-
tion, as well as highlighting the widespread tendency to frame Arab
journalists as a uniform group of homogenous agents, rather than
diverse participants in this field.
The aim of this discussion is to further a new research direction, one
which is currently under-researched but nevertheless required as a
basis for debates and studies on Arab media and their role in the con-
temporary polity. Rather than focusing on structure, for example, cen-
sorship and ownership,4 I argue for the need to integrate the issue of
active agency in future analyses. Otherwise, the role of the journalist
in changing the Arab media scene will remain ambiguous, thus making
the emergence of new ventures such as al-Jazeera merely a product of
a rebellious and well-educated cadre of Arab journalists, rather than a
dialectic of structure (ownership, technology, education) and agency
(journalists as mediators of ideology and values). Thus, to understand
journalism, as Bourdieu5 suggests, is to understand journalism as a
microcosm and “to understand the effects that the people engaged in
this microcosm exert on one another.”
Clearly, there is a lack of qualitative studies among Arab journal-
ists; but what is worse is how little, if any, attention is given to the exist-
ing rich data such as journalists’ autobiographies or ethical codes,
which would provide significant information on the contextual back-
ground to then map the journalistic field. Such datasets provide a meta-
discourse for journalists, by which they can negotiate their role within
the field and society in general.6 In addition, recent research7 has also
validated the practice of surveying both the Arabic and English (or
other European language) literature side by side, rather than basing
conclusions only on the studies in English. This has revealed valuable
insights into the development of Arab media as analyzed by Arab
researchers, and has also served as an eye-opener into the criticism
launched by Arab scholars against some Western theories of Arab
media.
Based on Bourdieu’s theory of practice, this chapter seeks to draw
the contour of future research into Arab journalism as an autonomous
field with its own rules and capital. Bourdieu argues that in order to
understand the logic of any field, the identification of the capital (social
and symbolic) that operates within this specific field is required. Arab
journalists, as active agents, do indeed possess a form of (symbolic and
cultural) power,8 which affects, and is affected by, current develop-
ments in the region as a whole.
The chapter unfolds as follows: first some useful concepts from

Bourdieu’s practice theory are highlighted and then suggested lists of
practices, which merit attention, are presented. These include the
internal struggle among pan-Arab media outlets over power in the
media field, namely who is seen as the trendsetter and who as follower,
and the hierarchy of players in the field. Moreover, certain Western
news media have indeed served as a source of inspiration and training,
and as such it can be argued that the internal hierarchy among Arab
news media is closely tied to the practices adopted from Western
(Anglo-American) sources of inspiration. The role of Western media
in shaping the identity of modern Arab journalist will be further
explored in Chapter 6.
Bourdieu’s contours of a field

Barbie Zelizer9 sees journalists as a community with shared definitions
of their practice. The reporters’ community can be seen in parallel to the
metaphor of the community of memory, as defined by Bellah et al.:10
“one that does not forget its past. In order not to forget that past, a com-
munity is involved in retelling its story, its constitutive narrative, and in
so doing, it offers examples of the men and women who have embodied
and exemplified the meaning of the community.” Thus journalists, as a
community, are socially interdependent and share certain practices that
define and delimit their community. At issue here is a history or past,
which is crucial to the definition of a community. For instance, journal-
ists’ presence at the heart of events is one example of the metaphors that
contribute to upholding this commentary or, as Zelizer puts it: “In pro-
ducing metaphors like ‘eye-witnessing’, ‘watch-dogs’, ‘being there’,
practices of discovery or ‘being on the spot’, reporters establish markers
that not only set up their presence but also uphold its ideological
importance.”11 In other words, being an eyewitness to distant events,
while anchoring them in different temporality (past, present and future),
allows a reporter to contribute to the upholding of the professional
authority of this community and its position in society.
This view is similar to Bourdieu’s12 view of journalism as a field of
practice within which forces engage in power struggles. By seeing
journalism as a field, Bourdieu rightly points out that the “journalistic
practice is not reducible to the choices and idiosyncrasies of individual
photographers and journalists,”13 and thus, the practices within the
field are determined by the power relations and the positioning of each
reporter.
As a tool to unravel the “rules of the game” inside this community,

Bourdieu’s14 field theory offers a framework for studying journalism
as a social field in line with other fields in society. One of the focal
issues in Bourdieu’s theory is the analysis of the distribution of power
in a particular field. For instance, the Arab news media can be
presented as a hierarchical system composed of the so-called serious
versus yellow press, magazines versus newspapers, pan-Arab versus
national/local outlets, and so on. The elements within the system are
separated only by symbolic barriers created by the amount of “capital”
assigned to each element. A hierarchical system also exists among jour-
nalists, reflecting their professional, editorial, academic and symbolic
power, values, and reflexivity. In this sense, Bourdieu’s field theory can
be used to combine macro-societal and micro-organizational factors in
the analysis of journalism. Its strength is that it does not rely on only
one variable, for example, ownership or the role of technology.15
Studying the process of the selection of news, for instance, is to see the
convergence of habitus and structural position within the journalistic
field.16 Habitus is “an open system of dispositions that is constantly sub-
jected to experiences, and therefore constantly affected by them in a
way that either reinforces or modifies its structures.”17
One example of the application of field theory concerns French
television, where an analysis showed that it “no longer always bows to
the news judgments of the serious print press.”18 A second example is
given by Hovden,19 who showed that within the Norwegian journal-
istic field, a distinction is made between weekly and daily press; a dis-
tinction that is further identified as one that separates “worthy” from
“unworthy” participants in the field. Moreover, the notion of objec-
tivity in journalism is related to the standard of respectability, with
broadsheet journalists tending to cling to high standards of objectivity
and impartiality to separate themselves from the tabloid journalists.20
At issue here is the proportion of the economic and cultural capital
associated with this professional group of journalists, and how this
capital can be transacted into other fields, for example, politics. For
instance, several leading Arab journalists, such as Salah al-Qallab
(Jordan) and Mohamed Heikal (Egypt), have abandoned the field of
journalism to seek careers in politics. In fact, one Egyptian TV pre-
senter once bemoaned the frequent appearance of politicians on her
daily program because it made those politicians and the political ana-
lysts invited more famous by far than the TV presenters themselves.21
Moreover, Benson22 draws attention to the decreasing prestige associ-
ated with French academics writing feature articles in the press, which
directly opposes the situation in the Arab world, where several acade-
mics, such as media researchers Awatef Abdel Rahman and Mamoun
Fandy, regularly publish in the national and pan-Arab press.
Moreover, local/regional journalistic practices exert an influence on
other local fields, be they literary, political, scientific or religious. For
instance, the recent increase of religious newspaper sections or reli-
gious TV programs must be a direct result of this interrelation between
journalism and the religious field; likewise, the the increase in popular
science sections or literary comments in the pan-Arab press could be
argued to be the impact of a similar intersection between journalism
on the one hand and the science and literary fields on the other. Also,
there is apparent competition among different media, electronic versus
print. For example, one popular genre is the agony column, such as the
one in the Egyptian daily al-Ahram Friday issue, which used to be
edited by Abdel Wahab Moutaeh. This section proved so popular that
it turned into a televised “agony program” on the Egyptian satellite
channel (ESC) and has been copied by other Arab channels, which
implies an internal struggle for winning a bigger audience share.
According to Bourdieu, every field operates according to its unique
logic, which separates, connects and intersects with other fields. The
participants in each field are defined by their unevenly distributed
capital, whether economic, social or cultural. To account for social
changes inside the field and society in general, Bourdieu acknowledges
the internal struggle among field participants to re-define and rearrange
the capital among them. Thus, participants endeavor to re-categorize
and re-organize the relationships among fields, and among partici-
pants in the same field, in a continuous attempt to distinguish and
render legitimacy to their capital. Against this backdrop, Arab journal-
istic practices are tied to the rules of an overall field, and this field both
effects, and is affected by other social fields.
Journalists, as agents, enter into a dialectic relationship with their
field of work, and they work according to their habitus, which relates
to their specific social and cultural background, biases, values and
stereotypes. Particularly in developing nations, journalists have gained
increasing power with their multi-faceted roles of mobilizing as well
as educating their public. As it is reasonable to assume that Arab jour-
nalists exert an important influence on opinion-making and develop-
ment in the Middle East, it is essential to carry out analyses based on
actual encounters with Arab journalists. There is a need to detail the
Arab journalistic field, in order to shed new light on the journalists’
social and cultural capital and to uncover their perception of their role
with regard to the changes and challenges facing their profession; then,
to determine whether this perception is enabling or constraining the
media’s contribution to the democratization of the region. Such an
ambitious research agenda could also reveal gender differences inside
the newsrooms in order to unravel the specific challenges facing
women journalists.
The much-needed analysis of the Arab journalistic field could begin
with the impact of pan-Arab news media upon the social transforma-
tion in the region; exploring issues surrounding the accountability and
legitimacy of the pan-Arab news media. Certain pan-Arab media
outlets, particularly al-Jazeera, are sometimes held up as being new
democratic forums for Arab audiences, and hence postulated to have a
significant real or potential impact upon the democratization of the
region. However, little is known about the type of organizations these
media represent with respect to:
• The basis of their legitimacy;

• How media professionals themselves account for their popularity vis-
à-vis traditional media outlets and Western media;
• How close they are to other civil society institutions and their impact
on such institutions;
• How power is distributed internally in pan-Arab media organizations
and how representative this is in terms of, for example, gender and
minorities;
• Whether their agenda is compatible with the needs of their audiences,
particularly the poor and the marginalized.
I have previously23 discussed how attempts24 to categorize the Arab

news media have not taken account of new developments in the region.
For instance, the role of journalists as judged by news professionals
themselves may be that of a mobilizer, educator, or informer, or indeed
a combination of all of these. Subsequently, it is important to analyze
this role in light of its unique cultural context.
The following sections aim to provide pointers to the understand-
ing of the logic of the Arab journalistic field, both among the Arab
main players and in relation to global players such as CNN and BBC.
Before embarking on this process, however, it is imperative to sketch
out the political and socio-cultural context of Arab journalism as a
field, that is, the means of competition and power accumulation, hier-
archy within the field, and content as a means of differentiation. The
first level of this analysis is to map out the contour of the field, and
I shall, in the following section, confine this exercise to the so-called

‘pan-Arab’ media. It is important to stress, though, that the study of
pan-Arab media must be integrated with the analysis of local media
and the relation between the two, a task that seems rather daunting for
current Western scholarship (see Chapters 3, 4 and 7).
Pan-Arabism
When discussing the emergence of the Arab press as a forum for ratio-
nal and political discourse, it is hard to talk in general terms about
“Arab” press. Rather, each Arab country has developed its press and
media systems and discourses at a different pace to that of other neigh-
boring countries. For instance, whilst Egypt launched its first news-
paper in 1800,25 the first publication in Kuwait appeared in 1928, and
in Bahrain in 1939.26 Also, illiteracy rates (still) vary from one Arab
country to another, which, together with the difficulty, at least in the
past, of forming a media outlet with a regional rather than national
audience in mind, have contributed to enforcing this distinction
among Arab States. However, one common characteristic is the way in
which national media was used as a means of enforcing a rather “imag-
ined community” among diverse groups of people. The Saudi govern-
ment, for example, appeared to establish television broadcasting in
order to distract citizens from foreign programs, providing them with
a sense of community despite the citizens’ different tribal relations.27
Indeed, the sheer fact that the “Middle East” itself as a term was
forced upon Western empires in the nineteenth century28 is compelling
evidence of how the new (imagined) geographical boundaries have
prompted several Arab states to form a pan-Arab identity and deploy
media as one means of achieving this goal. Therefore, the task of dis-
entangling the local from the regional embraced in the overall “pan-
Arab” concept has proved a difficult task, given its penetration in a
plethora of discourses ranging from the politically- and media-based,
to popular culture and everyday discourse. The field of news media has
embraced a number of institutions targeting not a local but a regional
audience, a tendency not born with the eminent satellite channels but
traceable back to the nineteenth century and the emergence of the so-
called émigré press,29 which formed a transnational community of
writers/journalists and audience alike. The pan-Arab news media have
gained a paramount position on the present and future research agenda
because of their success in implementing the challenging political
project called “pan-Arabism” into the cultural domain. Pan-Arab
media have therefore claimed increasing research attention for the fol-
lowing reasons:
1. They have a large audience share across Arab countries rather than
being confined to only one country;
2. They can be regarded as trendsetters among other national and
regional media institutions because they embrace a young, high-
caliber generation of media professionals;30
3. The past few years have shown us that Arab investors tend to estab-
lish regional rather than national media institutions, thereby target-
ing as wide an audience as possible, not only in the Middle East but
also Western countries;
4. These pan-Arab media also serve as a Diaspora media for Arab immi-
grants in Europe, USA and other Western countries.
This pan-Arabism, as one of al-Jazeera’s top hosts, Faisal al-Kasim,

argues, has “pulled the rug from underneath local, terrestrial stations,
which in itself is some kind of Arabization and thus unification.”31
Thus, pan-Arab news media have managed to accomplish a political
mission that was previously doomed to failure.
The concept of a pan-Arab identity was a movement that began in
the eighteenth century32 and flourished in the Arab States, particularly
during the 1950s. In fact, it was the former Egyptian president Gamal
Abdel Nasser who actively promoted pan-Arabism, which became
known as Nasserism, and formed the union between Egypt and Syria
in 1958 (United Arab Republic, UAR).33 The idea of pan-Arabism was
then met with some skepticism among Egyptians as Nasser himself
admitted that “the Arab nationalist idea was new to them.”34 The
objectives of the union were claimed to be democracy, achieving social
equality and maintaining solidarity.35
The call for Arab unity took a “populist” character,36 which
regarded Arab citizens to be part of a larger collective (Umma, or
roughly “nation”) until the 1967 war (between Israel and Egypt,
Jordan, and Syria, which ended with Israel seizing the Gaza Strip, the
Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights). Defeat in this
war was regarded as a serious blow to pan-Arab ideology.37
The media were deployed in the 1967 war as a means of mobilizing
a feeling of pan-Arabism among the Arab masses. The Voice of Arabs
(or Sawt al-Arab) radio, for example, broadcast a false account of how
the Arab forces defeated the Israelis, but the audiences found out about
the defeat from foreign media such as the BBC.38 The revelation of the
truth about the course of the war resulted in heated debates within the
traditional media as “a safety valve to release public pressures and sup-
pressions and a way to absorb the inherent conflicts.”39 Journalists
then acquired a new role as a mouthpiece for the existing political
regimes, and the most prominent editorial writers did indeed belong
to the influential elite. For instance, Ahmed Said, who managed Sawt
al-Arab radio, was said to be close to Nasser,40 and the Egyptian jour-
nalist Mohamed H. Heikal, the former editor-in-chief of the Egyptian
al-Ahram, also had good relations with Nasser, who even consulted
Heikal on various political matters. The good ties between them
helped him to get away with openly criticizing the government in
his editorials, a privilege that was not shared with many other media
professionals.41
However, pan-Arabism as a national ideology did eventually con-
tinue, but more as a rhetoric than an action. As Bassam Tibi put it, “in
the rhetoric of Arab politics every statesman paid the obligatory lip-
service to Arab unity for which the Arab League was considered to be
the right instrument; in reality, however, most Arab politicians under-
mined every action aimed at achieving this goal.”42
One serious blow to this Arab unity come when Egypt signed a
peace treaty with Israel (Camp David Accord) in 1979, which resulted
in great tension between Egypt and several other Arab countries who
opposed peace with Israel. For this action, Egypt was suspended from
the Arab League but was re-admitted in 1989, when the headquarters
returned to Cairo after being temporarily housed in Tunisia. Egypt
was also excluded from the new satellite system, Arabsat, during the
1980s,43 which later drove Egypt to launch its own satellite channel –
Egyptian Satellite Channel (ESC). However, the role of the media as a
mobilization tool continued and in fact the ESC channel was used
during the 1991 Gulf War in order to provide Egyptian soldiers sta-
tioned in the Gulf with an alternative news diet than the one offered
by the Iraqi media.44
From scarcity to abundance

Scholars45 agree that the 1991 Gulf War was the catalyst needed to ini-
tiate media reforms in the Arab region. The war was indeed a mark of
the so-called CNN effect: Arab audiences with access to CNN fol-
lowed the course of the war as it unfolded, despite the attempts by
Arab traditional media to conceal the reality of this war, not to
mention discussion of its real causes. Instead, the war was seen as a
moral turmoil, particularly as the former American president George

Bush used the metaphor of “Kuwait being raped”46 to justify it. Arab
artists, for example, the Kuwaiti singer Abdullah Roywashid, also used
metaphors to pin down the fatal destiny behind the attack of one
brother (Iraq) against another brother (Kuwait), affirming fraternal
relationships among the Arab States.
Following the war, the Arab media scene witnessed an explosion in
the number of satellite channels competing amongst themselves in
offering new genres, such as debates and live news reports, similar to
those offered by CNN.47 Naturally, these new channels have had an
impact on the development of the national and pan-Arab press. In
terms of content, more specialized newspapers and magazines were
launched. For example, the Egyptian Akbar el-Youm Publishing
House issues a newspaper dedicated to crime news, another to
celebrity news, and yet another to literature. The size of newspapers
has also increased tremendously: the average number of pages in a
daily newspaper increased from four to six pages during the 1940s to
eight and ten pages during the 1980s,48 doubling in the 1990s to reach
twenty and twenty-two pages. The amount of soft news in the Arab
press has also been on the increase, albeit much later than its initiation
in Western news media. There is an increasing importance given to
human-interest news in the so-called pan-Arab newspapers al-Hayat
and al-Sharq al-Awsat. The Lebanese–Saudi al-Hayat has regular
weekly supplements directed at different reader segments – young
people, business, travel – and this type of news is also integrated in the
daily paper.
The Arab press is now regarded as the catalyst for raising public
awareness of global issues. This has indeed contributed to the reflex-
ivity of Arab journalists over their own profession and output. For
instance, prominent press journalists are regularly invited onto diverse
talk shows on Arab satellite television, similar to the old print jour-
nalist practice of inviting media professionals from television and
radio.49 This has, in fact, reinforced the new role of prominent jour-
nalists in the political sphere, that is, as political experts. Moreover,
there is now a tendency among Arab news channels to reflect upon
their own journalistic practices, inviting news journalists to comment
on their work and the difficulties facing them.50
There are several factors that have contributed towards the acceler-
ation of changes on the Arab media scene during the past decade.51
One of these factors is the emergence of a new generation of Arab jour-
nalists, who have either received a large part of their education and
training in Western media institutions or have been educated in

Western-oriented schools and colleges in their home countries. This
new generation of Western-oriented and trained journalists is deemed
an important catalyst to the introduction of new genres, such as polit-
ical debates and talk shows, and more sophisticated interview tech-
niques previously unpracticed by the Arab media.52
Another factor is the external competition that currently faces the
Arab media. Drawing on its popularity during the 1991 Gulf War,
CNN launched a website in Arabic, and several other media outlets
have followed suit. CNBC Arabiya, for instance, was inaugurated on
27 July 2003.53 Audience analyses conducted among Arab listeners
during the 1980s showed a clear preference for foreign radio stations,54
and, needless to say, the same stations were again the main source of
news during the 1991 Gulf War. This competition may take an even
broader dimension when the BBC launches its Arabic channel by the
end of 2007. At the social level, there have been significant changes;
chief among them is the importance of the English language in the
Arab labor market. With increasing numbers of foreign corporations
establishing a presence in several Arab countries, English has gained an
important role as a new lingua franca within Arab labor markets. One
natural outcome of this is that larger and larger segments of the
population can follow the news media in English, albeit with some dif-
ficulty. Nevertheless, they become familiar in this way not only with
the news genres but also with the debate traditions of the foreign
media.
Thus, one can argue that large segments of Arab media outlets have,
by and large, experienced a stable relationship between the political
elites and the public until the disruption of the 1991 Gulf War. The
increased access to transnational media (for example, CNN and BBC)
since then has not only resulted in a more varied news diet being
offered, it has also led to a change in professional practices. Thus, an
opposition party press has appeared in Egypt, challenging the existing
regime’s ideology. The disruption caused by military operations in
Iraq has further enforced distinctions among various religious and
ethnic groups, with each claiming an ideological stance different from
the other, for example, the multiplication of newspapers since the
beginning of the war,55 despite the claim that they all belong to one
national fabric.
If increased commercialization, as Habermas56 as well as other
scholars claim,57 has turned the media into a liaison between advertis-
ers and customers rather than between politicians and citizens, it has
in the Arab context resulted in a transformation of content, with a

slight increase in soft news as well as rival political news presentation,
for example, party press in Egypt. Despite the difference in ethnic, reli-
gious, class and gender aspects, some regional media outlets, such as
the so-called pan-Arab press and satellite news channels, attempt to
address as wide an audience base as possible, as an “imagined commu-
nity”. It has thus renewed its ideological weight among Arab journal-
ists, who now propagate it as part of their role.58 Hence, pan-Arabism
has become a “unique selling point,” a marketing strategy that aims at
benefiting from increased market share.59
One characteristic of this pan-Arabism is, as al-Jazeera presenter
Ghassan Ben Jeddou argues,60 the number of Arab nationalities
working together in these channels rather than confining their staff to
the Mashreq area (or the countries lying to the east of Egypt, that is,
Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and usually including Egypt and
Iraq as well). However, those presenters who have managed to create
a high profile for themselves on satellite channels still come predomi-
nately from the Mashreq area, argue a number of Moroccan female
presenters. For instance, Fatima Baroudi, a Moroccan TV presenter,
says that Moroccans constitute a minority in these channels, domi-
nated mainly by Egyptian and Lebanese presenters. This, she argues,
is due to the role of “personal contacts” as one main way to access this
competitive field.61 Another Moroccan presenter, Fatima Annawal,
attributes the limited number of Moroccan presenters on pan-Arab
channels to the fact that most of these channels are located in Lebanon,
the Emirates and Egypt.62 Moreover, language plays an important role
in facilitating or delaying this access, as the Moroccan dialect is seen as
distinctively different from the Mashreq area and hence mutually
unintelligible compared to the Lebanese and Egyptian vernaculars. In
addition, a recent study of the relationship between language (verna-
cular) and identity among Moroccan women in the UAE63 points to
the stereotype of Moroccan women as easy targets and “men stealers,”
referring in particular to the tendency during the 1980s and 1990s
to bring Moroccan women to the country as second wives or even
mistresses.
To recapitulate, the new(s) satellite channels, as well as the pan-
Arab press, have provided a new era of “plenty”,64 performing a new
function compared to the former era where the “plenty” was usually
foreign and imported. The aim is to unite a multitude of audiences,
within and outside the Middle East, connecting and yet keeping them
apart. Thus, the new era can be argued to “provide a voluntary point
of social cohesion, of being-together while being-apart.”65 A recent

poll among a sample of Arab citizens66 has shown that a large percent-
age of the respondents, thanks to the proliferation of pan-Arab media,
particularly satellite channels, sympathize with general Arab issues;
yet up to 40 percent of the respondents acknowledged the increasing
differences among Arabs. This, argues Marc Lynch,67 “follows from an
exceptionally important change in the way this new public conceives
of Arab identity,” referring in particular to the consensus that takes for
granted that certain causes are inherently Arab, for example, Palestine
or Iraq, while differences arise as to how to deal with these issues.
However, I argue that the reason for this ambivalence is not neces-
sarily to be found in politics or any media coverage of it; rather, one
should look at the change in the Arab media scene as a whole in order
to see the intersection between serious genres (such as news and polit-
ical debates) and entertainment genres (such as popular talk shows,
series and films). In particular, I refer to the fact that news coverage, in
pan-Arab and local media alike, tends to focus on foreign politics and
hence on “shared” issues of concern, such as the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict. Yet, it is important to recall that news occupies only a minor
part of the airtime on several of these channels, and even the news
channels such as al-Jazeera have to compete with a vast and growing
number of variety channels broadcasting TV series produced in dif-
ferent Arab States, in the vernacular associated with each state. Thus,
if the news is about “shared” causes and is produced in the predomi-
nant written language (MSA), the variety programs by contrast deploy
the diverse Arab vernacular and draw on local themes and concerns. In
other words, the ambivalent relationship to the “pan-Arab identity”
lies precisely in the audiences’ tendency to wander between the uni-
versal (causes and language that are said to bind them together) and the
particular (local issues in different dialects), fostering at once a sharing
of regional togetherness and distinct nationalist identity.
This ambivalent stance towards pan-Arabism was further mani-
fested in the attitudes of Arab audiences and participants in the pan-
Arab Games.68 The games were established in 1953 as a symbol of Arab
cultural unity, although recent contests such as that in Jordan in 1999
staged parades of nationalist feelings among audiences and participants
alike. The games, then, along with similar ideological projects, add to
the tension between nationalism and regional solidarity.69 Kraidy70
provides a further illustration of this tension in his analysis of reality
TV programs on pan-Arab channels, where the elimination of a
Lebanese contestant in the reality program Super Star resulted in riots
throughout Beirut in suspicion that Syria was behind the elimination

in order to support their semi-finalist. The huge popularity of such
programs and their impact on fueling feelings of nationalism among
Arab audiences has even pushed political activists such as Hamas to
dissuade Palestinians from following these programs, calling for “real
heroes” and fighters rather than “singers and corruption mongers.”71
Internal hierarchy
Previous studies72 seem to take the pan-Arab value for granted without
questioning this ambivalent attitude to shared identity. This also over-
looks an important debate concerning language and identity, which has
been ongoing for centuries. Suleiman73 succinctly points to the sym-
bolic role of language in forming a national identity in the Middle East.
His analysis provides evidence for the awakening of such links over the
past two centuries. For example, Qandil74 dedicates a whole book to
his argument that the Egyptian identity and language is markedly dis-
tinct and cannot therefore be subsumed under the all-encompassing
label “Arab”, which, according to him, refers to the identity imposed
by former colonial powers and has no historical or cultural validity.
The subtle relationship between language and identity should not be
underestimated within the media context, for it can prove to be very
fruitful in empirical analyses of textual representations as well as in
fieldwork among Arab audiences and/or journalists, for example, the
impact of deploying the formal written variant of Arabic (MSA) in
news and current affairs programs versus the various dialects in pro-
ducing variety programs, and the consequence this has on enforcing
versus enfeebling a shared Arab identity (see also the discussion in
Chapter 3 on the role of MSA).
Arab leaders have realized the political implication of enforcing
this pan-Arab identity: it could add political weight to the region by
aiding the formation of a single political actor rather than diverse
nations, each with limited power. However, an internal struggle to
gain political power exists among Arab States, for example, in the
Arab League, which has resulted in difficulty in drawing up a unified
communications policy.75 This struggle has been intensified in the
cultural arena of the media, in as much as pan-Arab news media
outlets enter into an internal struggle to obtain and retain the posi-
tion of credible agenda-setter. In so doing, the media defines, and
perhaps re-defines, the concept of Arabism for example, what issues
ought to be discussed as inherently pan-Arab, or the representation
of Arabs, not only as a “group in itself” but also as a “group for

itself.”76 This is to suggest an internal–external dialect of definition:
on the one hand, the identity of belonging to a certain group (a group
for itself) and on the other hand the external identification by others
(a group in itself).
A possible starting point from which to research the pan-Arab
journalistic field is to pin down the main indicators of this pan-identity
in terms of internal hierarchy (among internal players in the regional
scene) as well as external hierarchy (how the pan-Arab actors see
themselves vis-à-vis global media players such as CNN). Given the
nature of pan-Arab media outlets as addressing primarily regional (and
even global) audiences from within the region or in Diaspora commu-
nities, it is interesting to analyze this hierarchy in light of the fact that
Arab media outlets are decentralized, with some of them in the newly
established media cities (in Egypt, Jordan and the Emirates) while
others are outside the region (in London).
Benson77 argues for the need to map out the journalistic field not
only at national level but also on a global scale. Indeed, journalists rep-
resent a cohort of cosmopolitans, as Hannerz shows us in the case of
foreign correspondents who exhibit “an awareness and appreciation of
diversity in modes of thought, ways of life, and human products and
to the development of skills in handling such diversity.”78 Due to the
nature of their work, news journalists are cosmopolitans par excellence
engaged in the continuous process of interpretation and meaning-
making across distance.79
Seeing the Arab journalistic field in the context of global news
media means unraveling the weight that global media such as CNN
and the BBC occupy in this domain, and whether such global media
play the role model to follow. Would Arab journalists, for instance,
see American political news as an important ingredient in the daily
news diet, assuming thereby their audiences’ interest in this type of
news?80 If this is the case, then the media consumption pattern
among Arab journalists should reflect this, for example, regularly
reading international newspapers such as the New York Times, or
watching CNN. It would also show in the development of the news
genre.81
Global media outlets such as CNN and BBC have exerted an influ-
ence on the news agenda in national news media around the world (see
Chapter 6). They have also attracted a huge audience of Arab citizens,
particularly from the 1950s until the mid-1990s, or before the advent
of satellite news channels.82 Moreover, besides serving as a source for
other national and regional news media, such global media may also
help revolutionize the media content on Arab channels. For instance,
the Egyptian TV presenter Yasmin Abdallah (from the Egyptian
Satellite Channel, ESC) once declared that female circumcision was
debated on Egyptian channels only after CNN aired a program about
it. It then became imperative for the Egyptian media (and government)
to respond to the raised debate.83
Each player on the media scene enjoys a share of power, determined
by the overall political and/or economic weight of the host country/
ownership. Being located outside the Middle East, the London-based
pan-Arab newspapers have managed to profile themselves through
press review programs in the Arab channels. For instance, BBC Arabic
radio usually draws on the four pan-Arab newspapers (al-Hayat, al-
Sharq al-Awsat, al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Ahram) in their daily review
of the Arab press. Likewise, the increase in TV supplements in the pan-
Arab press84 indeed signals the weight of TV on the Arab media scene.
Future analysis could indicate whether this relationship has resulted in
the development of the news genre accordingly. For example, the TV
news usually draws on the image as well as different “testimonials”85
from laypeople and officials alike, which marks the difference between
newspaper and TV genre characteristics. However, will the increasing
interdependence amongst the media result in a blurring of these differ-
ences, for example, by increasing the number of images in newspapers,
enforcing the role of newspaper correspondent as eyewitness, or by
citing ordinary citizens as sources?
In sum, the political power assigned to each Arab State, which
determines the internal hierarchy in the regional political field, seems
to be reflected in the pan-Arab media scene. For instance, these satel-
lite channels seem to adhere to a policy of not entering into details
about the local affairs of Arab States,86 particularly social taboos.
However, political taboos, discussed on these channels, seem to be in
proportion with the size (and political weight) of each Arab State,
which is the reason some commentators use to justify al-Jazeera’s ten-
dency to move away from the problems in its host country, Qatar.87 In
fact, one presenter on such a satellite channel warns that this tendency
may damage Arab unity as prejudice and stereotyping prevails among
Arab nationals, for example, the stereotype of an Egyptian belly
dancer; the figure of the rich Gulf man; the Lebanese merchant.88 In
this age of satellite channels, stereotyping has taken another direction,
with the Lebanese channels being a magnet for some of the most
attractive female TV presenters, who in turn attract the wealthy Gulf
audience.89 Some Arabs commonly make a pun of this by playing on

words, replacing the acronym of the Lebanese satellite channel LBC
with the Arab gender-inflected verb Elbesi (or “dress up”), referring to
the female hosts’ tiny dresses and music videos broadcast featuring
women in flimsy clothes.90
Popularity of the field

One columnist of the pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat wondered
about the situation of some novice journalists in the region.91 She par-
ticularly referred to one journalist she met, who had just began his
career. The journalist complained about chief-editors who rarely offer
financial rewards, which, for him, was a misuse of his and other new-
comers’ talents. The columnist did not bring up this story out of sym-
pathy for the journalist’s situation. Rather, she used it to juxtapose the
situation now with the situation when she began her career (obviously
many years ago). She paid tribute to her former editors, who declined
from paying her for her first articles. Her first financial reward,
however, came years later when she compiled her articles and sold
them in one volume.
But if working in print journalism as a field is not particularly
rewarding, how can the press attract new trainees? The attraction to
any profession probably correlates with the reputation associated with
that profession. For instance, if the reputation of chemists becomes
related to weaponry and bombs, it will be much less attractive for
young people to join it. Arab journalists’ reputation has fluctuated
with the rise and fall of press freedom in each country. Subservience to
colonial powers during the nineteenth and the first half of the twenti-
eth centuries had in fact contributed to enhance the journalists’ image.
The newspapers issued then called for independence and unity, which
attracted a wide readership. In the beginning of the 1940s, for example,
several Lebanese journalists who called for the independence of the
country from colonial power boosted their public image.92 After inde-
pendence, however, several Arab countries had to deal with other type
of power, namely the military and dictatorship. In Egypt, for instance,
the new government, consisting of army officers who led the revolu-
tion of 1952, put a stop to partisan press. Several journalists were
detained for writing on issues or in a style that the government
regarded as provocative. Among them was the Egyptian veteran jour-
nalist Moustafa Amin, who was detained in 1952 for publishing mater-
ial the government regarded as damaging for its authority.93
Yet, the new independent Arab States regarded the news media as
their representatives among the masses, thereby controlling the flow
and the content of news media rather than seeing the media as a forum
to foster the longed-for democracy. Consequently, journalists’
integrity has been questioned by a readership that saw their national
press turning into a mouthpiece for the government. Awatef Abdel
Rahman94 pointed at this as one of the serious challenges facing jour-
nalists and the journalism profession in the region. In Algeria, Kirat95
argues, the profession of journalism has lost respect and consideration
from both its practitioners and the audience. The journalist is not very
well-regarded and welcomed in offices and administrations; the audi-
ence does not trust him/her, and the people do not want to hear or deal
with journalism or journalists. Because of the difficult conditions in
which they operate, journalists have not been able to gain the sympa-
thy of the readers.
Algerian print journalists, particularly women, expressed similar
frustration with regard to the impact of the status of their work on
their private lives. Some of them recalled the difficulty in getting
married, as men equate journalism with late working hours, meeting
men, facing dangers, and so on, or, as one Algerian female journalist
put it, “The Algerian society still looks at the female journalist as a
woman who smokes and mixes and indulges in relationships with
men.”96
And yet, journalism is currently one of the most popular subjects
for female Arab students at Arab universities. In Lebanon alone,
women students in journalism and communication constitute around
85 percent of the total number of students, which is higher than the
numbers in several European schools.97 This is not surprising if we take
into account that female as well as male Arab journalists, particularly
in satellite channels, have become stars known for their bravery in
reporting from the heart of violence, for example, the Iraq War or the
Palestinian Intifada. They have become the new “heroes” who endure
harassment, murder, and arrest in pursuit of their truth-seeking
mission.98 The power of the Fourth Estate has become very much
related to its reporters’ stamina, and their solidarity with one another
in confirming the credence of their profession. Arab TV presenters,
particularly in the satellite channels, have become glamorous celebrities
too, admired by thousands of fans. The attractive female presenters in
variety programs, particularly the Lebanese, have become “dream
women” for millions of young Arab men,99 whereas the “brave” female
and male presenters in the more “serious” news channels, hosting hot
political debates, can now claim to “outshine” pop stars in popularity

among the Arab youth.100
It is not only TV presenters who have become stars on the screen
and frequent guests in the audience’s favorite programs; print jour-
nalists have claimed their own share of fame as well. Prominent
press journalists also host their own TV programs, for example, the
Egyptian Hamdy Qandil has his own program on Egyptian television
called Ra’is al-Tahrir (or Editor-in-Chief ), and the former al-Ahram
editor Mohamed H. Heikal has his own program slot in al-Jazeera
(Ma’ Heikal, or With Heikal). This has, as mentioned before, rein-
forced the new role of prominent journalists as political experts.
Likewise, in Lebanon, several journalists sought to enter the parlia-
mentary elections in 2000. One of them was the head of the Voice of
People radio, and he defended the tendency among journalists to seek
political careers by affirming that the journalist is closer to under-
standing political work than is, for example, the medical doctor or
engineer. For him, “the relation between the journalism and politics is
solid.”101
However, the seriousness of the politics in, for example, hard news
and current affairs programs is now scorned by a rising breed of jour-
nalists specializing in “soft” and light talk shows. For instance, in a
special episode of al-Jazeera’s program From Washington, about the
place of the USA in Egyptian popular talk-shows, one of the guests, a
famous Egyptian “light” talk-show host, began by sarcastically repri-
manding al-Jazeera host, Hafez al-Merazi, for dumping the smiley face
and adopting a grumpy one once the camera had turned on, in order
to look “serious.”102 I shall come back to the tension between political
and light talk shows in Chapter 4.
Gendered newsrooms
Wu & Weaver103 remark upon the increase of female students in jour-
nalism schools in less developed countries such as China, and wonder
whether this could serve as an indication of a new trend of “femi-
ninizing” journalism. Could we extend this argument to the Arab
region, arguing that the presence of female Arab journalists will
inevitably lead to a change within the field and perhaps in the distribu-
tion of capital?
In Saudi Arabia, Wright104 found that the women reporters, at least
those he met, were much more educated by far than men journalists,
despite the fact that women constituted only 6 percent of the workforce
in journalism. In Kuwait, more than 70 percent of graduates in mass

communications department are female. Most of them abandon the
field and find work in other fields, either due to family concerns or
because of people’s misconception of the profession.105 Another study
that dealt with the working situation of women journalists in Lebanese
TV stations106 showed that typical women journalists, although they
held higher degrees than their men colleagues, expressed more insecur-
ity about maintaining their jobs compared to their men colleagues.
They were also less likely to be promoted to higher positions, although
they worked as hard as their male colleagues. In fact, women journal-
ists identified double standards among men as the main reason for men
promoting other men, and even those women who managed to get pro-
fessional recognition did not receive much acknowledgement among
their women colleagues, who regarded the promotion as a reward for
these journalists’ involvement in personal relationships with their
bosses. The hierarchical gap between male and female journalists was
also reflected in their financial rewards: while men received educational
subsidies for their children, insurance, and other benefits, women jour-
nalists typically received subsidies for make-up, hairdressing, and the
like. This played a role in the journalists’ view of the success criteria in
the profession: male journalists defined experience as the most signifi-
cant criterion, while their female colleagues saw that appearance and
youth were the most crucial criteria. Also, the way each group viewed
their role differed: men typically related their task to educating the
public, while women journalists saw that entertaining the public as
their primary responsibility.107
A previous study by UNESCO108 found that women journalists in
several Arab States are still in the minority compared to men journal-
ists (particularly in print media). Even when women reach senior pos-
itions, this seniority cannot be the sole marker of the “feminization”
of content due to the presence of scores of prohibitions that control
the broadcasting protocol, for example, taboo subjects that relate to
religion, family, female circumcision, and so on, all of which make it
difficult for women journalists, even those in senior positions, to
change the status quo.109
In another study, Abdel Rahman110 points to the segregation of
content depending on its feminization. Thus, letters to the editor
written by women were rarely published, especially if they dealt with
women’s issues. Even when the women’s section sought to present a
role model for women, they usually referred to an American woman,
thereby ignoring other role models from the region. Moreover,
women’s sections seem to become the exile of those women journal-

ists who are not wanted in other sections. Political sections are the
number one prestigious section, followed by economics, society, and,
at the bottom, women’s sections.
According to Abel Rahman,111 some women journalists have
managed to reach senior positions in the Egyptian press, but only in
women’s or children’s magazines. Yet, journalism education has been
a magnet for hundreds of female students in the region, as mentioned
above, although those students usually aspire to a career on screen
rather than in the print media.112 Working in the press is more demand-
ing, as the Jordanian Rana Husseini (from the English-language daily,
Jordan Times) proved. Husseini won her fame through a series of art-
icles on honor killings in Jordan, a controversial issue that brought her
great intimidation (although it was reported that she was backed by the
Jordanian royal family). Husseini visited some hospitals and police
stations to gather information about recent incidents of honor killings
In her articles, she concealed any clear identifiers of the victims’
identities.113
Women, however, have dominated the new and abundant variety
channels, where their fame beats that of pop stars and even sex icons
such as Marilyn Monroe,114 leading the pan-Arab newspaper al-Sharq
al-Awsat to question whether there would be an “expiry date”
for female TV journalists. One of the TV presenters interviewed, the
Lebanese Soad Qarout, acknowledged that the increasing number of
young media graduates may have an impact on the jobs available to
elderly female journalists. Nonetheless, she argues, the experienced
and professional bulletin reader, embodied in an elderly female pre-
senter, plays an important role in adding “credibility” to the news.
In addition to being deployed as “bait” to attract high viewership,
female broadcasters have also marked themselves in the serious genres
of news and debate. One example is the Jordanian Montaha al-
Romhei, who was one of the stars at al-Jazeera and now at al-Arabiya.
She talked proudly about her capabilities as a news anchor, being par-
ticularly able to hide her emotions with her firm look to the camera;
she regards the combination of presenting news and debates as a plus,
compared to her male colleagues who won their fame in debates
only.115 Another al-Jazeera star, the Algerian Khadija Ben Qana, warns
against the inclination of some of those presenters to host diversity and
light shows, which, in her opinion, “kills their image.”116
In fact, Ben Qana won the hearts of a large segment of al-Jazeera’s
audiences when she appeared with the veil (hijab) during the French
debates over the banning of the veil in French public schools.

Ironically, Ben Qana herself fled her home country of Algeria when
she was threatened with having to wear the hijab.117 Likewise, the past
three years have witnessed a number of protests from Egyptian TV
presenters who have been suspended from appearing on the screen
after wearing the hijab. Some of the presenters went to court and got
permission to practice their “personal freedom”. The court thus over-
ruled the decision of the Minister of Information in suspending them.
Furthermore, women journalists have particularly proven their
abilities as reporters, since being a woman could be an advantage in
that women are usually regarded as less threatening.118 For instance,
TV journalists, particularly those working in the Palestinian territor-
ies, are often seen to epitomize bravery in practicing this “trouble-
seeking profession”. Abu Dhabi TV correspondent Laila Ouda, for
instance, recalled her difficult “mission” in covering Palestinian affairs,
including being shot in the foot once in Rafah, but said, “This did not
stop me from resuming my media mission.”119 For al-Jazeera corres-
pondent in the Palestinian territories, Sherine Abu Aqla, the
Palestinian journalist in particular is a solider-figure: “The Palestinian
journalist fights by the side of his Palestinian brother who fights with
sword. . .we fight to reach the truth, nothing else.” 120
Female journalists usually have higher degrees, as shown for
example in the empirical study reported on in al-Qadry & Harb.121
This study, carried out among men and women journalists in Lebanese
TV stations, documented the high educational level, that is, university
degrees as well as mastery of one or more foreign languages, among
television journalists, and yet points to the constant role of social and
personal contacts in accessing the field. This, in sum, enforces the com-
bined role of education and contacts as means to access this highly
competitive field.
Access to the field

There exist two Arabic words referring to the work of a journalist: one
is sahafi and the other is i’lamai, usually designating the print journal-
ist and the broadcast journalist, respectively. According to Ibrahim
Helal, former editor of al-Jazeera, the word “sahafi” has an incorrect
implication in Arabic compared to English, where the word “journal-
ist” refers to reporters in either print or broadcasting.122 This points
to the blurring of the boundaries between working in broadcasting
versus print media, particularly if we recall the status enjoyed by
certain print journalists due to their appearance as “experts” on

the newly emerged satellite channels. If the distinction between the
two sub-fields is still effectual, this may have an implication on
new entrants to the journalism field in terms of their education and
training.
In order to provide a detailed account of the journalistic field, it is
imperative to consider issues such as education, autonomy, and code
of ethics in shaping the professional identity of Arab journalists.
Previous studies123 show that the majority of Arab journalists hold a
college degree, although there is generally a lack of on-the-job train-
ing.124 However, we know little of their reasons for entering this field,
for example, whether it was out of an interest to exert an influence on
another inaccessible field, as Weaver argues: “People who go into jour-
nalism are typically people with a strong attraction to politics, sports,
business, or some other arena in organized society but people who
stop short of actually becoming a politician or executive and choose to
stand on the sidelines as an observer instead.”125
Kirat’s survey126 among Algerian journalists shows that a large per-
centage of the respondents give their main reason for joining the field
as the wish to help the country and their landsmen. Al-Rasheed’s127
survey among Kuwaiti journalists shows that most of the respondents
would choose journalism again as a career, if they had a chance to start
again, and would even recommend it to their sons (although not to
their daughters!). This stems from a belief that journalism does exert
an influence over public opinion.
Yet, according to al-Jammal,128 access to jobs in print journalism is
not open to all citizens in the Arab region. Six of the Arab countries
(Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Morocco) do not
enforce any conditions for people wanting to work in this field, while
other countries (Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Syria, Yemen, Libya,
and Algeria) require that incoming journalists should obtain a license
from the authorities. The same situation, however, does not apply to
the electronic media, particularly the newly emerged satellite channels,
which makes it imperative to inquire into the definition of a journalist
and what distinguishes this profession from others, for example, talent,
specific educational degrees, or contacts. As Turkestani129 argues,
one needs to have personal contacts to get the job with the minimum
requirements, whereas advancing in the job hierarchy demands
mastery of voice and editorial skills.
Some Arab scholars seem to value “innate” talent polished with the
relevant educational degrees. For instance, Abdel Nabi130 groups print
journalists into four main categories, according to their skills and

talent:
1. Those who had relevant education and talent;

2. Those who had relevant education but no talent;
3. Those who do not have relevant education but have talent;
4. Those who do not have talent or education (particularly those who
worked in other fields, such as administration, before obtaining their
college degree as a ticket to the journalistic field).
While there is an abundance of journalists from the second to fourth

categories, there is a shortage of journalists of the first category (with
education and talent), argues Abdel Nabi, thereby stressing the import-
ance of talent, rather than training alone, as a prerequisite for the pro-
fession. Thus, “learning by doing” seems to be the main strategy in
working in the television sector, which has experienced a huge expan-
sion during the past decade. As one Lebanese station manager put it,
“TV is a sea that we throw you in. Either you swim or you drown.”131
Although relevant education is valued, news media institutions are
accused of headhunting ready-trained professionals rather than invest-
ing in educational programs for novice talents. According to Amr
Nassef (from the Hezbollah-supported channel, al-Manar TV), the
news media, especially the satellite channels, would rather headhunt the
best caliber of broadcasters in the field rather than train new talent.132
However, this trend may be changing, as the recent decade has wit-
nessed the inclination of certain media institutions to enhance their own
training facilities. For instance, Akbar el-Youm Publishing House,
located in the Media City in Cairo, launched its own academy inaugu-
rated by the Egyptian president on 6 October 1998. The academy offers
BSc degrees in Media Studies, equivalent to the degrees offered by
national universities. It aims to develop journalistic practice in Egypt
and provide a new caliber of journalists with a wide range of specialties.
One of the aims was to apply an “open door” policy towards foreign
media schools via special agreements. The rationale behind this academy
was to provide for the constant need for advanced technical specializa-
tion and a highly trained workforce. Al-Jazeera has also launched its
own academy, which offers short vocational courses and organizes sem-
inars and workshops. The academy draws on the expertise of a British
organization that offers instructors and curricula for these courses.133
Providing highly-specialized training for press as well as broadcast
journalism is one means of distinguishing journalism as a “profession,”
especially in the current era where the Internet has served as a platform
to a large number of new, alternative media. Central here is the forma-
tion of professional associations with shared codes by which journal-
ists abide. The following section briefly touches upon the importance
of such associations in fostering a collective identity shared by the new
entrants as well as established journalists, with particular regard to the
Arab context in which several pan-Arab media outlets are dispersed
within and outside the Middle East region.
Institutional identity
Al-Jammal134 argues that, in the Middle East, the organization of jour-
nalists and communication professionals is subject to the internal
policy of each country. Arab governments control the communication
profession with laws and rules, despite the fact that constitutions in the
same countries have not included such rules.135 The authorities justify
this interference by their wish to maintain political and social stability
within civil society. The establishment of journalist syndicates in the
Arab region began in the 1940s and ’50s, lagging behind those in other
countries. The labor force was allowed the right to be organized into
syndicates according to their professions, so printing workers were
organized in an syndicate independent from journalists. In Lebanon,
for instance, there exist two syndicates: one for newspaper-owners and
another for journalists. Such organizations seek to ensure journalists’
rights in protecting their sources as well as defending their rights to
write without facing the risk of judicial penalty or pressure of any kind.
Likewise, the Yemeni Journalists Syndicate is one of two press
organizations in Yemen. It has the right to give or withdraw member-
ship, and it usually takes the side of journalists in the struggle
for increased freedom, but without making the syndicate an anti-
government organization. Although the syndicate is not affiliated to
any political party or organization, its rather pro-government stance
pushed several journalists to form another union, the Committee for
the Defense of Journalists, in 1999.136
As al-Jammal137 sees it, these labor organizations can be classified
into three types: the first belongs to those countries that prohibit any
form of such organizations; the second type belongs to countries
where journalists themselves are unaware of the significance of the
work of such syndicates; and the third type refers to other cases in
which journalism has not yet been maturely developed as a profession
and thus there is no urgent need for such syndicates.
On the other hand, we should not neglect the impact of the re-
distribution of journalists from those countries with a longer press
history, such as Egypt and Lebanon, to those who developed a modern
press culture in the twentieth century, such as several Gulf countries.138
For instance, in Kuwait, a large number of press journalists are non-
Kuwaiti, which in turn plays a role in the degree of attachment to pro-
fessional unions and organizations. Al-Rasheed’s survey139 shows that
most of the Kuwaiti journalists were more active in the press associa-
tion, compared to non-Kuwaitis, and particularly that the constitution
of the association prerequisites Kuwaiti citizenship for an active mem-
bership or for taking part in the general assembly meetings.
Also, the waves of émigré press140 have resulted in the dispersion of
pan-Arab media outlets inside and outside the region. Given that the
pan-Arab media outlets are decentralized, with some having their head-
quarters in European cities (particularly London) and others in Arab
capitals such as Beirut and Cairo, it is important to consider the impli-
cations of this on the organization of journalists, now subjected to dif-
ferent legislative and cultural regulations. In the Arab countries, editors,
rather than organizational regulations, exert a great power inside the
newsroom. For instance, one prominent TV presenter (Mohamed
Kreishan, al-Jazeera) pointed out that a change of editor may be accom-
panied by a change in the whole editorial policy, and hence inconsis-
tency. What is needed, he argued, is the kind of “institutionalism”
enjoyed by well-established media outlets such as the BBC, so that a
managerial change would not cause any change to existing policies.141
One important implication of this commentary is whether those pan-
Arab outlets located in London, such as BBC Arabic or al-Hayat, do
indeed adhere to different institutional constraints regarding their edi-
torial policy, as well as to their organization into professional unions.
Measuring success
The capital assigned to the participants in the field is convertible into
prestige and status within and outside the same field. Thus, winning a
prize or an award is an appreciation from one’s peers, which indeed
increases the “value” of reporters who obtain this prestige.142 The past
few years have seen a keen interest among Arab media forums and offi-
cials in organizing journalistic prizes and awards. For example, Dubai
and Beirut have now become centers for journalism prizes: the Dubai
Press Club has introduced the Arab Press Award (in 1999), under the
auspices of the crown emir of Dubai, with the aim of promoting
creativity in the field;143 and Beirut has recently become the center of
the Middle East Broadcasting Award (MEB), a 24-carat, gold-plated
Mebby, manufactured by the same company that produces the Oscar
and Emmy Awards.144
In addition, prestige may be gained in the profession via the ability
of journalists to invite leading Western, as well as regional, figures to
appear as sources/guests on a political show. This can create a snow-
ball effect in TV journalism in particular. For example, when al-
Arabiya News channel, in December 2005, aired a controversial
interview with Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian vice presi-
dent, other channels, newspapers and radio stations followed suit and
competed for a statement from Khaddam, whose attack on the Syrian
regime made sensational headlines. Sources then exert an influence on
determining the amount of capital possessed by the media, and hence
its power in the hierarchy.
Another means of converting capital into status lies in the com-
mercial success of the journalists’ output. Al-Jazeera’s most famous
TV presenter, Faisal al-Kasim, wrote proudly of how copies of his
program were sold in video shops, and a copy of one particular episode
was even sold in the black market for a hundred dollars. Clearly, com-
mercial value is not sufficient, as it only reflects the popular capital
gained among the public; however, as professionals, journalists are
keen to gain more recognition amongst their peers and colleagues from
inside the region and, perhaps more importantly, from foreign institu-
tions. Al-Kasim, for instance, recalled the attention his program gained
in Western countries, which drove scores of journalists from Europe
and USA to visit his show and interview him, in order to produce art-
icles or whole documentaries about the show.145 In the same vein,
Abdel Bari Atwan, the chief-editor of the pan-Arab newspaper al-
Quds al-Arabi, based in London, relates the objectivity of his news-
paper to the invitations he received from various Western news media
to comment on important Arab events,146 arguing that he would not
have been invited if his newspaper was not known for its objectivity.
The implication of this view, then, is that the yardstick of measuring
objectivity is based on Western criteria, for example, the messages and
guests for whom the Western news media provide space. It may also
indicate an implicit hierarchy of media institutions in which the top
places are occupied by the most global and international institutions,
such as the BBC and CNN, whose credibility will also benefit those
who appear in their news stories as sources. Chapter 6 discusses in
more detail this role of Western media as yardstick.
Analytical framework
Based on the above discussion of the various factors characterizing the
Arab journalism field, I provide the following grid as a more system-
atic framework for future empirical analyses of the hierarchy of power,
for example, in fieldwork among Arab journalists in diverse media
outlets in different countries (within and outside the Middle East).
This hierarchy is diagrammed in figure 2.1.
The grid is based on three factors:
1. The main target audience(s): this is an important factor in determin-

ing the impact of the media on public opinion as well as the intersec-
tion between the field of journalism and the fields of politics and
economics.
2. Journalists’ power (according to their cultural capital): this is crucial
in understanding the particularity of the Arab journalistic culture
and how it may differ locally as well as regionally.
3. Content: media outlets, whether regional or local, should be measured
according to their content, for example, commercial/popularized or
political/elitist. Central here is the style and language used in different
Dominant classes (+)
Political (+)
Pan-Arab Local
Power of journalists
Content
Pan-Arab Local
Commercial/ Pan-Arab Local

Popularized
(–)
Dominated classes (–)
Figure 2.1 The distribution of power among Arab news media
content and how this may affect the popularity of each media outlet
(see Chapters 3 and 4 for a detailed discussion).
At the top of the grid () are those media outlets that appeal to the
elite classes and whose journalists enjoy a large portion of cultural
capital, that is, education and knowledge of certain policies. These
journalists also enjoy more fame than others in the same field, and they
may even act as political commentators rather than only as journalists.
Crucial to their cultural capital is also their mastery and use of the
written variety of Arabic (MSA) (see Chapter 3).
At the bottom of the grid () are those media outlets whose
content primarily targets the dominated classes. Here, content is
popular/commercial, thus serving the economic interests of these
media organizations in as much as it appeals to as wide a segment of
the audience as possible. Journalists in these outlets may not be as
famous or influential in the field in general as those positioned at the
top of the grid; yet, they enjoy a large share of recognition due to the
popularity of their programs, not to mention that the style and lan-
guage adopted in these programs tends to appeal to the laity rather
than the elites, for example, using the vernaculars rather than MSA.
Each of these poles represents a cultural territory: one elitist and
one popularized. In between these two poles, there are other outlets
with content and practices that mixes the elitist with the non-elitist
perspective.
The elitist content refers mostly to the hardcore political talk shows,
particularly those concerned with foreign policy issues. The popular-
ized genres can also include political shows but these may deal instead
with local politics, which may be seen as a “soft” topic. Therefore, each
pole or territory may embrace pan-Arab as well as local media outlets,
because some pan-Arab outlets may indeed depend on “popularized”
programs while others “specialize” in more elitist content.
The power of journalists influences the weight given to each
medium and even their host country, while being influenced by the
content. For instance, a channel such as al-Jazeera managed to profile
its host country Qatar as a beacon for press freedom, thanks to its cadre
of journalists and their practices rather than the Qatari press tradition.
Moreover, it is important to recall that the real power lies in the
agents’ ability to manipulate the dominant norms and discourses
enforced within the field in order to justify their acts against these very
norms and discourses. For instance, the outlets placed at the top of the
grid may exhibit particular characteristics in their utilization of the
resources made available to them, for example, technology, while those

at the bottom of the grid may not enjoy the same resources. Also, jour-
nalists in the elitist outlets interact more with policy-makers than do
those from the popularized outlets, making the former group more
influential in setting the standards of the profession. Yet, the latter
group also enters this struggle over resources and power in as much as
they seek to promote themselves as “representatives” of the laity,
thereby offering a challenging yardstick for success in this field.
In general, journalists working with certain political issues may
enjoy more power than do those dealing with “softer” issues. The
former group, as mentioned above, enjoys a large share of cultural
capital, defined as a significant share of education (as a synonym of
knowledge) and an elitist linguistic code, that is, MSA.
The above grid serves as an analytical tool to map out the Arab jour-
nalistic field based on interaction between structure and agency rather
than on either one alone. It also goes beyond the idealization of certain
media outlets as liberal or autonomous without accounting for their
position vis-à-vis other media outlets and focuses on how journalistic
practices there influence and are influenced by other media. The aim,
then, is to analyze the complex relation between content and power;
local and regional; content and audience; and between journalists’
power and content.
Conclusion
The aim of this chapter was to open the arena for stimulating future
research on Arab journalism, focusing on both “agents” and “struc-
ture.” My theoretical frame is Bourdieu’s field theory, which takes into
account the dialectical relation between agents (journalists) and struc-
ture (media institutions). The strength of Bourdieu’s theory, according
to Benson,147 lies in its focus on the “mezzo-level” of practice rather
than adopting an either/or view of research spearing macro-societal
levels from micro-organizational approaches. It is also the theory of
power, where participants engage in a continuous struggle to gain power
through accumulation of capital, unevenly distributed among them.
I have, albeit briefly, provided some pointers which could inform
future research. Chief among these is the definition of power and how
it is practiced in the Arab journalistic field. By this I mean the distribu-
tion of power among the different media players, particularly the
so-called pan-Arab news media such as al-Jazeera TV or al-Hayat
newspaper. In order to be able to impose a certain set of beliefs, one
needs to accumulate symbolic capital and hence power; but, to reach this
aim, one has to “command credit” and be seen as a credible authority.148
In the next two chapters, I resume this discussion with particular
focus on the content of the news in the prestigious news media outlets
such as al-Jazeera or al-Hayat versus that in the so-called yellow press
or tabloids. Central here is whether news media have managed to serve
as a public sphere allowing for diverse voices in the debate and current
affairs programs. My overall aim is to provide cursors for an unex-
plored research area that could offer a solid basis for current debate
concerning Arab journalism and Arab news media.
Chapter 3
Journalism as a Beacon for

Democracy
The recent development on the Arab media scene proves there has
been a fundamental change to the formation of and participation in
public debates. Earlier studies1 argued that, prior to the 1990s, Arab
media were controlled by governments with the sole aim of keeping
laypeople uninformed, and hence unprepared to participate in a ratio-
nal debate. Alterman2 provides an optimistic vision of this develop-
ment, arguing that certain media outlets, particularly al-Jazeera, have
indeed served as modern “coffee houses,” moving the traditional
space of rational discussion from salons and public gatherings to the
air. Other scholars3 share this view, seeing in the new channels evi-
dence of pluralism and diverse opinions, a rich basis for vigorous
public debate.
Thus, the recent development in the Arab media landscape has
urged new analyses of the relation between media and citizen deliber-
ation, drawing in particular on Habermas’s model of the public sphere,
rather than examining the applicability of this very model to non-
Western contexts.
The public sphere is first and foremost a space for exchanging infor-
mation on common topics, which in turn form public opinion.
However, the notion of the public sphere implies an idealized form of
public participation; so, when the people show a willingness to partici-
pate in the political process, they are hailed as rational beings acting
out of a utilitarian interest in their own progress and happiness. If,
however, they deploy the democratic means available to them to
support a reactionary movement, for example, rightist parties, they are
then “portrayed by intellectuals as being duped by ideology, manipu-
lated by the media, and seduced by politicians.”4 Central issues here
are how to conceptualize the laity and the criteria needed to ensure
their participation in rational debate about shared issues.
This chapter discusses this normative model of the public sphere

and whether it is plausible to apply it to the Arab case. I first review
previous critiques of the norm; then I discuss a recent attempt to apply
this model to the Arab context by Marc Lynch.5 This discussion will
lead to a new definition of the criteria needed for a sound Arab public
debate, locally and regionally, namely a functioning civil society, and
media that are accessible to the laity, providing content in a style and
language that are not exclusive.
The Habermasian ideal

Habermas’s normative ideal of the public sphere has been criticized by
a number of scholars.6 Fraser,7 for instance, reminds us that the public
sphere is based on discursive relations among specific groups of citi-
zens; thus, other “non-bourgeois” groups such as workers and women
have been excluded. Indeed, it is not only status that has been “brack-
eted” in this discursive network, but also the topic of discourse. Fraser
provides the example of domestic violence as a theme that only recently
entered the public debate, after being dismissed as part of the private
(domestic) sphere. Feminists who brought forward this topic formed
what she dubbed a “subaltern counter-public.” Even when women
take part in the debate, their participation may be confined to the dis-
cussion of private economic and domestic issues8. Benhabib9 criticizes
Habermas’s public sphere ideal for being a patriarchal model, stressing
the false dichotomy of private versus public, pointing to the interrela-
tion between the private and the public and or, as Dahlgren puts it, how
“the public spaces of politics are intertwined with the private spaces of
the home and personal relationships.”10 Furthermore, Schudson11
points to “participation” as a prerequisite for critical, rational debate,
and questions the rather romanticized depiction of earlier assemblages
that serve as ideal examples of such a debate. In sum, the normative
model of the public sphere presupposes an idealized consensus among
agents to fulfill the aim of reaching what is good for humanity.
Thus, any realistic appraisal of the public sphere as a democratic
model rather than an unattainable normative archetype must take into
account the role of the “counter-publics” and the popular, or the link
between the political and the private/popular. Van Zoonen12 defines
the gap between politics and popular culture as a struggle between the
“oral culture and folklore versus literacy and modernism” or a strug-
gle between “ordinary people versus the power elites.” Yet, it is this
interdependence between formal genres such as news and popular
Journalism as a Beacon for Democracy 75
entertainment genres that merits our attention. This is not to blur the
boundaries between the private and the public altogether, but to point
to the need to analyze the tacit relation between them.
In addition, Calhoun13 points to the potential of the mass media to
give rise to alternative publics such as civil society groups. Habermas
himself admits the presence of alternative, albeit weaker, public
spheres, acknowledging the “healthy” link between formal decision-
making institutions and civil society institutions:
The culture of the common people apparently was by no means only a

backdrop . . . it was also the periodically recurring violent revolt of a
counterproject to the hierarchal world of domination, with its official
celebrations and everyday disciplines.14
Acknowledging the role of civil society institutions in the formation

of public life, Eliasoph defines the public sphere as “the realm of insti-
tutions in which private citizens can carry on free and egalitarian con-
versation, often about issues of common concern, possibly welding
themselves into a cohesive body and a potent political force.”15 She
defines three characteristics of this public sphere, where “participation
is optional, potentially open to all, and potentially egalitarian.”16
The public sphere, then, is characterized by the publicity or visibil-
ity of a whole range of actors and topics, and these are the criteria that
are at the center of the discussion in this chapter. Central to this is how
pan-Arab news media constitute a public sphere for rational debates
among concerned citizens. I begin by presenting the outcome of one
recent academic endeavor to analyze the pan-Arab pubic sphere as illus-
trated in the TV debate programs and press editorials, namely Marc
Lynch’s Voices of the New Arab Public (2006). I present Lynch’s defin-
ition of the public sphere, and discuss his portrayal of Arab citizens, a
portrayal that is rather narrowly defined. This discussion will be the
point of departure in deciding which of the above criteria are present and
which are absent from the current “Arab public sphere.” The discussion
continues in the next chapter, where the focus will be on the content of
the mainstream news media versus tabloids and partisan media.
An idealized Arab public sphere

Lynch begins his account by offering a unique definition of the Arab
public sphere, confining it to what is being “said” in the debate
programs. He defines the public sphere as follows:
In contrast to public sphere conceptions that revolve around particular

institutions (the coffeehouse, television, civil society) or public opinion
(as measured by opinion surveys), I define the public sphere in terms of
active arguments before an audience about issues of shared concern.17
His definition deliberately excludes related activities or debates occur-

ring in the private sphere, as he later elaborates:
private arguments, carried out behind closed doors, lack the critical
dimension of publicity. What makes a public sphere is the existence of
routine, ongoing, unscripted arguments before an audience about issues
relevant to many.18
Nor does he equate the public sphere with civil society, or “the more
institutionalized network of social and civic organizations outside
the state,”19 although Habermas himself acknowledged the role of
civil society institutions (see above). Lynch’s public sphere embraces
only satellite TV programs dealing with “shared” pan-Arab content,
addressing a pan-Arab audience. In so doing, Lynch discards almost
completely the more interesting debates that occur in the civil society
institutions (although, towards the end of the book, he mentions in
passing one such institution, namely the Kefaya movement in Egypt,
primarily as a consequence, rather than one of the causes, of the rise of
such a public sphere).
He further specifies such a sphere as one that is confined to dis-
cussing the political:
Only when al-Jazeera refocused the satellites away from entertainment

and toward politics – more precisely, toward political argument about
Arab issues defined by an Arab identity – did it become a public sphere.
It is this emphasis on public argument about common issues, along with
shared language and identity, that allows the new Arab public to tran-
scend . . . [the] fear that transnational mass media are [unlikely] to be the
foundations for a genuine transnational public sphere.20
In terms of content, then, Lynch’s public sphere is confined to the

debate output on TV and in the press, usually dealing with political
issues, particularly those concerned with a shared pan-Arab identity.
Excluded from this public sphere, however, are private arguments,
media output other than debate programs and editorials, popular
culture, and other topics related to the local rather than the regional
political context. I come back later to the link between the political
programs and popular culture, but first it is necessary to discuss the
type of public that populates Lynch’s public sphere.
Lynch’s definition is based on a taken-for-granted definition of
Arabs as one folk, speaking one language, sharing the same cultural
background, the same interests and the same goals, with the suffering
of some of them being regarded as the hardship of all. But if we resort
to this definition, we completely wipe away any diversity in lan-
guage,21 interests, goals, history, alliances, social problems and con-
cerns, as I show below (and as discussed in the previous chapter).
Indeed, Arabs themselves acknowledge these differences among them.
Furthermore, such a generalized view of the “Arab public” disregards
the nuances and complexities brought about by the increased immi-
gration of Arabs to the West and the enlargement of the Arab diasporic
communities there. For instance, Lynch himself refers to the abun-
dance of public involvement on the part of diasporic communities as
illustrated in the number of letters to editors sent by such communi-
ties: “68 percent of the letters to the editor published in one [pan-Arab]
newspaper in 2001 and 2002 came from Europe or the United States.”22
It was, then, imperative to take into account in his analysis the type of
audience, the difference between diasporic and local audiences, and
how both types relate to the news and debates about the region and for
what purpose. Before discussing the diversity among the audiences, let
me first juxtapose Lynch’s public with the normative model of the ideal
citizenry.
An ideal citizen
The ideal informed citizen is a rational person who carefully weighs
incoming information and arguments against each other in order to
reach an independent balanced opinion, which they in turn express in
their interaction with other equally informed citizens. Such citizenry
distinguishes between “serious” topics that may enter the realm of
public discussion versus other, “less serious” or even trivial topics that
should be kept apart. Van Zoonen23 explains this distinction between
the serious and less serious:
An informed citizenry which relies on information, facts and rational

argumentation for its political sense-making, is considered a prerequi-
site for modern politics and democracy, and this can only come about by
properly functioning news media, it is usually claimed. It is information
and not entertainment, “serious” journalism and definitely not popular

journalism that is considered the cornerstone of modern democracies;
UFOs, Elvis coming to life, people turning into animals and other high-
lights of tabloid journalism . . . hardly seem to construct an appropriate
context to understand the budget deficit or national health care.
Thus, one essential requirement of a deliberative democracy is that

citizens should be receiving serious content, which makes it possible
for the citizens to place this content in an overall context, enabling
them to draw a link between their own local problems and a complex
surrounding world. If they fail to do so, however, it is usually because
the news media are not doing their job properly. If the media inform
but the citizens act differently then it is because the citizens are not suf-
ficiently shrewd, or perhaps because the education system has failed to
produce a well-informed citizenry. In sum, the ideal citizen is respon-
sible for their local community, duly performs their daily work, rejects
corruption and other social vices, and remains attentive to the infor-
mation provided by diverse media on local and global events, from the
local school board election to the task of fighting insurgents in Iraq.
These ideal citizens are also considerate to the feelings and sufferings
of others, so, in their free time, they co-organize demonstrations
against certain social policies that they think are unfair, or against a war
launched in a foreign country, or help collect donations for the poor in
foreign lands.
Graphically, such a citizenry can be illustrated as an entity simulta-
neously linked to local and global spaces, while remaining loyal to
both spheres. The citizenry is regularly supplied with incoming infor-
mation about local and global issues that are directly linked to the citi-
zens’ equally divided sphere of concerns, as shown in figure 3.1.
Needless to say, such citizenry is as normative an ideal as the notion
of the public sphere itself. People may be merely repeating what
columnists or TV hosts proclaim, for most of them “do not have the
time, energy or knowledge to develop their own original arguments on
most issues.”24 Crucial here is the fact that modern citizens are in
constant movement between the local and the global, and across their
self-, group and regional or perhaps global identities, hence they
express “multiple loyalties” or, as Dahlgren puts it:
citizenship has traditionally been associated with the nation-state, but

increasingly debates about citizenship refer to a variety of entities. The
neighbourhood, the city, associations and organizations of civil society,
the region, even global society, are invoked. Within diasporic communi-
ties many people experience multiple loyalties, multiple identities, and
increasingly even insist on multiple citizenship.25
Yet, if such an ideal citizenry existed, then the Arab audiences would
occupy this place par excellence as the epitome of the ideal citizens.
Lynch provides evidence showing that the most discussed issues are
Palestine and Iraq, not to mention the shows dedicated to covering
elections in the Middle East, including Israel and Iran, as well as in the
USA and France.26 However, it is strange that he hardly wonders
whether this should make the Arab audience exceptionally know-
ledgeable about regional affairs or political affairs in international
arena. The Lebanese academic Nabil Dajani, for instance, recounted
how his students did not believe him when he told them that famine
had reached the USA’s borders. In his view, the satellite channels do
not cover American society and people; hence, Arab audiences tend to
relate the USA with the US administration and foreign policies.27
Lynch’s audience, however, is overwhelmed by a large number of
news and current affairs programs on terrestrial and satellite channels,
not to mention the pan-Arab press, which constantly introduce
“serious” topics ranging from the war in Kosovo to aid to the devel-
oping world. Nevertheless, do the Arab audiences constitute a well-
informed citizenry? How much do we really know about their
preferences, which topics they really care about, and how they make
sense of an overwhelming amount of information on international
Incoming information on local and

global issues
Global & regional Local and domestic

issues concerns
Citizens’ sphere of
concerns
Figure 3.1 The ideal citizenry

affairs? Studies of American audiences have, for instance, shown that

American readers’ knowledge of current events may not be in propor-
tion to their consumption of news weeklies, while TV viewers may
find it hard to retain information from news bulletins.28
Above all, do we know whether the pan-Arab news media have
helped foster a sense of pan-Arab identity that prevails over multiple
local loyalties? Do the Arab peoples possess a vast amount of know-
ledge about the history and political affairs in most Arab countries that
may enable them to digest incoming updates on these news channels?
In fact, there is evidence to the contrary. For instance, a recent study
among a sample of the Egyptian youth audience shows that this
segment of the audience refrains from watching the news, preferring
to watch entertainment channels, the number of which has mush-
roomed during the past decade.29 Likewise, Tunisian viewers seem to
favor entertainment over news. Recent statistics show that 13 percent
of the Tunisian audience watch the news, compared to 70 percent who
prefer to watch French game shows and Tunisian dramas.30
Clearly, the news media may indeed play the role of educator, but
how much would an ordinary citizen, burdened with her own trou-
bles, pay heed to this? Why do we assume that this citizen should
respond to the dilemmas faced by her “brothers and sisters” in other
Arab States, when she herself lives in constant hardship with her own
literal brothers and sisters? In my view, Lynch paints an unrealistic
portrait of an Arab public who are strongly bound by a shared iden-
tity, faithfully occupied by shared political causes, and morally con-
nected to one another in times of hardship.
Arab solidarity
What unites Lynch’s public is the feeling with one another; so, for
instance, “arguments about the Iraqi sanctions allowed Arabs to
rebuild the sense of sharing a community of fate, as Iraqi suffering
under the sanctions became a potent symbol of the suffering of all
Arabs.”31 What is implied here is that Arab audiences in Egypt, Saudi
Arabia or Kuwait are primarily concerned about their “brothers and
sisters” in other Arab States, for example, Iraq. However, perhaps the
public concern about issues such as the Iraq War, for instance, is motiv-
ated by local concerns before regional solidarity, as illustrated in the
slogans of the public demonstrations in Cairo prior to and during the
war in 2003. Here, the public was chanting “Today they enter Iraq;
tomorrow it will be Warraq” (a popular quarter in Greater Cairo).
Thus, the Egyptian public expressed their fear that Egypt would be the
next target. What the slogans suggest is a conception of foreign policy
as being concerned with imperialist power and acquisitions, rather
than a shared public debate about mutual concerns.
Also, Lynch’s definition rests on a moral assumption that links
sympathy towards the Other with the ability to feel with the Other in
their hardship. I discussed this topic elsewhere,32calling for cross-
cultural audience studies that could unravel the audiences’ sense of
morality, as well as justice, as a basis for future debate on media ethics.
I referred to work by other scholars33 that highlights issues such as
gender difference in the audience’s response towards news about the
Other’s hardships.
Furthermore, the sense of pan-Arab identity, which may be
reflected in the abundance of political news and views, is just one side
of the coin, with the other side being the interpretation of this identity
on an everyday basis. This comes to the fore in the way lay Arabs feel
treated, or maltreated, by their “brothers and sisters” in other Arab
States. For instance, Shiblak34 shows examples of the difficulties facing
Palestinian refugees in their host Arab States, which usually deny them
naturalization, for various political reasons. At times, the rights of the
Palestinians to remain or leave the host countries may be determined
by the host countries’ relation with the PLO, for example, in Libya
and Kuwait. Lesch recounts how Palestinians in Kuwait were targeted
following the liberation of Kuwait, thereby becoming “the scapegoats
for the policies of the PLO and Arab governments that had tilted
toward Iraq.”35 In general, Palestinian refugees have little or no access
to “education, health, and social benefits,” and even marriage to female
natives is not a ground for naturalization.36
Moreover, according to the laws in most Arab States, men have the
right to pass on their nationality to their non-national wives and chil-
dren, while women married to foreign nationals, including other Arab
nationals, do not exercise the same right. The Lebanese government is
one of those that justify this with the claim that its intention was to pre-
serve its demographic stability, an argument that hardly applied to
men.37 In Morocco, marriages of Moroccan women to non-nationalists
outnumbered those of Moroccan men, with most of the husbands being
French rather than men from other Arab countries.38 A number of
those women who had married men from other neighboring Arab
States expressed their dismay at not being able to register their children
in their own native country on the grounds that the fathers were
“aliens.” What is worse, the temporary union of some Arab countries,
for example, Syria and Egypt in 1958, encouraged some women to

consent to marriage with other Arabs in the belief that both spouses
belonged to the same country,39 only to face later the repercussion of
depriving their own offspring of their basic rights of citizenship, to
travel, to work, to own property and to access education. This drove
several women to question their so-called constitutional rights; as one
Moroccan woman says, “I do not understand why it is easier for the
foreign wife of a Moroccan man to obtain the [Moroccan] nationality,
than for the foreign husband of a Moroccan woman. I am also a citizen;
I work, and I pay taxes.”40 These women then have become aware of
the tensions in the official discourse of Arab unity versus the actual
laws that enforce diversity, not to mention the apparent discrepancy
between the official discourses of gender equality versus actual nation-
ality laws that contradict this.
The continuous interaction among Arabs, particularly Arab labor-
ers in the host Gulf countries, has further enforced the feeling of diver-
sity and difference. For instance, the publication of the annual US State
Department report on human trafficking, which highlighted the hor-
rendous situation of human trafficking in the Gulf countries, particu-
larly Saudi Arabia, has fuelled an intense debate among Arab citizens.
One such debate on an interactive forum revealed the tension sur-
rounding the sensitive issue of foreign labor, particularly the ‘kafeel’
system in the Gulf.41 Saudi participants in the online discussion
accused other Arab participants of conspiring against the Gulf coun-
tries due to the former countries’ envy of the latter countries’ wealth.
One Saudi participant accused foreign laborers of coming to the Arab
kingdom with the sole intention of stealing their kafeel’s money. On
the other hand, other nationals such as Egyptians and Sudanese
expressed their dismay at the Saudi system of ‘kafala’. One Egyptian
equated the ‘kafeel’ system to human trafficking, recounting examples
of security guards and street sweepers in the Gulf who work for twelve
hours a day for modest salaries. Another Sudanese man told of his per-
sonal anguish in the Saudi kingdom, where he spent 23 years of
“humiliation and contempt,” not to mention the restriction of his
movements to travel or even to take part in the pilgrimage inside the
borders of the kingdom. On the other hand, citizens from the rich Gulf
countries may also be the targets of ill treatment in these poor coun-
tries. For instance, one boutique in the Cairo World Trade Center
carries the sign “We don’t cooperate with Saudis,” as a signal of some
Egyptian merchants’ protest against the bad treatment of Egyptian
workers in Saudi Arabia.42
Aware of the cultural differences among them, Arabs have also suc-
ceeded in incorporating each other’s particularities as a means to gain
acceptance. For instance, Khalaf and al-Kobaisi43 showed how Arab
(and other) laborers in the oil-rich countries in the Gulf tend to use
diverse strategies to gain acceptance and hence prolong their stay in
these countries: for example, Syrians tend to wear the national clothes
of Emirate natives, while Pakistani and Afghani laborers tend to
emphasize their religious affiliation as Muslims, and hence enforce
their belonging to an overall “imagined community” with the host
nationals.
My aim here is to point to the two present discourses of Arab iden-
tity: the official discourse, which declares a deep sense of pan-Arab
identity as shown in the political shows on al-Jazeera and other pan-
Arab media, and another, which is performed on an everyday basis.
Both discourses, however, should be carefully weighed against one
another during analysis of the manifestation of the pan-Arab identity
and solidarity as reflected ideally in the media and political discourse
and actively in everyday practices. Clearly, Arab journalists in the pan-
Arab media play a role in promoting this sense of togetherness but this
could be for various reasons, including the visibility of the region as a
whole rather than as individual states, or simply the desire to retain the
attention of Western media and other institutions interested in moni-
toring what the Arab media say.
Indeed, as I discuss in Chapter 7, Arab scholars themselves tend to
specialize in one or two Arab countries’ affairs rather than cultivating
knowledge and expertise in the whole Arab region. The lay audience,
then, is no exception; they also prioritize their engagement and inter-
est in other neighboring countries’ affairs. Arab journalists, however,
prefer to stress their expertise in regional affairs, even if this
means situating themselves above their “ignorant” audience. I recall an
instance of a few Egyptian journalists from pan-Arab news institu-
tions ridiculing some of the public comments expressed on the occa-
sion of the return of Michel Aoun to Lebanon in 2005.44 As it has now
become “editorially correct” to incorporate the voices of “people in
the street” in the news and current affairs production, those journal-
ists wanted to capture the laypeople’s opinions on Aoun’s return and
added these “vox pops” to the program. The journalists poked fun at
a number of lay Egyptians who were asked to express their feelings
concerning Aoun’s return, and at how those people’s comments
revealed their lack of knowledge about Aoun’s role on the Lebanese
political scene or why he was forced into exile in the first place. One
citizen had even mispronounced Aoun’s name, mixing it with his title
(General),45 which the journalists took as evidence of the people’s
ignorance.
A rational debate out of the rational sphere

Dahlgren46 refers to Wyatt, Katz and Kim’s study, which shows that
the home is “the site where most political conversation takes place, i.e.
the most private space has become the most frequent site of the public
sphere. The workplace is reported as the second most common site for
citizen interaction.”47 Clearly, then, the Arab audiences are not merely
“Arab”, with “shared” goals or motifs, as there exist stark differences
among local audiences living in an Arab State compared to an audi-
ence living (or even born) in a Western country, in terms of the motiv-
ation to watch political talk shows, the way they make sense of these
shows and how they incorporate the political into their private
sphere, for example, at their workplace, at family gatherings or charity
projects.
For instance, Eliasoph’s work48 among American volunteers showed
the volunteers cared about people rather than the grand political issues,
therefore they concerned themselves with the issues about which
they felt they could make a difference, namely in the “small, local and
unpolitical” sphere.49 Eliasoph shows how activists felt that politics
was an issue to be avoided, preferring instead to talk about personal
matters and local issues. Thus, she rightly points to the cultural context
of citizen interaction, or, as Dahlgren puts it, “the unspoken ‘rules’ that
define what kind of talk is appropriate (and not) in which kinds of
situation.”50
In my view, the strength of Eliasoph’s work lies in her attentiveness
to what is being said and done both front- and backstage, or the con-
versations that take place behind the public scene as well as what is said
publicly. Contrary to this view, Lynch confines his analysis to the
front-stage, defined narrowly as what is being expressed on political
talk shows, rather than what lay people express, both on- and off-mic,
in public meetings.
In addition, Lynch overlooks the issue of professionalism among
Arab journalists and how they perceive their role. He mentions how
the “Arab states often leveled accusations of a lack of professionalism
on the part of al-Jazeera,”51 but he does not delve into the definition of
professionalism: for example, is it merely the journalists’ compliance
with the policy-makers? Furthermore, if al-Jazeera’s professionalism
was under question, how could it manage to capitalize on its profes-

sional image in promoting al-Jazeera Academy (see Chapter 2)? He
also ignores completely the role of entertainment (although he men-
tions it, albeit very briefly, in the conclusion, perhaps to avoid future
criticism of ignoring it altogether!). However, a brief reference to
popular culture does not do justice to the significant role it plays in
connecting the private with the public. For instance, what is the con-
tribution of entertainment, such as films, TV serials, or caricatures, in
revealing social malaise? How do people negotiate their identity and
see it reflected in popular culture versus political talk shows? Why
should political programs be the only arena for the public sphere and
hence gain publicity and visibility?
Finally, Lynch overlooks several nuances on the Arab media scene,
for example, the role of the tabloid press. He briefly states that the con-
ventional Western distinction
between elite and tabloid media, commonly employed in media analy-

sis, does not hold in the Arab case; the Arab satellite stations, which
stand accused of pandering to the masses though sensationalism, are also
the premiere venue for elite political discourse.52
Thus, his definition of tabloids rests on the degree of “sensationalism”

alone; but there is more to the distinction between tabloid and non-
tabloid than just “pandering to the masses”. For example, there are dis-
tinctions in terms of content, style, subjects of the news and debate, as
I discuss in more detail in the next chapter.53
Regretfully, a data-rich research project such as Lynch’s, which was
based on “976 episodes of the five most important general interest talk
shows appearing on al-Jazeera,”54 could have led to richer insights into
the role of pan-Arab media in the public sphere. For instance, it could
have been supplemented with audience analysis, or been based on a
comparison of a score of satellite TV political shows with those broad-
cast on local TV, or been based on a review of relevant Arab scholarly
works (see Chapter 7).
Dahlgren55 points to the particular significance of “interaction
among citizens” in political theories of democracy. If interaction is the
core element of open and democratic communication, we must then
inquire into the style used in interaction and the range of topics and
voices included in the discussion. The following section deals with the
style (language), while the next chapter will elaborate on the range of
topics as well as voices in the “serious” versus “less serious” genres.
The role of media in the public sphere

How could the media help invigorate rational public debate? In her
critique of the public sphere as a normative model, Nancy Fraser
defines the ideal public sphere as
a theatre . . . in which political participation is enacted through the

medium of talk. It is the space in which citizens deliberate about their
common affairs . . . it is a site for the production and circulation of dis-
courses that can in principle be critical to the state.56
Later, Fraser sees the public sphere as functioning only when it con-
siders “which social groups most need access to what kinds of partici-
pation and what sorts of conditions or shifts in power are necessary to
produce democratically viable solutions.”57
In an Arab context, however, this ideal seems implausible, for the
Arab region includes a number of states, each with its own interest,
history and concerns. What kind of state, then, is represented in and
by the pan-Arab media: an overall imagined nation (or Umma)
represented by many presidents/kings? Would not such a nation
conceal the power struggle among the states and state leaders to
promote their own interests and agendas? In my view, a wholesale ideal
of one pan-Arab public sphere dictates a wholesale solution for the
democratization of the region, a task easier thought of than completed.
It is therefore imperative to acknowledge that “some social locations
hinder, or even prevent, certain participants from speaking in public,
from full participation in citizen deliberation.”58
The irony is that pan-Arab journalists seem to disapprove of a
common pan-Arab media policy, while they tend to promote the pan-
Arab identity by stressing the political and regional perspective of
news and current affairs programs. For instance, al-Jazeera’s top host,
Faisal al-Kasim, refused the suggestion of establishing a pan-Arab
news agency to counterbalance the Western monopoly of news gather-
ing, saying that the suggestion of having a central Arab agency “only
reminds us of the Arab unity projects which have gone rotten on the
shelves at the Arab League.”59 Yet, his program (see Chapter 4) con-
solidates this sense of togetherness by focusing on the foreign policy
issues of the Arab States.
Moreover, Fraser60 warns against “unbracketing inequality,” since
vital public debate is a prerequisite to the openness necessary to high-
light and discuss differences rather than concealing them. Thus, the
news media “could become a means through which citizens under-

stand not only that they have different, and perhaps conflicting, inter-
ests, but also that some interests may be more in need of protection and
promotion.”61 Rather than seeing the “multiplicity of competing
publics” as “a step away from, rather than toward, greater democracy,”
Fraser stresses the need for this multiplicity to continue, or else
“members of subordinated groups would have no arenas for delibera-
tion among themselves about their needs, objectives, and strategies.
They would have no venues in which to undertake communicative
processes that were not, as it were, under the supervision of dominant
groups.”62
Haas and Steiner63 use Fraser’s critique mentioned above to discuss
the link between the public sphere as a theoretical concept and public
journalism as a practical tool to invigorate public debate. They
propose, among other things, to break the line between citizen and
politician or expert so that the former is allowed to address and debate
with the latter actors directly.64 But how realistic is this suggestion, if
it cuts across the journalists’ cultural authority or the power to mediate
and moderate? This is the power that journalists are unlikely to yield
to lay citizens, preferring to serve as the filter in between citizens’ con-
cerns and political actors.
Splichal65 sums up the essential criteria that define a managed public
sphere, as follows:
1. access (who should speak);

2. content (what should be discussed);
3. style of speech (how it should be discussed) and the outcome of dis-
cussion.
I use these criteria as the point of departure in the following discussion

about the role of the media in fostering public debates. I deal with the
first and second criteria in the next chapter, while the third criterion,
style and language, is discussed in the following section. I first define
Arab news journalists as “a discourse community” sharing one lin-
guistic code, namely the written variety of Arabic. Elsewhere,66 I
discuss in more detail the role of the written variety of Arabic or
Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in the news, and in the following
section, I aim to show how the use of MSA is crucial in analyzing the
Arab journalism field and the contribution of the news media in fos-
tering a sense of a shared public sphere.
A discourse community
The news genre can be characterized as the group of discursive features
shared within a particular discourse community and which can be rec-
ognized by the members (and audience) of this community. Todorov
defines genre in this sense, as follows:
In a society, the recurrence of certain discursive prosperities is institu-

tionalized, and individual texts are produced and perceived in relation to
the norm constituted by that codification. A genre, literary or otherwise,
is nothing but this codification of discursive properties.67
Swales68 analyzed genre in terms of the surrounding socio-rhetorical

discourse community, where the linguistic behavior is determined
functionally. A discourse community is primarily characterized as a
“specific interest group” linked by training, profession or another qual-
ification rather than class, birth or inherent characteristics. Thus, the
genre dominant within a certain discourse community serves the goals
of this community and the convention of the genre plays a role in dis-
tinguishing members of this discourse community.69
I find Swales’ concept of “discourse community” a powerful ana-
lytical tool, as the news genre has its own conventions and therefore
journalists may be seen as forming their own discourse community.
These genre conventions help define the community of journalism and
its professional practices. Deviance from these conventions, however,
is a sign of “outsiderness” from this community and its shared codes.
A discourse community shares a certain way of reading and commu-
nicating its discourse/texts. For our purpose here, we need to specify
the characteristics of the language and style of news and debate, in light
of the fact that the Arab region hosts a variety of languages and eth-
nicities.
As I argue elsewhere,70 the idea that all Arabs share one language is
rather a misconception. Although the written form (or Modern
Standard Arabic, MSA) is a shared linguistic code, it is nonetheless not
the mother tongue used in daily communication. The vernacular is the
mother tongue, and it varies from one country to another in the forms
of Egyptian Arabic, Palestinian Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, and so on,
while the written variety is confined to formal writing and speeches.
Thus, Modern Standard Arabic serves a transnationalistic function in
the Arab region. Furthermore, Arab media officials stress the correct
use of the classical language and wish to see it replace the vernaculars
and take its place as the main tool of daily communication among
Arabs. The code of journalistic ethics approved by the Council of Arab
Information Ministries addressed this matter, calling for Arab journal-
ists to act as guardians of the classical language and the literary heritage
of the Arab nation.71
Previous analyses of the use of MSA in the news72 found that the
use of vernacular words in hard news is rather rare. Newspapers
usually use the written form of language, reserving the vernacular for
humorous or sarcastic commentaries and caricatures. The media’s role,
then, was to convert these vernacular phrases into classical Arabic
when reporting on a speech. Thus, the language marks the difference
in social hierarchy and authority in society and at the same time
emphasizes the news media’s role in upholding this difference and in
guarding classical Arabic from the “impurity” of the vernacular.73
The use of MSA versus the vernacular has actually been the cause
of some tension in the Arab World. While some scholars are pro-
dialectist, such as the Egyptian writer Salama Mousa, who called for
the use of the Egyptian dialect and the Roman alphabet as a step
towards modernization,74 others have defended the use of MSA as the
only code that unifies the Arabs as one nation. For instance, the first
media policy in Saudi Arabia was aimed at preserving the classical form
of the Arabic language, making it the official language of broadcasting
in order to increase the level of the audience’s understanding of the
classical form.75 Thus, MSA has several functions as:
1. A tool for correct expression;

2. An instrument of religion;
3. A mediator of culture;
4. The basis of Arab nationalism;
5. A tool of communication in the news media;
6. A tool of mobilization.76
Habib’s77 survey amongst Saudi citizens showed that Saudis supported

the use of the vernacular only in “folklore” programs. His content
analysis of the programs on Saudi radio showed that classical Arabic
was used exclusively in news, religious and public service announce-
ments.78 In contrast, a recent survey among the Lebanese audience
showed that 83 percent see MSA as the language of print rather broad-
casting media, while the proportion of those who preferred the use of
MSA in broadcasting was at most 5 percent.79 Likewise, a recent
survey among Lebanese students showed that more than 68 percent of
them wish to remove the study of Arabic from the school curricula,
and that 79 percent prefer to study a foreign language rather than
Arabic.80
This shows that there is tension among the public (that is, the audi-
ence) over the usability of MSA in the “serious” genres, a tension that
reflects the audience’s desire to use a linguistic code that represents
them. If MSA, however, is used as the only code of the news and debate
programs, it may then be considered as a field of power contestations,
that is, with the laity watching the well-articulated hosts and guests
talk about politics. Moreover, the risk is that a large segment of the
public will be excluded from this “serious” circle and forced into the
private sphere, where local concerns are discursively contested in local
vernaculars.
In his account of discourse changes in Britain, Norman Fairclough81
highlights the tendency to democratize discourse through informality,
or what he calls conversational discourse. This means that public dis-
course in the media, politics, and even education is “taking on an
increasingly conversational character,” thus blurring the boundaries
between private (informal) and public (formal) spheres.82 He illustrates
this by citing the increasing number of informalities in the written dis-
course of media, that is, the incorporation of informal slang into the
formal written language of the media. This contemporary trend departs
from the past view in which writing and formal discourse had prece-
dence over informal (spoken) discourse. In the Middle Eastern context,
one can argue that the two stages (of formalization and conversational-
ization) are experienced at once: whereas conversationalization has
gained legitimacy in the media discourse particularly entertainment and
popular politics, formalization still dominates serious genres of debates
and news.
Why does language matter?

The issue of language, strangely enough, seems to be sidestepped in
Western media scholarship, as if it were non-existent or irrelevant to
the analysis of media development in the Arab region. However, I
strongly believe that language plays a crucial role in this analysis for
several reasons. First, MSA is indeed a symbol of pan-Arabism, a polit-
ical project that was doomed to failure but has recently been revived
as a cultural, rather than political, project.
Secondly, MSA is considered the only code of the “serious” genres
of news and debates, hence it constitutes an integral part of the
journalists’ cultural capital. Its significance is related partly to the

power distribution among journalists in the “serious” versus the less
serious programs, and partly to its role in excluding certain segments
of the population who cannot converse in this code. This is a crucial
issue in the analysis of the role of the media in the public sphere, par-
ticularly in terms of the potential access of all citizens to this sphere
and the style of debating.
In analyzing Arab media, the role of the news language, or MSA,
comes to the fore as part of the symbolic power assigned to each jour-
nalist.83 For instance, the new Arab news media use MSA to consoli-
date the pan-Arab ideology, specifically by imposing MSA not only in
the newscasts, as in the traditional media, but also in the debate pro-
grams. Since the illiteracy rate among adults in the region is 40 percent,
it is doubtful how many Arab citizens would be encouraged to partici-
pate in call-in programs using the written language, since it requires
years of school and university attendance to be able to speak it as flu-
ently as do the TV hosts. For example, al-Jazeera’s program For
Women Only (which has now finished) used mainly MSA, which may
have indeed cut off various segments of the female audience, although
the program used to discuss domestic affairs. Furthermore, al-Jazeera
has now launched a children’s television channel that deploys only
MSA. Thus, MSA has retained its position as the marker of pan-
Arabism and indeed as part of the “cultural” capital of its user.
Third, the rivalry between MSA and vernaculars is a struggle that
has extended to other fields such as literature and art, resulting in
tension between what to use and for what purpose. Mahfouz, for
example, sees the use of the vernacular as imperative on stage in order
to close the distance between the audience and the actors; otherwise,
artists risk “losing the link between the language of the actor with that
of the audience.”84
Fourth, the explosion of Arab satellite and private channels, not to
mention the privately owned press, has thrown media outlets into
harsh competition with one another, with the positive result that some
private outlets tend to focus on local topics communicated in the local
vernacular. Yet, this leaves us with a rather divided public who, on the
one hand, follow certain grand issues in one code, and follow other
more immediate and mundane issues in another code.
Finally, the sphere of vernaculars is not a “weak” sphere confined
to local and domestic issues; rather, it is a sphere of struggle over power
involving diverse actors, each promoting their own dialect. This is
clearly manifested in the entertainment sector, where male and female
Arab singers have endeavored to promote certain dialects either for

nationalistic reasons or for purely commercial interest in reaching
certain markets. For instance, the Egyptian dialect used to be the cul-
turally dominant dialect in the entertainment sector, yet several
Lebanese stars seem to have abandoned this dialect and prefer to sing
in Gulf dialects to gain access to the lucrative Gulf market. As the
entertainment channels and production companies are usually owned
by Gulf business tycoons, there is now an openly announced strategy
of promoting Gulf dialects. For instance, Saad Shaalani from Rotana
Gulf Channel, one of a variety of channels owned by the Gulf con-
glomerate Rotana, declared that, as the Egyptians and Lebanese
managed to “market” their dialects across the Arab region, it was now
the “time of the Gulf dialect as most of the Arab singers resorted to
the Gulf dialect in their songs and now the task is on our shoulders
as Gulfies to contribute to the spread of our dialect to all Arab
countries.”85
Apart from songs, there is a commonplace exchange of programs
among Arab terrestrial and satellite channels to compensate for the
reduced local production. For instance, the Tunisian channel produces
60 percent locally and imports 35 percent from other Arab countries.
Likewise, Morocco TV imports 23.4 percent, while Algeria, Oman and
Abu Dhabi each import approximately 25 percent of their broadcast
programs.86 The end result is a diversified public that is pushed by the
serious genres to accept a unified identity and pulled by the entertain-
ment genres to return to their local roots and accept their diversity.
The heated debate around language

Arab scholars as well as media professionals seem divided concerning
the “ideal” linguistic code for the media, both entertainment and
news. A group of them favors the use of MSA in all genres, while
another group sees MSA as an impediment to development, calling
instead for the development of language before the development of
media policies.
The first group criticizes the use of the vernacular in television in
general, whether for news or entertainment, as several dialects are not
intelligible across Arab States. For instance, Moustafa al-Mesnawi, a
Moroccan academic, praised the Moroccan channels for adopting
MSA, while criticizing the Egyptian and Lebanese channels for over-
whelming Moroccan viewers with programs in the Egyptian and
Lebanese dialects respectively (the latter in particular is not easily
understood by Moroccans).87 In so doing, the “ideal speaker” seems to

“censor the actual performer.”88
The Lebanese academic Nasim el-Khoury89 sees the vernacular as
an embodiment of the “coarse and vulgar” while seeing MSA as a
sacred and sophisticated language. El-Khoury laments the fact that
MSA has been abandoned by Lebanese journalists and broadcasters
who would rather use the Lebanese vernacular as a symbol of their
national roots. News bulletins therefore remain the only programs
that use MSA, although the reporters’ dispatches broadcast in the bul-
letins are usually in the vernacular. The Lebanese channel LBC, for
example, was the first channel to use the vernacular in broadcasting,
and it even thought of producing news bulletins in the vernacular as
well “in order to reach all classes, the educated and non-educated.”90
According to el-Khoury, the media was “condescending to the style of
the laity, and it has not managed to rise to a culture or language.”91
Scholars, and a segment of the educated elite, tend to favor MSA
and issue warnings against abandoning it that equate to abandoning
one’s roots, or even one’s mother “because of her ragged clothes.”92
Some favor the intervention of the authorities in protecting MSA
because, for them, living without MSA is like living “without a father
or an authority to protect it or claim the responsibility for its future.”93
Yet, other scholars and writers seem to favor parting company with
MSA on the grounds that it “represses” the mother tongue, namely the
vernacular, or, as the Palestinian writer Fawaz Turki puts it:
I grew up in a society that in fact conditions the individual to fear any

form of originality. We are conditioned to look upon the authority figure
as someone to fear. This notion of conditioning is reflected in the way
we speak our language. Arabic is a language that it not suitable for logical
thinking. Arabic is probably the most degraded and dehumanized lan-
guage in the entire world. It blocks us from being part of the global dia-
logue of culture. Why is that? Because language is culture. We come
from a culture that is repressive; the language we speak is equally repres-
sive. So, we have a problem on two levels: the problem is to liberate our-
selves from occupation and on the other level to liberate ourselves, to
have an Intifada, directed against our home.94
More importantly, ordinary Arabs refrain from using MSA and some
even call for its destruction. For instance, el-Khoury’s95 survey among a
sample of Lebanese audiences showed that a large percentage saw MSA
as difficult, particularly women (49 percent versus 40 percent male), and
most of the respondents saw grammar as the most difficult part of the
language.
It is precisely because of the gap between users of MSA and ordi-
nary people that popular talk shows adopt the vernacular as their only
code. For instance, in an interview with al-Jazeera, Moutaz al-
Demerdash, the host of a popular talk show on a private Egyptian TV
channel, objected to al-Jazeera’s host’s pronunciation of the title of al-
Demerdash’s popular show. The al-Jazeera host pronounced it as it
would be in MSA, but al-Demerdash said congenially, “We do not pro-
nounce it this way here in Egypt . . . we choose to speak the vernacu-
lar so as to reach the public.”96
There are also innovative attempts to mix the vernaculars, usually
related to the private and domestic, with the serious genres of political
talk shows. An example of this is the popular TV program Bel Arabi
(literally, In Arabic, which is a phrase usually used in the vernacular as
a request to use simplified language) on al-Arabiya (al-Jazeera’s rival).
Here, the presenter conducts an interview in her Lebanese vernacular
with famous politicians, unlike other political debates and news that
are communicated exclusively in MSA.
In fact, the vernaculars have always proven useful as a rhetorical
device in the hands of politicians and religious men alike: the former
Egyptian president Nasser (the father of the pan-Arabism movement)
used to spice up his speeches with vernacular words, and immensely
famous and popular religious men such as the late Sheikh Shaarawi and
the young Amr Khaled have seen in vernaculars a fast path to reach the
people’s hearts.
Politicians also have seen the value of deploying the vernacular in
this way. For instance, the 2005 Egyptian presidential elections marked
a new era of political campaigning, with the incumbent president
Hosni Mobarak competing against nine candidates (and yet he still
won the majority of votes!). Mobarak was marketed using a new look:
soft tone, a more relaxed style and a bilingual website on which
voters/citizens could participate in polls regarding various issues.97
According to al-Qassas,98 the other candidates realized the inevitabil-
ity of adding a “new look” and so presented their younger-looking
photos to be printed in daily broadsheets, not to mention their use of
a mixture of slang and formal words in their slogans, for example, al-
Wafd Party’s slogan “We suffocate” and the election watchdog entitled
“We watch you.”99
On the other hand, el-Khoury blames the deterioration in the use
of MSA in some media outlets on the politicians who “do not learn
MSA in the military colleges, and hence feel encouraged to address the
audience in the vernacular.”100 He gives an example of the former
Lebanese president Bechair el-Gemayel, who, up to his assassination
in 1982, gave “49 speeches” of which “five speeches were in French,
one in English, 38 in the vernacular and five in simplified Arabic.”101
El-Khoury also refers to a survey among Lebanese parliamentarians
that shows that the use of MSA has been decreasing since 1991 while
the use of the vernacular has increased.102
In sum, scholars, as well as the laity, are divided among themselves
about the role of MSA in the mass media. What complicates the issue
is that those who endorse the use of MSA in all genres, not only news,
tend to justify this through the discourse of Arab unity. The late
Edward Said had joined this group, as illustrated in his personal
account of his experience with MSA.103 Here, Said lashed out at Laila
Ahmed, herself a prominent “diasporic” Arab scholar, because Ahmed
dared to attack the use of MSA at the expense of the vernaculars in
Arab schools. However, Said seemed to romanticize the role of MSA
in the everyday life of the Arab laity; for instance, he wrote that “edu-
cated Arabs actually use both demotic and classical Arabic, and that
this totally common practice neither prohibits naturalness and beauty
of expression nor in and of itself does it automatically encourage a
stilted and didactic tone.” He blamed Ahmed for not learning MSA,
which was “an easy enough thing for her to have done.” Yet, despite
his life in Arab-speaking countries and the lessons he had with a retired
Arab professor of Semitic languages, Said admitted that he found he
had to try hard to deal with his inability to express himself eloquently
in MSA. Thus, scholars like Said tend to see an innate ability to reach
a certain degree of eloquence in MSA, thereby discarding an equally
important tension created by the use of vernaculars; the tension, in
Said’s words, between “the language of intimacy” and MSA, which I
call the language of solemnity.
There has still been no analysis of the importance of MSA skills in
accessing the journalistic field (both in print and electronic media). For
example, the increased commercial pressure on news media in the USA
has driven editors and managers to hire journalists who can write for
different sections of the newspapers rather than focusing on their lan-
guage (and spelling) skills;104 could this also be the situation in Arab
news media, where the competition for a qualified workforce is fierce?
Above all, how can Arab journalists manage to establish a rapport with
their readers and viewers, if they do not use the popular vernacular?
Would there be another means to achieve the same goal without
sacrificing the use of MSA, for example, by depending on visual ele-

ments such as photos or other discourse-markers such as metaphors?
Conclusion
In this chapter, I discussed the rather idealized picture of the Arab news
media in fostering public debate and hence serving as a beacon for the
democratization of the region. In particular, I have tried to suggest that
the Arab news media may indeed play the role of educator but I won-
dered how the laity responded to this education, particularly if the
incoming information does not directly relate to their daily problems.
In particular, I evaluated Marc Lynch’s attempt to romanticize the
role of news media as a forum for public debates, throwing into relief the
criteria needed for such a functioning forum, namely accessible content
and style, and the impact of these on participation in public debates.
Although Habermas’s original theory accredited arts and literature
as being the center of public discourse, scholars’ concerns for the
development of the public sphere rarely address the aesthetic embod-
iment of this public sphere, for example, in the use of language in news
and debate genres. To my knowledge, no Western scholar has ever
looked at the politics of language among Arab media outlets or posed
questions on the role of language in a functioning public sphere. As I
argue above, language politics constitute a crucial issue in the analysis
of the role of the media in the public sphere, particularly in terms of
the potential access of all citizens to this sphere and the style of debat-
ing therein.
Language is also an integral part of the “symbolic” power of Arab
journalists, and thus its role cannot be overlooked in the analysis of con-
temporary Arab journalistic culture. I also discussed the impact of
language politics on audiences torn between the universal and the
particular, or between the language of intimacy and the language of
solemnity.
The discussion on the role of Arab journalists and news media in
fostering the public debate continues in Chapter 4, where the empha-
sis will be on content. I juxtapose the content of the formal pan-Arab
news media with the lesser local tabloids, showing the stark differences
in the laity’s use of both kinds of media. In so doing, I draw once more
on the Habermasian notion of the public sphere, throwing it into sharp
relief with the private sphere, an important, yet under-theorized,
notion in contemporary media scholarship.
Chapter 4
The Dichotomy of the Public/Private

Sphere
This chapter resumes the discussion raised in Chapter 3 concerning the

role of the pan-Arab media in the public sphere. As I argued in that
previous chapter, language plays a significant role in the “symbolic”
power of Arab journalists; likewise, I argue in this chapter that part of
that symbolic power relates to what is deemed the “serious” content
of the public debate. Central to the discussion in this chapter is the
content of public debate as illustrated by random examples from
formal pan-Arab news media versus local outlets. If the public I
described in the previous chapter is torn between the language of inti-
macy and the language of solemnity, the public in this chapter is
divided between the private and the public realms, although the major-
ity of them navigate across both.
Nancy Fraser stresses that “what will count as a matter of common
concern will be decided precisely through discursive contestation.”1 If
this is true, then it is important to analyze the type of subjects that gain
visibility in the public realm, juxtaposing them with those that are
cocooned as domestic private matters and hence shielded from public-
ity. This is important in cross-cultural analyses of the role of the media,
as “private” may indeed have different connotations across different
cultural contexts. Poverty, for one, has always seemed a private/
domestic issue in Arab societies, so, for instance, many Lebanese,
despite their poverty, tend to deny their poor status on the grounds
that “poverty is shameful” and to “evade social stigma.”2 In the fol-
lowing section, I argue that the local/private, long shielded from the
pan-Arab media, has recently begun to claim a position on the media
landscape thanks to the explosion of the number of private media
outlets, whether print or broadcasting, during the past decade.
I first provide a brief overview of Arab scholars’ critique of the
urbanity of news in pan-Arab and local media; then I discuss the
tension among Arab journalists themselves, between an elite audience

and a humble laity. The following sections discuss the notion of the
private sphere and how it embraces several “layers,” with each layer
acquiring a position in the private “hierarchy” depending on its posi-
tion vis-à-vis the public domain. I conclude with a criticism of Western
and Arab media alike for favoring the global over the local, with fatal
results for audiences in both spheres.
Urban news
Elsewhere,3 I have pointed to the abundance of political news in the
Arab news media compared to news on social issues. This type of news
focuses mainly on inter-relational and foreign policy issues, and thus
it can be argued that its effect will be limited to informing or influenc-
ing public opinion on these issues. If Arab journalists seem to focus
more on “hard news” than on soft news, it is perhaps due to the pres-
tige associated with the former. For instance, Hannerz4 argues that a
foreign correspondent usually aspires to be published on the front
page, and this is why they will most likely prefer to report from a place
characteristic of “hard news,” such as Jerusalem, which makes hard
news “more dominant.”5 For Michael Schudson,6 the task of American
journalists is regarded as focusing not only on objective reporting but
also on helping the general public make sense of political acts, thus
undermining the role of the public as active, not to mention rational
interpreters by themselves. Journalists, then, are there to reveal and
make public the “real” intentions of political actors, a task that has
turned their job from that of being mere “stenographers” to being
“interpreters” of politics.7 As such, journalists enjoy a double role of
interpreting what has been said (by politicians) as well as what has not
been said.8
In an Arab context, Arab elite journalists are known to enjoy close
ties with politicians and presidents. In fact, several Arab ministers have
journalistic backgrounds: the Bahraini Minister of Information was the
former chief-editor of the Bahraini daily al-Ayam; the Iraqi former
chief-editor, al-Hadithi, was appointed minister during Saddam’s
former regime, and in fact Tarek Aziz, the former Iraqi foreign minis-
ter, had a career as a chief-editor; the Algerian Minster of Information
was a journalist; and the Jordanian writer and journalist, Saleh al-
Qallab, served for a short period as a Minster of Information in Jordan.9
In general, Arab communication can be characterized as urban,
serving city inhabitants, particularly the elite, and ignoring the rural
The Dichotomy of the Public/Private Sphere 99
areas. One serious implication here is that, despite the modern format
of the new pan-Arab media, outlets actually still adhere to the trad-
itional hegemonic discourses of the elite and indeed ignore the imme-
diate social problems in modern Arab societies. Several Arab media
scholars warned against the press’s preoccupation with privileged
groups and journalists’ ignoring the developmental problems that the
region is facing,10 making the rural press a non-existent phenomenon.11
For instance, both rural women and poor urban women are almost
totally absent from the media, which seem more occupied with special
groups of women, namely urban women who belong to the middle
classes. One study showed that interest in the issues of women in rural
areas comprised less than 3 percent of the total content. As for the
weekly magazines, the focus was almost totally on women in the
urbanized areas (97.5 percent), while a modest percentage (2.5 percent)
was on the rural areas.12 Another study of the situation of female jour-
nalists in Egypt showed that the journalists included in the study
wished for serious social problems to be covered in the press, such as
illiteracy among rural women, family planning, and health issues;13
however, these were problems that they did not cover, although they
agreed on the significance of these issues to public debates.
In fact, according to Jameel Matar (the Director of the Center for
Future Development, Egypt), the negative impact of the satellite dish
is that it has added to the alienation of the marginalized majority, for
example, citizens from Upper Egypt. Thus, satellite channels repre-
sent an elite phenomenon, addressing only the cohort of peer col-
leagues of presenters and media professionals.14 Furthermore, one of
al-Manar’s15 presenters, Amr Nassef, says that satellite channels have
become like Arab parties in as much as they get further away from
their real audience and their real problems. So, there are channels that
think they give the audience what they want in terms of variety and
songs, while others prefer to give the audience what they need to know
in terms of news and information.16
On the positive side, the rivalry among satellite and terrestrial chan-
nels, public and private alike, has resulted in the generation of new
types of programs and talk shows based on purely local concerns. One
example of these is Ten P.M., broadcast on the private Egyptian
channel Dream TV. The program host, Mona al-Shazli, once said that
the program is concerned with the daily problems of average Egyptian
citizens, whose concerns are transport, ensuring the education of their
children, and ensuring the life of their family in the future.17 Examples
of problems dealt with in her program were the spread of cancer
among children, and the death of 1,000 Egyptians following the

sinking of a Red Sea ferry, which was said to have been caused by a fire
breaking out below decks. The ferry was on a journey from Saudi
Arabia to Egypt and most of the passengers were poor Egyptian
workers coming back from Saudi Arabia. The accident was followed
by a remarkable degree of public outrage because of the scarcity of
information available on the rescue efforts and the identities of the sur-
vivors, not to mention that the owner of the ferry left the country even
before investigations were completed.
Justifying the tendency among local shows to deal with local con-
cerns rather than political issues, al-Shazli said, “We want to be close
to the viewer . . . if he is sad and depressed because of something that
happens in the street, home, town, he should feel that we share his
mourning and we are consoling him; and if he wins the African Cup,
we want to share his happiness, too . . . we want to be the neighbor, the
relative or the person with whom we know we can share our happi-
ness and hardship, and who can contribute to solve our problem.”18
Her colleague, Moutaz al-Demerdash, a former newsreader-cum-
talk-show host, defended the local angle of his popular talk show
Ninety Minutes, broadcast on another private channel, saying that
Egypt has 70 million people, each burdened with problems, which
makes the priority of talk shows like his to deal with these problems
(or “files”, as he called them), rather than with foreign actors such as
the USA or Israel.19 He also affirmed that his program puts pressure
on the local “executive authority.”
For the Lebanese Diana Muqalled (Future TV), reading the head-
lines in the Arab newspapers or hearing the newest bulletins may
dismay those who support endeavors to include other non-political
issues. The irony, she adds, is that one Western training initiative after
another teaches Arab journalists to focus on social, environmental, and
human-interest stories, yet Arab journalists usually regard such issues
as insignificant, which means they are usually non-existent in the news
and current affairs coverage.20 I personally recall the dismay of a native-
Arab journalist who was involved in such a training initiative financed
by a Western NGO. The journalist told me that he was astonished at
the paradoxical attitude of his Arab trainees, who on the one hand
embrace the Western news technical format but then decline from
applying Western news values, which favor “soft” news. Thus, the
trainees could not see any local story about the failure of their educa-
tional system, sewage work, and so on, as worth covering, particularly
on the front pages.
One of al-Jazeera’s top hosts, Faisal al-Kasim, whose program cen-

tered on core politics, expressed a view similar to that of Muqalled. He
told of his shock when he lived in Britain and watched the British news
bulletin dealing with mundane incidents. Soon, however, he realized
the need to “humanize the Arab media.” He blamed the Arab mental-
ity that “relegates human matters to a very secondary position, as if
they were of no importance art all,” adding that
Arab totalitarian regimes forced media over the past five decades or so
to focus mainly on so-called “big issues” and every thing else should go
to hell, as if the issues themselves are much more important than the
people.21
Yet, such issues hardly reach the media, and if they do, the focus is
usually on the overall political context rather than on scrutinizing the
social and individual repercussions of these issues. One prominent
Lebanese journalist said once that if she could, she wished she could
cover the situation of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, but such a
program would never be permitted to be broadcast.22
Even covering human crises inside the Palestinian territories is
subject to the same professional censorship. Take the recent crisis in
which more than 160,000 public servants did not receive their salaries:
the field reports among citizens rarely reflected the individual
tragedies resulting from this situation. Instead, Palestinian journalists
preferred to report on the situation from a purely political perspec-
tive, rather than zooming in on human tragedies. Those stories that
focused on individuals were taken directly from foreign agencies such
as the AFP and Reuters.23 Likewise, the Jordanian journalists’ cover-
age in the economic supplements in the Jordanian newspapers seemed
to paint an unrealistic, but more favorable, picture of the Jordanian
economy. Thus, the economic pages tend to focus on stock market
activities, economic conferences, or news on new trade agreements
with other countries, rather than on revealing the deteriorated situ-
ation of the poor in Jordan, whose news is usually confined to the
inside local sections of the newspapers.24 Moreover, an Egyptian
scholar25 previously criticized Egyptian economic sections on the
same grounds; for him, reading the economic and business sections
would give the mistaken impression that Arabs live a luxurious life,
because the media tend to focus on the life of urban, well-educated,
upper-middle-class citizens rather than addressing the average
citizen’s problems.
The absence of social and human-interest stories is due to many

factors. First, Arab journalists, as indicated above, do not see in such
stories a “route to fame” in a profession where the real prestige lies in
covering hardcore politics and interviewing famous politicians.
Second, such issues are indeed difficult to cover, for they require exten-
sive research and investigation, which drives journalists to prefer to
cover available political issues, easily accessible in foreign sources. In
fact, the Arab-American academic Mamoun Fandy sees the media’s
preoccupation with high politics as a means to distract the Arab audi-
ences from their internal affairs by glorifying foreign policy issues, or
else journalists may be accused of “political heresy.”26 By contrast, the
local or economic sections are dull, for there are no specialized jour-
nalists to write well-researched articles about such issues. Third, Arab
governments usually intervene to stop the production in their territo-
ries of programs about social issues, for example, prostitution or the
status of foreign labor or refugees; among them are those countries that
pride themselves on their “free” media zones. In sum, while “human-
interest” stories serve as the backbone of the private realm, Arab
media, unlike their Western counterparts, are reluctant to center on
these stories.
In their analysis of the public sphere, Western scholars tend to focus
on the “erosion” of the public by the private.27 According to this view,
the increasing commercialization of media genres has been accompa-
nied by an increasing apathy among Western publics to engage in
public life, eroding any form of commonality and solidarity. In other
words, “it seems, the ‘public’ is being privatized, the private is becom-
ing oversized, and this undermines democratic life.”28
Sheller and Urry29 summarize the different conceptions of the divi-
sion between public and private: one perspective equates the “public”
with the state, working for the public interest, while the “private” des-
ignates the market, individual interest. Another perspective distin-
guishes between the “public” versus “private” spheres, where the
former serves as an area for rational debate and the latter for domestic
matters. Other theorists see the distinction as being spatial in nature,
with the public taking place in public spaces while the private occupies
the domestic space. Finally, others see the distinction lying in the
degree of visibility, or media “exposure,” referring particularly to the
popularity of bringing private matters into the public domain, thus
violating the privacy of citizens. In addition, Sheller and Urry criticize
these conceptions as static, stressing the dynamic dialect between both
spheres and the increasing hybridity and fluidity between them.
Acknowledging this hybridity and the ability to “navigate” across

them, moreover, should be the basis of social and political theories.
In my view, this hybridity and fluidity plays a crucial role in the
analysis of private/public spheres in the Arab context. The Arab
private sphere overlaps and yet secedes with the public domain in
terms of visibility, language, interest, representative voice and distinc-
tive capital, as shown in table 4.1.
This shows a public realm that is dominated by the “community”
interest, based on reason rather than emotion, with elitist viewpoints
and topics communicated in an aloof linguistic code. On the other
hand, the private realm is dominated by the individual interest, based
on emotion and a middle-class voice and topics communicated in a
simpler language. The capital needed in the public realm is solely cul-
tural, symbolized in the education and in verbal skills, while the social
capital, that is, networking, is characteristic of the private realm. Also,
both realms seem to be affiliated to different institutions, with the
public affiliated to state institutions and the private to the market. As
Shelly and Urry30 remind us, however, such a division is not static, but
fluid and hybrid, allowing the agents to move across the different
realms and apply their knowledge of the rules in each realm.
As I argue below, the private realm, rather than being a static space,
may encompass several layers, allowing the laity to navigate across
these different layers. First, I show random examples of “private”
matters penetrating the public realm, the aim of highlighting them
being to show the complexity of the private sphere and the difficulty
in drawing fixed boundaries between the “public” and the “private.”
Table 4.1 The public versus private realms
Private sphere Public sphere
Interest Individual Community

Visibility Privacy Publicity
Logic Emotion Reason
Gender Female Male
Class Poor and middle classes Elite
Representative voice Middle class Elite
Visible topics Social (domestic) Politics/economics
Language Vernaculars MSA
Capital needed Social, i.e. networking Cultural, i.e. knowledge
and education
Affiliation Market State
A private appeal to a privileged public

Fraser sees the private realm as being concerned with “private prop-
erty” and “pertaining to intimate domestic or personal life.”31 In the
pan-Arab news media, the private may designate the local as well as
the domestic. Thus, while regional and foreign policies may be seen
as inherently “public” issues of regional concern, local politics may
be seen to be part of the private realm, along with domestic and
family affairs. For the Lebanese Ramez Maluf, “local media remain
for the most part the more significant influence on their audience,”
despite the abundance of regional and global channels available to
them.32 He points to Western scholars’ preoccupation with a handful
of “pan-Arab” channels, chief among them al-Jazeera, thereby
neglecting “394” other channels. This, he adds, is misleading, as
“these few stations are by no means in control of the market, which
is known to be fragmented, diversified, fickle, and loyal to programs
rather than to channels.” Thus, Western scholarship tends to center
on the “shared,” or “pan-Arab” rather than the local and particular,
as discussed in Chapter 3. I shall come back to this in Chapter 7, in
my discussion of Arab and Western media scholarship, but for now,
let me illustrate Maluf’s point with random examples from pan-Arab
and local media, focusing on the interaction between readers/viewers
and media. These examples include one call-in TV program and the
letters-to-the editor pages in a number of pan-Arab and local
newspapers.
The first example is from the regional channel al-Jazeera, and par-
ticularly from its most controversial call-in program, The Opposite
Direction. Shamri33 provides a quantitative analysis of the program,
surveying thirty episodes broadcast during the period from 1997 to
1998. Shamri presents an overview of the topics of these episodes,
ranging from “peace with Israel,” “Israel’s relations with Turkey,”
“massacres in Algeria,” “economic summit,” “Yemen joining the Gulf
Cooperation Council,” “Iran and the Gulf,” “Kuwaiti-Iraqi crisis” to
“definition of socialism,” “democracy and shura,” and “definition of
capitalism.” Few episodes from that period dealt with women’s issues,
such as “women’s freedom” and “polygamy.” In general, the program
favored foreign policy issues rather than local or “social” issues. This
trend still continues, although, from time to time, the program picks
up a few “private/domestic” issues, such as the one on 12 December
2006 about the increase of cosmetic operations; a week later, the pre-
senter acknowledged the various complaints he received from some
concerned viewers who saw that topic as “apolitical,” and hence

inappropriate for public debate!
The following week, on 19 December 2006, the program dealt with
another “domestic” issue, namely the spread of music video channels in
the Arab world, a phenomenon that the presenter said may be part of the
Arab governments’ conspiracy against their youth: “there are ministries
of information and there are ministers of information whose main objec-
tive and task is to make into prostitutes the Arab youth and society.” In
particular, he referred to the ease of obtaining a license to launch a music
channel while it may be harder to obtain a license for a news channel.
Ironically, the program host, Faisal al-Kasim, expressed a contrary
view to that of favoring the grand political issue. In an opinion printed
in MEB journal, al-Kasim lamented the absence of human issues in the
pan-Arab media, wondering,
Are not our societies crammed with hundreds of human and social issues
that need immediate attention from the media? We are extremely fed up
with news and programs about “imperialism,” “Zionism” and “liber-
ation issues.” We should get liberated locally first before we get liberated
from foreign colonialists. Our media should be harnessed to liberate the
Arab people from their internal gladiators first.34
Yet, the presenter and part of his audience, as pointed out above, tend
to define certain topics as “worthy” and others as “unworthy”. The
former category includes foreign policy issues – that is, Arab relations
with Israel, the USA and Iran – or discussions around politico-
economic concepts, such as capitalism or socialism. Thus, the public is
clearly differentiated from the private in terms of topic (content); what
is more, audience and media professionals alike seem to share this def-
inition of the public realm.
Let us now turn to the letters-to-the-editor pages from the perspec-
tive of regional versus local press and the different topics brought up in
these media. For instance, the letters page in the pan-Arab newspaper
al-Hayat, on 28 December 2006, included two letters from two Arab
intellectuals, one dealing with the situation in the Palestinian territories
in relation to the internal struggle among the various Palestinian fac-
tions, the other presenting an overview of Egypt’s role in the region and
how Egypt’s peace treaty with Israel affected that role. The pan-Arab
rival al-Sharq al-Awsat had, on the same day, several letters and com-
ments on news stories concerned with regional and global issues. Thus,
one letter commented on the story of Hillary Clinton’s plan to join the
race for the American presidential elections, while another commented

on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict and whether it would be resolved
with Israel’s releasing Palestinian prisoners. Others were concerned
with the situation in Darfur, Iran’s plan to develop nuclear weapons,
and the increasing number of militias in Lebanon. Al-Quds al-Arabi,
moreover, on the same day, had several letters, some of which had been
written by intellectuals residing in Western countries. In fact, as indi-
cated by Lynch (see Chapter 3), the majority of the letters to the editor
published in such pan-Arab broadsheets stem from diasporic reader-
ships; as mentioned before, the difference in readership, whether dias-
poric or local, is as important a part of the analysis of Arab media
content as is the difference among the channels, that is, regional or local.
As for the topics discussed, they centered on regional issues such as the
political situation in Iraq, Saudi security measures on the borders with
Iraq, comment on the recent speech by Palestinian leader Mahmoud
Abbas, and yet another on the elections in Mauritania.
On the other hand, the letters pages in local newspapers have a dif-
ferent emphasis. The Egyptian local newspaper al-Gomhuria has a
special section entitled With the Public, dedicated to letters from “the
public” usually about complaints and individual pleas to officials. On
28 December 2006, this section included a letter concerning a plea to
the Minister of Education for children of underprivileged families to
be exempt from school fees. There was another letter, from a con-
cerned husband, addressing the Head of the Union of Teachers, won-
dering why the Union refused to contribute to the cost of medical
treatment for his wife, who had served the education sector for more
than forty years. A third letter was also concerned with the educational
sector, pointing out particularly the contradictions in the regulations
for all public schools, such as the rule about using a laboratory for
science classes (although most of the labs are unequipped), while
another letter made a sarcastic statement about a governmental office
employing more than 60 public servants and serving 800 pensioners
and yet the office occupies one single 4 4m room.
Another local newspaper is al-Ahram.35 The paper is usually
packed with regional and international political news,36 but its letters-
to-the-editor section may at times reflect more “domestic” concerns.
For instance, on 28 December 2006, al-Ahram had several letters
indicating concern about the phenomenon of Egyptian “street chil-
dren,” following the news of the arrest of a gang that raped, abused and
killed a number of those children. The debate was reminiscent of the
commotion caused by the biographical novel, For Bread Alone, by the
Moroccan Mohamed Choukri, which was banned in several Arab

countries for its “inappropriate” style, topic and characterization of
Moroccan society. Yet, the phenomenon of street children and the
abuse to which they are exposed is a problem that faces several Arab
countries. In Egypt alone, more than one million children are classi-
fied as “street children” if they fulfill certain criteria:
children working in areas where they cannot be seen or reached, such as

home-servants or those who work in other areas that do not necessarily
entail direct contact with the street setting, and those who are at risk or
are vulnerable are added to the list.37
It is, then, not surprising that the laity and elites alike may show concern
about this problem, which affects their daily lives, one way or another,
perhaps even more than Iran’s plan to develop nuclear weapons or
Israel’s possession of such weapons! It is striking that several of the
problems that concern the daily lives of the lay majority are to be found
not in the letters-to-the-editor sections in broadsheets but in the same
sections in tabloids, such as the Egyptian tabloid Crime News.
In fact, crime news has proved very popular, and the reason, accord-
ing to one editor of an Egyptian tabloid specializing in crime news, is
that “people are bored with politics.” A sociologist, on the other hand,
justifies this popularity by claiming that readers achieve gratification in
learning about others’ hardship and use it as a strategy to help them to
cope better with their own.38 As mentioned above, Crime News, pub-
lished by the Egyptian publishing house Akbar el-Youm, is an example
of such a tabloid, and it is concerned primarily with the crimes and
calamities of local people. The letters-to-the-editor page in this tabloid
is dedicated to the humble people’s complaints and personal pleas, and
is even entitled People’s Complaints. For instance, the letters published
on 28 December 2006 were concerned with the daily lives of some
underprivileged citizens. One of them sent a letter lamenting his
chronic disease and appealed for the well-off to donate a certain amount
of money to buy him a respiratory machine. Another letter is from a
man who told his story of deprivation since childhood, and his fear that
his two sons may face the same destiny. Due to his illness, he had to
leave work, and had no other financial source to support him; his letter
was directed to those who could help him and his family. Usually such
letters include the addresses and telephone numbers of the senders.
Thus, this tabloid may indeed serve as “pantheon of human behavior,
morality, efficacy and circumstances,” or as a “ritual moral exercise,”39
but, above all, it also serves as a forum for the poor and deprived to
present their appeals to the more privileged classes.
In sum, the focus of the pan-Arab media tends to center on regional
politics rather than the immediate local concerns of each Arab society.
Thus, for a news story to be deemed “worthy” it should deal with
either the Islamic or the pan-Arab politico-religious sphere. In a pan-
Arab outlet, such as al-Jazeera, the grand political issues are supremely
newsworthy. One of the channel’s top hosts, Yusri Fouda, justified this
as follows:
You are not talking to only a certain group, or a certain mentality or area,
and you adopt a pan-Arab mentality; this is the number one criterion
that will help you decide whether this news item would interest someone
in Mauritania or affect someone in Somalia or Iraq or Morocco, i.e. is it
too local? Or will other Arab people, whether in the Arab World or
somewhere else, anywhere in the world, be interested in knowing a little
bit more. This is criterion number one . . .We’ll try to see the value; let’s
say there was a fire in Malaysia and five people were burned to death.
Many considerations are going to be involved here: was it an accident?
The husband was going to make some tea, he was ignorant, it was his
first time in the kitchen, and it was all an accident. If this is the case, then
maybe not. But maybe it was racially motivated. A Muslim did it to a
Christian family, or it was politically motivated. Then the news item
begins to gain significance. Maybe someone who lives in Egypt would
like to know a little bit more about it, because we know that Malaysia
has many Muslims living here, and there are some troubles.40
Anecdotally, I recall asking a female journalist at one of these pan-

Arab media about the stories that occupied her at the time. She
responded immediately that Iran’s plan to develop nuclear weapons,
or the “Iranian file” as she called it, was the most interesting story for
her then. And when I asked why, she answered impatiently, “You see,
Iran wants to develop these weapons, but the USA does not approve
of it, so the USA threatened Iran with economic sanctions, but China,
a member in the Security Council, would not support this deci-
sion. . .” I noted how a diverse country like Iran was reduced to being
a protagonist acting against the antagonist USA, backed up by the
guardian, China, and here I interrupted her and asked, “Would not you
rather cover a story of more importance to the local audience in your
country?” She gave me a look of complete disdain, saying that the
repercussions of Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons are far greater
than the impact of the dreadful status of schooling or acute poverty in

her country.
The implications of the narrow definition of newsworthiness
among Arab journalists in pan-Arab media may not be confined to the
newsrooms, and may influence audiences as well. So, this definition of
worthiness can also be entrenched in the audience’s minds even if they
are exposed to other foreign channels with a different news diet. For
instance, Gönül Gigilcim’s exploratory study among a sample of
Turkish viewers living in Norway showed the viewers’ disapproval of
the Norwegian channels’ news diet, deeming it “trivial” for its focus
on local issues such as schooling, pensions, binge drinking, and so on.41
For this diasporic minority, it was unfathomable how the Norwegian
media indulged in the “private realm” rather than presenting “more
serious” topics, particularly about foreign policies. There are several
analyses of the representations of ethnic minorities in European
news as well as of the minorities’ perception of this representation.
However, analysts have yet to conduct surveys similar to Gigilcim’s
among local Arab audiences to form a qualified view of the interplay
of journalists’ perception of news versus that of their audiences.
Layers of the private sphere

Elsewhere,42 I have reviewed the context that gave rise to the prolifer-
ation of Arab tabloids. For instance, in Egypt, the tabloids flourished
due to a loophole in the law that enabled the publishers to obtain their
licenses. Also, establishing a tabloid has been regarded as a much
cheaper business than launching a glossy magazine or a private tele-
vision channel. But is the term “tabloid” an umbrella term that can be
used to define any non-broadsheet in any country? The answer is no,
as it was shown that, for example, Finnish tabloids are usually regarded
as newspapers rather than as tabloids in the British sense of the word.
This is due in particular to the Finnish tabloids’ attentiveness to the
political news rather than entertainment news, such as that found in
the British The Sun.43 The same can be said about Arab tabloids, which
are also occupied with national political issues.
Indeed, I argue that “tabloid” is an all-inclusive term that does not
account for the distinctions made among existing newspapers and
tabloids. It can be argued, moreover, that a hierarchy of tabloidization
exists on the Arab media scene, and, as I argue below, we may rather
discuss the layers of the private realm as reflected in the local and
tabloid press, depending on each local outlet’s position vis-à-vis the
“more serious” outlets. This hierarchy ranges from those papers con-
cerned with “popularized politics,” usually partisan newspapers, to
those concerned with gossip and celebrities. For instance, a new tabloid
newspaper in Morocco has reportedly managed to gain popularity and
be compared with reputable and well-established dailies because of its
weekly content of “sex, private life gossip, and society scandals.”44
In some Arab States, such as Egypt, there are different kinds of
tabloids and partisan press, with some concerned with politics rather
than social issues, and others concerned with celebrity and private
gossip. Table 4.2 presents this distinction among tabloids, with exam-
ples drawn particularly from Egyptian media outlets.
The first group comprises media outlets specializing in popularized
politics. An example of this is the Egyptian weekly al-Osboua, which
is regarded as a tabloid although its content is purely political. What
has made critics describe it as a tabloid is perhaps its preoccupation (in
line with the Egyptian party press) with political scandals, for example,
the arrest of a mayor’s son for forging a check.
The second group includes outlets specializing in the “official”
private realm. An example of this is the Egyptian daily el-Mesa, which
is an “evening newspaper.”45 The daily has diverse sections for politi-
cal as well as celebrity news. Moreover, most of the political news is
concerned with local issues. El-Mesa has been famous for its last-page
section dedicated to letters sent by poor citizens (and edited by the
Table 4.2 Examples of different local outlets

Outlets Outlets Outlets
specialized specialized specialized
in popularized in the “official” in gossip
politics private realm
Example Egyptian weekly Egyptian daily Tabloids such as

al-Osboua’ el-Mesa Crime News and
Celebrity News
Topics Purely political Political as well Contrasting
as celebrity news gossip about the
famous with
stories about
the poor
Position vis-à- Close Middle position Seceded
vis the formal
public realm
journalists) asking well-off families for help. Apparently, this section

has been so popular that al-Osboua has followed suit and inserted a
new section called Goodness Well, concerned with similar issues.
Finally, the last group includes outlets specializing in gossip, such as
the Egyptian weeklies Akhbar al-Hawadeth (Crime News) and Akhbar
el-Nogoum (Celebrity News). The former, as the title indicates, is con-
cerned with crime news and contains diverse sections about crimes, for
example, a historical crime, crime of the week, international crimes, and
so on. This tabloid has also a letters-to-the-editor section concerned
with citizens’ complaints and/or requests for help (as discussed above).
In fact, crime news seems to be more popular now among the Arab
readership than previously, as the former editor-in-chief of the Jordanian
tabloid Sheehan indicated. According to him, Sheehan’s readers used to
be attracted to gossip and social taboos, but now, thanks to the abun-
dance of satellite entertainment channels discussing various sexual and
social taboos, the readers are now more occupied with crime news.46 It
has to be added here that crime news is usually a monopoly of the print
media rather than of the broadcasting media, whether as news or debate.
If Habermas’s critics argue for the existence of multiple publics or
subaltern publics,47 one can argue here that there is a multi-layered
private sphere, including the family/domestic affairs, the poor and
marginalized, popularized politics, and so on. The capital obtained by
each player in the private sphere gains its currency through its inter-
section with the “formal” public sphere, as shown in figure 4.1.
Figure 4.1 shows the hierarchy of publicity and visibility in the
private realm, depending on the topics of concern: at the top of the
Layers of the private sphere
The public sphere
• Elite topics
• Elite language
Local • Grand political issues
Local politics • The well-educated and
Pleas for social well-articulated as
Pure financial issues mediators and actors
family/ help of these topics
women
issues
Figure 4.1 Layers of the private sphere

hierarchy comes local politics, then social problems such as education

and sexuality; at the bottom are the humble laity’s pleas for help, as
well as purely family/women’s matters. The influence of journalists
working in each type of media may then correspond to the position of
their media outlet in this hierarchy, so those working with local polit-
ical issues may enjoy a better status than do those working with
women’s issues. The most influential positions, on the other hand,
would then remain the monopoly of those reporting on global politi-
cal issues.
To be fair, Western news media (whether European or American),
which provided the training and educational space for many Arab
journalists in the new channels, have not really set a better example.
There exists a gap between the national news and foreign news cover-
age in Western media. Thus, while the national news focuses on ordin-
ary citizens’ immediate and daily problems, the foreign news presents
other nations only through a purely political window focusing on
foreign governments, so ordinary citizens from the Middle East or
other regions appear only in the background. Western news media do
not give nearly as much coverage to those citizens as they do to their
own Western citizens: their problems, their dreams, their culture, their
struggle to get a job, their struggle to maintain an income, their strug-
gle to educate their children, the deterioration of education in public
schools, child labor, and so on. The result is twice as damaging. On the
one hand, Arab journalists shore up their misconception of serious
news as something to do with politics and governments and ignore the
masses and their daily troubles, relegating them to “low level” jour-
nalism. On the other hand, Western audiences never really come to
know Arab peoples as people, but rather only as governments. The dif-
ference is decisive. How often do we see Arabs represented in Western
newscasts as ordinary citizens, sharing dreams and problems similar to
those of Western citizens? How often have Western media taken up the
social issues ignored in Arab news media? How often have Western
newspapers mentioned Arab countries in their culture sections?
Western news media can indeed take part in revolutionizing the news
genre and journalistic traditions in Arab media if they dare revolu-
tionize their own foreign news coverage and make it more pluralistic.
Local is bad, global is good?

In her seminal analysis of Americans’ apathy towards politics, Nina
Eliasoph48 blames the local media for framing activists’ issues in a local
context rather than portraying the activists as citizens who may have a
say in national and global policy. She recalls how local reporters
regarded their reporting jobs as dull and wished they were city
reporters whose job is to “report on more important-seeming issues.”49
They ridiculed what they covered, which made them far from an ideal
“Edward Murrow reporting on world-shaking events.” Thus, Eliasoph
seems to favor the in-depth analysis of “local” problems via an exami-
nation of their political roots and how they are related to an overall
national or even global policy rather than to the pure interest in “a local
individual’s visible actions (handing the blanket to the homeless person,
feeding the hungry person, for example).”50
However, what is presented in this chapter is the exact opposite
case: here we have journalists who tend to frame issues in a
regional/global context as a prerequisite for publicity and visibility. If
issues are deemed local, they are per se unworthy of this visibility in
high-ranking outlets. I am tempted to argue that Western scholars such
as Eliasoph or Habermas tend to base their views on a rather
Eurocentric attitude anchored in the solid history of the “politics of
recognition,” to use Charles Taylor’s term,51 and which has even been
claimed to acquire an emotional character of self-realization.52 In the
Arab context, however, we have a public, or rather, we have frag-
mented and diverse publics, which are shunned out of serious debates
communicated in an exalted language. The segments of the audiences
who are willing and able to discuss these issues usually contribute to
such forms while those who are unable to do so resort to low outlets,
usually hidden in the inside sections of newspapers or in the drama and
fiction of popular culture. The end result is the exaltation of the global
(public) rather than the local (private).
In the American context, highlighted by Eliasoph, “Common sense
considered the pubic sphere to be a place for dramatically airing self-
interest and translating self-interest into short-sighted public policies;
this folk definition of the public sphere kept most interesting debate
out of public circulation.”53 However, the opposite is true in Arab
media, where journalists tend to prioritize the grand political, that is,
foreign policy and issues, pushing other local concerns to the fringe of
the public debates. Thus, if Western scholars express their concern
about the tyranny of the private over the public, Arab scholars should
have the opposite concerns about the public tyranny of the private.
In addition, Eliasoph rejects the suggestion that popular talk shows,
à la Oprah, may contribute to restoring Americans’ faith in politics
by discussing politics in a more popular frame. Rather, she stresses the
urgency that citizens “learn how to connect their personal lives to

political issues. A one-shot call to a radio talk show would be likely to
reaffirm listeners’ belief that political debate is bewildering and disem-
bodied, that ideas come from nowhere and the people who care about
politics just want to hear themselves talk at weird hours of the day and
night.”54 But, again, this view assumes a certain type of public: an audi-
ence indulged in personal recognition, who are asked to balance the per-
sonal with the political. In the Arab context, however, we have diverse
publics, the majority of whom need but do not dare to demand an equal
share of recognition. It is only recently, as discussed before, and as part
of their marketing strategy, that local terrestrial and private satellite
channels have begun to highlight the malaise of these people as a mar-
keting, rather than political, means to win the hearts and minds of people.
Those publics, then, have begun to realize that their feelings do count,
that these feelings may indeed have “an exchange value” in such media.
This is perhaps why talk shows like that of Oprah Winfrey have
proved so popular in the region, particularly in Saudi Arabia, where a
third of the population of 26 million people are women under the age
of twenty-five.55 One Saudi man recounted how his mother of seventy
years was attracted to the program when she saw a photo of a burned
young woman. The image aroused her curiosity and she asked her son
to translate to her what the episode was about, shedding warm tears
when she learned about that young American woman’s accident.
Above all, the program has helped Arabs in the Gulf to penetrate the
real American society that is not covered by the political debates and
current affairs programs.56 In fact, the popularity of this show has
driven several Arab female broadcasters to copy it; the Egyptian pre-
senter Nashwa el-Roueni, for one, launched her program, Nashwa, on
the Dubai satellite channel, presenting a panorama similar to that of
Oprah, mixing social problems with interviews with celebrities. For
this show, it was considered el-Roueni had a claim to the title “Oprah
of the Arabs,” a title she thinks her fans must have popularized.57
If, as argued in Chapter 1, the Arab media stand for a bridge that
connects and separates the agents, it also stands for an elitist bridge. It
forms a mental bridge that separates the intellectuals from the
non-intellectuals, the privileged from the less privileged, in terms of
the topics, style and subjects of the media genres. Elsewhere,58 I have
presented an example of this exaltation of those with “cultural capital,”
drawing on the Egyptian anthropologist Reem Saad’s reflections on
her experience with a documentary called Marriage: Egyptian Style
produced for BBC2 in 1991.59 The documentary dealt with divorce
and used a humble Egyptian woman as an example. The woman was

illiterate and had been abandoned by her husband. She recounted her
problems with her grown-up children. The woman, who was not par-
ticularly good-looking, was speaking in her vernacular spiced up with
slang words that revealed her social status. The documentary encoun-
tered huge criticism inside Egypt, where middle-class intellectuals
used the press as a forum to insult the documentary-makers and the
Egyptian anthropologist who helped them produce the show, claim-
ing that the woman was far from representative of the true Egyptian
mother, and that her lack of education and her use of slang words was
a disgrace to the nation. Conversely, in Western societies, the elites and
the laity alike do not become offended by humble or homeless people
being the subject of news and debate programs. On the contrary, such
an example would be appreciated as part of the media’s duty to grant
visibility to all classes in society. This also reflects the prevailing pol-
itics of recognition in Western societies, where the laity demands and
gets the recognition it needs in the public realm.
From the above, it is clear that the power of the media lies precisely
in two main factors: content and access. If the content addresses imme-
diate problems in the national or local society, the media may contribute
to its visibility in the public realm. Equally important is open access,
enabling all factions and classes in society to take part in these debates.
One unique characteristic of Arab news media is that they are
decentralized and dispersed across several countries, with audiences
equally dispersed across the same geographical spaces. Yet, Western
scholarship fails to take into account this striking interplay between
local and regional media on the one hand, and between regional and
global media on the other. Thus, far from naively exalting the pan-
Arab media for focusing on the global and regional, we should perhaps
look for the representation of the laity, or the lack of the same, in the
same media. I encountered European scholars who expressed a wish
that EU media may one day “attain” the sober level of pan-Arab media
in binding the European laity. However, what they forgot to imagine
is the kind of media this would be, if the focus were to be solely on EU
foreign affairs, discarding local daily problems as unworthy, relegating
them to popularized outlets.
Conclusion
As I argue above, the content of the pan-Arab media is usually “elitist”
in that it focuses on foreign policies rather than on immediate social
problems and needs in local societies. Yet, the recent competition that
resulted in an increase in the number of new media outlets, both print
and broadcasting, not to mention Internet forums, has helped give the
private and domestic a fair amount of visibility.
It has become viewed as common sense to believe that what distin-
guishes free from non-free media is the relationship between the media
and political regimes. Thus, if the regime is a dictatorship, then the
media will be used in concealing important and vital information from
the public, or worse, twisting facts like the famous example of the radio
channel The Voice of the Arabs. But, in my view, by not addressing the
day-to-day and immediate problems of the people – and here I mean
the humble and less privileged people as well as the emerging middle
classes – the media conceal vital information by disregarding import-
ant debate issues.
Yet, for Western scholars, the problem with Arab media lies solely
in the authoritarian regimes in several Arab States. Thus, the argument
goes, if the regimes give journalists the freedom to publish what they
want, then the news media would automatically contribute to reduc-
ing the social malaise. However, this view completely overlooks the
way journalists themselves perceive their role in society and their eva-
luation of what is worth publicizing. This can indeed have fatal impli-
cations for the role of the news media in serving their audience and in
contributing to the democratization of the region.
The exaltation of hard-core politics as one of the “serious” genres
is usually valued as an essential part of “prestigious” journalism, which
requires a fair share of cultural capital among its media professionals.
Nevertheless, if those professionals do not strive to show the clear link
between the local and the regional, the risk is that the laity may yield
to rather simplistic narratives to account for this link. For instance, the
obsession with news and views about the USA’s formal relations with
the Arab States, rather than reflecting on the American laity and their
daily problems, may nurture a form of conspiracy narrative where the
USA, as a whole nation, plays the role of evil antagonist. In the words
of a popular talk-show host, the Egyptian laity, for one, has come to
blame the USA for their daily problems. So, “If the price of oil rises,
the USA will be the reason. And because we depend on the Americans
for wheat, we blame the USA if the price of a loaf of bread rises; the
lay Egyptian knows that the USA is the reason of all malaise.”60
If, above, I have criticized some Arab channels for laying so much
emphasis on “politicizing” their news, both national and foreign,
rather than focusing on immediate social issues, I have to add here that
Western journalists from trendsetter organizations tend to “politicize”

the Other as well. The result is that the audience rarely sees the Other
as a fellow human being, but rather as a member of a politicized entity
whose problems can be solved only by using political intervention.
The result is a huge gap between the way Western journalists cover
“local/national” news versus foreign news.
Indeed, there are sweeping generalizations in Western media in
which Arabs are portrayed as a unified, rather than a diversified, group,
usually defined as Muslims. In fact, in several Western countries, the
term “Muslim” is not used to designate a religious background,
but rather to define people as if it has become their “nationality.” For
instance, when the most senior police officer in Britain called for
the further recruitment of thousands of “Muslim” policemen and
women, the British media circulated the news without specifying what
“Muslim” here means.61 Does it imply that anybody born into a reli-
gion should always be defined by it? What if they are refusenik, or non-
practicing, or simply do not care about religion? Why not define them
by their ethnic or national background, regardless of their religious
background? Would the media, or any politician, make the same
announcement for the recruitment of Buddhists, Christians, Hindus or
Jews into the police or the army?
Needless to say, these simplistic terms do not hold in a global
society characterized by hybrid identities. Saghieh and Bechir hammer
home the same point when they say,
The immigrants and their descendants . . . may have arrived as

Pakistanis, Turks, Moroccans, Algerians, or Iraqis; it was only after they
settled in the west that they were transformed into “Muslim commu-
nities”. Such communities are, to a certain extent, a “virtual reality” that
exists above all in the minds of western politicians, “experts” and jour-
nalists – and, of course, in the minds of their supposed and self-
appointed “spokesmen”.62
Chapter 5
Global Media, Global Public

Sphere?
It is usually during the time of crises such as wars that the role of the
pan-Arab news media comes to the fore in Western attention and
debates. It is then that Arab coverage of conflicts and wars is put under
systematic scrutiny and continuously compared and contrasted to
coverage in European and/or American news media. It is also here that
the “clash of voices” emerges as a hidden assumption behind the
scrutiny of why news coverage has particular features in each cultural
context. I have previously overviewed1 the accusations exchanged
between Arab and American professionals regarding the coverage of
the Iraq War, where the central issue was those professionals’ inter-
pretations of the information – statements as well as images – on
the war.
This misinterpretation of each other’s media coverage is indeed
proof of the increasing “reflexivity” in the new global media sphere,
where media professionals constantly accentuate their professional
and ethical differences. It also suggests the existence of a global media
sphere where not only the events (what) are constantly under scrutiny,
but also the way (how) they are mediated.
The accusations made against Arab news media by some Western
journalists reflect a tension between two “interpretive communities.”2
Thus, analysis of the journalistic product from several communities
may shed light on the difference between the values and the function
of news in each community, and how the notion of “outsiderness” of
the professional practices of one community vis-à-vis another is
formed. Seeing journalists in Arab media institutions forming an inter-
pretive community with its own practices vis-à-vis the Western jour-
nalists in, for instance, American media institutions helps to shed light
on the struggle among these communities to shape the meaning of their
journalistic practices and professional standards.
Global Media, Global Public Sphere? 119
Moreover, the debate among journalists points to the issue of

objectivity as an important characteristic of an ideal reporter. It is
obvious that objectivity in this context – for example, in covering the
recent war – is not merely a question of falsity versus accuracy (that is,
whether Arab journalists, for instance, reported on the truth or
whether they fabricated the news reports), but rather if, by zooming
in on Iraqi victims, some Arab news media might be accused of agitat-
ing rather than assuaging the conflict between East and West, despite
the fact that the reports presented a piece of reality. What is at issue
here is the reporters’ integrity as professionals in the heart of the con-
flict zone; or, to put it differently, the issue is about “which” part of
reality is represented in the news and “how” it is represented. It is,
then, expected that the journalist is not a typical observer, but rather
“an ideal observer.”3 One important characteristic of such an observer,
as defined by Matthew Kieran, is to balance between being impartial
and yet attentive to human feelings and emotions, and thus “to under-
stand characters from the inside.”4
The aim of this chapter is to discuss the role of journalists as medi-
ators and facilitators in a so-called “global public sphere.” The fol-
lowing discussion centers on the role of Arab journalists in this new
global space, and their visibility in a dominant power space. Central to
this discussion is whether this new global space still upholds the
notions of center versus periphery, and if, when applied to the field of
journalism, we can talk about dominant journalistic practices. The
field of journalism plays a central role in forming the modern public
sphere, which lies precisely in its ability to serve as a platform for
diverse voices as a basis for reasoned judgement. However, rather than
viewing reason in universal (Habermasian) terms as the cornerstone of
the (global) public sphere, I propose Bourdieu’s view of reason as a
“rule of the game,” contingent to the field in which it is articulated. As
argued in Chapter 1, Bourdieu’s view enables us to see journalists as
forming an “interpretive community.” Central to this discussion are
the power relations and the hybrid identities formed on the global
media scene.
This chapter unfolds as follows: first, I discuss the general contours
of the global public sphere, focusing on the flow of information as a
prerequisite for rational participation in this sphere. Then, I discuss the
role of Arab journalists in facilitating this participation, drawing in
particular on the notion of hybridity, examining the role of journalism
as a cultural bridge between a global Other and a local self. As I argue
below, the role of journalists as mediators in this global sphere should
take into consideration the way they form their identity, and the
impact of this identity on the mediation of public debates. To illustrate
my argument, I present an analysis of coverage of the Iraq War in four
émigré pan-Arab newspapers to show 1) the hybrid roles of journal-
ists, particularly in hybrid media such as the pan-Arab press, and 2) to
further discuss the notion of hegemony in this global sphere. This
analysis will be presented in more detail in Chapter 6.
As I argue below, hegemony is not, as Arab scholars view it, a ques-
tion of information flow from center to periphery; rather, hegemony
can be manifested in the distribution of power among actors in a global
journalistic community. Based on this analysis, I argue that viewing
journalists (worldwide) as one unified “interpretive” community
excludes the articulation of difference and/or conflict among them.
The global public sphere: a dialogic arena

The Habermasian notion of the public sphere as an arena for civil
interaction and “rational discussion” has been used by several
researchers and subsequently developed as a normative model of civil
life that can be applied at a global scale. Simultaneously, the globaliza-
tion of news communication has fueled further arguments in favor of
a shared global sphere. Knowledge about, and the visibility of, distant
events has sharply increased thanks to the proliferation of satellite tele-
vision channels and the Internet. More specifically, what this notion
entails is the ability of news media to render visibility to distant events
beyond the spatial and temporal borders of the audiences’ everyday
life. Visibility, as John Thompson5 argues, has thus become the main
characteristic of this new public sphere.
The public sphere as an arena for civil interaction and “rational dis-
cussion” was subsequently picked up by several researchers and devel-
oped as a “normative model of exemplary civil life.”6 Ingrid Volkmer,
for instance, argued that a new global public sphere exists, and that it
“has become an extra-societal global sphere of mediation particularly
enhanced by the Internet.”7 In fact, the Internet is regarded as a global
mobilizer and infrastructure of public activities. Street,8 for example,
points to the use of the Internet among global activists to arrange
demonstrations around the world (not to mention that the Internet has
been utilized by international terrorist groups). Hjarvard, however,
argues that the “globalization of economy, governance, and culture has
not been accompanied by a similar globalization of the public sphere.
Opinion formation is still very much tied to the level of national
political institutions.”9 What must be acknowledged here is that the

increasing interconnectedness among world nations and the fast circu-
lation of world news, including war and calamities, in transnational
channels must indeed have an impact on public opinion both in the
West and the East.
The notion of a global public sphere puts back on the agenda issues
of communication flowing from “center” to “periphery,” as argued in
Galtung’s classic account of structural imperialism.10 The emphasis
then was on the structural dependency between the elite in the center
and the periphery, pushing institutional practices closer to those in the
dominant center, and hence promoting the latter’s values. Abdel
Rahman11 sees the global communication revolution as serving the
interests of the dominant cultures in the center by proliferating its
values and attitudes while marginalizing the native periphery cultures.
On the other hand, other scholars12 point to the complexity of the
interaction between dominant (center) and dominated (periphery),
making it difficult to assume a linear or causal flow of values.
The flow of information is seen as the foundation for such a global
space to prosper. It also means visibility of the Other (periphery) in the
dominant power space (center). Thussu discusses the notion of contra-
flow as a means of giving the chance for the “subaltern to speak,”
showing that the “traffic is not just one way – from North to South.”13
Volkmer suggests that there is no more center or periphery but a multi-
discursive space of mediation where “autonomous” media systems
operate, but no single actors dominate “the game.”14 Yet, the global
media scene is a site of contestation: a manifestation of power but also
resistance, the hegemony of the center but also counter-hegemonic
movements in the periphery. As I argue below, the view that the global
media scene has no “dominant actors” excludes the power struggle
among journalists (the media professionals) in shaping their profes-
sional identities, and what this struggle entails in terms of the articula-
tion of difference among them.
Arab journalism and modern polity

Journalism has come to play an important, yet ambivalent, role in
forming the modern public sphere. On the one hand, Habermas15
relates the decline of the rational public sphere to the triumph of
capitalism and the rise of mass media, which adds to the fragmentation
of the public, now treated as mere recipients of mass communication
and advertising. On the other hand, Thompson assigns the media
institution a crucial role in the development of “deliberative democ-

racy,” where diverse points of view are made visible, and hence indi-
viduals can form “reasoned judgment.”16
According to Dahlgren,17 the analysis of the topics and social struc-
ture of a public sphere should be supplemented by an analysis of media
institutions – for example, the organizational constraints, ownership,
and the role of technology – as well as media representation, that is,
symbolic and rhetorical representation, and division among genres.
Habermas’s later work18 continued to build on the thesis that know-
ledge as discursively manifested in debates informs and feeds into our
action. It is precisely here that journalism gains its paramount import-
ance in mediating and facilitating this debate, by uniting spatially dis-
parate publics into one public with shared interests. Information, then,
serves as the basis for this debate: with “access to reliable information
from a variety of perspectives, and a diversity of opinions on current
affairs, citizens will arrive at their own views on important issues and
thus prepare themselves for political participation.”19 Information,
then, is a basis for enlightenment, and as such, the flow of news is seen
as “a huge, huge gift.”20 It is also widely accepted that free information
is a prerequisite for democracy, and is why some authoritarian gov-
ernments restrict the free flow of information or exercise monopoly of
information channels to keep their people in ignorance.21
The Arab public (or the Arab “street,” as it is popularly called)22 is
assumed to fall as easy prey to the lack of professionalism of some
journalists endeavoring to fuel anti-American attitudes.23 For instance,
Nisbet et al.24 hypothesize that watching media known for their anti-
Americanism may result in fostering this attitude towards the USA
among Arab audiences. This view reflects a commonly held stance
among many Americans that sees “al-Jazeera and the new Arab media
as a fundamentally hostile force generating anti-Americanism and
complicating foreign policy objectives in Iraq, Israel, the war on terror,
and more.”25 The fear here is of the distortion of information, of vio-
lating validity and consensus as an integral part of a well-functioning
(global) public sphere.
The same view, moreover, can be extended to the journalists as facil-
itators of this public debate. Zayani,26 for instance, reminds us of the
problems surrounded al-Jazeera’s journalists and editors having their
offices closed in Arab States following the airing of “daring” debates.
In such cases, journalists are usually depicted as heroes who undertake
a lot of trouble searching for the truth, enduring harsh confrontations
with politicians and governments. This indeed consolidates the image
of journalists as “watchdogs,” an image cultivated by daring dispatches

and investigative series.27 Thus, the more trouble they face, the more
glamour and glory they gain, which makes their credibility contingent
on an amount of enmity with the established regimes. However, if
journalists have not fulfilled this heroic role by merely repeating offi-
cial statements, they are heavily criticized for falling prey to manipu-
lative discourse.28 We therefore tend to measure journalistic integrity
based on media distance from governmental discourse.
This image triggers the Western image of a journalist as a “truth
investigator,” an image that has been merged into the Arab journalism
field as a result of the vigorous process of hybridity (see Chapter 1).
Hybridity in the news and debate genres in Arab journalism seems to
provoke enthusiasm in the West as being a sign of enlightenment and
progress.
Hybridity in Arab media

Hybridity usually refers to the result of mixing two or more culturally
differentiated signs into a new amalgamated sign, for example, Latino
rock, Mandarin pop, Islamic fashion show.29 Hybridity, then, is the
process of integrating Western signs and practices (music or fashion)
into the native fabric (particularly in the developing world, for
example, Latin America, Middle East) in order to re-conceptualize a
new (modern) indigenous identity. The process of forming this new
identity utilizes the same Western tools: adapting advanced technol-
ogy in news editing, live techniques, and even style and language have
all been affected by this hybridization.30 Hybridity cannot only be
studied in texts and signs, such as music or news language; rather, it
can also manifest in the role of mediators (musician, news anchor,
educator).
Hybridity, argues Tomlinson, is a natural result of “the dissolution
of the link between culture and place.”31 It is the free floating of cul-
tural signs across geographic and cultural spaces, ready to be picked
up, mixed and matched, according to local needs. Salman Rushdie cele-
brates this process: “Mélange, hotchpotch, a bit of this and a bit of
that is how newness enters the world. It is the great possibility
that mass migration gives the world, and I have tried to embrace it.”32
Conversely, hybridity can be seen as a threat to indigenous culture
and tradition, and a triumph of one dominant culture.33 Moreover,
Kraidy34 points to the increasing need to integrate hybridity into
communication theory in order to analyze its impact, that is to say,
whether the mélange is celebrated or whether it is masking cultural

hegemony and suppressing the inequality behind it.
For our purposes here, the role of the media professional is of par-
ticular importance. In an Arab context, this role is not seen in essen-
tialist terms, either anchored in the native culture or in the dominant
(Western) culture. Rather, it is seen to be the hybrid product of amal-
gamating the two cultures. Media in the developing world are seen to,
maybe unintentionally, restrict critical debates by “toeing the official
line.”35 For instance, Thussu36 points to such a hybrid media culture in
India, where television news takes appropriate American formats and
Indianizes them. Mimicking Western practices, however, is not done
merely because the latter seem “effective,” but because it is part of
gaining power and accumulating capital in the local, native field. For
instance, CNN products carry more “cultural capital” than the news
of a local outlet,37and thus will enjoy a great deal of legitimacy. Arab
news media, then, may have to adjust their practices in order to be
measured by this Western yardstick; thus, the news genre itself devel-
ops to reflect these new practices.
Among his recommendations for press journalists, Abdel Nabi38
stresses the importance of dealing critically with incoming news from
international news agencies, and he proposes the establishment of an
interdisciplinary committee to deal with the incoming news. In so
doing, he stresses the importance of news professionals as mediators
between cultures and ideologies, drawing upon their education and
knowledge of the Other (that is, their cultural capital) to sieve out the
incoming impulses and sort them according to their usability within a
local context. Journalists should therefore master the dominant cul-
tural signs in order to able to discern the values internalized in the
foreign culture, and hence construct a less value-laden representation
of reality to their audience. This coincides perfectly with the view of
journalists themselves as “communicators of information” rather than
interpreters of events.39
Although the West may be the main source of knowledge and infor-
mation, hybridity is here seen as the ability to amalgamate the different
pieces of information and interweave them into the main indigenous
fabric. This final product then counteracts Western hegemony. The
journalist is like the educated elite in general, a modernity facilitator:
they know the Other’s language, and can decipher the real meaning of
external messages, read between the lines, sort out incoming impulses
as being useful or useless for the modernization project of the indi-
genous culture. Ambivalence, then, is the main characteristic of the
relationship with the West, as a source of inspiration for developing and

modernizing media products. Arab journalists may at once positively
identify with Western journalistic practice while negatively dissociat-
ing themselves from that very same practice. The positive identification
serves as the basis for legitimacy and credibility, while the negative dis-
sociation is an assertion of the autonomous role of journalism in its par-
ticular context. Previous cross-national studies40 have argued that the
conception of journalism may be unified cross-culturally. It is the
Anglo-American model, in particular, that seems to dominate, as
shown by a recent survey among Estonian journalists adopting the role
of “watchdog.”41
It was in this vein that Zayani argued that al-Jazeera, as one example
of this hybridity, is “caught between two trends. On the one hand, the
channel uses the best technical skills and journalistic practices that the
West has to offer. On the other hand, it uses these means and practices
precisely to advance ideas and views that contradict and doubt the
Western narrative and interpretation of events and issues that are
increasingly bringing the Middle East to the center of the world’s news
attention.”42
The hybrid outcome, then, represents the moment of intersection
between its own internal mission, for example, to educate, entrain
and/or stimulate public participation, and the adaptation of external
actors’ practices depending on the latter’s power in the field. This is
roughly illustrated in figure 5.1.
One major critical position against the Habermasian public sphere
rests on the implied assumption of identity as a fixed category,
“formed once and for all in advance of participation in the public
External actor (possessing cultural capital)
Internal mission
(e.g. to enlighten, entertain)
Hybrid producer
Figure 5.1 Hybridity as intersection of exteriority and interiority

sphere.”43 As the issue of identity lies at the heart of the public sphere
as a site for rational debate, it is imperative to inquire into the identity
formation not only of the public (audience) participating in topical
debates, but also, as I argue here, the identity of the journalists as facili-
tators of this debate.
Indeed, Habermas’s notion of the public sphere does not account
for the particular socio-cultural baggage that each member of the
public carries prior to their participation in a public engagement.44
Likewise, journalists, in their capacity as facilitators of public sphere
production, encompass at once a professional/institutional identity
and an individual identity grounded in their own indigenous culture.
Thus, as Dahlgren argues, “Even one individual can encompass several
(even contradictory) political positions at a particular point in time by
virtue of multiple group identities or memberships,”45 which further
stresses the importance of identity politics as one major parameter for
public participation. Analyzing the role of journalists as mediators and
“cultural intermediaries” should therefore take into consideration the
way they form their identity and the impact of this on the mediation
of public debates.
“Cultural intermediaries” was the term used by Pierre Bourdieu46
to refer to those engaged in the act of “presentation and representa-
tion,” a concept that has received increasing attention among cultural
studies scholars (see, for example, the issue of Cultural Studies devoted
to the subject).47 The study of news, according to this concept, will no
longer center around a linear transmission model of information flow
and production, but will shed new light on the role of journalists as
intermediaries, articulating as well as connecting the production and
consumption of news. This should be seen against the long-held
notion of the journalist as “gatekeeper,”48 as this presumes “that
cultural items simply appear at the ‘gates’ of the media- or culture-
producing corporation where they are either admitted or excluded.”49
This excludes, however, the intermediaries’ engagement in sifting
certain types of information and their endeavor to legitimize their own
product and expertise. For instance, the use of correspondents, as I
argue below, can be one indicator differentiating between journalistic
products among Arab newspapers, adding legitimacy to the final
product.
Journalism is usually associated with social responsibility, and
research in journalism tends to focus on the same rule.50Although I do
not oppose this view, my aim here is not to provide normative
principles regarding the role of the press. The media, in my view, are
but one part of the dialectical and multi-dimensional relationship

between media and audience, and/or media and sources. If researchers
expect journalists to act in a certain manner, they treat journalism as a
notion that is taken for granted instead of questioning the foundation
of journalistic practices and journalists’ sense of professional identity.
Social institutions should be analyzed according to their effects and
consequences, but also according to the legitimacy of their foundation.
The journalistic identity

Journalism is a process of making sense of reality.51 It has now become
common sense to view journalism as occupying a pivotal role in facil-
itating political debates, and hence a healthy public life. Journalists
mediate a “sense” of reality to their audiences, and in so doing they
entrench one main signifier of their professional identity as the public’s
confidant, a role long acclaimed by Joseph Pulitzer, who viewed jour-
nalism as “the most fascinating of all professions . . . Every single day
opens new doors for the journalist who holds the confidence of the
community and has the capacity to address it.”52
At the heart of this role is the task of transmitting facts, exalting
objectivity as the dominant norm, at least in the Anglo-American
journalistic model.53 The news, then, has become the manifestation of
the “culture of factuality,”54 where the real acquires a privileged status.
American journalists now agree that scrutinizing governmental claims
is an integral part of the journalistic mission. This imposes upon the
Arab journalism field a desire to embrace objectivity while keeping a
safe distance from subjectivity or indulging in emotion, thus parting
company with an old stereotype of the Arab journalist as a mouthpiece
and mere stenographer for political forces.
Particularly in covering wars and disasters, journalists feel urged to
provide as many facts as possible, and they may end up prioritizing
the announcement of figures and numbers even before tolls are
counted. This, argues Seaton,55 may be due to the fact that numbers,
especially big numbers, attract the audience’s attention to the size of
disaster or tragedy reported on. Moreover, the news analysis con-
ducted by van Dijk56 showed that the news structure in various news-
papers in the world was characterized not by differences, but by
similarity. Thus, newsmen are engaged in a “textual ritual,” produc-
ing detached and neutral texts for consumption by the reader.57 Van
Dijk58 regards the use of figures and statistics as a rather rhetorical
device in hard news because the audience has no chance to estimate its
significance. Above all, figures are used as a symbol of objectivity of

the news stories.
In fact, objectivity is seen to be an integral part of journalistic prac-
tice by being part of both the news as a product and of the role of its
producer:
1. Part of the production process: adhering to the notion of objectivity,

reporters should gather “factual information,” and actively seek this
information. They should also serve as eyewitnesses of the events,
and thus secure the reliability of their information.
2. Part of the journalistic product/output: the news text (as genre)
should present this objectivity by avoiding certain textual stratifiers
usually related to subjective genres. Thus, the use of the first-person
voice is not recommended in journalism textbooks.59 Also, the text
should usually present two points of view.
3. Part of the role of news journalist/text producer: journalists should
serve as detached observers who can communicate the reality.
Moreover, at the heart of the journalistic mission is to monitor the

political and social environment, with the aim of holding politicians
accountable. However, some scholars60 argue that the news media have
accumulated confidence at the expense of the mistrust of politicians,
increasing skepticism and cynicism among voters and encouraging a
retreat from political participation. This is partly manifested in the
increase of the amount of negative news during the past decades. While
in the 1960s, American media, for instance, was used as a platform for
politicians to communicate at length with their voters, the decades that
followed witnessed an increasing awareness of journalistic power,
pushing journalists to acclaim new tasks as auditors of the accuracy,
integrity, and reliability of political statements.61 This new role gained
precedence thanks to the Watergate investigation, a breakthrough in
the journalism profession and a consolidation of the new role. From
the 1980s onwards, American critical journalism has turned into a
routine criticism of politicians who now serve as adversaries to the
journalists.62 This has added to public disillusionment with political
institutions, although, as Patterson argued, politicians do manage to
redeem the promises they made during election campaigns.
This investigative power, then, finds its strength in seceding from
politics, turning the “investigative arm” into the people’s arm rather
than the government’s. This point was raised in recent debates follow-
ing the 7 July bombs, and specifically a Newsnight interview with
members of a radical Islamic sect (al-Ghurabaa). The British police

asked the program to hand over material, as well as notes on the inter-
view, thereby giving journalists “a passport that enables them to
roam,”63 asking people questions, scrutinizing the political power of
the state. This identity then counter-balances the view of journalists as
“interest-driven marionettes.”64
Assigned the important role of mediator in the modern public
sphere, the news media exert a great share of power by providing tes-
timonies documenting such events as the violations of human rights in
other countries, the breaking of political promises, and the violating of
international conventions in war, thus institutionalizing the act of wit-
nessing. Journalists then obtain a new role as eyewitnesses, document-
ing history while asserting the legitimacy of their position as auditors
of political reality. Acting as a link between politicians and citizens
enforces the position of journalists as gatekeepers, not only of infor-
mation but also of feelings.65
Recent studies have further elaborated on the identity politics within
the field of journalism. For instance, Van Zoonen66 analyzed journalis-
tic identity operating in a model based on two dimensions: gender and
goal. The former is linked to the binary oppositions of masculinity
versus femininity, while the latter is divided between institution versus
audience as target. Van Zoonen then places “organizational identity” as
lying between the tension of subjectivity (gender, age, education, eth-
nicity, and so on) and structures (profession, ethics, space, sources, and
so on), and calls for the analysis of organizational “identity” rather than
organizational “role,” for the role concept is “too limited and too
volatile to capture the particular mixtures of structure and subjectivity
elements that come together in journalists’ day-to-day performance.”67
Furthermore, Carpentier68 provides an analysis of hegemonic and
counter-hegemonic construction of the identity of journalists using
Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, which operates at two levels: the
discursive and the political, where the former operates within a set of
nodal points and the latter operates within the concept of hegemony.
Identities are then determined by identification (or nodal) points, of
which some enjoy a privileged position and then become naturalized.
There exist, however, antagonistic identities as counter-hegemonic
points of identification.
Carpentier places objectivity at one level, stressing factuality and
impartiality and linking it to the autonomous identity of the journalist
as “watchdog,” juxtaposing at the other level subjective identifications
of the journalist as commentator and ideologist. Thus, the journalist
(and indeed any agent) can assume a position at any of these points
without totally abandoning the hegemonic articulation of the profes-
sional identity.
In sum, what these studies show is that the identity of a journalist
is based on a set of roles and identification points of objectivity
(natural and impartial account of events) and subjectivity (interpreter
and investigator of truth).
But how is the role of the journalist manifested in the news text?
And would it be possible to illustrate this hybridity of roles (objective
observer and reality interpreter) in the textual analysis of a sample of
news? Above all, would it be possible to illustrate the hybrid role of
pan-Arab media as Janus-faced, looking at both global exteriority and
internal reality? To answer these questions, I present an exploratory
study into news texts in an attempt to illustrate identity politics at
work. In this sense, I adopt the research strategy that looks at practi-
cal examples, rather than grand theories, to reach new premises.69 In
the remainder of this chapter, I present the empirical sources of my
case study, namely the émigré press as an example of hybrid media. In
Chapter 6, I present the analysis in more detail.
A journalistic milestone
The following analysis looks at the construction of identity in the jour-
nalistic product itself, that is, the news text. Crucial here is the means
by which the identification points are established, asserting for instance
the journalist and/or the media institution’s voice, as well as the rela-
tionship between journalists and the sources they cover.
Rather than choosing any news texts at random, I focus on war
news. War reporting, in particular, represents a critical incident that
can be used by journalists to “air, challenge, and negotiate their
own boundaries of practice. For instance, contemporary wartime
reportage, as seen with the Gulf War, is judged against the experiences
of reporting World War II and Vietnam.”70 In this sense, for journal-
ists, “such discourse creates standards of professional behavior against
which to evaluate daily news work.”71 I chose a sample of news texts
published during the Iraq War in 2003 as a case study that illustrates
the role of Arab journalists in the texts.
In particular, the analysis will focus on the hybridity of roles and
discourses as manifested in the news texts, which are taken from the
(London-based) pan-Arab newspapers as examples of hybrid (dias-
pora) media.
Recent studies on Arab news media tend to hypothesize about the

role of the media based on a theoretical discussion rather than an illus-
tration with practical examples from the various news and documen-
tary genres.72 I believe the intellectual endeavor should constantly
move between theory and practice, or the abstract claim and the con-
crete example, as the only means for providing an unyielding basis for
further debates.
News texts provide rich material for the study of ethics in news
reporting,73 the representation of national identity,74 or examples of
cultural hegemony.75 In the same vein, I have chosen to confine the fol-
lowing analysis to the role of journalists as illustrated in news texts,
and the relationship between journalists and their sources. This is not
to say that textual analysis is in and of itself a sufficient method for
revealing the identity politics at work; rather, such an analysis should
ideally be backed up with relevant results from fieldworks among
news producers.
Furthermore, the aim of the following case study is not to show
positive, negative or neutral attitudes, towards the Allied Forces, for
instance, as illustrated recently in a number of studies. I believe that
this kind of coding can merely be used as a means by which to stress
the negativity of the portrayal of a certain country or region, without
really addressing the issues of why the negativity was there in the first
place. This point is of particular importance in the recent debate about
the Middle East, which receives a huge amount of aid from both the
USA and the EU. One outcome of the 11 September 2001 attacks on
the USA was that the US government decided to cut some of its aid
programs, or to offer them only on the condition that the anti-
American campaigns in the media were stopped. This is not the place
to go into a lengthy discussion about the effect of these demands, but
suffice it to say that the coding of positive, negative or neutral may
possibly not reflect how the general audience responds to a negative or
positive attitude in the news. For instance, suppose the coverage of the
USA in the Arab news media was found to be 60 percent positive:
would that then mean that most Arabs would also have positive atti-
tudes towards the USA and its policies? The positive coverage of, for
instance, development projects in the region could not be argued to
impose positive feelings about the Arab governments in the region.
Indeed, previous studies have shown that even in Western democracies
such as Denmark, the news media, although positive on a particular
issue, cannot necessarily influence the audience to act in a different
way; for example, Jensen76 showed that the majority of the Danish
population voted against the referendum on the EU Maastricht Treaty,

even though it was favorably reviewed in the Danish media.
The following analysis takes its point of departure from a sample of
news texts about the Iraq War (2003 to present), with the aim of illus-
trating the diverse roles of journalists as manifested in the journalistic
products (the news). The roles, sketched above, exhibit a hybridity or
a mixture of identification pointers (objective versus subjective point-
ers), and the following analysis will expand on this hybridity of roles
and discourses, as manifested in the news texts, from a sample of
hybrid pan-Arab newspapers.
Let me begin first by briefly discussing the phenomenon of the
émigré press as hybrid media combining Western techniques with
native concerns, focusing on three particular dates in the coverage of
the Iraq War.
Émigré press as hybrid media

London and Paris, in particular, have been hosts to a number of the
so-called pan-Arab newspapers. The phenomenon of publishing
outside the Middle East region is not new, as its first wave began in the
nineteenth century,77 with journalists fleeing political and economic
situations in their homelands; a second wave followed from the middle
of the 1970s. In his comparison between the first and second waves,
Abu Zeid78 showed that the first wave included publications that fled
to other regions, as well as others fleeing ethnic and religious conflicts
in their own countries but remaining in the region, while the second
wave has been confined to migration outside the Arab region. Some of
the Arab newspapers in London (and probably other cities as well) are
now returning to the Arab region in an attempt to minimize the high
costs resulting from their operations abroad. In addition, the technol-
ogy to which they managed to gain access in their Western headquar-
ters has been made superfluous due to the globalization of technology
in the whole world, including the Arab region,79 despite the censorship
that is still practiced one way or another in the Arab States.
Among these newspapers, three in particular have enjoyed a high
circulation and represent a forum for important issues for Arab
readers:80 these are al-Hayat, al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Quds al-Arabi.
These, and the international edition of al-Ahram, are included in the
following case study as representatives of the elite newspapers, and
usually serve as suitable sampling material because the prestige media
usually provide thorough coverage of foreign affairs in both news texts
and commentaries,81 thus serving as an agenda-setter for other news

media outlets. Furthermore, prestige newspapers enjoy a good reputa-
tion that is in itself a motivation for their reporters to produce fair and
balanced news reports.82 The elite newspapers also appeal to “global-
ist” segments of readers, and thus they tend to include a more “global”
approach than the local newspapers, not to mention that the presti-
gious press usually has a larger number of correspondents than the
local press.
Additionally, some émigré newspapers (for example, al-Hayat and
al-Sharq al-Awsat) are financed by Saudi businessmen who, in turn,
tend to practice the policy of “carrot and stick” to control the opin-
ions conveyed in these broadsheets.83 Al-Ahram, however, is owned
by an Egyptian public corporation, and al-Quds al-Arabi is the only
Arabic newspaper in London with no Saudi sponsors, which makes it
interesting to analyze both of these papers’ content.
Indeed, the inclusion of these four newspapers responds to the
recent call84 for conducting such comparative studies in order to
uncover differences in the content of Arab media. Let me begin,
however, by presenting a brief overview of each newspaper included
in this case study, pointing to its history, readership, and role on the
media scene.
Al-Hayat
Al-Hayat was established after the Second World War, accompanied
by a modern plant. In the beginning of the 1950s, al-Hayat had the
largest circulation registered for a non-Cairo-based paper at that
time.85 Al-Hayat, alongside al-Sharq al-Awsat, is regarded as the most
prestigious and authoritative newspaper in Saudi Arabia. Although
published outside the kingdom, these are both still subject to the same
constraints as all local newspapers, that is to say, they may never attack
Islam.86
The paper was founded by Kamel Mrowe (Lebanon) in 1946, but
had to close in 1976 following the outbreak of the Lebanese civil war.
The newspaper was re-launched in 1988 from London, with financing
provided by the Saudi Prince Khalid bin Sultan.87 The newspaper’s
editors regard the occasional banning of the newspaper in certain Arab
countries as a sign of the newspaper’s independence, although being
banned in Saudi Arabia in particular may mean a tremendous loss for
the newspaper.88 Al-Hayat comes with a weekly supplement called
al-Wasat, which was first launched as a separate magazine in 1992,89
however the circulation and advertising sales remained weaker than

that of al-Hayat. Al-Wasat means “in-between” or “in the middle”,
and the choice of the name was not accidental, as one Arab editor said:
“this is the age of ‘in-between’; between the end of a world order and
a beginning of a new one . . . there is no longer right and left.”90 The
magazine focuses mostly on Saudi and Egyptian affairs, ignoring even
Lebanese issues.91
Al-Hayat is known for its neutrality in dealing with important
Arab issues, except when it comes to issues sensitive to Saudi views. In
terms of technical quality, al-Hayat is the closest to the forms of
Western newspapers, for example, in its use of color photos. The news-
paper offers a forum to various opinions, Islamists, pan-Arabists, and
so on.92
Through my correspondence with al-Hayat, I was informed that
the newspaper is seen as the most “objective and daring voice in the
Arab international press.” Furthermore, its aim is to make the news-
paper the first choice for Arabs outside the region, and the second
choice for Arabs inside the region, after their local daily.
As for its target audience, al-Hayat defines this as “Arabic-
speaking, male, above 20, high education and high income,” belonging
to the intellectual elite, scholars, politicians, and the like. The newspa-
per is published in London and distributed in more than thirty-five
countries and printed in nine different cities. Most of its journalists
hold degrees in journalism and they are sometimes quoted in the
Western press. The newspaper’s circulation was 196,800 copies in 2002.
Saudi Arabia is the largest market, receiving almost half of the daily
printing (100,200 copies). Circulation in Europe (16,200 copies) equals
that in the Levant countries (Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, around
16,750 copies). Egypt and the USA are the next two largest markets for
al-Hayat, receiving 9,500 and 8,200 copies respectively.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat
The newspaper was launched by Saudi Research and Marketing in 1978,
from London. The company used the latest technology in producing the
newspaper and appointed the former editor of al-Hayat, Jihad Khazen,
as editor-in-chief. The newspaper is published simultaneously in
several Western and Arab cities, for example, Cairo, Beirut, Frankfurt,
New York and Marseilles. The views represented in the newspaper
are diverse, with a readership that is claimed to exceed the circulation
figures.93 The newspaper is regarded as being the first Saudi newspaper
operating from abroad. It claims the largest circulation among pan-Arab

dailies, and includes a large number of advertisements.94
Al-Sharq al-Awsat has called itself the “Arab international news-
paper.”95 It was founded by two Saudi men, Hesham and Mohamed
Hafez, whose father and uncle both practiced journalism and opened
a newspaper called al-Madina in 1937. The Saudi government turned
the General Directorate of Broadcasting, Press and Publication into
the Ministry of Information and assigned it the task of regulating press
ownership. The committee recommended two solutions: limiting gov-
ernment advertising to one main publication (Um al-Qura, established
in 1924) and compensating the rest of the publications via secret sub-
sidies; or limiting newspaper ownership to organizations, leaving the
government the right to license publications and appoint editors-in-
chief. The Saudi government chose the second solution, which was
adopted in 1963.96 After the Saudi press laws changed, the brothers
Hafez moved their business to London, where they bought the British
Central Press Photo, and from there issued al-Sharq al Awsat,
attempting to mirror the success of the International Herald Tribune
as an international newspaper.97
The news content in al-Sharq al-Awsat focuses on Saudi Arabia,
Egypt, Lebanon, Gulf and the Palestinian issue respectively. Most of
its writers are either Saudi or Egyptian, followed by those from
Lebanon and Palestinian areas.98 The owners have asserted that they
deliberately ignore Saudi news in order not to associate the daily with
Saudi views. Abu Zeid99 argues that the newspaper adopts the Saudi
views anyway, although it seeks to be neutral (thus again reflecting the
Saudi foreign policy of neutrality). The owners themselves refuse to
call their newspaper, or any of their publications, émigré press, arguing
that they never emigrated from Saudi Arabia. The reason they publish
in London, the owners further argue, is to ensure a neutral view on
Arab issues, claiming that each local edition reflects the national policy
of the country from where it is issued. The main aim for the owners is
to make the newspaper the “second choice” for Arabs living inside or
outside the Arab world and for Arab tourists abroad.100
Al-Quds al-Arabi
Launched in 1989, and run under the leadership of the Palestinian-
born Abdel Bari Atwan, al-Quds al-Arabi has only a handful of
reporters in London, and yet it has managed to play an important role
among Arab expatriates.101 One important feature of the newspaper is
that it dedicates one whole page daily to the translations of editorials

and features from Israeli newspapers. The paper does not rely on Saudi
money, which (according to Alterman)102 has given it more freedom to
scrutinize Gulf politics, but instead depends on funding from the
PLO, and thus its freedom can be argued to be restricted by the policy
of its backers. Abu Zeid, for instance, argues that it serves mainly as a
mouthpiece for the PLO.103 However, Ghareeb104 argues that al-Quds
al-Arabi has sometimes been critical of the policies of the Palestinian
authority. He describes it as a “daring” newspaper dedicating large
amounts of space to Arab issues, and offering on its op-ed page a
forum for a diversity of views representing different Arab factions.
Al-Quds al-Arabi is usually seen as the “the most Arabist of Arab
newspapers.”105
Al-Quds al-Arabi is the fourth émigré newspaper printed in
London, following al-Arab, al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat. The
newspaper focuses on Palestinian issues and targets Palestinians
abroad and others interested in Palestinian issues.106 The editor-in-
chief said once that, apart from himself, there was no other Palestinian
staff member, as the team consisted of different Arab nationals. It is
worth noting that the newspaper contains not more than one or two
advertisements (if any) per issue, which was the reason why Abu
Zeid107 argued that it serves mainly as a mouthpiece for the PLO, who
contributed to its budget and thereby cast doubt upon its indepen-
dence. However, in order to show the newspaper’s objectivity, the
editor-in-chief referred to the frequent invitations he received from
various Western news media to comment on important Arab events,108
arguing that he would not have been invited if his newspaper was not
known for its objectivity.109
Al-Ahram
The harsh political situation in Lebanon, including increasing pressure
by the Ottomans in the nineteenth century, forced many Lebanese
journalists to flee to other countries. Some fled to Egypt, which had
gained autonomy after 1831. These journalists fostered the profession
of journalism in Egypt, and even monopolized the publication of
newspapers, some of which still exist to this day, for example, the daily
al-Ahram and the weekly al-Musawar.110 Al-Ahram was established in
1879 by two Lebanese brothers named Teqla.111 It was launched as a
weekly paper, which became daily in 1881. It operated first from
Alexandria (until 1899), before moving to Cairo.112 The two brothers
had French citizenship, which gave them freedom to criticize the

Ottoman ruler (Ismail) of Egypt, a circumstance that sometimes
resulted in closing al-Ahram temporarily.113
Since its birth, al-Ahram has claimed the role of being the main
provider of information on vast local and foreign issues, not to
mention analysis features on various subjects.114 According to the his-
torical account provided by Ayalon,115 al-Ahram marked its objectiv-
ity by giving higher priority to reportage than to ideological views.
However, according to Abu Zeid,116 al-Ahram’s founders used the
newspaper to express their political inclinations, as they did when
the British army invaded Egypt in 1882 (for example, by welcoming
the British general leading the British troops in to Egypt).
Al-Ahram belongs to a large publishing house, which is one of the
four dominant publishing houses in Egypt.117 Al-Ahram is published
in an international edition, the content of which is based on the
national issue printed from Cairo. According to Ghareeb,118 some
Arab newspapers issue international editions that are only copies of
the national edition, and thus primarily address expatriates of the same
nationality. Al-Ahram, however, reaches wider segments of Arabs
abroad (namely in Europe and the USA).
The circulation of al-Ahram reaches around 900,000, ranking third
at the national level and fifty-third at the international level.119 Al-
Ahram Publishing House publishes a number of other newspapers and
magazines in both Arabic and foreign languages (English and French),
for example, al-Ahram Hebdo, al-Ahram Weekly and other special-
ized publications in Arabic. The newspaper is usually included in
media and communication studies involving the Middle East,120 since
it represents the mainstream and “widely read press.”121
Dates to remember in a global war

As I mentioned earlier, the analysis presented in Chapter 6 focuses on
news texts about Iraq War. The war broke out on 19 March 2003 (or 20
March at c. 4.00 a.m. Baghdad time). The first operation was called
“Operation Iraqi Freedom,” targeting Saddam Hussein and other
leaders in Baghdad. Approximately a week after the war broke out, inter-
national news media circulated the news of the first civilian causalities,
which was supposed to contradict what the Allied Forces said about the
war being a “clean war.” The first report on casualties was on 27 March
2003, following the missile attacks on Nasr Market in Baghdad. One
important date on the war timeline was indeed 9 April 2003, which
witnessed the fall of Baghdad and US forces taking control of the city.
Officially, the major war operations were declared over on 1 May 2003,
although some battles are still going on to date between American forces
and Iraqi rebels.
The following analysis will focus on front-page stories, since the
front page can be seen as the newspaper’s display window, viewing the
new events that matter. Although the period stretching from the first
day of the war (on 19 March 2003) until the “official” announcement
of its end (on 1 May 2003) encompasses a wealth of news texts that can
be used for our purpose here, I had to narrow the choice and therefore
confine the analysis to a coherent sample from the following dates:
• 19 March 2003 – the day war broke out. The articles chosen deal with
the preparation for the war and the American soldiers taking positions
around the outskirts of Iraq.
• 27 March 2003 – the first civilian casualties among Iraqis. The articles
selected here deal with shootings in civilian areas and resistance acts
by Republican Guard troops.
• 9 April 2003 – the fall of Baghdad. The articles chosen for this day are
about the American forces’ efforts to control Baghdad, following air
strikes on the Palestine Hotel, where almost all foreign journalists were
based.
In general, the focus of al-Quds al-Arabi was on the war and its
casualties from an Arab standpoint. Thus, the war is foregrounded as
the main global event. The assemblage of articles shows a movement
in space, moving between Iraq, Europe and the USA. The latter is par-
ticularly obvious in all spaces: in the Arab space due to the war, and the
US efforts to help the Kurds control some small villages in Iraq.
Al-Sharq al-Awsat maintained an “Arab” focus, giving the space to
Gulf countries’ statements, for example, Saudi Arabia, which were
given less space in other Arab newspapers. Al-Hayat attempted to
show an “all-round” view of the war, where the main focus was the
ordinary Iraqi people, with interviews and quotes from both Western
and Arab sources and with correspondents’ reports from Baghdad and
other cities. In contrast to both al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Sharq
al-Awsat, the role of Egypt is foregrounded in al-Ahram. One simple
explanation for this is that it is primarily a national newspaper, unlike
the three other newspapers in this study, which claim a pan-Arab role,
and thus it is predictable that al-Ahram reflects only the national gov-
ernment’s views. However, it may be that the Egyptian press really sees
Egypt as the leader of the Arab nation, and highlighting this role is
merely part of this discourse.
Conclusion
As I have argued in this chapter, reason, in universal (Habermasian)
terms, is not the only tenet of the global public sphere; rather, we
should be attentive to the view of reason as a set of rules contingent to
the field in which it is articulated. Accordingly, viewing journalists,
cross-culturally, as one unified community excludes the articulation of
difference among them. I therefore call for the analysis of power rela-
tions influencing the global media scene, and hence the significance of
the analysis of the professional identity of journalists as mediators of
global debates.
I examined the role of Arab journalists in facilitating on the media
scene, drawing on the notion of hybridity, which assigns journalists
the role of a cultural bridge between a global Other and a local self. The
identity of journalists, as I have shown above, is based on a set of roles
mixing objectivity (impartial narrative) with subjectivity (interpreta-
tion of truth). I will take these tenets as my point of departure in my
textual analysis of Arab news stories printed during the Iraq War.
Above, I presented the empirical sources of this analysis, namely a
sample of the so-called émigré press, based in London. In Chapter 6
I present my analysis in more detail, showing how the news
texts reflect the position of Arab journalists vis-à-vis their Western
counterparts.
Chapter 6
Truth Martyrs
Barbie Zelizer1 argues that the incorporation of tools of humanistic

inquiry, for example, narrative and literary studies in the analysis of
journalism, contributes to the examination of the journalism profes-
sion and how the authority of this profession is constructed in order
to hold the members of its community together. Assuming that dis-
course both constitutes the social world and is in itself a constitution
of other social practices,2 I shall seek to show how the news texts
constitute the war event while simultaneously being reflections of
journalistic identity and practices.
In particular, the following analysis will focus on the hybridity of
roles and discourses as manifested in news texts taken from four
émigré newspapers as examples of hybrid media. This is to illustrate
the hybridity of roles (objective observer and reality interpreter).
Throughout the news texts, reporters (or the news institution as a
whole) serve as mediators between news sources and news audience.
They also provide a means of mapping social reality, with the “collage
of events”3 from various parts of the world assembled together in a
shared routine. News texts, then, contribute to the upholding of the
narrative of journalism as profession.
The following analysis takes as its point of departure the view that
sees identity as constituted through the processes of similarity and
differences.4 This is to say, for instance, that Arab journalists may be
discursively designated a single identity with certain characteristics that
supposedly bind all Arabs together while juxtaposing this identity to
an opposite “Other,” that is, non-Western journalists. Thus, for the
relation identified by the shared traits to gain foothold it needs to be
defined against an Other-identity. Actors then strive to “fix” these
identities “locked into a specific relationship to the others.”5 The posi-
tion assigned each actor is in tandem with a set of rules and expectations
Truth Martyrs 141
of what to do or say. As actors are “fragmented,” possessing diverse

identities at once – for example, journalist, woman, educated and
nationalist – this gives rise to conflicting discourses.
Practically, Arab news professionals may be designated a profes-
sional identity of “journalists” characterized by certain attributes and
globally binding them to others in the same profession while setting
boundaries among journalists according to their position in a global
professional hierarchy. This professional identity is based on the
“dialectic of identification: how we identify ourselves, how others
identify us, and the ongoing interplay of these in process of social
identification.”6
What I would like to stress in the following analysis is the means by
which “external categorization may be received as legitimate,” that is,
how Arab journalists may adapt the same identity designated to them
by their Western counterparts, while struggling to re-allocate this
identity, thereby resisting being locked into a fixed category. Some
Arab media outlets, as I ague below, may even work actively to re-
brand Arab journalism. Central to this categorization are time and
space,7 for example, the position of Arab journalists vis-à-vis Western
journalists. As I argue below, the news stories show dynamic pace in
moving across spaces, and times, and this dynamism has indeed
become an integral feature of the modern role of Arab journalist and
reporter. Also, evoking certain memorial dates is, as I show below, vital
to upholding of the narrative of one global “interpretive community”
of journalists.
To unravel the dialectic of identification between Arab and Western
journalists, I note the instances when Western or Arab news institu-
tions are referred to in the Arab news texts. These instances are then
categorized according to the role designated Western or Arab journal-
ists, that is, watchdogs. One direct outcome of this analysis, as I discuss
below, is to challenge the theory of hegemony as presented in the
scholarship about Arab media. Hegemony, I argue, cannot be confined
to the monopoly certain international news agencies exercise over the
process of newsgathering. Hegemony, instead, rests on power
unevenly distributed between Arab versus Western journalists, even
though all principally belong to a single interpretive community.
Moreover, this power distribution among news institutions defines the
parameters of the global media sphere, which may no longer be
monopolized by a few players but is nonetheless characterized by the
struggle among media institutions in both Western and Eastern
spheres to re-define their position in the global field.
I group the following analysis around particular themes or roles

that were clear in the news texts, of which extracts will be presented
below. To save space, the extracts presented have already been trans-
lated into English rather than presenting them in their original Arabic,
followed by a translation. The overall themes are indeed in harmony
with the roles of journalists as objective raconteurs of reality and
investigators of truth, as discussed in the previous chapter.
I have to stress that the news texts sampled here can indeed be ana-
lyzed in a myriad ways. I choose, however, to confine this exercise to
the role of journalists (Arab and Western) as manifested textually. In
general, the following analysis shows the spread of three particular
roles, as evident in the following extracts. These roles range from 1)
onlooker, and 2) auditor, to 3) truth martyr.
As I show below, these roles were represented in the news texts not
merely to reflect the identity of local versus pan-Arab journalists in the
Arab journalistic field, but also to signal the position of both of these
vis-à-vis global actors such as CNN. I also show how these roles
spread across the examined newspapers, where two outlets seem to
favor the first role and the other two seem to highlight the second role.
All newspapers, however, adopted the third role, as a means to bind
Arab journalists with their counterparts in other countries in one
interpretive community.
Journalist as onlooker
One important task of the journalist is to survey the “reality” of war,
documenting the course of events as well as casualties and violations.
The act of documentation is rendered legitimate by the incorporated
details and figures, for example, the exact time that it took the Allied
Forces to react, the exact size of the bomb, the date and time, and so on.
As Gamson pointed out, “Facts have no intrinsic meaning. They take
on their meaning by being embedded in a frame or story line that orga-
nizes them and gives them coherence, selecting certain ones to empha-
size while ignoring others.”8 The use of facts and figures is indeed one
objectifying strategy in news reporting, and the newspapers included
in this study showed some similarities in the use of “bare facts” as an
integral part of their news reports. These facts and figures should signal
the neutrality of the news reporter/correspondent who acts partly as
interpreter of events, but also partly as “stenographer,” transmitting the
exact details of the event to the readers, as illustrated in the following
extract:
Truth Martyrs 143
Al-Sharq al-Awsat (9 April 2003)
An American official said that the CIA received information from a “source
in Baghdad” stating that Saddam and his two sons would be meeting with
security and intelligence officials in a building in the Mansour quarter.
Forty-five minutes after receiving this information, the American middle
leadership in Qatar launched a B1 missile to throw four bombs, 2000
pounds each, on the building at 3 p.m. the day before yesterday, local time.
The official said, “If Saddam was in the building, it is mostly likely that he
is dead now.” The official described the information as being “the most
precise” about Saddam and his sons since the beginning of the war, with
a raid on another civil compound in Baghdad where it was said that
Saddam and his sons were hiding on 20 March. He said also that one or
two days were needed before confirming the result of this operation and
that the raid came after tracking Qusay’s communications.
The journalists here re-tell the account of the shooting as faithfully as

possible, recalling for instance the chain of command, “the American
middle leadership in Qatar,” rather than just referring to it as
“American forces,” and going through the steps of command: first
receiving the information, then acting promptly (after forty-five
minutes), then launching a B1 missile on a specific building at a specific
time (3 p.m. local time). The official’s statements are quoted at length,
thus adding to the legitimacy of the account: “If Saddam was in the
building, it is most likely that he is dead now.” The incident is linked
to a previous incident in the course of war, “where it was said that
Saddam and his sons were hiding,” which was dated to increase the
sense of accuracy (20 March). Certain details, in sum, were carefully
extracted to add to the authenticity of the journalistic account: the
number of people killed or injured, the type of warplane (for example,
an A10), weight of bomb, the precise distance (in km) and time (in
minutes) in the description of military operations, and so on.
Knowledge, then, is the basis of a “true” representation of reality,
and various sources exist for acquiring it. The journalist’s role is to link
the various sources and build up a true representation of the course of
the war through referring to these very sources. The representation,
however, is inherently hierarchical, for some sources appear as author-
itative informants, while other sources provide doubtful utterances,
which the journalist scrutinizes. In the extract above, the military
sources are likely to provide precise and trusted knowledge due to
their engagement and physical presence in the battlefield. They are not
only reliable sources of information, they are also powerful sources

that, in cooperation with other institutions (intelligence), cleverly
draw on a network of informants to realize their target: “the
CIA received information from a “ ‘source in Baghdad’ stating that
Saddam . . .” Notice that the “source in Baghdad” is in quotation
marks, heightening the sensationalist value of the news piece.
The above news piece begins with several datelines (Kuwait,
Moscow, London) and a couple of bylines (from correspondents in
Washington and Paris), thus showing the dynamism in gathering and
presenting the news. This dynamism, moreover, is enforced by the fast
pace in moving among different time zones (“3 p.m. local [Iraqi]
time”), a characteristic also shared in other news accounts:
Al-Sharq al-Awsat (19 March 2003)
While the world awaits the first strike of war, the Iraqi leadership hurried
yesterday to reject the ultimatum . . . which ends at 1 a.m. tomorrow,
Greenwich time . . .
Al-Ahram (19 March 2003)
Fleischer said that the ultimatum would end at 8 o’clock tonight,

Washington time (or 3 a.m. Cairo time) . . .
. . . On the Iraqi side, the official television announced yesterday the
holding of an urgent parliamentary session at 10 o’clock this morning, local
time . . .
The ultimatum given to the former Iraqi president is referred to in

terms of diverse time zones (Cairo, Baghdad, Greenwich, and
Washington time), making the journalists a group of “cosmopolitans”
who freely and easily move across different times and spaces. In addi-
tion, the time zones represent a hierarchal representation of reality as
well; thus, events are timed according to certain areas and not others
(for example, Greenwich and not Malaysian time). Representation that
follows this timing then accentuates this hierarchy in favor of seeing
world events from a certain temporality, rather than translating the
events into a local temporality.
Truth Martyrs 145
The antagonism between these temporalities (local and global,

where the latter is pre-assigned to certain time zones/spaces) is also
reflected in the Arab satellite channels, where the times of different
programs are usually announced in both Greenwich and Mecca times.
Moreover, al-Jazeera, for one, sometimes announces programs only in
Mecca time, thus enforcing a central (Arab) reference point, although
a major part of its audience is said to belong to diaspora communities.
The dynamism in movement is enforced, as mentioned above, in the
multiple bylines and datelines, emphasizing the role of journalists in
managing multiple spaces. It was al-Sharq al-Awsat and al-Hayat, in
particular, that sought to enforce this dynamism via multiple bylines
(and not only datelines), stressing thereby the (new) role of cor-
respondents as credible sources of information and knowledge, as well
as their autonomy as media institutions with their own network of
sources.
The news text further stresses this pace by moving constantly from
one space to another, such as in the following extract, which begins in
the USA, telling the reader about Bush’s ultimatum (which was due to
end), then shift quickly to other geographical spaces.
As for the international reactions to Bush’s speech, both France and Russia
issued a harsh warning yesterday against using military power against
Iraq . . . And on his part, the French president said that the war on Iraq is
illegal . . . and in Beijing, the new prime minister said that his country would
not give up on its efforts to solve the Iraqi crisis peacefully . . . and in Britain
two ministers, of health and interior affairs, resigned in protest against the
rigid policy of Blair’s government . . .
This piece is initiated with a general dateline (world cities) and a

general byline (al-Ahram correspondents), thus enforcing the insti-
tutional identity of al-Ahram rather than highlighting the names of
individual correspondents dispersed in diverse spaces in order to
gather the reactions to the event (here, the ultimatum). The text
shows the fast pace in moving across diverse geographical spaces,
from the USA, to France, to China and Britain (“the French presi-
dent said . . . and in Beijing, the new prime minister said . . . and in
Britain, two ministers . . . resigned”). Phrases such as “and in Beijing”
are deployed to serve a double-edged function: to serve as a cohesion
device while marking the shift in space and/or topic. Here is another
example:
Thousands of fighters from the Republican Guard troops and “Fedayeen

Saddam” move from Baghdad . . . to stop the progress of the American
forces towards the Iraqi capital. And while a fierce battle went on yester-
day over the control of a bridge near Najaf, the Pentagon admitted that
Iraqi forces destroyed an unlimited number of artilleries . . . and in an indi-
cation of increasing pressures on American forces, the Pentagon declared
that the 4th Cavalry will move today from the USA to Iraq. On the other
hand, it was known yesterday that lawyers/legal experts accompanied the
American forces in order to discuss imposition of emergency laws. On the
other hand, the spokesman of the middle management in the American
forces refused to comment on the missile attack on a popular quarter of
north-east Baghdad . . .
In the above extract, the news report marks a shift among different
geographical spaces and temporalities. It begins with a present scene
from Baghdad, where Iraqi fighters were getting ready to clash with
American forces, then moves back to the past, reminding the reader
of a battle that took place near Najaf, introducing a comment from the
USA-situated Pentagon.
In English, words such as “still” and “but” or prepositional
phrases can be used as initial markers, introducing adversative state-
ments or for the purpose of shifting the topic/scene. In Arabic, on
the other hand, to ensure cohesion among sentences in the news
items, reporters are not content with using “wa” (or “and”) as the
only means for achieving this. Phrases such as “in Beijing” and “in
Britain” mark the reporters’ cohesion strategies in shifting to either
another related topic or shifting the speaker/scene. One qualified
explanation for using these markers was provided by a recent lin-
guistic study on the language of news discourse in Arabic and
English.9 This study points to some important features characteriz-
ing these markers, such as “on the other hand” and “on his/her part,”
which usually occur at the beginning of the sentence. Their presence
is not just a matter of stylistic variation, but is actually dictated by the
rhetoric of news discourse as a genre, to the extent that an attempt to
delete them would result in a distortion of the cohesion links within
the news text.
Truth Martyrs 147
Phrases such as “on the other hand” and “in an indication of

increasing pressures” (above) mark the dynamic pace in moving from
one event and one comment to another, stressing the role of the
journalist as “onlooker,” one that stands above the events and marks
down their sequence, and yet maintains the power to move back and
forth in space and time to add to this account of reality. Defined
beforehand, these spaces are restricted to the political and military
fields, gathering information and commentaries from authoritative
voices there. However, journalists are not there merely to transmit
statements made by the “authorities,” but rather to question their reli-
ability. It is here that the identity of the journalist as auditor and
“watchdog” takes shape.
Journalist as auditor
Prior to the expiry of the ultimatum issued to Saddam and his family,
the Saudi royal family announced that it would not participate in the
coalition formed by the USA, justifying this, as announced in a formal
speech to the nation (al-Sharq al-Awsat, 19 March 2003), by its wish
to protect the Saudi people and the Saudi interest. Nevertheless, the
statements made by the royal family were not taken at face value, and
doubt was cast over their credibility.
Al-Quds al-Arabi (19 March 2003)
Riyadh hurried to declare that it is not participating in the war, which should
end by applying decree 1551.
But American media/press reports confirmed that American planes will
be using Saudi bases in battles and that the Saudi grounds will be open for
humanitarian and logistic operations for American forces inside Iraq.
The reports said that the British forces will move toward Basra and will
take over the control in the south generally, while the American forces will
move directly towards Baghdad . . .
The announcement made by and in “Riyadh” is juxtaposed with

American media reports that confirmed Saudi participation by
allowing American forces to operate on Saudi grounds. Thus, credi-
bility is hauled away from the politicians’ statements and accrues
instead in the transnational media’s reports, thereby enforcing the
latter’s capital as sources of reliable information10 (which at times
may outweigh any doubt as to the type of sources or discourses upon

which they draw). Thus, the international media reports were
mentioned and quoted without questioning their credibility or the
discourse they were appropriating. Even though al-Quds al-Arabi at
times doubts American officials’ statements (see below), it did
not doubt the transnational media, for example, CNN, Reuters,
AFP, BBC:
The television station CNN said that a huge queue of Iraqi Republican
Guard troops left Baghdad yesterday evening (Wednesday), moving
towards the American forces marshalling near Najaf city.
The station said through its correspondent who accompanies the 7th
Cavalry: “A long queue of 1000 Iraqi mobile units, including perhaps
trained artilleries and vehicles, left Baghdad and is moving towards Najaf.”
Reports made by CNN (through its correspondent) provided a

reliable “onlooker” view of the spectacle of war as it takes place in the
battlefield, as well as in the minds of strategists. A similar view was
shown in al-Ahram:
Amidst the increasing expectations of waging the war, the military corre-
spondent of the BBC predicted that military operations should start in the
first hours of next Saturday, and said that the military leadership preferred
to postpone the strike until the waning of the moon and darker nights,
because the full moon in the next few days does not suit the land opera-
tions. The correspondent said that the ultimatum . . . ends by Thursday
dawn, and it is not appropriate to launch military operations on Friday,
which is a Muslim holy day. Therefore, the most accurate calculations,
which take into account the weather forecast and expected heavy storms,
point to Saturday dawn as a suitable timing for these operations.
Here, the BBC correspondent calculates and weighs up the incom-

ing information, in order to form a prognosis of a future scenario (“the
military correspondent of the BBC predicted that . . .”). His know-
ledge then is taken for granted, for his prediction is not based on
pure speculation but on knowledge of military tactics a well as local
Truth Martyrs 149
tradition (“the military leadership preferred to postpone until the

waning of the moon . . . because the full moon does not suit the land
operations”). In addition, the correspondent weighs the pronounced
political plan to launch a military operation right upon the end of the
ultimatum against his own knowledge of the local tradition: as the
ultimatum ends “on Friday . . . a Muslim holy day,” he decides to
abandon the possibility of launching war on Friday. Instead, he pro-
vides another prognosis based on “accurate calculations” of several
factors, “which take into account the weather forecast and expected
heavy storms,” leading him to conclude that “Saturday dawn” would
be the most “suitable timing for these operations.”
Foreign media sources, moreover, serve as eyewitnesses at the heart
of events, writing back home details of events unfolding, and their tes-
timonials add to the process of making sense of the war, mediated via
bodily sense.
And after three hours of fierce fighting in Nasriya city, the American marine
forces managed to cross a bridge over the Euphrates river . . . and the cor-
respondent of the AFP said that the smell of “human flesh” spread in the
skies of that city, which lies 375 km from Baghdad.
. . . The Iraqi president Saddam Hussein called upon the Iraqi tribes to
resist the American and British forces . . . and urged them in a speech aired
at the Iraqi television . . .
. . . The British Air Marshall, Brian Burridge, lessens the possibility of
achieving fast victory, and rejected in statements to the BBC network
Britain’s intention to increase its forces . . .
The testimonial of the AFP correspondent is enforced by the bodily

experience of “smelling” and “seeing,” as the correspondent wanders
in Nasriya, smelling “human flesh” and seeing its smoke “spread in the
skies,” wrapping this bodily experience in the objective narrative of the
journalistic report by adding details on the exact location of the city
(“which lies 375 km from Baghdad”).
While the foreign media have access to local as well as foreign polit-
ical sources, local media, on the other hand, are deployed mainly as
channels of communication, or as a town crier through which mes-
sages could be disseminated to the citizens. Thus, Saddam Hussein
used the local media to transmit a message to the Iraqi tribes (“urged
them in a speech aired at the Iraqi television”), and a podium from

which he can mobilize Iraqis. A similar strategy was used by other
Iraqi officials:
. . . The [Iraqi] spokesman said briefly on the Iraqi TV, regarding Iraqi oper-
ations during the past 24 hours, that a British plane was downed near
Basra, and a Somoud missile was launched targeting al-Salem air base in
Kuwait.
The Iraqi spokesman appeared on television, albeit “briefly,” to

issue updates on the course of the war and on the Iraqi resistance
progress, using the media as a briefing stand from which he addressed
the nation. Other pan-Arab media served the same purpose:
. . . and [Nagi] Sabry [former foreign minister] said in a press conference,

which he held in the Iraqi capital and which al-Jazeera satellite channel
transmitted live, “We did not ask for help from anybody, but we say to the
Arab countries that their security is threatened.”
The former foreign minister held press conferences, which received

attention from regional media, for example, al-Jazeera, which trans-
mitted them live. A word of caution is due here: some scholars11 see
the inclination of news media, particularly television, to report on or
transmit press conferences live as a sign of using media to transmit
hegemonic values and ideas. However, journalists from Arab satellite
channels justify the endeavor to broadcast press conferences as part of
the function of the Fourth Estate in giving voice to different political
actors. For instance, al-Habib al-Ghoureibi, from an Abu Dhabi TV
station, said that his station was striving to broadcast Arab and
American press conferences during the Iraq War, giving equal times to
both parties in order to emphasize the station’s impartiality. The same
view was supported by Faisal al-Kasim (al-Jazeera), who said that it
was part of the channel’s task to give the floor to all speakers.12
In sum, while Arab politicians use local media to transmit informa-
tion, foreign media seem to scrutinize and evaluate statements.
Truth Martyrs 151
Moreover, this may pinpoint the hierarchies that exist within the
“journalistic field,” so it is not only political discourses that flow
within a hierarchy of power (where US politicians’ statements, for
instance, are placed higher than an Arab politician’s), media discourses
are also contingent upon the powers within the global journalistic field
itself. CNN news discourses may occupy a more significant place in
this field – vis-à-vis the discourses circulated by an Arab media out-
let – and hence are more often quoted as reliable sources of inform-
ation. According to Fandy, foreign media are usually associated with
“trustworthy information,” which is the reason that the Arab audi-
ences trust foreign services such as the BBC more than their own, or,
as he put it: “It is not that Arabs do not trust the media because it is
foreign but that Arabs, like everyone else, are selective about what to
trust and what not to trust.”13
In contrast to al-Quds al-Arabi and al-Ahram, al-Hayat and al-
Sharq al-Awsat, as mentioned before, were keen to publish the multiple
bylines of their correspondents, thus enforcing its power as a news-
gatherer. To further consolidate this role, however, references to other
(foreign) media institutions were discarded, and statements made by
foreign (American) officials were referred to directly in the news texts:
Al-Hayat (19 March 2003)
. . . The White House confirmed yesterday its determination to send allied

forces from 30 countries to Iraq to disarm its prohibited weapons . . .
American officials confirmed that the USA “has showered” the soldiers in
southern Iraq with pamphlets urging them to surrender . . .
It was announced in Washington yesterday that the Bush administration
has formed an alliance to disarm Iraq “immediately” . . .
Rather than citing these sources’ reports verbatim, reporters (and

editors) interpret the incoming statements, as illustrated in the use of
verbs such as “confirm” (“the White House confirmed yesterday . . .
American officials confirmed that the USA . . .”), confining the direct
quote to controversial parts of statements (“the USA ‘has showered’
the soldiers in southern Iraq with pamphlets”).
Also, the information disseminated from Washington was trans-
mitted using the passive rather than active voice (“it was announced in
Washington yesterday . . .”), although Arabic news is usually reported
in the active voice.14 This further eliminates middle-man sources
(foreign media) while bringing al-Hayat and al-Sharq al-Awsat

correspondents closer to the main sources of power/knowledge.
And it was noticed a collective fleeing from Arbeel city, the capital of the
Iraqi Kurdish province and from cities and town near the fighting zone. . .
Above this, the American spokesperson Ary Fleischer said yesterday that
Washington had not yet seen any indication that Saddam would abide by
the ultimatum . . .
Most of the statements come from American sources, which implies

the acknowledgement of the USA as a military and political power.
Hence, foreign statements are seen as more likely to shape future
events and, more importantly, to be more closely scrutinized rather
than local statements, which are rather predictable.
This power can be manifested textually in the use of tense to indi-
cate the distribution of power among interlocutors. The Arabic news-
papers, for instance, assigned present tense to the direct speech by
American leaders, while citations by the Iraqi leadership were in the
past tense. This could be a sign of the power assigned to American
leadership in this conflict and is part of each newspaper’s particular
discourse in framing the Iraq War. Thus, al-Ahram, for instance,
deployed the future tense in statements by foreign officials:
Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said yesterday, less than
24 hours after issuing the ultimatum, that Washington had not yet seen any
proof that Saddam would give in to the ultimatum and leave Iraq. He
explained that, even if Saddam Hussein and his sons leave Iraq, the Allied
Forces will enter the Iraqi lands to ensure the disarming of the Weapons of
Mass Destruction.
Fleischer said that the ultimatum would end at 8 o’clock tonight,
Washington time (or 3 a.m. Cairo time), and that Bush is the one who will
decide the time to begin the war.
The US government, then, has the will and power to determine

future events, for example, whether there will be war, and whether
Truth Martyrs 153
Saddam and his sons may stay in Iraq, and so on. Another example
is the following extract, in which the White House spokesman
tells the world media the future scenario prepared by the US
government.
On the other hand, Washington said that it did not see any indication of
Saddam’s abiding by the ultimatum and considered this to be “another
mistake” committed by Saddam if he did not leave. While the American
forces in Kuwait were getting ready yesterday for the attack, one of its
leading generals said that victory in Iraq will happen “within days.”
He said that Saddam’s decision to stay in Iraq will be “another mistake
committed by Saddam Hussein.” He resumed, “My role does not include
naming the countries to which he could flee.” Fleischer said that the Allied
Forces formed by the USA will enter Iraqi to disarm it, even if Saddam
left.
The American ambassador to Iraqi, Zalmai Khalil Zad, said yesterday
that the Kurdish Iraqi battalions will put themselves under American
command in the event of American military operations being launched
against Iraq.
This is a series of statements issued from Washington indicating the

course of future events, determining what will be happening and eval-
uating the moves taken by the opponent (“did not see any indication
of Saddam’s abiding by the ultimatum and considered this to be
‘another mistake’ committed by Saddam”). One American authority
was quoted asserting the victory even before it took place (“victory in
Iraq will happen”), although his assertion that it will happen “within
days” seems to be controversial, as it is the only bit of his speech that
was put in quotation marks.
The USA’s allies inside Iraq (Zalmai Khalil Zad) also acknowledged
US power, confirming their intention to “put themselves under
American command.”
Thus, statements issued by the Allied Forces (concerning the
overall war strategy) were quoted in the future tense, claiming the
upper hand in the course of the war. Likewise, President Bush, in
the following quote, promised his soldiers and the Iraqi people that
the Iraqi regime “will be” punished, and that the punishment day is
“near.”
On the other hand, President Bush said yesterday that the war on Iraq was
progressing but was still far from over. He added, at addressing the sol-
diers at McDowell air force base in Florida, “I assure you, and assure the
Iraqi people who suffered for too long, that the Iraqi regime will be held
accountable and that day is getting close.”
In sum, the role of news media here is to orchestrate all the political
statements available and to interweave them into a dynamic narrative,
moving across spaces and temporality, and supporting this narrative
with statements issued from abroad (particularly from the USA). Al-
Ahram and al-Quds al-Arabi relied on foreign media institutions to
deliver, comment and evaluate these statements, enforcing the role of
journalists as “onlookers.” On the other hand, al-Hayat and al-Sharq
al-Awsat preferred to present the statements as indirect quotations,
with no mention of the source, thereby emphasizing the role of their
correspondents as newsgatherers (as shown in the multiple bylines at
the beginning of each news piece) and enforcing the role of journalists
as “auditor or watchdog.” In fact, the former al-Hayat editor-in-chief
boasted about the newspaper’s dependence on al-Hayat’s own corres-
pondents to cover international events, rather than drawing on the
ready-made news packages provided by the main news agencies.15
Journalists as truth martyrs

Examining the use of attribution in Arabic and English news on BBC
Arabic radio, al-Shabbab and Swales16 demonstrated the use of attri-
bution features, not so much quoting Arab officials but rather quoting
two other sources: the BBC correspondents and the news itself, for
example, al’anbaa’ tufiid (or “the news says”). This tendency is seen in
the following text, where Arab newspapers tend to refer back to them-
selves as actors in the event:
“Al-Sharq al-Awsat” yesterday entered the Iraqi city of Safwan,

accompanying the food and medical aid convoy coming from Kuwait to the
city inhabitants, whose number is c. 2,000, under British guardianship.
Truth Martyrs 155
This entails the presence of a newspaper as an institution and implies

the capacity consecrated in a whole institution (rather than an individ-
ual) to cover the war. Also, another possible effect of “institutionaliz-
ing” the reporter/narrator role is to enhance the objectivity of reports
by undermining the subjectivity of reporters as individual actors.
Al-Hayat (27 March 2003)
However, the American deputy Secretary of State, Richard Armitage, con-

firmed that the American forces “will do all what it takes” in order to topple
the Iraqi regime, even if they had to fight inside the cities. He said in an
interview with al-Hayat, to be published tomorrow . . .
Previous research on Arabic journalistic discourse has shown that

quoting sources adds authenticity to news reports.17 Citations are thus
a means of displaying the news institution’s objectivity by presenting
the opinions or statements uttered by one or several parties on a certain
issue. Moreover, Fandy18 argues that trust in Arab (and Islamic) soci-
eties depends on the model of isnad, where the chain of sources is iden-
tified to stand behind an authoritative utterance. Thus, as the Prophet’s
sayings (Hadith) are transmitted through a chain of authoritative
sources, Arab audiences need to verify the information they receive.
However, as shown above, the isnad was not a particularly important
strategy for either al-Hayat or al-Sharq al-Awsat, who report the
events in the passive voice and at times quote foreign officials without
mentioning their names. Yet, in adding the institutional voice, as
above, news media stress their own participation in the event, and
hence the isnad refers to their institutions as the main source.
Journalists, then, are involved as active actors participating in the
event unfolding before them. In their capacity as eyewitnesses, they
seek to investigate the truth, a mission that may collide with the inter-
ests of certain political parties. For instance, on 8 April 2003, more than
a hundred journalists residing at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad came
under fire from US forces, leaving three dead. The International
Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemned the attack and demanded an
explanation, while the US forces declared the strike to be a mistake.
The killing of the journalists, according to al-Quds al-Arabi, was
prompted by US fears that the “media” would reveal US atrocities, and
was therefore implicit proof of the trust placed in foreign and/or
regional media institutions’ capacity to expose political malice:
Al-Quds al-Arabi (9 April 2003)
The American spokesman in Silieh base in Qatar claimed that the bombing
of the hotel came after an Iraqi sniper shot an RPG missile from the hotel
lobby, but then he corrected his statement to say that the sniper came from
inside the hotel.
According to observers, the aim of the bombing of the hotel where the
journalists resided . . . is to scare the journalists and force them to leave
the Iraqi capital, which would allow the American forces to commit more
massacres without any media coverage.
Doubt was cast over the American political statement, which was
reported on as a “claim,” and the doubt was further stressed when the
official “corrected” his statement later, indicating that the whole state-
ment may have been a mere fabrication rather than a representation of
facts. The main aim of concealing facts here was to “scare” journalists
from reporting reality, thus juxtaposing politics as a truth masquerade
and journalism as truth detection.
The news piece further bestows the status of martyrdom on jour-
nalists, which accentuates the role of the journalist as a fighter (for
truth), ready to sacrifice their life for a noble cause.
Al-Quds al-Arabi (9 April 2003)
The strike, which was met with global astonishment and dismay, resulted in
the martyrdom of al-Jazeera correspondent and colleague Tarek Ayoub,
and a Reuters photographer, as well as the injury of a number of other
journalists.
Al-Jazeera correspondent Tarek Ayoub was referred to as a “col-

league,” thus binding all journalists together as one “community.”
Indeed, it is when a group is addressed and constituted as one19 that it
emerges as an imagined community, by adding a “chain of equiva-
lence” between the status of martyr and the rest of the group.
Journalists, then, stand against an “irrational” agency (military power)
that seeks to silence them. This takes for granted that world journal-
ists were there to cover the war in a neutral and impartial manner, thus
ironing out any “hegemonic intervention” in the final media represen-
tations in each country.
Truth Martyrs 157
Both local and foreign journalists were part of this “interpretive

community,” as the journalists killed and wounded, although belonging
to different countries and media institutions, were unified as one com-
munity, as “colleagues” searching for the truth and paying a huge price
for it. In fact, Nick Gowing (from the BBC World Service) shares this
view of “communality” when he refers to other journalists covering
crises as “colleagues” who face hardships (“facing a failure to investigate
and bring to justice”), although he also pointed to the question of safety
and the fact that journalists did not cover any crisis, for example, Darfur,
as intensely as they did in Iraq due to the difficult sectarian situation in
Darfur.20 I come back to Gowing’s comments later in this chapter.
In addition, losing one’s life in search of truth was acclaimed as an
inevitable part of the journalist’s profession:
Al-Hayat (9 April 2003)
A tax is due in all wars, and every year media institutions count their
victims, martyrs of truth, witnesses on innocent people’s tragedies whose
lives are crushed by the blind war machine and its angry fire. But what hap-
pened yesterday in Baghdad was different. The three colleagues, Tarek
Ayoub (al-Jazeera correspondent) and two photographers from Reuters
and Spanish TV, did not fall martyrs by friendly fire or by technical mistake.
A foreign journalist said that he saw an American artillery target the
Meridien-Palestine hotel in Baghdad and open five first at the hotel recep-
tion, then at the offices of the Qatari channel [al-Jazeera] as well as at the
office of the Abu Dhabi channel.
Besides the inevitability of martyrdom due to mistakes caused by

not following safety rules, for instance, this incident was different in
that the news report above used the testimony of “a foreign journal-
ist” as a proof that the firing was deliberate, thereby stressing the role
of journalists as adversaries to political power, targeted by the latter in
order to be silenced.
The “martyrdom” for truth is seen as an inevitable part of the jour-
nalistic profession, a due that has to be paid and counted “every year.”
The journalist here is the “eyewitness on innocent people’s tragedies,”
whose testimony should be enclosed in a frame of trust.21 Journalists,
then, endeavor to render legitimate their testimony as part of the
process of accumulating “cultural and symbolic capital” in a highly
competitive field. This status is further enforced on satellite channels
like al-Jazeera, where correspondents tend to appear in armed vests

and army helmets when covering hot spots such as Lebanon (due to
the current crisis), or Afghanistan, thus appearing as the new “heroes”
who endured hardships for the sake of uncovering the truth.
As shown above, both al-Hayat and al-Sharq al-Awsat tend to
profile themselves by stressing the network of their own correspon-
dents, a role that is further enforced in news channels such as
al-Jazeera, where the correspondent takes over the role of interpreter
and evaluator. For instance, the day following the fall of Baghdad,
al-Jazeera’s main evening bulletin aired a report from the Iraqi capital
that is quoted at length here to illustrate the (new) power of the jour-
nalist as eyewitness and evaluator:
No other scene could look more like an end. The Palestine hotel battle,
or the last scenes of the American–British war on Iraq, was not carried
out by bombs or missiles, and no blood was shed, as happened on Black
Tuesday [when journalists were killed and injured]. Between yesterday
and today, it seems that many things have changed, and the press was no
longer the number-two enemy of the Marines, as the scene has shifted
from American blunder to inevitable victory. The American artilleries
surrounded a hotel where the majority of the international media insti-
tutions rallied with no convincing objective but to transmit to the whole
world the message that the Yankees have come to the heart of Baghdad.22
Here, the reporter narrates a story, setting the scene behind him where
Saddam’s statue was brought to fall as a symbol of the fall of Baghdad
and the former regime. The reporter wonders about the other media
institutions rallying around the American forces to help the latter
transmit a message to the world, thus setting a distance between al-
Jazeera on the one hand as a “mature” media institution, and other
media outlets that fell into the American trap. Yet, the integrity of the
journalistic profession is kept intact as a reference was made to “Black
Tuesday,” the day of the killing and injuring of three journalists from
three different countries residing at the same hotel. The press was
depicted as the “number-two enemy of the Marines,” thus enforcing
the role of journalists as truth-finders and martyrs. The reporter here
is an observer as well as an evaluator of the American progress in the
war (moving from “blunder to inevitable victory”).
Moreover, the journalist acts here as an observer who communi-
cates the scene to his audience. In fact, the word “scene” even enforces
the journalist’s role as a mediator who reconstructs the war scenes,
Truth Martyrs 159
which in itself an act of mixing fictional elements with real-life events.

In sum, part of the interpretive community of journalists is seen to fall
prey to the American political manipulation, yet the whole commun-
ity is kept objectified in the reference to Black Tuesday, a commemo-
ration day for the truth martyrs of the journalistic profession.
The above analysis therefore shows three different roles:
1. Journalist as onlooker;
2. Journalist as auditor/watchdog;
3. Journalist as truth martyr.
While two émigré newspapers (al-Ahram and al-Quds al-Arabi)

drew heavily on the first role, two others (al-Hayat and al-Sharq al-
Awsat) highlighted the second role. Yet, all four newspapers, and
indeed other outlets as well, agree on the third role as that which binds
all journalists, despite their cultural differences, together in one com-
munity.
To recap, the aim of the above analysis was to illustrate the roles of
journalists, as an interpretive community, in documenting events and
mining the truth, even if these tasks eventually lead them to “martyr-
dom.” These roles evolve around two identification pointers, namely
knowledge (observing and documenting) and truth (eyewitness and
investigator), which can be roughly summarized in figure 6.1.
The “knowledge” axis represents the objective tasks related to
observing and documenting reality, while the “truth” axis represents
the subjective tasks of witnessing events and searching for truth.
The truth axis would be the hybrid product of the incorporation of
Onlooker
Knowledge
(objectivity) Auditor
Eyewitness Truth martyr
Truth
(subjectivity)
Figure 6.1 The distribution of journalistic roles
Anglo-American journalistic practices. The roles of truth martyr and

eyewitness are closely related to the core narratives of journalism as a
profession, shared by members worldwide.
On the other hand, it can be argued that the knowledge axis repre-
sents the roles of journalists, to which a significant “cultural and sym-
bolic capital” is attached. These are the roles distinguishing journalists
worldwide, with some enjoying a higher capital than others. In turn,
the amount of this capital determines the symbolic power of credibil-
ity associated with the journalists and media institutions acting as
careful observers of facts. For instance, foreign news agencies such as
Reuters or AFP were regarded as sources of reliable information (and
truth) in al-Ahram and al-Quds al-Arabi. This axis also represents the
struggle over credibility between national/regional media on the one
hand and global media outlets on the other. This is a struggle over the
re-definition of the position of local/regional on the global media
scene. For instance, al-Ahram and al-Sharq al-Awsat did not mention
foreign agencies, preferring instead to highlight the bylines of their
own correspondents and stress their own role as newsgatherers.
Clearly, the above identities do not represent a meticulous distribution
of roles, as they rather overlap and compete, according to the events
reported on.
The “interpretive community” of journalists exhibits a hierarchy of
power,23 much the same as in any other social field. For instance, Nick
Gowing (from the BBC World Service) refer to journalists worldwide
as “colleagues,” thus indicating a shared identity, while reminding us
of the hierarchy inside this community:
in places like the Gulf, people who watch al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya and Abu
Dhabi television and Kuwait television also go grazing, and they actu-
ally go to the BBC because they say they want to find out how it really
is happening . . . But that is the anecdotal evidence we are beginning to
get, even through the radicals in the Middle East . . . They are getting a
certain understanding of the more radical ways of interpretation of
news. But then they are turning to get a different view of the news. There
is a very different matrix out there, so don’t view it in a simplistic way.24
For Bourdieu,25 social space can be compared to geographic space, so

that the closer the agents in one space, the more features they have in
common. Yet, “the truth of any interaction is never entirely to be
found within the interaction as it avails itself for observation.” In par-
ticular, Bourdieu points to what he called “categories of condescen-
Truth Martyrs 161
sion,”26 or the categories applied when the agents on a higher position

deny the distance separating them from others below them, although
the distance remains intact. So, Nick Gowing denies the difference that
separates journalists worldwide, but the distance does not cease to
exist. On the one hand, he acknowledges the role of other (for
example, Arab) journalists as part of the global community of jour-
nalists, but on the other hand he stresses the differences among jour-
nalists according to their position in an overall hierarchy of power
existing in this particular field (who is the most worthy of the audi-
ence’s trust).
The above discussion aims at contributing to the debate on the
global public sphere and the role of media in facilitating it. Central to
this discussion are two factors: 1) the power of global media (at the top
of the hierarchy), and 2) the ambivalence felt towards such media by
their counterparts in developing countries (lower in the same hierar-
chy). Let me now elaborate on each point.
First, it can be argued that each Arab field (media, politics) derives
its power from its position vis-à-vis similar Western fields. We tend
to think of Arab media as expressing and influencing public opinion
in a causal relationship. I argue, however, that trust and a positive
image depend upon the message and messenger’s place in the field.
Here, the cultural capital of Western media has indeed become natu-
ralized to serve as a yardstick by which other media, in developing
countries, are measured. Critics of the Habermasian notion of the
public sphere point to the idealized form of a public sphere in which
social status is bracketed, and to this one can add that a normative
global sphere equally brackets the cultural capital possessed by each
participant/media institution. Such a global sphere is a site of strug-
gle over legitimacy as well as visibility on the global media scene.
Global media actors in particular enjoy a higher position in this
power hierarchy, making truth and knowledge contingent upon the
discourse and institutions producing it. The public sphere is not
merely an arena for forming public opinion, but also for forming
social identities. And by presenting journalists as one unified “inter-
pretive” community, we exclude the articulation of tension among
them.
Second, the hybrid role of journalists is characterized by ambiva-
lence among media professionals (as well as audiences) vis-à-vis
Western media. Al-Ahram directly referred to certain Western news
media outlets in order to validate and render legitimacy to certain
political statements, while other newspapers (such as al-Hayat) do not
apply the same strategy. This is also seen in new satellite channels such
as al-Jazeera, where the correspondents have become the main sources.
Yet, al-Jazeera seems to acknowledge the credibility of the BBC while
questioning the reliability of commercial outlets such as Fox News,27
referring in particular to the recent criticism by Sky News of the public
service BBC because the latter refrained from using the word “terror-
ist” in describing people accused of being so.
This ambivalence is even common among Arab media scholars;
for instance, in his analysis of the Abu-Ghraib torture scandal,
Khaffaf28 depends upon quoting American news media, for example,
CBS, Washington Post, New York Times, as the organizations
responsible for sparking off a debate about the torture of Iraqi pris-
oners, and yet he sees the publication timing as part of a media col-
laboration with the politicians, particularly the Republicans, during
the past elections.
Conclusion
In general, the above analysis adds to the conceptualization of one
important term in current communication research, namely “hege-
mony,” and its impact on mediation as a basis for sound public debate.
Hegemony is not a straightforward process, as some Arab scholars
assume,29 in which international news agencies exert power over the
content of news circulated in local Arab news media, a view that denies
the power relation. Rather, hegemony can operate via power distrib-
uted unevenly among actors in the same community. Thus, the role of
journalists, as seen in international media such as the BBC and CNN,
may be naturalized and entrenched in the local perception of journal-
ism and its role in society. Quoting foreign media, as shown above, is
part of the newspapers’ strategy to brand and differentiate themselves
vis-à-vis local newspapers that are more likely to cite local official
statements.
This is not to suggest a return to an essentialist theory of hegemony
in terms of homogeneity wiping out a pure original.30 Rather, my aim
here is to grasp the power relations in the hybrid identities formed on
the global media scene. As Giddens31 reminds us, power is not neces-
sarily synonymous with coercion, but can be also associated with
interdependence. Power then operates in a dialectic relation, despite
the unequal distribution of power among the different actors. I do not
propose to develop an action against such practices; my aim is merely
to point out how power is proliferating in the field of journalism, for
Truth Martyrs 163
the analysis of communication is incomplete without the concept of

power.
It is equally important to examine the ambivalent attitude towards
Western media among Arab audiences, as Dahlgren argues: “The
public sphere does not begin and end when media content reaches an
audience; this is but one step in larger communication and cultural
chains that include how the media output is received, made sense of
and utilized by citizens.”32 In fact, research among diaspora audiences,
for example, in Britain, shows that Palestinian audiences show less
confidence in global media such as the BBC, while pouring confidence
into pan-Arab news media such as al-Jazeera,33 despite the fact that
media outlets such as the BBC were seen as trustworthy news sources
among audiences inside the Middle East.34 Moreover, the poll under-
taken by the Center for Strategic Studies, University of Jordan (2005)
shows that the Arabs who were surveyed acknowledge the positive
values in Western societies, but felt that these values are not reflected
in foreign politics. The Western media were also trusted and seen as
credible, at least in the UK and France, although the respondents
demonstrated little knowledge of cultural life in Western communities
in the USA, the UK or France.
So, where to go from here? From the above, it can be argued that
analysis of the mechanism of the public sphere in an Arab context
should operate at two levels:
1. at an Arab–Arab level, to analyze the strategies of legitimacy, hierar-

chy, and trust, as distributed among Arab media institutions and as
illustrated in the audiences’ attitude to these media;
2. at an Arab–Western level, where it is important to analyze the hier-
archy and power relations among various regional and global media
actors versus the view that sees a global sphere as devoid of center or
hegemony.
If the above analysis shows the proliferation of Western media voices

in Arab news texts, future research could perhaps look at the opposite
trend, namely the incorporation and the image of Arab media voices
in a Western context: when to quote Arab media and for what purpose,
for example, showing a reaction to a Western political statement and
illustrating the reaction in the Arab “street.” If the Western media can
be associated with trustworthiness and hence assigned a high “cultural
capital,” what then is the image of Arab media, for example, satellite
channels, in the Western media? There exist several studies on the
image of Arabs (portrayed as one homogenous group!) in American

films35 and news,36 but there is a need to break down the image into
specific groups in order to show how specific social identities, such as
journalists, are portrayed (agitators, mobilizers, professionals, or
adherers to the whim of the people).
Chapter 7
Arab Journalism as an Academic

Discipline
The aim of this chapter is dual: it aims to provide an overview of the

emergence of journalism and mass communication as an academic dis-
cipline in the Arab universities, while providing a critical evaluation of
Arab as well as Western scholarship on Arab media. Clearly, this is an
ambitious aim that needs a book-length treatment, and I would
provide only a superficial account of this issue if I attempted to survey
all Arab States. Therefore, I have chosen to confine my exercise to
certain Arab States of the pioneering generations of Arab media
scholars. My overall aim, then, is to show the gradual consolidation of
journalism as an academic discipline.
The review would not be complete, however, without a discus-
sion of the role of Arab academia in shaping the contours of the
journalistic profession, and of how it sees its position vis-à-vis
Western scholarship. I dedicate a large part of this chapter to a cri-
tique of the Arab methodology endorsed in Arab academic institu-
tions, and the discussion concludes, albeit briefly, with an assessment
of the claim that Arab scholarship may adhere to a particular “Arab”
epistemology.
To round up, I juxtapose the contribution of Arab scholarship with
that of Western scholarship on Arab media. As I argue below, Western
scholarship, particularly the scholarship that emerged following 9/11,
has not yet proven insightful in binding Arab media and journalism
closely to social theories. I also conclude with a brief comparison
between the roles of each scholarship vis-à-vis peer academics in the
field (assumed to be autonomous power) and policy-makers (the
political power).
Rise of media education

The first Arab academic institution for the study of communication
was established in Cairo in 1939.1 Four years earlier, however, the
American University in Cairo, a foreign institution, took the initiative
in establishing a center for communication studies in 1935. The com-
munication institute in Cairo, Cairo University, was the first Arab
institute for the professional training of personnel for the newly
expanding communications industry. Other Arab countries followed
suit during the 1970s, with similar institutions for the study of com-
munication and journalism. In many Middle Eastern countries, jour-
nalism formed part of the departments of Arabic literature and arts
studies.
The main problem facing these institutions was the lack of trained
and qualified teaching staff. That resulted in a decline in the quality of
teaching and a shortage of research. The Department of Communi-
cation at Cairo University, which is the oldest Arab academic center in
the region, witnessed an increase in the number of its students and was
the only center in the region offering PhD degrees. However, the
increase in the number of students resulted in an increase in the
number of theses, and it became difficult for the staff to keep up with
the new task of marking and guiding the students. Abu Bakr et al.2 give
the example of one professor from the center who, in 1976, had to
supervise thirty-nine Masters theses and seven doctoral dissertations.3
The establishment of these departments also led to the need to
attract qualified teachers from other disciplines such as sociology,
history, and languages. Other departments have attracted those gradu-
ates with Masters and PhD degrees from other disciplines, but even
this practice has not always resulted in raising the quality of teaching.
Likewise, it has not proven fruitful to use media professionals to train
communications students, especially in cases where those profession-
als were chosen not because of their qualifications but rather because
of personal relationships and contacts.4 Others cast doubts on the pro-
fessionalism of the foreign trainers and wonder whether they simply
accepted work in the Arab region because of their failure to get suit-
able teaching posts in their home countries.5
Awatef Abdel Rahman6 referred to three pan-Arab seminars (Cairo
1976, Baghdad and Riyadh 1977, Algeria 1989) arranged to discuss the
problem of the academic teaching of communication, of which the last
issued a recommendation to conduct a survey on the state of this
education. She presented some preliminary results that pointed to the
Arab Journalism as an Academic Discipline 167
existence of the then thirty institutions spread across seventeen Arab

countries. She also highlighted the different ideological persuasions
among those institutions, ranging from pro-French in the Maghreb
countries, pro-American in the Gulf countries, Sudan and Yemen, and
of the Islamic type in one institution in Saudi Arabia and one in Cairo
(al-Azhar University).
Other scholars7 saw the problem as being due to the poor planning
of university journalism programs. In Algeria, for instance, where
journalism was established as an academic discipline in 1964, the
program concentrated on print media. Lacking equipment, the
Algerian school did not offer courses in broadcast or television news
editing, although the country needed more broadcasters than print
journalists for its relatively illiterate population.
In addition, the lack of training materials in Arabic, combined with
the students’ insufficient knowledge of English, formed one more
difficulty in accessing foreign-language books, not to mention the
difficulty of those students acquiring suitable jobs in foreign news
department.8 The situation differed slightly in the Maghreb countries
(Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), where the students had access to
French-language materials.
Realizing the urgent need for regional cooperation in the field of
communication and journalism training, in 1979 the Arab Journalists
Union took the initiative for establishing the first, and now the oldest,
regional training center. First located in Cairo, then moved to Beirut,
it did not receive regular funding, other than occasional support from
the Iraqi government.9 The need for regional centers had been realized
already in 1976, though, when Arab deans and directors of communi-
cation departments met in Cairo and recommended the establishment
of regional programs.
In addition, the first center for training in radio broadcasting was
established in Egypt in 1957, and the establishment of another for tele-
vision broadcasting followed in the early 1960s.10 During the follow-
ing decades, several centers were established in other Arab countries.
The problem, however, was the disparity of the regularity of the
courses offered and the number of students enrolled per year. Again,
the lack of trained staff and well-written material in Arabic formed a
difficulty for the development of that line of training. Sending trainees
abroad, although an option for some centers, did not solve the problem
of inadequate training. Trainees sent abroad felt the differences in the
environment in their host countries, socially and culturally, compared
to the Arab world; besides, the training offered was not geared to the
needs of these students.11 Since then, some have also warned against
dependence upon foreign trainers lest the trainers merely copy the
materials available abroad instead of designing new materials tailored
to the needs of Arab trainees. One important characteristic of the
materials available is that they are based on foreign, that is, Western,
traditions, which, according to some Arab scholars, do not address the
developmental needs of Arab trainees.12
Today, journalism and mass communication exist as well-
established disciplines, particularly in old institutions in Egypt and
Lebanon. The current generation of Egyptian media scholars is the
fifth since the establishment of the Institute of Editing, Translation and
Journalism in 1939.13 We also see a new trend now in which several
Arab media scholars maintain a professional link with the journalistic
world by delivering journalistic tasks, usually as TV hosts and/or
reporters to Egyptian and other channels.14
Recent years have also witnessed an upsurge in the number of
private foreign universities. For example, in Egypt, following the
model of the American University in Cairo, founded in 1919, foreign
investors have found a new market servicing the 400,000 students
enrolling at Egyptian universities, especially given the indigenous uni-
versities’ inability to accommodate such a huge number.15 Profit,
however, is claimed not to be the main drive behind these ventures, as
one official from a foreign university in Egypt asserted, wondering
why people would be “suspicious of private universities when we have
thousands of students graduating from private schools each year?”
The French ambassador to Cairo justified the establishment of the
French University in Cairo by recalling how Mohammed Ali began his
ambitious modernization project in the nineteenth century by sending
envoys to France, who in turn “sent hundreds of teachers to Egypt.”
He added, “If you send your students abroad, they might lose contact
with their home country and there is always the possibility they might
never return;”16 this, despite the fact that degrees from the French
University are not automatically equivalent to those obtained in
France. Moreover, the ratio of foreign to local staff differs across these
foreign universities; for instance, one-third of the staff at the French
university in Egypt are French and the rest are Egyptian, while half of
the staff at the German university are Germans and the rest are local.
The process of establishment of communications departments in
Arab countries was not subject to careful pre-planning; it took place
arbitrarily without the universities addressing the serious conse-
quences or even motivation, for example, the lack of trained labor and
the needs of each country.17 However, the increase in the number of

these departments, and consequently the number of graduates, has
meant that not all of them are guaranteed a suitable job in the com-
munications industry. In fact, students are more inclined to major in
subjects other than press journalism partly because they want to be
guaranteed suitable jobs in the public service sector and partly because
of their fear of getting into conflict with the governmental authorities
that control the press, albeit indirectly.18
In Oman, journalism as an academic discipline in the Department
of Mass Communication emerged in 1987–88, and although almost
280 students have graduated since then, few of them work in media
organizations. The university was supported by an advanced broad-
casting laboratory for training purposes, not to mention that the
Department of Mass Communication has provided training to the
local media.19 Other Gulf countries are also moving towards expand-
ing their educational services, including media courses. For instance,
the wife of the Emir of Qatar, Sheikha Mouza, instigated the Education
City in the capital Doha, where prominent American universities are
represented, and there are plans to “select” other Western universities
to be represented in the City.20 A Qatari student at one of the Western
campuses in the Education City endorsed the “hybrid” culture that
results from the amalgamation of Western knowledge and Arab/
Qatari culture, saying, “Although we study in . . . an American atmos-
phere, we adapted a special culture . . . a new culture in the middle
between these [American and Qatari cultures].”21 Likewise, Dubai
launched Dubai Knowledge Village “to complement . . . Dubai
Internet City and Dubai Media City.”22
Yet, a large number of the employees in the communication indus-
tries in the region are not necessarily graduates of these departments,
and need only fulfill certain requirements such as mastering the
written variety of Arabic as well as foreign languages.23 This empha-
sizes the importance of “personal contacts” in accessing the field of
media and journalism, and once inside the field, new journalists learn
the “craft” of journalism through the daily routines.24 This situation,
however, necessitates the existence of on-the-job training for novice
journalists. In fact, the lack of adequate training is seen by some offi-
cials and media specialists as one of the real reasons behind what some
call the “deterioration of the Arab press.” They also relate the problem
to the absence of role models, since the older generation of veteran
journalists are claimed to be uninterested in passing on their experi-
ence to the younger generation.25
Even journalists who graduated from journalism schools express a

wish to undertake tailored, on-the-job training. For instance, a survey
among a sample of Algerian journalists showed that a significant
percentage of them (around 48 percent) wanted to have additional
training or a refresher course.26 Even among those who graduated
from the journalism school in Algeria, who were asked if they were
well-prepared by the school to practice journalism, approximately 80
percent were not satisfied with the education they had received.
Overall, Algerian journalists expressed a belief in combining academic
education with non-academic experience as an important precondition
for a career in journalism.27
Also, in Saudi Arabia, hands-on practice and non-academic experi-
ence were looked upon as very important assets. Some Saudi journal-
ists wanted a clearer link between the academic curricula and the daily
practice of journalism.28 Unlike Algerian journalists, and indeed jour-
nalists from other poor Arab States, Saudi journalists had the privilege
of traveling abroad more than once, and overall they were satisfied
with their work conditions. Yet, the expansion of the media scene and
the introduction of new TV and satellite stations have also contributed
positively to the educational level of journalist, as illustrated in the new
“academies” launched by media institutions (see Chapter 2).
Difficulties in research and staffing

The difficulties faced regarding professional communication training
in the Arab region29 extended to the field of communication research.
A combination of various factors, such as a lack of funding, the
reluctance of publishers to publish that type of research, and the lack
of adequate equipment and material to carry out the research, con-
tributed to the decline of research.
Several Arab scholars have criticized the existing research, particu-
larly among audiences. Awatef Abdel Rahman,30 for instance, pointed
out that most of the existing institutions have been part of the govern-
mental administration and hence sought to apply only the govern-
ment’s policy. For Mohamed Kirat,31 moreover, the lack of audience
analysis in Algeria makes it difficult for Algerian journalists to adapt
to the needs of their readership, whose only feedback is expressed in
letters to the editor.
In addition, there are specific obstacles for academic researchers in
certain Arab States. Commenting on his experience in conducting a
survey among print journalists in Algeria, Kirat said the majority of
administrators, planners and officials did not see the point of carrying
out the survey in the first place, with several of them expressing a
cynical attitude towards the outcome of the research: “You think you
are going to change the world with your findings that we already
know? You don’t have to go through all of this; we know our prob-
lems and weaknesses.”32
Kirat wrote that it was difficult to obtain a permit or authorization
for research from the Ministry of Information in Algeria,33 which
forced him to rely on personal contacts to administer parts of the
research. Some journalists were even hostile to the researcher and
refused to answer the questionnaire, or refused to return it on the
grounds that they did not like the questions, thereby reducing the large
sample of 1,200 respondents to a mere 75.34
However, the difficulties facing researchers seem to depend on the
country covered and the status of both journalists and researchers
there. For instance, in his survey among Saudi journalists, Tash35
reported on the ease of conducting personal interviews with all edito-
rial staff in the seven Saudi dailies. He was then able to talk personally
with more than eighty journalists representing all seven newspapers in
Saudi Arabia.
The difficulties in carrying out this kind of research seem now to
have diminished, however, thanks to the increasing number of media
and journalism departments as well as the number of media outlets
who now commission such studies. Also, the increasing number of
academics who complete their graduate studies abroad has contributed
to the expansion of journalism departments. For instance, Hadidi36
showed in her survey among media academics in Egyptian universities
that the percentage of young academics (fellow researchers) studying
abroad has increased, particularly among those in radio broadcasting
departments. The USA was by far the most popular study destination
for those academics (65 percent), while France, which ranked as
number two on the list of countries of study, was chosen by 14 percent.
Arab methodologies
In his survey of the weaknesses and strengths of Arab social science,
Ibrahim37 mentioned the “lag of methodologies” as one apparent
weakness. He comments, “Much of the current Arab social research
still follows methodological tools and techniques which lag a few
decades behind their counterpart in advanced countries. Not only is
it more descriptive than inductive, but also more qualitative than
quantitative”38 (my emphasis). This evaluation, however, does not

hold compared to the number of Arab media analyses/studies that I
have reviewed and that are based on quantitative rather than qualita-
tive methods. This may be because part of the media research in Arab
academia is conducted in the faculties of humanities, and although
social scientists are now part of the teaching cadre in media depart-
ments in Arab universities, Ibrahim’s account does not include the
humanities research.
Recently, an Arab media scholar, Atef al-Abd, collected the major
academic studies on audience surveys and presented an analysis of over
one hundred of these studies carried out between 1985 and 1986.39 He
pointed out to the increasing number of research papers carried out
not only by communications departments in the Arab faculties, but
also by other departments, for example, political science, humanities,
education, and so on.
Al-Abd40 argues that the main aim of the research was to assist the
communication process and facilitate development plans. To achieve
this, researchers applied research to evaluate programs and measure
their effectiveness in order to evaluate the success or failure of the com-
munication plan. The survey showed the prevalence of the quantita-
tive method of research, particularly in field study and content
analysis.41 The majority of this research, part of which included MA
and PhD dissertations, was done for “practical” reasons, for example,
to measure the success of certain programs,42 the degree of the depend-
ence on foreign sources of news, or the role of the radio and TV in edu-
cating peasants. Another example is the role of news agencies,
particularly the world’s largest news agencies,43 which has been seen as
the most important and consistent factor in the analysis of news cov-
erage.44 News provided by international news agencies about the Arab
region is estimated to include factors of “foreign propaganda” and not
just sheer news. Although some scholars look distrustfully at the role
of international news agencies as the major source of news,45 others
interpret the increasing dependence on these sources as an indicator of
openness in the dependent country.46
The prevalence of the quantitative method may be due to two
factors. First, it may be due to Arab academic dependence on foreign
curricula, particularly those developed in the USA, where such analy-
sis techniques may still prevail. For instance, the American journal
Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly reports on research
that mostly uses content analysis as a main research method, beside
other “meta studies” that analyze how the content analysis method has
been applied in previous research. Second, Arab scholars may adhere

to the positivist philosophy of science in regarding knowledge as that
which can be observed and analyzed value-free by the researcher. Such
analyses use sophisticated validity methods (statistical tools) to
emphasize objectivity, which again seems to be a decisive element in
research design and reporting in Arabic academia.
In his extensive study on the Arab mind and epistemological
thoughts, al-Jabri47 points to the traditions of Arab philosophers such
as Ibn Khaldun to place great emphasis on causality and scientific
methods in pursuing the “truth.”48 Thus, Ibn Khaldun’s idea of ele-
vating scientific method from everyday perception shares some
resemblance with Comte’s ideas, which laid the foundation for the
positivistic traditions.49 Here, everyday perception is subject to misin-
terpretation, while reliable theory has to be based on observable facts.
Moreover, al-Jabri50 also notes that there is a lack of epistemological
stability in Arabic thought, given that Arabic thought was analyzed
not according to particular epistemological paradigms but according
to ideological choices. I come back to al-Jabri’s views on a “shared”
Arab epistemology later in this chapter, and I will also discuss the
American influence; but before that, I present in the following section
the contours of the positivistic paradigm as it developed in Western
media scholarship.
The positivistic paradigm

The scientific tradition of positivism defines knowledge as that which
can be explained through direct observation and experimentation. This
view, however, reduces knowledge to only that which can be observed
or seen, not to mention that it isolates the objects of analysis in the
course of observation. Indeed, the accumulation of “facts” about the
“observable” event is a practice preached by positivists in the begin-
ning of the twentieth century. Positivism seeks to obtain “objective”
knowledge by adhering to the facts about reality and by conducting
empirical studies to verify observations.51 However, as Fay52 argues, if
this were true, then the telephone book would be the most scientific
publication in the world, because it includes only facts about reality.
Positivism is closely identified with empiricism, or the belief in the
pre-existence of facts available for the researcher prior to formulating
his/her theories.
Thus, positivism cares little about the “inner lives” of people/
agents, or their subjectivity.53 The methods associated with this theory
are usually quantitative, based on a large pool of data, aimed at “gen-

erating hypotheses, measuring social facts and discovering the causes
of events so that laws are generated.”54 Equating collecting “facts”
with being objective is thus a belief in the exclusion of subjectivity and
subjective experiences in order to reach the “objective truth.”55 The
possible definition of objectivity here is that it is “the cognitive state of
lacking a priori categories and conceptions, desires, emotions, value-
judgments, and the like which necessarily mislead and thereby prevent
attaining objective truth.”56
Reporting on an accident, for instance, not only entails “factual”
details about this event but also involves a selective interpretation of
what “has really happened,” or, as Fay puts it:
Imagine yourself being asked to describe an automobile accident you

just witnessed by confining yourself just to the facts about it. The result
would undoubtedly be an incoherent jumble of descriptive statements.
If your only guide is to confine yourself just to the facts you have no way
of distinguishing significant facts from insignificant ones. Consequently
you would have no way of sorting facts into appropriate levels.57
This empiricism related to positivistic research has been regarded

as “naïve objectivism” that ignores the complex relation between
concepts and reality.58 Even the facts collected in such analyses
are “seldom objective or neutral in any definite sense. To be at all
understandable they always comprise earlier, more or less hidden,
everyday and/or scientific conceptualizations. That is, facts are
theory-dependent and theory-laden.”59 Social researchers have con-
tinued to operate according to the positivistic principles, albeit in an
unacknowledged manner, in their view of science as the discovery of
universal laws or in their attempts to anchor research in the same
methodologies.60
Constructivism has been applied as one analytical approach in
social scientific research, and in the study of journalism, and it indeed
“constitutes an overall horizon or approach rather than a concrete
research strategy.”61 The reason for this is the emergence of new real-
ities, for example, the new world order at the political level, or the new
medical technologies that deemed ethically challenging, and thus it is
not sufficient to account for these new developments using old cat-
egorization conventions. Now, researchers are challenged to account
for the change of categories and concepts themselves, as well as how
they have been historically constructed.62 Knowledge is no longer
monopolized by the academic field, and indeed knowledge, as a factor,

is becoming incorporated in other fields (such as management), where
the accumulation of knowledge and the way of managing it has
recently been the center of much attention. Every scientific endeavor
entails a question about ontology (asking “what” a concept means,
presuming its existence) versus epistemology (the cognition of that
concept, or asking “how” this concept is perceived and how its
meaning is constrained).63 This kind of constructivism is deeply rooted
in various contemporary theories, for example, post-structuralism,
feminist studies and critical psychology. It seeks to question the taken-
for-granted assumption about reality or the “natural” and the pre-
given. Constructivism as a research framework has been applied in
so-called “interpretive” research based on the qualitative method of
analysis rather than quantitative methods, thereby favoring the exam-
ination of concepts and the way they are constructed in people’s
minds.
But if constructivism has penetrated Western journalism research
while the number of Arab academics in Western universities has been
on the increase, why has not constructivism found a base in the Arab
research tradition? One plausible explanation, as I argue in the fol-
lowing section, is related to the validity usually associated with posi-
tivistic methodologies.
Arab critique
Abdel Rahman64 commented on the tendency of Arab researchers to
“stuff” their research papers with figures and statistics rather than
seeking to reveal a deeper analysis of issues specific to Arab audiences
and media professionals. For her, the problem with media scholarship
in the Arab universities is due to three factors:
1. The evaluation of research is done according to foreign, mostly

American, standards;
2. The fact that journalism schools depend heavily on foreign, particu-
larly English-language, educational material;
3. The tendency among Arab researchers to apply Western theories and
methods rather than to illuminate the specific Arab context.
For Abdel Rahman, Arab researchers, at least in Egypt, want to

raise their research to the level of applied and natural sciences.65
Moreover, another point, which Ibrahim66 raised and which I find
relevant to my remarks on Arab research tools, is what he called

“irrelevant conceptualization.” By this he means that Arab social sci-
entists have slavishly followed Western-developed theories, particu-
larly Marxism and Functionalism, without attempting to develop
variant theories more suitable for the Arab context. Those researchers
are usually more concerned with the contribution that media institu-
tions make to Arab society and its needs, and are less concerned about
historical analyses, not to mention that their research tends to see the
audience as passive recipients of media messages.
There is also the fact that most researchers have themselves been
educated in the West, particularly the USA. Ibrahim,67 for instance,
said that the 1950s and 1960s, which witnessed the independence of
several Arab States, was a period of exporting Arab PhD students to
the USA. Moreover, Sabagh and Ghazalla showed that, although many
Arab social scientists acknowledged the shortcomings of Western the-
ories, “they continued to depend on them.”68 That was the period that
followed the inception of mass communication research in the USA.
The American research was then behaviorist in nature, concerned
mainly with the effect “powerful” media have on audiences and public
opinion. According to that view, media were “deterministic stimuli; a
perception that is simultaneously accompanied by a hoary pessimistic
image of man as primarily an automatic responder to such stimuli.”69
Here, audiences are seen as Homo Mechanicus, or “essentially weak,
and the media as essentially all-powerful.”70 Such views were appar-
ently taken at face value among Arab scholars, who, in their capacity
as educators, passed them on to the new generation of researchers.
But why has this positivist paradigm found such a solid base in
Arab research? Could there be a particularly Arab epistemology that
endorses this paradigm? In other words, can we identify a particular
epistemology that is unique to Arab media and journalism studies? If
so, how would this influence the definition of journalism and its role
in society, and specifically its position vis-à-vis political power on the
one hand and the laity on the other?
To provide a thorough answer to these questions is beyond the
scope of this chapter. But what I can briefly touch upon are attempts
by two Arab scholars, namely Muhammad Abed al-Jabri and
Muhammad Ayish, to define such an epistemology, indicating rather
their shortcomings and failure to account for the differences and ten-
sions that may be present in the academic field, preferring instead to
base their analysis on the assumption of similarity among Arabs in
terms of traditions and practices. In so doing, their accounts seem to
be political in nature, aimed at endorsing rather than challenging the

presence of one pan-Arab ideology.
Al-Jabri’s pan-Arab project

For al-Jabri, the imperative question that merits analysis is this: why
has Arab thought stagnated since the Nahda (Renaissance of the nine-
teenth century), with the result that Arabs feel inferior to their Western
counterparts? He set off to trace the genealogy of the main themes in
Arab thought, focusing in particular on “the Age of Recording”
(eighth century), and he takes it as a point of reference, rather than
taking the pre-Islamic era or even the era of Mohammed. In so doing,
he aims at unraveling the “epistemological” system that characterizes
Arab thought rather than providing a critique of Arab ideologies. In
particular, al-Jabri71 points to three epistemological systems in Arab
thought:
1. Bayan, or system of indication;

2. Erfan, or system of illumination;
3. Burhan, or system of inferential evidence.
Bayan dominates linguistics and theology; it is based on rules used

to interpret discourse, thus its main aim is to analyze the relationship
between an utterance and its meaning. Knowledge here was “explica-
tory” and bayan scientists would not pursue an analysis of the mech-
anism or causality but rather feel content with what al-Jabri terms
contingency. Bayan is very much associated with the rise of the Arabic
language, which was spoken by the nomadic people and was regarded
as the language of the Koran. In brief, bayan as an epistemological
approach is concerned with the relation between discourse and
meaning, and knowledge production here is merely based on explain-
ing and digesting that meaning according to a priori rules of interpre-
tations. This, says al-Jabri, reduces the independency of reason as a
superior faculty.72
Erfan is based on gnosticism and hermeticism, or on the manifest
(thahir) knowledge of the latent (batin). There are no rules guiding it,
as in bayan, but it is knowledge based on similarity, which why al-Jabri
could not see the value of it to the development of rational thought.
The researcher here would be concerned with the use of personal
knowledge to reach the truth, which reduces the truth to an individual
interpretation, differing from one person to another, rather than being
a universal truth. Al-Jabri gives the example of interpreting Koranic

verses among, for example, Shiites, and demonstrates how each inter-
pretation “is considered by its owner as the truth.”73 Thus, there is no
consistent causality between the object of study and the interpretation.
Finally, burhan is based on Western rationalism, which depends on
causality and deduction rather than on intuition and individual
interpretation. Burhan is based on interferential logic; hence, al-Jabri
saw in it a suitable epistemological basis for the sciences. Burhan
depends on man’s cognitive qualities to produce knowledge, although,
according to al-Jabri, burhan was not necessarily adopted in the
Arabic-Islamic civilization to serve the production of knowledge
for knowledge’s sake, but to serve certain religious and ideological
interests.74
For al-Jabri, the three epistemological systems can overlap,
although each system can dominate the works of certain thinkers, such
as Ibn Rushd or Averroes, who adopted the system of demonstration,
burhan.
Al-Jabri’s classification here follows, to a large extent, Foucault’s
notion of “episteme,” and in fact erfan and burhan may correspond to
Foucault’s epistemes of the Renaissance on the one hand, and the clas-
sical and modern age on the other: where the former sees the world as
a set of rules to be interpreted according to the “divine code,” the latter
marks the rise of science, which is based on observation. This line of
thought developed even further in the modern age, where knowledge
was not to be derived from nature or God, but from “man.”75
Clearly, this rather brief overview of al-Jabri’s epistemology does
not do justice to the richness of his works. However, going into detail
about Arab epistemology in general terms is beyond the scope of this
chapter, So for my purpose here, I am merely interested in using
al-Jabri’s thinking to justify the trends in Arab media research.
Applying his typology to Arab media research, one can argue that
contemporary media research is close to the bayan episteme in as
much as it is concerned with explication of the representation of a phe-
nomenon rather than with discovering the underlying mechanisms
that (re)produce it. For instance, several Arab studies are more
concerned with the issue of representation of particularly the Arab
image in Western discourse, for example, studies by Musallam and
al-Daqdouqi,76 to mention but two.
Despite its richness, al-Jabri’s ambitious project cannot be taken at
face value, as is pointed out by a number of his critics, who challenge
the very foundations of al-Jabri’s epistemes. The main opposition view
is that, although al-Jabri deliberately avoids the analysis of Arab ide-

ologies, he ends up in a purely ideological quest searching for the
means to “unify” Arabs. His pan-nationalist thinking seems to inter-
fere with his more sophisticated project of tracing the genealogy of
Arab epistemology, as the main aim of his works is to find a solution
for a renewed pan-Arabism rather than to open up new paths of criti-
cal theories. Also, he deliberately links all Arab cultures together as
one unified object of study, thereby seeing each one of them as part of
the totality rather than as an object of study in and of itself.
His goal, then, was “to make a link between Arab rationalism and
the possibility of a scientific/capitalist revolution in the Arab world.”77
Al-Jabri’s vision is not, as several early twentieth-century Arab
thinkers proposed, to secure progress and modernization through
hybridizing the native culture with European ideals; rather, his vision
is to maintain both cultures as distinctively separate, because, in his
view, the adoption of such ready-made views constitutes an impedi-
ment rather than an aid to forming the unique “Arab reason.” In sum,
what al-Jabri offers, briefly, is not a choice between going back to trad-
itional elements of thought or adopting foreign elements; rather, he
calls for a change of epistemological methodology. According to Abu
Rabi’, al-Jabri’s vision is to emancipate “contemporary Arab Reason
and, on the whole, contemporary Arab thought and culture from the
shackles of both the Western and Islamic traditions.”78 Abu Rabi’ adds
another crucial point, namely the fact that al-Jabri was rather selective
in his genealogy and disregards, for example, the role of Shiite intelli-
gentsia as well as of Sufi sheikhs.79
Leaving aside al-Jabri’s attempt to pin down a unified Arab episte-
mology, I will now sketch another attempt to fulfill the same task,
namely that outlined in an article by Muhammad Ayish.80
An Islamic epistemology
To begin with, Ayish’s approach was rather less sophisticated than
al-Jabri’s. Ayish divided the works published in Arabic into six cate-
gories according to their themes: propaganda, development comm-
unication, historical accounts, news flow, professional work, and
theoretical work.81 The latter, he regrets, “failed to generate theoreti-
cal frameworks powerful enough to account for the varying realities of
modern Arab communications.”82 I agree with him that a large part of
Arab studies can be categorized as descriptive and administrative
research rather than a solid theoretical contribution to the field of
media studies, but we part company with regards to this theorization

of a shared Arab/Islamic epistemology, as I find such an account
theoretically and methodologically weak.
Ayish’s main purpose is to provide “a normative framework for
understanding communication, in its most general sense, in the Arab-
Islamic traditions.”83 Ayish’s theory, in a nutshell, sees the epistemo-
logical roots of Arab communication research lying in two important,
albeit contradictory, epochs in the Arab region: 1) the pre-Islamic era,
in which “tribal law” prevailed, and 2) the Islamic era, with its values
and attitudes. The marrying of the two contradictory “life worlds” is
manifested in a set of binary opposites or themes, according to Ayish.84
These are individualism versus conformity, transcendentalism versus
existentialism, rationality versus intuition and egalitarianism versus
hierarchy. The result is a communication system that serves a dual
purpose: “integrating the individual into the community and/or liber-
ating him from the shackles of conformity to a collective system.”85
This perspective, however, lacks a solid methodological and histor-
ical basis. Unlike al-Jabri, who endeavored to offer a genealogy of
“Arab Reason” in several volumes, moving through different histor-
ical periods and authors, Ayish’s perspective is based on sweeping and
unqualified generalizations. For instance, in dealing with the pre-
Islamic era, Ayish refers to the tribal code that prevailed among Arab
societies at that time, and in so doing, only re-“affirms” Arab unity
without even acknowledging the differences among Middle Eastern
societies in the pre-Islam era. The tribal code may indeed have pre-
vailed in Arabia, but it did not necessarily do so in Egypt or Lebanon,
where the nucleus of modern communication was found in the late
eighteenth century.86 This was why some Egyptian intellectuals, such
as Taha Hussein, sought to establish “a transhistorical link between
modern European Reason and ancient Egyptian Reason,”87 rather
than with Arabian/Islamic or pre-Islamic reason.
Second, the dual role of communication as formulated by Ayish
does not seem at all contradictory, for it is an integral part of the media
as a system of generating meaning; for example, European media seem
to bind Europeans into one imagined community while asserting the
individuality of each state. In fact, one main characteristic of the medi-
ated meanings provided by the media is, as Silverstone puts it, that they
“move across space, and across spaces. They move from the public to
the private, from the institutional to the individual, from the globaliz-
ing to the local and personal, and back gain. They are fixed . . . in texts,
and fluid in conversations.”88
Furthermore, Ayish notes that the French-oriented communication

research in North African countries (particularly in Morocco, Algeria
and Tunisia) has been more critical, linking communication with
culture and politics.89 Yet, he does not provide a single example of such
research, for example, which universities fostered this type of research,
in what language it was published (Arabic or French or both), its use
of methodologies, how far it reached into other Arab media institu-
tions, and so on.
Finally, Ayish sees the pre-Islamic and Islamic culture as a total-
ity, when in fact it is immersed in the particularity of different pre-
existing cultures. What is more, this view does not do justice to the
fact that most of the founding fathers of the press came from
Christian backgrounds, particularly from Syria and Lebanon.90 Can
we then claim that the Islamic or pre-Islamic heritage had been com-
pletely integrated into those pioneers’ values? Would not such a claim
wipe away the articulation of the differences among diverse social
groups?
As I said before, the inquiry into the epistemological root of Arab
epistemology, and into whether we can indeed speak of shared roots,
deserves a book-length account. The brief overview presented here,
however, is meant to open the door for future debates on this issue.
The Arab epistemological root is obviously an issue that is still under
scrutiny and gives rise to heated debates among Arab scholars. For our
purposes here, it is important to confine the discussion to the episte-
mology adopted in “media and communication” research and, as
pointed out above, this line of research seems to lean on a positivistic
rather than, for example, a constructivist paradigm.
The above explanations do not seem useful in explaining the
amount of administrative research in Arab scholarship. I am therefore
inclined to agree with Abdel Rahman91 that one main reason for this is
the American influence. Yet, I am also tempted to suggest another
explanation, which lies in the role of the media researcher vis-à-vis the
political field of power. For instance, Arab media researchers may need
to justify their research to policy-makers, which drives them to “stuff”
their research with statistics, thereby stabilizing the results to conform
to the predictability needed for policy planning. Central here is the
role of the intellectual and whether it should be “to speak the truth to
power,” as formulated by Edward Said.92 In other words, should the
researchers support certain nationalistic and ideological plans or work
autonomously for the sole purpose of producing knowledge and
contesting produced knowledge?
Role of academia
Intellectuals can be defined as those who produce knowledge and
possess sufficient cultural capital to grant them social recognition.93
Moreover, intellectuals are active agents operating according to a set of
rules unique to their field. Bourdieu’s formulation of field theory,
again, allows the interpretation of the field as a dynamic space, where
agents engage in a struggle over resources, and may even bring together
those with similar interests. Here, “Struggles are not just about mater-
ial gain but also symbolic and this capital is invested in, for example,
citation, invitations to speak and book reviews.”94
For Bourdieu, agents are operating in an overall field of power, with
each agent struggling to attain and maintain their power/position.
Agents do not calculate their actions, as they are guided by their social
habitus, which generates their practice and representations. This
habitus is transposable, which allows the agents to act across different
fields95 (see Chapter 1). Some Arab academics, for instance, pursued
leading government positions, such as in Jordan, where the term
“ustadh mustawzir” (or “professor seeking to become a minister”) is
used to designate a professor who actively arranges symposia and
public lectures as well as constantly appearing in the local media.96
Moreover, the cultural capital of the Arab researcher is not necessary
related to wealth or social class, but rather to the amount of knowledge
possessed by the researcher, and hence their power. For instance, the
former Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Cairo University, Abdel-Aziz
Hammoudah, used to pride himself of coming from a humble,
“peasant” background and, as his colleagues remarked, he “worked his
way up the social and academic ladder with unyielding stamina and
great determination.”97 Living in an “American-styled villa” in a rich
Cairo suburb, Hammoudah was not regarded “as an aficionado of
American culture”; he did not lose sight of his mission, which was “to
serve Arab and not foreign culture.” In fact, academics like
Hammoudah served as cultural counselors in Arab embassies in
Western countries, and Hammoudah himself was Egypt’s cultural
attaché to the USA at the beginning of the 1990s.98
In developing nations, intellectuals gain an additional task, namely
one in which “the construction of a broader, academically trained elite
came to be seen as proof of the maturity and the capacity for self-
reliance of the independent state.”99 Intellectuals here are living proof
of the successful hybridity between “developed” and “developing,”
East and West, as usually they obtained their higher education degrees
from abroad, thus enjoying the seeds of Western-style training100 sown

in their native origins.
What characterizes this type of researcher is their political rather
than epistemological derivation; for instance, studies on the news flow
seem to be a criticism of “Western” power and a call to increase the
Arab presence on the global media scene rather than being a scientific
contribution to theories on “culture flow.” This in turn consolidates a
certain image of the Arab media researcher as a link between laypeople
(the less knowledgeable) and political power; in other words, it points
to a certain role of the “intellectual” in those Arab societies where
the intellectual’s role is to gain knowledge of the West and use this
knowledge to “reveal” Western hegemony on the global media scene.
Another part of this role is to survey and document a trend for the sake
of offering recommendations to the policy-makers and/or media pro-
fessionals.
There are examples of “ideologically” grounded Arab research;
Hadidi,101 for instance, had a set of questions that she sent to a number
of Egyptian academics in media departments. Among the questions
was the following statement to which fellow academics were asked to
respond: “Media is a Western science and there is no use in studying it
but in the West or by following Western methods/curricula in Western
languages.” This statement, in my view, forces the respondents to
answer in the direction desired by the researcher. More than 64 percent
disagreed with this statement, but this, in my opinion, is because it is
formulated to be negated and not to inspire new insights or explain real
tendencies among academics. Rather, the statement appealed to the
respondents’ nationalistic pride, which might explain the large per-
centage of those disagreeing with the statement, not to mention the
“do not know” percentage. The researcher concluded that there was
indeed a need to “Arabize” the curricula and expand the Arabic
research base.
Such an ideologically-grounded study shows that the main duty of
a researcher is to contribute to their country’s overall development
policy rather than to interrogate knowledge, and the duty of a
typical Arab university is to serve the national and regional interest.
In this respect, the social sciences, “generally regarded as luxuries,”
seek public and academic legitimacy by competing with natural
science in finding utilitarian solutions to social and technological
backwardness.102
When the study of social sciences took root in the 1950s and 60’s,
the period of independence of several Arab States, social theory was
said to transform Arab societies and to help them keep up with the
developed world, making it the dream of sociologists “to become the
ideologist or adviser of the new ruling elite.”103 Some disciplines, such
as anthropology, were even rejected if they were not seen to offer much
to Arab unity. Thus, while sociology claims to be concerned with Arab
society, anthropology, usually associated with the study of primitive
societies, “cannot become Arab because Arab society is not primi-
tive.”104 Likewise, the study of folk history may not be taken seriously
as it adds little to Arab unity, and Shami mentioned one example of a
monograph on urban community that was rejected for publication
because it added little to the concepts of “Arab identity and unity.”105
Moreover, the inclination to produce administrative media studies
could also be the result of funding policies that may prevent some Arab
media scholars from applying for more “interpretive” studies, choos-
ing instead to resort to administrative research as a means to secure
funding. Finally, researchers also compete for funding from Western
developmental funds, which in turn set the standards for research
methodologies. Abdel Rahman accuses some of those researchers of
adopting different methodologies just to gain access to these funds,106
thereby using their research as a product to help them to accumulate
material wealth rather than to produce knowledge.
Seen against this backdrop, it can be argued that the administrative
research was used to move academia closer to the political field of
power and funding while legitimating its position vis-à-vis other well-
established disciplines such as the natural sciences. I need to stress
again, however, that the debate around Arab epistemology is still
ongoing and the above discussion is only meant to spark this debate
further. But if there are shortcomings in Arab scholarship, let us now
turn to Western scholarship on Arab media to analyze its contribution
to this field.
Western scholarship: a role model?

Middle Eastern scholarship in Western universities used to be in pro-
portion with the “military” and strategic position of the region in rela-
tion to certain Western countries. In an article published in 1977,
George Haddad, for one, acknowledged that the upsurge in publica-
tions on the military history of the Middle East since the 1930s, both
in the USA and the UK, was due to the “strategic importance of the
Middle East.”107 Some of the academic research carried out then was
even funded by intelligence bodies, for example, Harvard’s Center for
Middle Eastern Studies, which was established in the 1950s “to provide
policy makers with better information on the Middle East.”108
Likewise, Beinin referred to the Washington Institute for Near East
Policy, established in 1985, as one institute that had exerted a great
influence on US policy in the middle East, with the WINEP associates
appearing as media pundits and serving as policy advisers to the
administration. Thus, the ultimate goal for researchers then was to
serve as an adviser to both the media and the policy-makers.
Associates, however, sought the academic affiliation, as it gave a kind
of legitimacy to their position.109
The period following the 9/11 attacks on the USA has witnessed a
renewed upsurge of publications about the Middle East, and particu-
larly about Arab media. Thus, the number of books about Arab media
produced during the past few years alone has probably surpassed the
number of books produced in the past two decades altogether. Yet, I
believe most of the recent works have followed the conventional path
of appealing to policy-makers rather than to academia. As such,
knowledge about Arab media is still insufficient: for instance, the
issues raised and the questions posed in this volume have, for whatever
reasons, never been posed before in Western scholarship.
In this section, however, I argue that the amount of scholarship
has not particularly added much to our knowledge about (or pre-
conception of) Arab media. What is more, Western scholarship
focusing on Arab media may share the behaviorist attitude expressed
in Arab research, as discussed above. It may also be isolating itself,
either deliberately or involuntarily, from mainstream Western media
scholarship, which has undergone a revolution during the past three
decades.
Indeed, there is an abundance of studies primarily addressing
Western policy-makers rather than peer colleagues, in as much as these
studies are more concerned with a certain political agenda rather than
with contributing to the field of media studies, for example, by offer-
ing new insights on the applicability of Western media theories to the
Arab context. I would rather not single out specific titles, but a simple
look at the websites of international bookstores should reveal the huge
number of studies whose concerns range from propaganda and news
flow, to monitoring the situation of Arab media in the same way as
reports by specialized NGOs. A trendy line of research now is public
diplomacy, with advice to policy-makers (particularly the American
administration) on how to win the trust of the Arab laity. Others focus
on the authoritarian regimes, adopting an almost “hands-off, cuffs-on”
attitude to direct policy-makers to the “free,” harmless media that

should be left alone versus those outlets that precariously rally the
masses as part of an overall tactless political agenda. In sum, the numer-
ous projects examining pan-Arab media, whether broadcast or print,
tend to resemble the equally numerous monitoring projects supported
by governments and NGOs rather than seeing the Arab audience, and
indeed journalists, as active agents. They also focus on only a handful
of media outlets, ignoring the others110 (see also Chapters 3 and 4).
In my view, one significant shortcoming of recent Western scholar-
ship is that it deliberately overlooks the vast number of publications
and theses by Arab scholars. As part of a sound research agenda,
Western scholars must review and analyze Arab scholarship, at least to
understand the research trends there. Also, works in Arabic, particu-
larly with the huge expansion of private educational institutions and
private academies specializing in journalism and mass communication,
may provide Western scholars with a wealth of findings rather than
them having to “reinvent the wheel” every time they embark on a
research project about Arab media. This is an ethical issue for any
researcher, namely to present the “Other” view as well, particularly if
they master the Other’s language; had I, for instance, chosen to spe-
cialize in American Studies, it would have been expected of me that
I survey existing works by American scholars rather than confining
my exercise to works published in a certain language or in a certain
country.
Elsewhere,111 I have criticized one of these scholars, namely
William Rugh, for his negligence of the available body of research
written by Arab scholars in Arabic. Rugh ignores the vast number of
works done by Arab scholars and the theses written at Arab media fac-
ulties, when he states in his book that his primary data was collected
from informal conversations with consumers rather than by the sys-
tematic analysis of media content, for such “a study has not yet been
done, and would be an enormous undertaking.”112 I pointed then to
the vast number of studies by Arab scholars on Arab media content,
with which Rugh should have been acquainted.
Other scholars have followed Rugh’s footsteps and deliberately dis-
regarded Arab scholarship. For instance, in a footnote to her article on
the development of Arab journalism, Naomi Sakr maintains that she
depended mainly on Western (English-language) sources because, and
she refers to Ayish113 (discussed above), “seminal theoretical work on
the subject in Arabic is lacking.”114 Therefore, she had to depend on
literature coming “mainly from outside the Arab region.” This is
rather a simplistic statement for several reasons. First, Ayish dedicated

part of his article to a review of some recent Arabic scholarly works,
so there were at least some works that were worth reviewing, and on
which Sakr could have drawn. Second, Ayish’s article was not without
faults, as discussed above, which should have been clear to Sakr. Third,
as a media scholar, Sakr carries a responsibility to interrogate the aca-
demic knowledge rather than taking any work at face value. Thus, she
could have reviewed relevant works in Arabic to confirm or refute
Ayish’s views. Last, but not least, Sakr has not really defined the crite-
ria needed for a scholarly work to be classified as “seminal,” and hence
worth citing.
I could also here mention Marc Lynch, whose work is discussed in
more detail in Chapter 3, and who, to write his book, despite a rich
database of media content, depended on merely two books in Arabic
and a vast bibliography of works in English. Assuming that Western
scholars possess the necessary language skills and sufficient knowledge
about the region’s culture, one may wonder how they have never
become acquainted with Arab media scholarship, or whether they
have deliberately chosen to disregard it.
To be fair, two groups of Arab scholars may be cited in Western
scholarship: 1) those who publish in English, and 2) native Arabs who
received their education and/or who reside in the West – in that order.
Even those diasporic researchers seem to adopt the same strategy, pre-
ferring to cite “authoritative” Western voices than to challenge the
status quo.
Moreover, for the Lebanese sociologist Salim Nasr, Arab scholars
have “limited expertise . . . about countries in the Middle East other
than their own.”115 Yet, Western scholars who specialize in Arab media
are sometimes labeled as “region experts,” even if their expertise covers
only one or two countries. Usually, the Arab countries covered in such
studies are selective, while other states, such as Yemen, Oman, Libya,
Sudan, and Algeria, may be excluded from the equation. Adopting,
once more, Bourdieu’s terms, we can see academia as a field in which
Field activity becomes a shared territory where members are able to use
the space to create meaning through taking action such as publishing a
book, and through describing and labeling action in particular ways by
how they respond to that book. Therefore knowledge production takes
place within the complex networks that are developed within existing
power structures, such as the university, and are themselves a powerful
structure through who is and is not included.116
Following Bourdieu’s notion of knowledge,117 agents compete for

recognition and capital. The academic field, in particular, is assumed to
enjoy relative autonomy, meaning that the agents within this field
compete to produce and interrogate the produced knowledge rather
than to gain political or commercial recognition. But this is not always
the case in Western scholarship, which may compete more for political
recognition (or external capital) than for internal capital among media
scholars. Mainstream media scholarship, on the other hand, tends to
accept the knowledge produced in the “sub-field” concerned with Arab
media, as a kind of area studies, even if the main aim is to deliver a polit-
ically correct message hailing the vulnerable institutions (al-Jazeera)
against the Goliath (USA). Mainstream media scholars therefore avoid
questioning the produced knowledge or interrogating it.
In turn, Western scholars who have specialized in Arab media tend
to borrow ready-made Western theories and apply them verbatim to
the Arab context rather than challenging these theories or offering new
ways to apply them. They then end up in the same trap into which
Arab scholars have fallen, namely exporting theories wholesale to the
Arab context without questioning their applicability to the object of
study.
What they offer instead are rapid solutions to rapidly-posed ques-
tions from policy-makers, complete with policy recommendations,
rather than being concerned with carrying out longitudinal analyses as
individual building blocks in the project of Arab media research.
Scholars then position themselves closer to the political arena than to
academia, driven by short-term achievements, while their position in
academia serves as a means to gain legitimacy and recognition. Clearly,
there is nothing wrong in having a strong link between academia and
political power, at least to feed the latter with qualified views on Arab
media, but the link would prove flawed if it turned the academics into
political advisers generating quick explanations rather than steadily
interrogating the produced knowledge in their field.
The inclination to prioritize the demands of policy-makers over the
knowledge production field is perhaps due to the intersection of the
fields of politics and academia, where the former exerts a great pres-
sure on the latter. For instance, public research councils that control
research funding may indeed regulate the direction of Middle Eastern
studies by confining research grants to projects dealing with post-9/11
key words, namely “terrorism,” “religion (read: Islam),” or “public
diplomacy.” These kinds of projects are given higher precedence over
others that do not directly address these key terms because they are
supposed to fill the “gap” of knowledge felt after the 9/11 attacks,
seeking solutions to the problem of how to harness some Arabs’ incli-
nation to fundamentalism!
Maton118 distinguishes between the use of internal and external
legitimating languages in the academic field: internal to address peer
colleagues in the field, and external to address others outside the
field.119 Although his analysis was confined to the legitimacy of
Cultural Studies, it can be used as a starting point to analyze the posi-
tion of Western versus Arab scholars vis-à-vis the internal field (peer
colleagues) and external field (politics and media). Arab scholars, then,
would be situated in the middle of the continuum between internal and
external means of legitimacy, where their aim is to gain sufficient recog-
nition internally among peer colleagues while gaining legitimacy exter-
nally, for example, serving the development plans of their governments
and justifying the significance of their research to gain funding. On the
other hand, Western scholars specializing in Arab media would priori-
tize the external rather than internal legitimacy, if they confined their
goal to serving as media pundits or political advisers.
Finally, juxtaposing the roles of some Western scholars with those
of Arab media scholars strikes a chord with the relation between Arab
journalists and their Western counterparts, as discussed in Chapter 6.
If Western journalists seem to dominate the production of norms and
professional standards, such as objectivity, so too do Western scholars
who place themselves higher in the hierarchy of the intellectual field
vis-à-vis their Arab counterparts, even though scholars from both
spheres are, in principle, part of the same “interpretive community” of
academia.
Conclusion
This chapter reviewed the inception of journalism and mass commu-
nication as an academic discipline in Arab universities. It showed how
Arab media scholarship has been consolidated in Arab academia by the
amount of scholarship produced by generations of researchers. As I
argue above, a shared characteristic between media educators and elite
Arab journalists is that they both represent the hybrid product com-
bining elements from East and West without losing sight of their
primary mission towards their indigenous culture. The Arab scholar-
ship, however, was not without limitations, as I pointed out in relation
to the Arab scholars’ tendency to value administrative rather than crit-
ical media research.
The last section in this chapter turned its gaze towards Western
scholars on Arab media, only to show the monopoly of Western schol-
ars in setting the standards in the academic field, for example, whom
to cite, the object of analysis, and so on. In so doing, Western scholars
tend to discard Arab scholarship, as if it were non-existent, while cap-
italizing on their new role as media pundits or policy advisers rather
than autonomous knowledge producers.
This is not to deny the richness of Western scholarship, for example,
anthropology, politics, religion, gender, and so on, which has indeed
proven insightful for our understanding of the region. But my critique
is limited only to research on Arab media and its contribution to main-
stream media scholarship. One final comment is also due here: the
above critique addressed Anglo-American scholarship in particular, as
it serves as the source for the widely circulated literature on this field,
not to mention its visibility on the global academic landscape com-
pared to the work of other scholars who publish in languages other
than English.
The above critique was meant to act as a provocation to both Arab
and Western scholars and as a call for scrutinizing the aims and ratio-
nale of the numerous projects on Arab media. The provocation will
only serve its purpose if it results in a joint debate among scholars in
both spheres.
Conclusion
No one doubts the importance of the media in the contemporary world,

but they are only one part of a much more complex set of social institu-
tions that it is the object of sociology to study.
Anthony Giddens1
Rather than offering a coherent thesis, the previous chapters provided

pointers to future scholarship of Arab media. I would like to summar-
ize these pointers in these concluding remarks, but let me first sum-
marize the main themes and arguments of the previous chapters.
First, as I argued in Chapter 1, media as well as education have
served as the main building blocks in the modernization projects in
several Arab States. While education was meant to spread a new sense
of progressive identity, media was supposed to spread a sense of local
as well as pan-Arab belonging. However, those modernization plans
have not reached their goals, simply because they were based on essen-
tialist views that saw indigenous cultural identity as a fixed entity that
would not be altered by mixing with other cultures. More importantly,
those plans discounted the ability of the laity, as well as intellectuals,
to constantly reflect on their actions and continuously work towards
improving their position in the social hierarchy. Media here play a
decisive role in that they serve as a bridge among cultures as well as
social classes.
Second, education has become an integral part of the cultural capital
of news professionals. Indeed, as I argued in Chapter 3, language
politics play a crucial role in the national and pan-Arab public sphere,
in as much as they partly reflect the power struggle among different
media players to attract a larger share of the audience. They also
partly reflect the potential impediment the laity experiences in trying
to access the public sphere. In Chapters 3 and 4, I summed up this
struggle by pointing to the limited access experienced by the laity as a

result of the dangerous mix of an aloof style with distanced topics.
Third, I argue that Arab news media can be presented as a hier-
archical system comprising serious versus lesser genres; local versus
regional outlets. The hierarchal system is enforced by symbolic bar-
riers, defined according to the total “capital” assigned to each media
outlet and/or genre. Mapping out this hierarchy among local and
regional outlets may help reveal a deeper mechanism in the develop-
ment of the Arab media scene rather than merely romanticizing certain
media outlets as liberal or autonomous without accounting for their
position in this hierarchy and how this position has historically devel-
oped and influenced modern journalistic practices.
Fourth, the division or hierarchy among journalists does not
operate merely locally or regionally, but also globally. Thus, while
Arab journalists may be designated a professional identity that binds
them globally to others in the same profession, they are separated by
symbolic boundaries from Western journalists according to the pos-
ition of each party in this global professional hierarchy. One acute con-
sequence of this global hierarchy is that truth and knowledge may be
made contingent on the institutions that produce them and the pos-
ition of each institution in this power hierarchy. Rather than accept-
ing, or again romanticizing, the global field of journalism, we should
look deeper at the tension brought about by the articulation of differ-
ence between Arab and Western (Anglo-American) journalists.
The scholarly endeavor

These themes, which have been explored here but not fully synthe-
sized, ought to be prioritized in Arab and Western media scholarship.
However, as I argued in Chapter 7, parts of the Arab media scholar-
ship are still tied to an administrative rather than a critical research
agenda, while parts of the Western scholarship of Arab media is still
revolving on the policy-makers’ orbit rather than focusing on interro-
gating knowledge. I have also been particularly critical of the tendency
among several Anglo-American scholars to discard Arab media schol-
arship, which is reflected in their sparse reference to Arab works while
capitalizing on their role as media pundits or policy advisers.
Professor Anthony Giddens2 has recently called for sociology to
get back to work and explain the vast social change occurring on many
levels, both locally and globally. I share this view, in that I call for
social theorists and Arab media specialists to “synthesize” rather than
Conclusion 193
holding on to narrow specialisms. This is crucial if we really want to

understand the complexities of the recent developments on the Arab
media and social scenes. The core message of this volume is to point at
rather forgotten and ignored issues, chief among them being language,
power, hierarchy, and the ambivalence towards local versus regional
identities, or between regional/local and global identity. Future
research needs to look not only at the questions posed in this volume
but also to explore a myriad of other new ones: for example, if the
previous chapters focused on journalists as “social agents,” future
research could shed new light on the role of journalists as “moral
agents” and how news producers, and indeed consumers, define the
“moral distance” between them and us in their mediation.
I personally raised some of the issues discussed in this book in
various open seminars and symposia involving Arab and Western
scholars, as well as media professionals. The reactions differed
between Western and Arab audiences. While a few Western scholars
and journalists accused me of propagating nationalism in a world that
ought to be anti-nationalist, several Arab journalists accused me of
diverting attention away from what really matters by exposing private
concerns in public. I also felt that those Arab journalists preferred to
hold the debate at the “us versus them” level, which, in my view,
represents a sort of denial to see the picture from within. In return,
Western media professionals and audiences in search of a remedy tend
to look at the outer layers of Arab problems rather than seeking a
deeper understanding of these problems. The result is that the vast
majority of journalistic accounts, and even the majority of academic
accounts, inflict a typified identity upon all Arabs, leading observers
to eventually wonder why things have not changed much in Arab
societies, despite the media, political and economic attention that
Western governments are pouring into the region.
The road ahead?

At the heart of this book is my firm belief that local and pan-Arab
media can be analyzed as a social field, an institution that should be
synthesized by acknowledging its links to other social institutions.
This is also an institution that can, and should be, analyzed vis-à-vis
Anglo-American journalistic culture. I believe the analysis of the Arab
journalistic field is, in and of itself, interesting as the basis for future
debates on Arab society and media. In this spirit, I have already
embarked on this task and the results will be duly published. Yet,
comparing and contrasting this field with its Western counterparts

may indeed prove invaluable for media scholarship, now open to the
pulses and changes brought about by the increasing interconnected-
ness among nations. This comparative exercise, however, should also
value the study of particular journalistic practices.
For this to happen, there is a need, whether we like it or not, for a
stronger communication link between Arab and Western scholarship.
Arab scholars’ works should be made available to Western scholars
and students, and should serve as the bedrock for future studies. We
also need more in-depth analyses among Arab journalists and audi-
ences. Otherwise, we will keep compiling abstract theses on what
happens at the periphery of the Arab media field.
Notes
Introduction
1. Zelizer, 2004: 49
2. Ibid.: 60
3. Ibid.: 62ff
4. Ibid.: 77
5. Ibid.: 78
6. Ibid.: 80
7. Curran & Park, 1999:11
8. Benson, 2006
9. Benson & Neveu, 2005: 9
10. Bourdieu (1998) cited in Benson, 2006: 189
11. For example, Benson, 2000
12. Ibid.
13. Benson, 2006: 190
14. Auter et al., 2004
15. Benson, 1998
16. Eliasoph, 2004: 297
17. Ibid.: 301
18. See, for example, Schudson, 2005: 219
19. See Benson & Neveu, 2005: 16
1. Media: The Bridge to Globalization

1. Haenni, Patrick & Tammam, Hossam (2005). “Chat Shows, Nashid
Groups, and Lite Preaching: Egypt’s Air-Conditioned Islam.” Available
at: http://mondediplo.com/2003/09/03egyptislam
2. Göle (2000) cited in Pieterse, 2001: 222
3. Robertson, 1992
196 Notes
4. Waters, 2001: 5
5. Tarabishi, 2000
6. Abdel Rahman, 2002a: 8
7. Ibid.: 10
8. Waters, 2001
9. For example, Waters, 2001; Abdel Rahman, 2002a; Giddens, 1991
10. Scholte, 2002: 8
11. Al-Kahtani, 2000: 8ff
12. Ibid.: 91
13. Abaza, 2003: 4
14. Abdel Rahman, 2002a
15. Cited in al-Kahtani, 2000: 105
16. Ibid.: 106
17. Cited in Hindkær, 2001: 61
18. Cited in Hindkær, 2001: 27
19. Havrilesky, 2003
20. Al-Jabri, 1997
21. Ibid.: 136f
22. Ibid.: 143ff
23. Ibid.: 148 – my translation
24. For example, Barber, 1995; Waters, 2001
25. Hall, 1992
26. Al Bayan (2004). “Islamic Cola kindles enthusiasm in Britain” (in
Arabic), 8 March 2004
27. Shabkashi, Hussein “Fullah and Barbie: Clash of Civilization:
Commentary” (in Arabic), Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 23 May 2004
28. Wheeler, 2001
29. Al-Kahtani, 2000: 2
30. Abaza, 2004
31. Cited in Al-Kahtani, 2000: 122f
32. Rachty & Sabat, 1987: 18
33. Adams, 2006: 514
34. Ibid.: 515
35. Giddens, 1984
36. Sewell, 1992
37. Ibid.: 11
38. Ibid.: 4 – emphasis in original
39. Ibid.: 9f – emphasis in original
40. Giddens, 1991: 1ff
41. Ibid.: 16ff
42. Ibid.: 32 – emphasis in original
Notes 197
43. Giddens, 1984: 5

44. Thompson, 2005: 87
45. Robertson, 2001: 462
46. Waters, 2001: 186
47. Lash & Urry, 1994
48. Meleis, 1982: 439
49. Eickelman, 1992: 845
50. Reid, 1987: 52
51. Ibid.: 51
52. Kamrava, 1998: 67
53. Ibid.: 68
54. Hourani, 1991: 391
55. Ibid.: 392
56. Lloyd, 2002: 156
57. Cited in Reid, 1987: 53
58. Rizk, Yunan Labib (2003). “Al-Ahram – A Diwan of contemporary
life,” Al-Ahram Weekly (Chronicle 523), 4–10 December 2003, Issue
No. 667 (accessed on 2 October 2006)
59. Cited in Reid, 1987: 61
60. Lamont & Lareau, 1988
61. Ibid.: 158
62. Ibid.
63. Ibid.: 163
64. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 209
65. Abaza, 2004
66. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 76ff
67. Ibid.: 105
68. Ghannam, 2002: 135f
69. Siebert, 2002: 51
70. Ibid.: 52
71. Ibid.
72. Racy, 1982: 395
73. Ibid.
74. Al-Faisal, 2006: 416
75. Kamrava, 1998: 68
76. Eickelman, 1992: 650
77. Ibid.: 651
78. Kraidy, 2003
79. http://www.thedohadebates.com/
80. Fonda, Daren (2006). Dubai Inc. Time, NY: 13 March 2006, Vol. 167,
Issue 1, pp. 38–40
198 Notes
81. Chaker, 2003

82. Quinn, 2001: 153
83. Cited in Sullivan, 2001a
84. Sullivan, 2001b
85. Abu-Lughod, 2005:198
86. Abaza, 2003: 5
87. Arebi, 1994: 16; Kazan, 1993
88. Abaza, 2001: 108
89. Ghannam, 2002, ch. 3
90. Abaza, 2001: 116
91. Ghannam, 2002
92. Quoted in Shehab, Shaden (2005). Mission impossible. Al-Ahram
Weekly, 27 January–2 February 2005, Issue 727
93. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 72
94. Gordon, 2003: 76
95. Ibid.
96. Ibid.: 75
97. Ibid.: 78
98. Tester, 2001: 128f
99. Joseph & Stork, 1993: 23
100. Bayat, 1997: 59
101. Ibid.: 55
102. Abu-Lughod, 2005
103. Hourani, 1991: 384
104. Yacobi & Shechter, 2005: 499–505
105. Al-Hamzah, 2005: 289
106. Bayat, 1997: 58
107. Ibid.: 54
108. Abaza, 2001
109. Bayat, 1997: 55
110. Hadj-Moussa, 2003: 455
111. Bayat, 1997: 57
112. Thompson, 1995: 212
113. Lull, 1990
114. Thompson, 2005: 213
115. Hamdy, 2004.
116. Galal, 2004
117. Abaza, 2001: 118.
118. Shahine, Gihan (1998). “The double bind,” Al-Ahram Weekly, 1–7
Ocotber 1998
119. El-Gawhary, 1995: 27
Notes 199
120. Ibid.
121. Fargues, 2003
122. Hourani, 1991: 386
123. Abaza, 2001: 117
124. Abu Odeh, 1993
125. Andijanai, Nahid (2004). “Saudi female university graduates in a mission
to find jobs: ‘Had I known my end, I would not have started’,” Al-Sharq
al-Awsat, 18 June 2004 (in Arabic)
126. Faqir, 1997: 169
127. Al-Medwahi, Omar (2004). “If the women asking to drive cars were like
those participating in the intellectual forum, I would not hesitate per-
mitting it,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 16 June 2004 (in Arabic)
128. Zuhur, 2003: 21
129. Cited in a radio series by Magdi Abdelhadi, Middle East Affairs analyst,
for the BBC World Service. Available at: http://www.thechangingworld.
org/archives/wk39.php
130. Zuhur, 2003: 32
131. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm
132. Yamani, 2000
133. Meleis, 1982: 443
134. See al-Arabiya’s website: www.alarabiya.net: Egypt: university-
educated women raise a case to permit them to belly dance, 16 June 2006
(accessed on 12 December 2006)
135. Levinson, 2006
136. See Mellor, 2005a
137. See Tash, 1983
138. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 10
139. Ibid.: 81
140. Turkestani, 1989
141. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 160
142. Abaza, 2003: 5
143. Usma Anwar Ukasha quoted in Abu-Lughod, 2005: 154
144. Chaker, 2003: 5f
145. Cited in Hadj-Moussa, 2003: 458
147. Cited in Hadj-Moussa, 2003: 459
148. Abu-Lughod, 2005: 49
149. Yamani, 2000: xvii
150. Ouis, 2002: 316
151. Ibid.: 320
152. Ibid.
200 Notes
153. Yaquobi, 2004

154. Ibid.
155. Hassan, 2005
156. A news report adds that 20 percent of the patients are men and most of
them seek anti-ageing treatment. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/fr/-
/hi/arabic/world_news/newsid_4253000/4253012.stm
157. Middle East Broadcasters Journal (MEB), April–May 2006: 19–22.
Available at www.mebjournal.com
158. Wahbi, 1996
159. See Abu-Lughod, 2005: 174
160. Al-Effendi, Abdel Wahab (2004). “Al-Azhar latest scandal and Egypt’s
need for appropriate symbols,” Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Vol. 15, Issue 4545,
Saturday/Sunday 3/4 January 2004: 19 (in Arabic)
161. See Amr Khaled’s website: http://www.amrkhaled.net/
162. Read, for example, the interview with Dr. Heba Qotb in Arabiyat on 30
August 2004. Available at http://www.arabiyat.com/magazine/publish/
article_528.shtml (in Arabic) (accessed on 12 December 2006)
163. http://www.smartsway.tv/about-ar.php
164. http://www.suwaidan.com
165. Ibrahim, 1997
166. Beck, 1992
167. Ghannam, 2002: 77
2. The Arab Journalistic Field

* An earlier version of this chapter was presented at the Media Change and
Social Theory conference, St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford, 6–8
September 2006
1. See, for example, Zayani, 2005; Rugh, 2004
2. Sharkey, 2003
3. See, for example, Tash, 1983; al-Rasheed, 1998; and recently Ramarprasad
& Hamdy, 2006
4. As, for example, in Sakr, 2005
5. Bourdieu, 2005: 33
6. Matheson, 2003
7. Mellor, 2005a
8. Bourdieu, 1984; 1991
9. Zelizer, 1993/1997b
10. Bellah et al., 1985: 153
11. Zelizer, 1993/1997b: 407
12. Bourdieu, 1998
Notes 201
13. Tester, 2001: 23

14. Bourdieu, 1984; 1992
15. Benson, 1998: 479
16. Benson, 2000: 8
17. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 133 – emphasis in original
18. Benson, 2000: 12
19. Hovden, 2001
20. Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992: 101
21. According to Yasmine Abdallah, the presenter of the daily program
Good Morning Egypt (on the Egyptian Satellite Channel, ESC),
80 percent of the interviewees in her daily program are either politicians
or political analysts (Ezzi, 2004: 198)
22. Benson, 2000
23. Mellor, 2005a: ch. 3
24. Rugh, 1987; 2004
25. Abu Bakr, 1985: 18
26. Yet, it was not really until the 1960s that those Gulf countries developed
a more sophisticated printing culture, in terms of both content and form
(see Mellor, 2005a)
27. Tash, 1983: 51
28. Sreberny, 1998: 178
29. See Mellor, 2005a, for a fuller discussion
30. See, for example, Mellor, 2005a
31. “The Centrality of Live Talks in Arab Satellite Broadcasting,” at http://
www.faisalalkasim.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p183&sid5a721dd99
bc807925e83f6dbed92e055 (accessed on 12 June 2006)
32. Tibi, 1997
33. Kienle, 1995: 54
34. Cited in Kienle, 1995: 65
35. Potter, 1961: 35
36. Tibi, 1997: 203
37. Tibi, 1997: 203
38. Fandy, 2000
39. Taweela, 2002
40. Fandy, 2000
41. Nasser, 1979
42. Tibi, 1997: 211
43. Turkistani, 1989
44. Sakr, 2001a
45. Ghareeb, 2000; Ayish, 2002
46. Lakoff, 1991
202 Notes
47. See Mellor, 2005a, Introduction

48. Rugh, 1987: 16
50. Ibid.
51. For a fuller discussion on these factors, see Mellor, 2005a
52. Ayish, 2001
53. Davies, Humphrey (2003). “CNBC Arabiya – the debut,” Transnational
Broadcasting Studies, 11, available at www.tbsjournal.com/CNBC_
Debut.html
54. Ayish, 1991
55. Soloway, 2003
56. Habermas, 1962/1989
57. See Street, 2001: 41ff
58. Ramarprasad & Hamdy, 2006
59. Kraidy, 2005
60. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 157
61. Al-Sharq al- Awsat (2005). “Why the Moroccan presenter has not suc-
ceeded in conquering the Arab channels?” Media Supplement, 18 June
2005 (in Arabic)
62. Ibid.
63. Badry, 2006
64. Ellis, 2000
65. Ibid.: 176
66. Cited in Lynch, 2006: 4
67. Lynch, 2006: 4
68. Henry et al., 2003
69. Ibid.: 307
70. Kraidy, 2005
71. Ibid.
72. Sakr, 2001a; Rugh, 2004; Lynch, 2006
73. Suleiman, 2003
74. Qandil, 1999
75. Al-Jammal, 2001
76. Jenkins, 1996
77. Benson, 1999
78. Hannerz, 2004: 21
79. Ibid.: 3
80. Willnat & Weaver, 2003: 413
82. See Mellor, 2005a; Ayish, 1991
83. Ezzi, 2004: 168
Notes 203
84. Mellor, 2005a

85. See Mellor, 2007
86. Ezzi, 2004: 169
87. Zayani, 2005: 10
88. Ezzi, 2004: 188
89. Al-Qadry & Harb, 2002
90. See also Mellor, 2005b
91. Zeinab Hefni (2003). “Opinion,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 21 June 2003 (in
Arabic)
92. Dajani, 1992
93. Abdel Rahman, 1989: 18
95. Kirat, 1987
96. Al-Hayat (2006). “Young men refuse to engage with them because they
are free: Algerian young women enter the profession of trouble at the
expense of their private lives,” Youth Supplement, 5 June 2006 (in
Arabic)
97. Sensenig-dabbous, 2000: 15
98. In fact, female correspondents now serve as the new heroes who expose
themselves to danger, particularly in covering the Palestinian–Israeli
clashes. See http://islamonline.net/arabic/adam/2003/06/article08.shtml
(in Arabic) (accessed 14 June 2006)
99. According to the Kuwaiti daily al-Qabas, young TV female presenters
have a huge fan base among Arab youths and men who now use the chat
sites on the Internet to exchange views on certain presenters. See
Mohamed Hanafi (2006). “Satellite presenters, the new dream women,”
al-Qabas, 9 April 2006 (in Arabic)
100. Al-Jazeera star host Faisal al-Kasim, presenter of the controversial
debate program The Opposite Direction (molded after the American
Crossfire), recalled the times when he was overwhelmed by young
Arabs, which made him feel like a pop star or an Arab Michael Jackson!
See Faisal al-Kasim’s article, “The centrality of live talks in Arab satel-
lite broadcasting,” at http://www.faisalalkasim.net/forum/viewtopic.
php?p183&sid5a721dd99bc807925e83f6dbed92e055 (accessed on
12 June 2006)
101. Al-Jack, Sanaa (2000). “A high percentage of Lebanese journalists enter
the election battle to win a seat in the parliament,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat,
24 August 2000 (in Arabic)
102. From Washington, 4 December 2006. Available at www.aljazeera.net/NR/
exeres/71691781-C297-40BB-BBE6-B5595CB7556F.htm (in Arabic)
(accessed on 20 December 2006)
204 Notes
103. Wu & Weaver, 1998: 517

104. Wright, 2004
105. MEB Journal (2006). “Kuwait University struggles to groom young
broadcasters.” Available at www.mebjournal.com (accessed on 30 June
2006)
106. Al-Qadry & Harb 2002
107. Ibid.: 96ff
108. The report, undertaken by UNESCO, is called “Training of
Mediterranean Women Journalists.” Recommendations, and a brief
description of that study, are available at http://www.unesco.org/
webworld/highlights/women_media_050799.html
109. See Sakr, 2001b
111. Abdel Rahman, 2002a.
112. Al-Qadry and Harb, 2002
113. See Mattar, Shafika (2003). “Jordan’s Husseini created a new beat: Honor
crimes.” Available at http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/
aid/1321/context/jounalistofthemonth
114. The Kuwaiti Qabas quoted one of those young admirers who likened
Marilyn Monroe to one Arab TV presenter called Shuair al-Quesi,
adding that both stars being born on the same day (31 May) was proof
of their resemblance. Mohamed Hanafi (2006). “Satellite presenters: the
new dream women,” al-Qabas, 9 April 2006 (in Arabic)
115. “I am not only a program presenter. I present both debate programs and
the news bulletin,” said al-Roumhei. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, TV supple-
ment 28 March 2003 (in Arabic)
116. Hamidi, 2004: 214
117. Cherribi, 2006: 127.
118. Hannerz, 2004: 95
119. http://islamonline.net/arabic/adam/2003/06/article08.shtml (accessed on
12 June 2006)
120. Ibid.
121. Al-Qadry & Harb, 2002
122. Mohamed Abu Zeid (2004). “Ibrahim Helal: The governments that fear
the flow of information deal with the media as an enemy,” Al-Sharq
al-Awsat, 4 September 2004 (in Arabic)
123. For example, al-Rasheed, 1998; Kirat, 1987; Ramarprasad & Hamdy,
2006
124. Al-Rasheed, 1998: 57
125. Weaver, 1994: 148
126. Kirat, 1987
Notes 205
127. Al-Rasheed, 1998: 63ff

128. Al-Jammal, 2001: 60
129. Turkestani, 1989: 249
130. Abdel Nabi, 1989
131. Al-Qadri, Nahawand (2005). “Models of Innovative Experiences of
Young Media Women Between Conservative and Open Surroundings.”
Al-Raida, Vol. XXI–XXII (106/07), Summer/Fall 2004–5: 88–91
132. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 156
133. http://www.aljazeera.net/Portal/training%20center
134. Al-Jammal, 2001
135. Ibid.: 59
136. See the report of the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy
Research, “Study of Media Laws and Politics for the Middle East and
Maghreb.” Available at http://www.internews.org/arab_media_ research
137. Al-Jammal, 2001: 65
138. Mellor, 2005a
139. Al-Rasheed, 1998: 58
140. See Abu Zeid, 1993; Mellor, 2005a
141. Ezzi, 2004: 152
142. Hannerz, 2004: 148
143. Dubai Press Club, http://www.dpc.org.ae/ar/aja/aja.html. This should
also be seen in light of the United Arab Emirates, particularly Dubai,
promoting itself as an Arab cultural center, hosting Dubai Media City
(launched in 2001) as well as inaugurating the Dubai Film Festival in
2004–5
144. See http://www.mebshow.com/. It has to be added, however, that
although this information is valid at the time of writing, due to the
current situation in Lebanon the award may not proceed as planned
145. Kasim, Faisal (n.d.). “The centrality of live talks in arab satellite broad-
casting.” http://www.faisalalkasim.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p183&
sid5a721dd99bc807925e83f6dbed92e055 (accessed on 12 June 2006)
146. Abu Zeid, 1993: 283
147. Benson, 1999
148. Bourdieu, 2005: 39
3. Journalism as a Beacon for Democracy

1. For example, Rugh, 1987; Koeppel, 1989
2. Alterman, 2000
3. For example, Zayani, 2005; Sakr, 2001a
4. Dahlgren, 1995
206 Notes
5. Lynch, 2006
6. For example, Calhoun, 1992
7. Fraser, 1992
8. Ibid.: 132
9. Benhabib, 1992
10. Dahlgren, 2006: 275
11. Schudson, 1992
12. Van Zoonen, 1998a: 187
13. Calhoun, 1992
14. Habermas, 1992: 427
15. Eliasoph, 1998: 11
16. Ibid.
17. Lynch, 2006: 32
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.: 33
20. Ibid.
22. Lynch, 2006: 49
23. Van Zoonen, 1998a: 188
24. Dahlgren, 2006: 281
25. Ibid.: 10
26. Lynch, 2006: 80f
27. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 192f
28. See “What Readers Know” (2005). Available at http://www.
journalismorg/node/511/print, and Lewis, 1994
29. Karam, 2007
30. Abu Darwich, Layal (2006). “Hannibal fails to conquer.” MEB Journal,
April–May 2006. Available at www.mebjournal.com
31. Lynch, 2006: 10
32. Mellor, 2007
33. For example, Tester, 2001; Höijer, 2004
34. Shiblak, 1996: 39
35. Lesch,1991: 17
36. Shiblak, 1996: 39–43
37. Abou-Habib, 2003: 67
38. Ibid.: 68f
39. Ibid.: 70
40. Ibid.: 72
41. Each foreign laborer, including those from neighboring Arab coun-
tries, must have a local sponsor or “kafeel,” who issues the laborer’s
visa and claims full legal and economic responsibility for the laborer.
Notes 207
In return, the laborers are tied to their “kafeel” and cannot change
employer once they are in the host country (see, for example, Longva,
1999)
42. El-Gawhary, 1995: 27. El-Gawhary mentioned the incident of punish-
ing an Egyptian doctor working in Saudi Arabia with eighty lashes,
following the doctor’s complaint that his son was raped by a Saudi
school headmaster
43. Khalaf and al-Kobaisi, 1999
44. Michel Aoun is a former Lebanese army chief, from the Christian
Maronites. He was forced into exile in 1990 after the Syrian-Lebanese
forces defeated his six-month rebellion against the Syrians
45. The phrase “the General” in Arabic is al-Emad. If the definite article is
deleted (al-), the remaining word sounds like a male name
46. Dahlgren, 2002: 17
47. Wyatt, Katz and Kim, 2000
48. Eliasoph, 1998
49. Ibid.: 13
50. Dahlgren, 2002: 18
51. Lynch, 2006: 63
52. Ibid.: 34
53. See also Cherribi, 2006, for a critique on Lynch’s view of the religious
programs on al-Jazeera
54. Lynch, 2006: 76
55. Dahlgren, 2002: 6
56. Fraser, 1990: 57
57. Ibid.: 125 – emphasis added
58. Fraser, 1990: 127
59. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 139
60. Fraser, 1990: 64
61. Ibid.: 127
62. Ibid.: 62, 66
63. Haas & Steiner, 2001: 125
64. Ibid.: 135
65. Splichal, 2006: 695
66. Mellor, 2005a
67. Cited in Swales, 1990: 36
68. Swales, 1990: 24
69. Ibid.: 52f
70. Mellor, 2005a
71. Hafez, 2002: 242; al-Jammal, 2001: 69
72. For example, Ennaji, 1995; Haeri, 2003
208 Notes
73. Mellor, 2005a

74. Cited in Habib, 1985: 97
75. Habib, 1985: 103
76. Ibid.: 135f
77. Ibid.: 157
78. Ibid.: 173
79. El-Khoury, 2005: 315
80. Ibid.: 339
81. Fairclough, 1992
82. Ibid.: 204
83. See Mellor, 2005a, for a lengthy discussion on the role of MSA in the
news media
84. Mahfouz, 1991: 82
85. Cited in the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai al-Aam, 7 January 2006.
Available at http://www.alraialaam.com/07-01-2006/ie5/special.htm (in
Arabic) (accessed on 24 June 2006)
86. El-Khoury, 2005: 289
87. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 187
88. Suleiman, 2004: 37
89. El-Khoury, 2005: 145
90. Ibid.: 262f
91. Ibid.: 298
92. Suleiman, 2004: 43
93. El-Khoury, 2005: 306
94. Cited in Suleiman, 2004: 44 n16
95. El-Khoury, 2005: 308
96. From Washington, 4 December 2006. Available at www.aljazeera.
net/NR/exeres/71691781-C297-40BB-BBE6-B5595CB7556F.htm (in
Arabic) (accessed on 20 December 2006)
97. Whitaker, Brian (2005). “New Mubarak means same old problems, say
opponents,” The Guardian, 7 September 2005
98. Al-Qassas, Jamal (2005). “Presidential candidates support their
campaigns with a new look,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 18 August 2005 (in
Arabic)
99. The phrases such as “We suffocate” (Itkhanaqna) or “We watch you”
(shay’finkou) may not sound particularly informal in English, but they
were written as they were pronounced in the vernacular to mark their
informality and hence conversationalist style
100. El-Khoury, 2005: 318
101. Ibid.: 324
102. Ibid.: 325f
Notes 209
103. Said, Edward (2004). “Living in Arabic,” Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 677,
12–18 February 2004. Available at http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/
2004/677/cul15.htm (accessed on 2 October 2006)
104. Shanor, 2003: 115
4. The Dichotomy of the Public/Private Sphere

1. Fraser, 1990: 71
2. Jawad, 2002
3. Mellor, 2005a
4. Hannerz, 2004: 84
5. Ibid.: 133
6. Schudson, 1982: 99
7. Ibid.: 102
8. Ibid.: 108
9. Fouad, Matar (2001). “From Journalism to Ministry,” Al-Sharq
al-Awsat (editorial), 16 May 2001 (in Arabic)
10. Bekhait, 1998; Abdel Nabi, 1989; Abdel Rahaman, 1989
11. Abu Bakr, 1985
12. Abdel Rahman, 2002a
13. Ibid.: 156
14. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 194f
15. Al-Manar TV is owned by the Lebanese Hezbollah and it began its ter-
restrial broadcasting in 1991 and by satellite in 2000
16. Ezzi, 2004: 174
17. From Washington, 4 December 2006, available at www.aljazeera.net/
NR/exeres/71691781-C297-40BB-BBE6-B5595CB7556F.htm (accessed
on 20 December 2006) (in Arabic)
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Muqalled, Diana (2006). “When there is no place for the non-political in
the media.” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, Media supplement, 3 December 2006 (in
Arabic)
21. Al-Kasim, Faisal (2005). “Humanizing the Arab Media,” MEB
Journal, November–December 2005: 42. Also available at www.
mebjournal.com
22. “Arabiske medier er for passive!” Available at www.amnesty.no (in
Norwegian)
23. Farrag, Najib (2006). “Few of the dispatches on the economic situation
in the Palestinian media.” Available at http://ammannet.net/look/eom/
(in Arabic) (accessed on 3 January 2007)
210 Notes
24. Omar, Mohamed (2006). “On the press and the naked bread.” Available at
http://ammannet.net/look/eom/ (in Arabic) (accessed on 3 January 2007)
26. Fandy, Mamoun (2005). “The facile media and self-deception,”
Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 3 October 2005 (in Arabic)
27. Sheller & Urry, 2003: 107
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
30. Shelly & Urry, 2003
31. Fraser, 1990: 71
32. Maluf, Ramez (2007). “Looking Closer to Home,” MEB Journal,
January/February 2007. Available at www.mebjournal.com (accessed on
23 January 2007)
33. Shamri, 1998
34. Al-Kasim, Faisal (2005). “Humanizing the Arab Media,” MEB Journal,
November–December 2005: 42. Available at www.mebjournal.com
35. It is worth mentioning that al-Ahram prints an “international” edition,
distributed from London and other European cities, but the content
tends to be similar to the local edition
36. See Mellor, 2005a, for a discussion of Arab news values
37. From the UN report “The Rapid Situation Assessment of Street
Children in Cairo and Alexandria, 2001.” Available at: http://www.
unodc.org/pdf/youthnet/egypt_street_children_report.pdf
38. Abu Zeid, Mohamed (2005). “Crime newspapers in Egypt . . . between
reality and fiction,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 27 November 2005 (in Arabic)
39. Dahlgren, 1988
40. Cited in Salamandra, 2003
41. Gigilcim, 1992
42. Mellor, 2005a
43. Pantti, 2005
44. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, “Opinion,” 24 June 2001 (in Arabic)
46. Al-Jazeera program Kawa’lees (Backstage), aired on 31 July 2005. Full
script can be downloaded from www.aljazeera.net (in Arabic)
47. For example, Fraser, 1992
48. Eliasoph, 1998: 213
49. Ibid.: 226
50. Ibid.: 228
51. Taylor, 1994
52. Furedi, 2003
53. Eliasoph, 1998: 255
Notes 211
54. Ibid.: 260

55. El-Rashidi, Yasmine (2005). “ ‘Oprah’ is Attracting Young, Female Viewers
to TV in Saudi Arabia,” The Wall Street Journal, 1 December 2005: B1
56. From al-Arabiya’s website: “Oprah. . .presents ‘a different American’
to the Arabs.” Available at http://www.alaraibua.net/Articles/
2004/08/22/2862.htm (in Arabic). The article is followed by feedback
from Saudi Arabia, and other viewers, particularly women, who were
fascinated with the show and its presenter
57. Taha, Alaa (2006). Nashwa el-Roueni: “Bad luck haunted me in Nashwa
show,” Al-Qabas, Vol. 35, 11858, 8 June 2006 (in Arabic)
58. Mellor, 2005a
59. Saad, 1998
60. Mahmoud Saad cited in al-Jazeera program, From Washington, 4
December 2006. Available at www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/71691781-
C297-40BB-BBE6-B5595CB7556F.htm (in Arabic) (accessed on 20
December 2006)
61. See, for instance, the BBC news story“ Met ‘needs 2,000 Muslim officers’,”
Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4122972.stm
62. Saghieh, Hazem & Bechir, Saleh (2005). “The ‘Muslim community’:
A European invention,” OpenDemocracy. Available at http://www.
opendemocracy. net/conflict-terrorism/community_2928.jsp
5. Global Media, Global Public Sphere?

1. Mellor, 2005a
2. Zelizer, 1993/1997b: 402
3. Kieran, 1997: 53ff
4. Ibid.
5. Thompson, 2005
6. Schudson, 2003: 67
7. Volkmer, 2001: 67
8. Street, 2001
9. Hjarvard, 2001: 19
10. Thussu, 2000: 64ff
11. Abdel Rahman, 2002a: 28ff
12. For example, Hannerz, 1997
13. Thussu, 2000: 206
14. Volkmer, 1999
15. Habermas, 1962/1989
16. Thompson, 1995: 257f
17. Dahlgren, 1995: 11ff
212 Notes
18. Habermas, 1981/1984–7

19. Dahlgren, 1995: 9
20. Amanpour cited in Mindich, 1998
21. Keane, 1991: 22
22. See Eickelman, 2002. Referring to the Arab public opinion as “Arab
street” indicates its passivity and exposure to manipulation, not to
mention its lack of leadership (Eickelman, 2002: 40)
23. See Rugh, 2006
24. Nisbet et al., 2004
25. Lynch, 2006: 6
26. Zayani, 2005
27. For example, Zelizer, 1993/1997b
28. For example, Hallin, 1986
29. Pieterse, 2001: 220–2
30. For example, importing and assimilating English words as well as
phrases into the Arabic news language (see Mellor, 2005a)
31. Tomlinson, 1999: 141
32. Cited in Tomlinson, 1999: 142
33. Pieterse, 2001: 224
34. Kraidy, 2002: 317f
35. Thussu, 2002: 211
36. Thussu, 2005: 131f
37. Ayish, 1991
39. Bekhait, 1998
40. For example, Splichal & Sparks, 1994
41. Lauk, 1996
42. Zayani, 2005: 30
43. Calhoun, 1996: 461
44. Dahlgren, 2006: 275
45. Ibid.: 270
46. Bourdieu, 1984
47. For example, Cultural Studies, Volume 16(4)
48. Shoemaker, 1991
49. Negus, 2002: 510
50. Dahlgren, 1989: 3
51. Hartley, 1996
52. Quoted in Whittle, 2005: 54
53. Schudson, 1978
54. McNair, 2005: 27
55. Seaton, 2005
Notes 213
56. Van Dijk, 1984

57. Almeida, 1992: 260f
58. Van Dijk, 1988
59. For example, Fedler et al., 1996
60. For example, Cappella & Jamieson, 1997
61. Patterson, 1993
62. Ibid.
63. Whittle, 2005: 54
64. Van Zoonen, 1998b: 124
65. Mellor, 2007
66. Van Zoonen, 1998b
67. Ibid.: 138
68. Carpentier, 2005
69. See Flyvbjerg, 2001; Chouliaraki, 2006
70. Zelizer, 1993/1997b: 406
71. Ibid.
72. With the exception of Lynch, 2006
73. Chouliaraki, 2006
74. Wodak et al., 2000
75. Kraidy, 2002
76. Jensen, 1998
77. See, in particular, Abu Zeid, 1993
78. Ibid.: 454ff
79. Ghareeb, 2000
80. Alterman, 1998
81. Wells & King, 1994: 653
82. Lacy, Fico & Simon, 1991: 366
83. Ghareeb, 2000
84. Alterman, 2000
85. McFadden, 1953: 22
86. Wright, 2004; Alterman, 1998
87. Alterman, 1998: 10
88. Khazen, 1999
89. Alterman, 1998: 11
90. Abu Zeid, 1993: 135
91. Ibid.: 140
92. Ghareeb, 2000
93. Alterman, 1998: 7ff
94. Ghareeb, 2000
95. Abu Zeid, 1993: 215
96. Tash, 1983: 40f
214 Notes
97. Abu Zeid, 1993: 215f

98. Ibid.: 216
99. Ibid.
100. Ibid.: 217f
101. Alterman, 1998: 12
102. Ibid.
103. Abu Zeid, 1993: 281
104. Ghareeb, 2000
105. Lynch, 2006: 12
106. Abu Zeid, 1993: 281
107. Ibid.
108. Ibid.: 283
109. The implication of this view, then, is that the yardstick of measuring
objectivity is based on Western criteria, for example, the messages and
guests for whom the Western news media provide space. It may also indi-
cate an implicit hierarchy of media institutions in which the top places
may be occupied by the most globalized and internationalized institu-
tions, such as the BBC and CNN, whose credibility will also benefit
those who appear in their news stories, for example, as sources
110. Dajani, 1992
111. Abu Zeid, 1993: 42
112. Ayalon, 1995: 43
113. Abu Zeid, 1993: 42
114. Ayalon, 1995: 43
115. Ibid.: 43ff
116. Abu Zeid, 1993: 48
117. Amin, 2001: 25f . The four publishing houses are al-Ahram, Dar Akhbar
al-Yum, Dar al-Tahrir and Dar al-Hilal
118. Ghareeb, 2000
119. Topoushian, 2002: 22
120. For example, Dajani, 1989; al-Jammal, 1990
121. Weimann & Brosius, 1991: 338
6. Truth Martyrs
1. Zelizer, 1993/1997a: 25
2. Fairclough, 2002: 309
3. Giddens, 1991
4. Jenkins, 2000; Laclau & Mouffe, 1985
5. Phillips & Jørgensen, 2002: 25
6. Jenkins, 2000: 7 – emphasis in original
Notes 215
7. Jenkins, 2004: 25f

8. Gamson, 1989: 157
9. Khalil, 2000
10. For example, Ayish, 1991
11. For example, Thussu, 2004
12. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 137
13. Fandy, 2003: 390
14. Abdelfattah, 1990: 62ff
15. Abu Zeid, 1993: 392ff
16. Al-Shabbab and Swales, 1986: 38
17. Ibid.
18. Fandy, 2003
19. Laclau & Mouffe, 1985
20. This rather contradicts the view that journalists are there to uncover the
truth, if their presence is conditioned by the amount of safety granted
by military or political forces. Source: Nick Gowing’s speech and Q & A
from the Alistair Berkley Memorial Lecture held at the LSE on 21 March
2004. Available at http://www.crisisstates.com/download/Berkley/
Berkley2.pdf
21. See Mellor, 2007
22. Cited in Ezzi, 2004: 125
23. Bourdieu, 1998
24. Nick Gowing’s speech and Q & A session from the Alistair Berkley
Memorial Lecture, held at LSE on 21 March 2004 (emphasis added).
Available at http://www.crisisstates.com/download/Berkley/Berkley2.
pdf
25. Bourdieu, 1989
26. Ibid.: 16
27. Ghassan Ben Jeddou, presenter of al-Jazeera program Hewar
Maftouh (Open Dialogue), asked one of his guests about the credibility
of certain news media, saying, “Which is more credible media. . . is it
Fox News and Sky News at the expense of other media? As you
know, there has been an argument lately between Sky News and BBC,
with the former criticizing the latter for not using the word ‘terrorists’.”
Source: Open Dialogue, al-Jazeera, 19 July 2005 (in Arabic)
28. Khaffaf, 2005
29. For example, Abdel Rahman, 2002a
30. Pieterse, 2001
31. Giddens, 1979
32. Dahlgren, 2006: 274
33. Miladi, 2006; Matar, 2006
216 Notes
34. For example, Ayish, 1991

35. Shaheen, 2003
36. Asi, 1981
7. Arab Journalism as an Academic Discipline

1. Abu Bakr et al., 1985
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.: 45
4. Ibid.: 217
5. Ibid.: 218
6. Abdel Rahman, 1991
7. For example, Kirat, 1987: 64ff
8. Ibid.: 45
9. Abdel Rahman, 1991: 48
10. Ibid.: 46
11. Ibid.: 47
12. Al-Jammal, 2001
13. Abdel Rahman, 1985: 62; Abdel Rahman, 2006
14. For instance, Hanan Yousef is a presenter at Egyptian official television
while serving as a lecturer in international media at an Egyptian
university. Likewise, Naila Hamdy, a TV correspondent, is affiliated to
the American University in Cairo, Egypt
15. Rashed, Dena (2005). “To learn or not to learn,” Al-Ahram Weekly,
Issue 759, 8–14 September 2005
16. Tadros, Mariz (2002). “The Europeans are coming,” Al-Ahram Weekly,
Issue 575, 28 February–6 March 2002
17. Al-Jammal, 2001: 213
18. Ibid.: 216
19. Al-Hasani, 2006
20. See Flamini, Roland (2003). “A thirst for knowledge in Qatar,”
Washington Times, 3 December 2003
21. Cited in a radio series by Magdi Abdelhadi, Middle East Affairs
analyst, for the BBC World Service. Available at: http://www.
thechangingworld.org/archives/wk39.php
22. See www.kv.ae
23. Turkestani, 1989: 249
24. Ibid.
25. These reasons were raised in a convention for media officials held in
Kuwait in June 2003 and reported on in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, 22 July
2003, by Samir Attallah (in Arabic)
Notes 217
26. Kirat, 1987: 157f

27. Ibid.: 162
28. Tash, 1983: 127ff
29. Abdel Rahman, 1991
30. Abdel Rahman, 1989: 174f
31. Kirat, 1987: 63
32. Ibid.: 137
33. Ibid.: 138ff
34. Ibid.: 141
35. Tash, 1983: 114
36. Al-Hadidi, 1996
37. Ibrahim, 2000
38. It is not possible to provide a page number for this quote since I down-
loaded the whole report from the Internet in HTML format. The link to
this report, as mentioned in the reference list, is http://network.idrc.ca/
ev.php?ID32206_201&ID2DO_TOPIC
39. Al-Abd, 1993: 6
40. Ibid.: 5
41. Ibid.: 16
42. Ibid.: 27
43. The studies cited here refer to AP, Reuters and AFP
44. For example, Rachty, 1978
45. For example, Abdel Rahman, 1989; Al-Jammal, 1990
46. For example, Dajani, 1989
47. Al-Jabri, 2000; 2001; 2002
48. See, for instance, al-Jabri, 2000: 564f
49. Fay, 1996
50. Al-Jabri, 2002: 43f
51. Fay, 1996: 72
52. Ibid.
53. Filmer et al., 2000: 25f
54. Ibid.
55. Fay, 1996: 201f
56. Ibid.: 202
57. Ibid.: 73
58. Danermark et al., 2002: 17
59. Ibid.
60. Jensen, 2002: 261
61. Dahlgren, 1989: 7
62. Andersen, 2003: ix
63. Ibid.: x–xi
218 Notes
64. Abdel Rahman, 2002b: 177ff

65. Ibid.: 179
66. Ibrahim, 2000
67. Ibrahim, 1997: 549
68. Sabagh and Ghazalla, 1986: 374–8
69. Mendelsohn, 1974: 381
70. Ibid.: 380
71. Al-Jabri 2000
72. Ibid.: 74
73. Ibid.: 290
74. Ibid.: 384
75. Danaher et al., 2000: 20f. See also http://aljabriabed.net/
t10_arabIslamic_ philosophy.pdf
76. Musallam, 1986; al-Daqdouqi, 2001
77. Abu Rabi’, 2004: 279
78. Ibid.: 283
79. See ibid.: 287
80. Ayish, 1998
81. Ibid.: 33
82. Ibid.: 33
83. Ibid.
84. Ibid.: 40
85. Ibid.: 45
86. See, for example, Hourani, 1991
87. Abu-Rabi’, 2004: 269
88. Silverstone, 1999: 15
89. Ayish, 1998: 34
90. Ayalon, 1995: 52ff
91. Abdel Rahman, 2002b
92. Cited in Karabel, 1996: 205
93. Karabel, 1996
94. Gunter, 2002: 11
95. Ibid.: 10
96. Shami, 1989: 650, n5
97. Selaiha, Nehad (2006). “In memory of Hammoudah: A true intellectual
of peasant stock,” Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 811, 7–13 September 2006
(accessed on 21 October 2006)
98. Other intellectuals, however, fled to the same Western hemisphere from
accusations of apostasy, such as the famous Egyptian professor of litera-
ture, Nasr Hamed Abu Zeid, who fled to the Netherlands. Abu Zeid
found himself in the public eye and amidst a public lawsuit demanding the
Notes 219
separation of Abu Zeid and his wife on the grounds that his Muslim wife
could and should no longer be living with an apostate, a title he got fol-
lowing the submission of his controversial research judged to be violating
the tenets of Islam (see, for example, Abou el-Magd, Nadia, (2000). “When
the professor can’t teach,” Al-Ahram Weekly, Issue 486, 15–21 June 2000
99. Blommaert, 1997: 131
100. Ibid.
101. Al-Hadidi, 1996
102. Shami, 1989: 650
103. Ibrahim, 1997: 550
104. Shami, 1989: 653
105. Ibid.
106. Abdel Rahman, 2002b: 183
107. Haddad, 1977: 83
108. Riggins, 1985: 33
109. Beinin, 1993
110. See Maluf, Ramez (2007). “Looking Closer to Home.” MEB Journal,
January/February 2007. Available at www.mebjournal.com (accessed on
23 January 2007)
111. Mellor, 2005a
112. Rugh, 2004: 250
113. Ayish, 1998
114. Sakr, 2005: 153, n1
115. Nasr & Hajjar, 1997: 16
116. Gunter, 2002: 8
117. Bourdieu, 2000: 111ff
118. Maton, 2000: 152
119. Maton (ibid.: 152) also adds another axis to his analysis of the language
of legitimation, namely the discursive versus social. While the former
addresses knowledge producers within the field, for example, via con-
ference papers, the latter addresses the institutional field of reproduc-
tion, such as lectures and textbooks
Conclusion
1. Giddens, Anthony (2006). “A call to arms.” The Guardian, 26
November 2006, Available at http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/
anthony_giddens/2006/11/ post_682.html (accessed on 20 February
2007)
2. Ibid.
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Index
Abaza, Mona, 11, 13, 32, 196n, 197n, al-Jazeera, 4, 5, 27, 36, 42, 43, 47, 49, 53,
198n, 199n 54, 57, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67, 68, 70, 71,
Abdel Rahman, Awatef, 11, 46, 59, 61, 72, 73, 76, 83, 84, 85, 86, 91, 94, 101,
121, 166, 170, 175, 181, 184, 196n, 104, 108, 122, 125, 145, 150, 156, 157,
203n, 204n, 209n, 211n, 215n, 216n, 158, 160, 162, 163, 188, 203n, 205n,
217n, 218n, 219n 207n, 208n, 209n, 210n, 211n, 215n
Abu-Lughod, Lila, 28, 35, 36, 197n, al-Quds al-Arabi, 57, 68, 106, 132, 133,
198n, 199n, 200n 135, 136, 138, 147, 148, 150, 151,
adminstrative research, 2, 179, 181, 184, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160, 200n
189, 192 al-Sharq al-Awsat, 51, 57, 58, 62, 105,
agents, 7, 14–20, 24, 26, 29, 31, 36, 39, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 143, 144,
40, 43, 46, 70–1, 74, 103, 114, 130, 145, 146, 147, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,
160–161, 173, 182, 186, 188, 193 158, 159, 160, 196n, 199n, 202n,
Akhbar al-Youm Publishing House, 51, 203n, 204n, 208n, 209n, 210n, 216n
69, 107, 214n al-Shazli, Mona, 99, 100
al-Abd, Atef, 172 Americanization, 11, 13; see also
al-Ahram, 23, 46, 50, 57, 60, 106, 132, consumerism
133, 136, 137, 138, 144, 145, 148, American University in Cairo, 166, 168,
149, 151, 152, 154, 159–61, 197n, 216n
198n, 209n, 210n, 214n, 216n, Arab audiences, 4, 6, 47, 50, 54, 55, 76,
218n 79, 80, 84, 102, 109, 122, 151, 155,
al-Arabiya, 62, 68, 94, 160, 199n, 200n, 163, 175, 186, 193
202n, 211n youth, 30, 32, 38, 39, 60, 61, 105, 203n
al-Azhar, 22, 23, 38, 167, 200n women, 32, 33, 37, 38
al-Demerdash, Moutaz, 94, 100 Arab media research, 8, 178, 181, 183,
al-Gomhuria, 106 188, 205n; see also Arab
al-Hadidi, Mona , 171, 183, 217n, methodology
219n Arab methodology, 165, 171
al-Hayat, 12, 51, 57, 67, 71, 72, 105, Arab street, 212n
132–4, 136, 138, 145, 151, 152, 154, Arab League, 50, 55, 56
155, 157–9, 161, 203n Arab scholars, 4, 10, 12, 21, 43, 64, 83,
al-Jabri, Mohamed Abed, 12, 173, 176, 92, 97, 113, 120, 162, 165, 168, 170,
177, 178, 179, 184, 196n, 217n, 173, 176, 181, 184, 186, 187, 188,
218n 189, 190, 194
240 Index
Arab States, 1, 10, 17, 21, 25, 26, 29, 30, discourse community, 87, 88
37, 38, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 57, 59, 61, distribution of power, 3, 7, 45, 69, 71,
80, 81, 84, 86, 92, 110, 116, 122, 132, 120, 152, 162
165, 170, 176, 183, 191, 221n doxa, 18
Arabization, 40, 49 Dream TV, 99
arabophones, 22 Dubai, 27, 67, 114, 169, 197, 205n
‘ashwaiyyat (stigmatized housing), 27, Dubai Media City, 27, 36, 169, 205n
28, 30
Ayish, Mohamed, 176, 179, 180, 181, economic field, 5, 42
186, 187, 201n, 202n, 212n, 215n, education, 4, 5, 8, 10, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23,
216n, 218n, 219n 24, 26, 28, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40,
42, 43, 51, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 70, 71,
Bayat, Asef, 29, 30, 31, 198n 78, 81, 82, 90, 96, 99, 100, 103, 106,
BBC, 27, 47, 49, 52, 56, 57, 67, 68, 114, 112, 115, 124, 129, 13, 166, 169, 170,
148, 149, 151, 154, 157, 160, 162, 172, 182, 186, 187, 191
163, 199n, 200n, 211n, 214n, 215n, Egyptian Satellite Channel (ESC), 46,
216n 50, 57, 201n
behaviorist research, 2, 176, 185 Eickelman, Dale, 197n, 212n
Benson, Rodney, 4, 45, 56, 71, 195n, Eliasoph, Nina, 5, 6, 75, 84, 112, 113,
201n, 202n, 205n 195n, 206n, 207n, 210n
Bourdieu, Pierre, 2–5, 7, 10, 15, 17, 24, El-Khoury, Nasim, 93–5, 208n
42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 71, 119, 126, 160, émigré press, 48, 67, 130, 132, 135, 139
182, 187, 188, 195n, 200n, 201n, epistemology, 165, 173, 175, 176, 178,
205n, 212n, 215n, 219n; see also 179, 180, 181, 184
field theory
Fandy, Mamoun, 46, 102, 151, 155, 201n,
Cairo University, 21, 23, 166, 188 210n, 215n
capital field theory, 2–7, 10, 42, 71, 182; see also
symbolic, 43, 72, 157, 160, 182 Bourdieu
cultural 4–7, 24, 27, 34, 41, 42, 45, 46, francophones, 22
69, 70, 71, 91, 114, 116, 124, 125, Fraser, Nancy, 74, 86, 87, 97, 104, 206n,
161, 163, 182, 191 207n, 209n, 210n
CNN, 27, 47, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 68, 124, fundamentalism, 13, 189
142, 148, 151, 162, 214n
constructivism, 174, 175 gatekeepers, 29, 126, 129
consumerism, 9, 11, 13, 27 Giddens, Anthony, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18,
crime news, 51, 107, 110, 111, 204n 162, 191, 192, 196n, 197n, 214n,
critical theory, 2 215n, 219n, 226n
cultural flow, 41, 183 globalization, 1, 6, 9–15, 17, 19, 20–1, 23,
25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 33, 35, 37, 39, 41,
Dahlgren, Peter, 74, 78, 84, 85, 122, 126, 120, 132, 195n
163, 205n, 206n, 207n, 210n, 211n, Gowing, Nick, 157, 160, 161, 215n
212n, 215n, 217n Gulf War, 50, 52, 130
Dajani, Nabil, 79, 203n, 214n, 217n Gulfies, 37, 92
Dar al-Ulum, 22, 23
democratization, 47, 86, 96, 116 Habermas, Jürgen, 52, 73–6, 96, 111,
dialectic of identification 141 113, 119–22, 125, 126, 139, 161,
diaspora, 49, 56, 130, 145, 163 202n, 206n, 211n, 212n
Index 241
Habitus, 15, 17, 19, 28, 42, 45, 46, kafala, 82

182 kafeel, 82, 206n, 207n
Hannerz, Ulf, 56, 98, 202n, 204n, Al-Kasim, Faisal, 49, 68, 86, 101, 105,
205n, 209n, 211n 150, 201n, 203n, 205n, 209n, 210n
hard news, 60, 89, 98, 127; see also soft Khaled, Amr, 39, 94, 200n
news Kirat, Mohamed, 59, 64, 170, 171, 203n,
Hegemony, 2, 3, 12, 42, 120, 121, 124, 204n, 216n, 217n
129, 131, 162, 163, 183 Kraidy, Marwan, 54, 123, 197n, 202n,
Heikal, Mohamed, 45, 50, 60 212n, 213n
homology, 4–5
Hourani, Albert, 22, 197n, 198n, 199n, laity, 5, 6, 22, 32, 40, 41, 70, 71, 73, 74,
218n 90, 93, 95, 96, 98, 103, 107, 112, 115,
human-interest news, 51, 100, 102 116, 176, 185, 191, 192
Hussayn, Taha, 23 language and identity, 55, 76
hybridity, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14, 20, 21, 23, 25, language of solemnity, 95, 96, 97
31, 35, 40, 102, 103, 119, 123, 124, language politics, 96, 191
125, 130, 132, 139, 140, 182 late modernity, 3, 16, 17
LBC, 58, 93
Ibn Khaldun, 173 Lebanon, 27, 38, 53, 59, 60, 64, 66, 67,
identity, arab, 7, 8, 14, 48, 49, 54, 55, 76, 83, 101, 106, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138,
80, 81, 83, 86, 184 168, 180, 181, 205n
ideology, 2, 12, 30, 43, 49, 50, 52, 73, 91, Lynch, Marc, 54, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 80,
177 81, 84, 85, 96, 106, 187, 202n, 206n,
imagined community, 10, 19, 48, 53, 83, 207n, 212n, 213n, 214n
156, 180
Infitah (Open Door policy), 25, 26 Maluf, Ramez, 104, 210n, 219n
intellectuals, 7, 13, 21, 22, 29, 32, 36, 38, martyrdom, 156, 157, 159
40, 73, 105, 106, 114, 115, 180, 182, media
191, 218n as a bridge, 7, 18, 19, 20, 119, 139, 191
Interpretive community, 118, 119, as door, 29, 41
120, 141, 142, 157, 159, 160, 161, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), 5, 54,
189 55, 70, 71, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93,
Iraq war, 59, 80, 118, 120, 130, 132, 94, 95, 96, 103, 208n
137, 139, 152
news
journalism award, 67, 68 content, 5, 8, 12, 20, 47, 51, 53, 59, 61,
training, 44, 52, 64, 65, 88, 100, 112, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 85, 87, 96, 97,
166, 167, 169, 170, 204n 105, 106, 110, 115, 133, 135, 162,
journalistic field, Arab, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 210n
49, 51, 53, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 63, 64, genre, 5, 36, 51, 52, 56, 57, 62, 74, 88,
65, 67, 69, 71, 142, 193 90, 95, 112, 116, 124, 128, 131, 146
byline, 144, 145, 151, 154, 160 style, 69, 70, 85, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 114,
datelines, 144, 145 192
journalists
as martyrs, 140, 141, 143, 145, 147, ownership, 5, 30, 43, 45, 57, 122, 135
149, 151, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158,
159, 161, 163 pan-Arabism, 17, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 90,
as interpreters, 98, 124 91, 94, 179
242 Index
politicians, 22, 45, 50, 52, 73, 94, 98, 102, social theory, 2, 6, 183, 200n, 224n
117, 122, 128, 129, 134, 147, 150, soft news, 51, 53, 98, 100; see also
151, 162, 201n human-interest news
positivism, 173–5 Splichal, Slavko, 87, 207n, 212n
poverty, 97, 109 structure, 3, 10, 13, 15–19, 34, 43, 45, 71,
private sphere, 8, 76, 84, 90, 96–9, 101–3, 129; see also resources
109, 111 structuration theory, 10, 15, 17
professional identity, 7, 64, 127, 130, Suleiman, Yasir, 55, 202n, 208n
139, 141, 192
public sphere, 7, 8, 28, 72–8, 84–7, 91, tabloids, 72, 75, 85, 96, 107, 109, 110
96, 97, 102–3, 111, 113, 118–19, Tarabishi, George, 11, 196n
120–3, 125, 126, 129, 139, 161, 163, Thompson, John B., 31, 120, 121, 197n,
191 198n, 211n
public diplomacy, 1, 185, 188 Tibi, Bassam, 50, 201n
publicity, 75, 76, 85, 97, 103, 111, 113 Thussu, Daya, 121, 124, 211n, 212n,
215n
Qatar, 27, 33, 57, 64, 70, 143, 156, 157,
169, 216n Ulama, 26
Education City 169 Umma, 49, 86
urbanization, 18, 29, 30
reflexive project, 17, 20 Urfi marriage, 32
reflexivity, 15, 17–20, 31, 37, 39, 40–1,
49, 51, 118 Van Zoonen, Liesbet, 74, 77, 129, 206n,
resources, 3, 10, 15–20, 22, 24, 26, 29, 31, 213n
32, 34, 40, 71, 182; see also structure vernacular, 53, 54, 70, 88–95, 103, 115,
Rotana, 92 208n
rules of the game, 10, 14, 17, 19, 36, 45 visibility, 15, 18, 20, 26, 27, 29, 40, 75,
83, 85, 97, 102, 103, 111, 113, 115,
Saad, Mahmoud, 211n 116, 119, 120, 121, 161, 190
Said, Edward, 95, 181, 209n Volkmer, Ingrid , 120, 121, 211n
Sakr, Naomi, 186–7, 200n, 201n, 202n,
204n, 205n, 219n Western scholarship, 1, 2, 8, 48, 104, 105,
satellite television, 51, 120 165, 184–90, 192, 194
Schudson, Michael, 74, 98, 195n, 205n, Winfrey, Oprah, 114
209n, 211n, 212n women journalists, 47, 61, 62, 63, 204n
Sewell, William, 15, 16, 17, 196n
shaabi art, 28, 41 Zayani, Mohamed, 122, 125, 200n, 203n,
Shaarawi, Mohamed, 38, 94 205n, 212n
shopping malls, 27, 30 Zelizer, Barbie, 2, 44, 140, 195, 200n,
SMS, 38 211n, 212n, 213n, 214n

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MODERN

Edinburgh University Press

Edinburgh University Press Ltd

Typeset in 11/13 pt Stempel Garamond by

ISBN 978 0 7486 3410 1 (hardback)

The right of Noha Mellor to be identified as author of this work

List of Figures and Tables ix

1 Media: The Bridge to Globalization 9

2 The Arab Journalistic Field 42

3 Journalism as a Beacon for Democracy 73

4 The Dichotomy of the Public/Private Sphere 97

5 Global Media, Global Public Sphere? 118

6 Truth Martyrs 140

7 Arab Journalism as an Academic Discipline 165

Arab methodologies 171

Figure 1.1 Dialectic relationship between structure

Table 4.1 The public versus private realms 103

book focuses on Arab journalism, a rather under-represented research

Journalism and Critical Theory

1. The first stage of sociological inquiry tended to focus on jour-

Zelizer also points to a fourth trend, namely the political economy

a fresh framework with which to analyze Arab journalism as a social

Journalism as a social field

exercise if the purpose is to challenge existing (Western) theories or

Western theories for non-Western practices

world”?17 In light of Eliasoph’s remarks, it is important to ask how the

The road not taken

contradictions in the Arab media scene, for example, the availability of

Recent research on Arab news media highlights the role of these

Media: The Bridge to Globalization

Do globalization and Arab culture represent an oxymoron? Judging

Thus, the oxymoron lies precisely in the inability to hybridize, or

in the works of Western and Arab scholars alike. Rather than

In the Arab region, globalization is one of the concepts that have

than as a means of encouragement to participate in public debates. The

the globalization world is a world without a nation-state, or without a

authentic fabric, which may be an indirect reason for the rise of

of Islamic civilization, and indeed one of them wrote of the attitudes

Thus, rather than accepting the simplified account of globalization as

dilemma, drawing mainly on Bourdieu’s and Giddens’ works, in order

Struggle over power

engender and require certain responses, “hailing” the individual to

structures and agents’ practices operate in a dualistic relationship,

media of power and are unevenly distributed. But however unequal

He then proposes five maxims through which social change can be

discourse of modernity resting on the mix between a modern format

Hybridity as a national project

localization process is perhaps the strongest suggestion offered by

An elite which tended to perpetuate itself lived, not – as it had done in

The tension, then, was not between modernity projects as articu-

thereby dwarfing the curricula taught at Dar al-Ulum and al-Azhar.

The knowledge of one’s historical background is one of the invalu-

professors, who saw the mastery of another language as a prerequisite

Education, then, was regarded as the fastest path to knowledge, and

modern one, for instance, by encouraging use of the “popular suit” to

Visibility: the motif for action

Hollywood of the East, Lebanon as the Paris of the East,78 Dubai as

poor citizens who built these ‘ashwaiyyat by destroying these stigma-

Lila Abu-Lughod93 provides another example of an Egyptian TV