AudiencScapes

by David Montez, AudienceScapes Analyst

19 May 2010

Recently the Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) hosted a panel discussion discussing the Center’s recently released report Shifting Sands: The Impact of Satellite TV on Media in the Arab World. The author of the report, Deborah Horan, is a former journalist with the Chicago Tribune and Houston Chronicle. During her tenure Ms. Horan covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the region at-large.

Shifting Sands provides a solid overview of the history of Arab satellite TV, covering the emergence of al-Jazeera and other satellite channels, while observing the limited influence they have on political reform in the region. Horan focuses on two key areas where al-Jazeera successfully changed the region’s news media landscape; real time news coverage and debate and discussion shows that effectively challenged political and social taboos subsequently creating new political space.

These two previous points are key to explaining how satellite news channels not only challenge state-run media but also how politics and propaganda are conducted by states. Now when major news events occur politicians no longer have the ability to stall broadcasting or spin a message about the event before it is analyzed by independent journalists or commentators. Media has always been a critical means of control for the region’s autocratic elites.

Early on, the changes that regional satellite stations created gave many regional analysts cause for optimism about political or media reform. However, Horan points out that this optimism has waned in recent years as the region’s autocratic states have weathered the storm and adapted to the new media environment. Horan describes a well known story among political and human rights activists in the region. While the creation of new media entities in the Middle East has opened new doors to political discourse, this new space has failed to result in substantive reform.

What the analysts in Horan’s report help explain is that due to the ability of autocratic regimes to limit local media freedom and their ability to control the levers of power, Arabic satellite TV as a transnational medium has not become the agent of change some analysts once thought it could. The absence of or the repression of political parties and civil society has stifled the ability of activists or political reformers to exploit the new space created by these networks.

States have also sought to counter these newer channels by revitalizing state-run media through re-stylization and/or creating programs that mirror those of al-Jazeera. Using the example of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s 2005 “election” campaign, Horan also points to how politicians themselves have become more PR savvy, no longer taking for granted that media would simply parrot their messages.

Media reform is just one aspect of the larger frustration among activists in the region. The ‘one step forward two steps back’ process of political reform in the region has been well documented by both academia and the think tank community. Governments in the region have not only adapted to the news media environment but have also become veterans at the game of creating cosmetic political reform. These reforms have often come in the form new media licensing regulations, electoral gerrymandering or civil society registration laws, which on the surface look like steps in the right direction but in implementation changes little.

For now…..

Horan, rightly, makes a clear distinction between the level of freedom enjoyed by transnational satellite TV channels and local media. Even though satellite news journalists have been jailed, fined, and deported for their coverage of sensitive issues, local media often work under greater constraints than transnational outlets because satellite news reports can be produced anywhere and viewed across the MENA region. In addition, the 24 hours news channels are for the most part owned or supported by political elites within the region. This makes repression much more costly than before.

Horan provides a general overview of the different mechanisms in which states are able to censor or restrict local media. As the report was supported by CIMA, the question must be asked then, with such strong restrictions on local media, how should domestic or international NGOs effectively support independent media? This is a continuingly difficult question that many NGOs and development agencies working for political reform, including many NED funded organizations, are struggling to answer. Unfortunately, in Shifting Sands the recommendations provided seem to be an afterthought and are not fully addressed within the text of the report, which the author may not be to blame as it is not necessarily their area of expertise.

This is not to say that the recommendations provided are not worthwhile. Many of them either have been implemented in the past or are currently being conducted. The recommendations focus on three types of media assistance;

1) Funding suggestions include providing micro-grants to innovative broadcast journalists, fund documentaries and investigative reports, and fund a well-crafted talk show or news hour on an Arabic-language station

2) Journalism Training- support journalism workshops and press clubs, Support university journalism programs, provide scholarships for students in broadcast training and train journalists in politically neutral environments.

3) Awards- Endow chairs at the nation’s journalism programs to be given to journalists from the MENA region and create a paying annual broadcast journalism award similar to that of the Dubai Press Club that focuses on political coverage in spot news and investigations

What media assistance projects can be implemented in Middle Eastern countries is another key question, as each country has different levels of restriction on the work of domestic and international development organizations. For example, Lebanon which has a long history of being an entertainment media and literary hub in the region is more open institutionally to international assistance, whereas in other countries there are restrictions on what kind of activities can be conducted and on the funding of domestic NGOs from external sources.

For more information on just a few of the media assistance efforts in the region see the information and links below.

Internews: “Partners 2: Media and Youth for Community Participation” a grassroots civic education and media project through which professors at Egyptian universities are being trained on Project Citizen process by regional project coordinators. Print and radio journalism trainings are also being organized in each of the seven centers for civil society groups and students.

“Aswatona: Independent Media Program for the West Bank and Gaza” The Internews Network is implementing a comprehensive broadcast media development program that includes business planning and management training, journalism trainings, focus groups, onsite consultancies, and a small grants program.

International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX): Camera as Voice (Yemen)- IREX Europe and IREX, working with the Youth Leadership Development Foundation, based in Sana’a, will train youth organizations in Aden, Taiz, Hadramot, and Ibb to build their capacity to offer youth training and leadership programs. The young people’s films will be woven together to produce professional documentary serving as a “tapestry” of young Yemenis’ views on these issues.

Past Iraq Project, "Good Governance through Support for Independent, Pluralistic, Professional, and Sustainable Media"- IREX Europe activities included the completion of the second annual Media and Sustainability Report for Iraq, a series of workshops held for independent journalists raising awareness of freedom of expression and access to information, the creation of publication grants for journalists to publish print and radio reports on the importance of a strong media in democratization and economic development.

International Media Support (IMS) and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ): IMS in a partnership with the Danish Association for Investigative Journalism (FUJ) implemented a two-year program that helped establish the ARIJ. Through a series of meetings the ARIJ was created as a network of Arab media activists and media organizations formally establishing its regional office in 2005. The ARIJ has now become an independent non-profit organization independently supporting investigative journalists through training and investment.

Photos courtesy of Flickr and Ammar Abd Rabbo and Hazy Jenius.