2007/2

Nabil Echchaibi

When Edward Said died in 2003, his fervent Arab supporters grieved the loss of an irreplaceable Arab celebrity intellectual who audaciously exposed the tyranny of the orientalist gaze and its imperialist paranoia. His searing description of how a dominating and effectively silencing Western discourse on the Middle East has ennobled the civilizing mission of Western empire has made him a resounding voice of resistance and a true spokesperson for the Arab cause. As a politically-bereft Palestinian, his trenchant advocacy for the rights of the powerless Arab has spawned an unprecedented celebration of Arab voices, most of whom share Said’s experience of physical and intellectual exile at one point or another.

Mohammed Hirchi

Media representations of Middle Easterners in the United States have been instrumental in the construction of a number of negative stereotypes portraying them as carnal, enigmatic, exotic, unpredictable and violent. After the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the American invasion of Iraq, these images have been intensified through a well structured network of television and film depictions. Within this particular historical and political context, images are loaded with ideological propaganda and are constructed to articulate, transmit, promote and legitimize knowledge and information about this geographical location. They are subject to manipulation by various political apparatuses and to tight government control.

Riad Jarjour and Jérôme Chahine
What image of the Middle East do we find in the Western and Middle Eastern media? Is it an objective one or a biased one based on a preconceived ideological position? What difference is there in the features of the image here and there? If the image reflected by the media here and there does not coincide with objective reality, what are the reasons and motives of this incongruence? Is it true that only the Middle East can understand the Middle East? These are questions that demand long and documented research. In this article we shall try to answer them as best we can.

Nafissa Lahrech

‘Journalistic practice is both freedom and responsibility, and any imbalance between them would jeopardize the smooth running of media and political development of any country’, said German communications lecturer Barbara Thomas.1 ‘Press freedom implies distancing from governments and never giving in to threat, blackmail or pressure from any party’ she added. If this is a rule in practicing freedom of the press, regarded as an index of democracy in all societies, we have to ask ourselves as Middle Eastern peoples, where do we stand with regard to such freedoms? What is the reality, in our countries of political freedom and democracy which reflects people’s sovereignty and right to control public affairs?

Tara McKelvey

Up to a point, Al Jazeera English looks like your cable news. Past that point, it doesn’t. Not that you can see it anyway.

Al Jazeera has been called ‘the terrorist network,’ a ‘beheadings channel,’ and ‘a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden.’ Yet there was Dave Marash, 64, Al Jazeera’s improbable anchor, sitting at his computer in a seventh-floor corner office in its K Street location, surrounded by mementos from his work as an Emmy-award-winning Nightline correspondent -- a William Gaddis novel on a shelf, an Eva Cassidy plaque on a wall, and a Ghanan akuaba’a fertility doll on top of his bookshelf.

Ibrahim Nawar

The most single famous television outlet in the world in the first few years of the 21st century belongs to the Arab World. Al Jazeera, first praised, then lambasted, then bombed by the United States, is simply the best known of over 100 satellite TV channels that have appeared in the Arab World in the last decade. But while there is no question these channels, and the arrival of the Internet, have brought change, much of it positive in the information landscape of the region, this article argues there is a danger they create an unrealistic rosy image of the Arab media world.

Teke Ngomba

It is no exaggeration to say that the concept of public service broadcasting is in great danger. As audiences fragment, the justification for a universal license fee becomes harder to defend. As broadcasting ignores national frontiers, the relevance of national systems becomes open to question. As global communication on the internet threatens to overtake sex as a past time, the very future of ‘mass media’ and of the profession of journalism may also be perceived to be in jeopardy.

Chinyere Stella Okunna and Ifeoma Vivian Dunu
In virtually every society, religion wields a powerful and tremendous influence in the lives of the populace. Many of the rules and regulations that guide and determine the laws of the land and shape ideologies and life styles emanate from prevalent religious beliefs and practices. This is especially true of Nigeria, where religion has become a dominant part of the people’s social life.

Jack G. Shaheen
As motion pictures are one of the most powerful teaching tools ever created, this article will examine how image makers have presented the Arab woman. History reveals that since the beginning of cinema, in fact for more than a century, Hollywood’s movies have humiliated, demonized, and eroticized Arab women. Obviously, film makers did not create these images but inherited and embellished Europe’s pre-existing Arab stereotypes. In the 18th and 19th centuries European artists and writers offered fictional renditions of women as bathed and submissive exotic ‘objects’. The stereotype came to be accepted as valid, becoming an indelible part of European popular culture.

James M. Wall
The iron grip that the pro-Israel lobby has over US public consciousness started to weaken in 2006. The lobby’s control over media, money, and politicians is still strong, but two recent publications suggest that the lobby’s power is built on a shaky foundation, an alternative version of reality that is now under serious scrutiny. And that scrutiny evokes the old axiom: You cannot fool all the people all the time.