Arab Media & Society

Lorenza Fontana looks at how Hezbollah and Israel handled the media in the 2006 war

Wayne Hunt looks at media aspects of the Gaza conflict between December 2008 and January 2009, and specifically at Caryl Churchill's controversial 10-minute play entitled Seven Jewish Children – a play about Gaza. Then he speculates about an 'interview' drama to be called Frost Osama.

A Mickey Mouse lookalike character on Hamas’s al-Aqsa network generated a storm of controversy in Western media in 2007 – but were Palestinian kids actually tuning in? Yael Warshel surveys television viewing among Palestinian youth.

In February 2009, the popular Libyan Berber website Tawalt shut down under government pressure. Does this spell the end of nascent efforts to promote Berber language and culture online? Aisha al-Rumi investigates.

The Yemeni government’s refusal to let journalists and foreign observers into the Sa‘ada governorate has helped prolong and intensify the stop-go fighting that has plagued Yemen’s mountainous north since 2004, argues Maysaa Shuja al-Deen.

In an age of homogenized reporting, bloggers on both sides of the Iraq war are filling the void of personal coverage and challenging the narratives of war planners and mainstream media alike. Wayne Hunt traces this phenomenon with two case studies.

More than ever before, governments and pressure groups sought to use social media like Facebook and YouTube to rally support during the Gaza conflict. Why did so many of these attempts fizzle? Managing Editor Will Ward investigates.

A pitched battle on the streets of Beirut backed Hizbullah’s opponents into a corner last May. But it was media savvy and the powerful rhetoric of Hassan Nasrallah that turned a tactical victory into a strategic success, argues David Wilmsen. Features video and full translations of three speeches.

Media were at the forefront of Lebanon’s bloodiest infighting since the civil war,
relaying the heated words of politicians while beaming out propaganda thick and fast, writes Contributing Editor Paul Cochrane.

Refqa Abu-Remaileh on how one filmmaker uses innovative storylines and production techniques to break with more politically overt narratives of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (features video)

Were the 2006 war and the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh operational setbacks but propaganda victories? Pete Ajemian traces recent developments in Hizbullah’s media strategy. (features video)

Middle East insurgencies are learning from each other’s media strategies, writes Contributing Editor Andrew Exum. Can the U.S. Military catch up?

October, 2007. In a segment by George Weyman, the BBC’s World’s media correspondent Sebastian Usher discusses the Alan Johnston kidnapping in Gaza and the dynamics of journalist kidnappings in the world today.

When is a joke in Lebanon not funny anymore? When it mocks Hassan Nasrallah and stokes highly tense sectarian sentiments, demonstrates Contributing Editor Sune Haugbolle. (Features Video)

Two years on, Nabil Kassem is still profoundly affected by his experiences in Sudan. What he witnessed there, and recorded in a film he made for Al Arabiya, were scenes of unspeakable brutality and untold suffering, scenes he thought would surely wake up an Arab public all too willing to let Darfur pass by. But 'Jihad on Horseback' never made it across the airwaves. In this highly charged interview with Lawrence Pintak, Kassem speaks of how Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir prevented the broadcast of perhaps the most provocative documentary film ever made by an Arab director.

There is no issue in Arab journalism today that is more controversial than how the region’s media cover Darfur. It is the hot-button issue in the Arab newsroom not because of the physical danger but because the issue bores right to the heart of the mission of Arab journalism and the self-identity of those who practice it, writes Publisher and Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.

During the Hizbullah-Israel War, blogs provided alternative on-the-ground accounts of events, says Sune Haugbolle. But can they challenge the social authority of old media?

We are hardly ever innocent bystanders to conflict. Merely with their presence journalists influence the parties they report on, so we are participants rather than bystanders. And our choice of what to report and how always serves certain power interests, argues Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk.

Paul Cochrane tracks Israel’s attempts to strike a lethal blow to Hizbullah’s satellite channel.

In all previous Arab-Israeli wars Israel had dominated on all counts. But in the 2006 war, the influence of the Israeli media on global opinion seemed to have been tempered by the greater range of Arab voices, argues Jihad Fakhreddine.