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By
Lindsay Wise, Deputy Managing Editor, TBS
Moller
Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge, UK
28-30 September 2004
Does transnational
broadcasting media impact political change in the Arab world,
and if so, in what way and to what extent? This question lies
at the heart of the ongoing discourse about Arab satellites
and their role in opening and defining a new public sphere in
the Middle East. It is a particularly salient subject for a
conference as the Middle East confronts a controversial series
of reform initiatives aimed at "democratizing" the
region. Ranging from the American-led "Greater Middle East"
plan to the counter-proposal introduced by the Arab summit in
Tunis 2004 and other, more local, calls for liberalization from
domestic opposition parties and activists, these initiatives
and the heated discussion surrounding them have once again brought
satellites to the fore, both as forums for, and subjects of,
the debate over reform. The Cambridge Arab Media Project's conference
in September 2004, held in partnership with the Centre for Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies at Cambridge University, brought
academics and analysts together with media professionals to
address the crucial question of transnational satellite broadcasting's
role in inducing and influencing political change in the Arab
world.
The novelty
of Arab satellites may be wearing off, but as channels like
Al Jazeera, MBC, and Iqra settle into relative maturity, they
are joined by more and more stations competing for audiences
and market space in a crowded and vibrant broadcasting milieu.
In this context, the early excitement about transnational broadcasting
technologies as platforms for free speech has begun to settle
into a more complex picture. The Cambridge conference reflected
this by revealing a schism between those who still believe in
the optimistic promise that a relatively "free" transnational
Arab media would encourage pluralism, democratic ideals, pan-Arabism,
and pan-Islamism; and those who have become disillusioned with
the idea that the Arab satellites-many of them state-owned or
owned by people with close ties to the state-are truly independent
and effective tools for meaningful debate and reform. In the
absence of a large body of reliable statistics, fieldwork results,
data on viewership patterns, and audience opinion surveys that
might enable observers to judge how the effects of satellite
programming manifest themselves in the streets and in people's
hearts and minds, much of the discussion took on an air of general
speculation and self-examination that reflected some of the
challenges and pitfalls faced by both practitioners and students
of media in the Arab world.
The question
of media's democratizing and unifying potential was a central
and recurring theme at the conference, as in discourse about
transnational broadcasting in general. Participants had difficulty
pointing to any clear cause-and-effect case when a satellite
broadcast or television show had had a direct impact on political
structures in the Arab world, but Saad
Eddin Ibrahim pointed out during his remarks on the
first day of the three-day conference that the issue may be
better framed as a question of whether Arab satellites are helping
to create an "atmosphere" of pluralism. Arab satellite
broadcasting (ASB), he argued, may have a "latent"
impact by providing a long-term basis for reform and raising
political, nationalistic or democratic awareness in the Arab
world. Al Jazeera's Faisal Al-Kasim agreed, and suggested in
his own presentation that transnational broadcasting is reviving
Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism by raising Arab self-consciousness,
sense of identity, and feelings of solidarity. "The great
contribution of ASB is bringing in other views-that the Arab
is being exposed to diversity," Ibrahim said. "In
time that will bring about change."
Certainly,
there is no denying that Arab satellite programs have broken
taboos, broached issues that were formerly considered off-limits,
and raised Arab and Muslim consciousness about conflicts in
Palestine and Iraq. And although channels like Al Jazeera and
Al Arabiya are dependent on the state and state actors for funding,
governments and rulers also are dependent on the channels for
credibility and influence in the region. If Arab satellite channels
need state support to survive, it may also be that states need
Arab satellites too.
But does
the sensationalist, sound-bite culture of the television medium
itself run counter to the educational and liberalizing goals
expressed by hopeful voices like Al-Kasim's and Ibrahim's? Do
political debate shows like Al-Ittijah Al-Mu'akis (The Opposite
Direction), which Al-Kasim presents on Al Jazeera, serve
as crucial forums for open discussion and platforms that allow
non-state actors and marginalized voices to compete with formal
spokespeople and government officials? Or are such programs
merely, in the end, a venting mechanism, tolerated by the regimes
that fund them because they distract from meaningful, in-depth
debate and substitute for the implementation of real change
on the ground while giving audiences and journalists alike the
illusion of openness and freedom? It may be that television
is an entertainment medium at heart; one that, as Al-Kasim himself
put it, loves "spectacle" and naturally gravitates
there. Conference organizer and speaker Khaled Hroub argued
in his paper "Arab (Media) Intellectuals: Challengers or
Accommodators" that despite having access to an unprecedented
mass audience for their views, Arab intellectuals on satellite
TV lapse into shouting matches and defensiveness instead of
critical thinking. "Most of them lack the courage to use
this medium to critically challenge the socio-cultural or political
status quo that they live in," he argued. Another conference
speaker, Ibrahim Helal of
the BBC Monitoring Group, agreed that "freedom of speech
doesn't change the situation on the ground," and warned
that merely venting Arab anger through satellite TV may be dangerous.
In another paper titled "Arab Satellite Broadcasting: Democratizing
or Radicalizing, Liberal or Patriarchal?" Muhammad Ayish
urged a long-term historical perspective: "ASB is shrouded
in a lot of mythology," he said. "We should admit
satellite broadcasting in the Arab world has its limits. It's
not fair to raise expectations. Democratic transition takes
time."
The conference also featured much honest discussion about the
constraints faced by satellite TV reporters. Palestinian writer
Abbas Shiblak pointed out that Arab politicians, while represented
on satellite TV by spokesmen and government officials, are never
present themselves to respond to real people's questions or
give interviews. Helal and others lamented the absence of in-depth
reports on local news or investigations into Arab domestic politics,
while Naomi Sakr's paper, "Arab Satellite Broadcasting
and the State: Who Curbs Whom, How and Why?" concluded
that "curbs are more one-way (state curbs on broadcasters)
than two-way, and that any evidence that appears to indicate
media curbs on the state needs to be assessed in a wider context."
Meanwhile, speaking from the perspective of a media professional,
Dubai TV's Jasim Al-Azzawi complained about restrictions imposed
by "unwritten laws" which do not allow broadcasters
or their guests to challenge the existence of God or attack
the integrity of any king or president. "We do not have
enough protection to do good journalism," he said. "…There
is no investigative journalism about corruption. We all know
why. Because you'll end up in jail." People do not become
activists from watching TV, he argued. There are other reasons
for that. But he did agree that Arab satellite broadcasting
has heightened awareness among Arab viewers. The implications
of this increased "awareness" remained a subject of
debate throughout the conference. Ibrahim acknowledged that
so far such awareness has not channeled itself into a movement
that is changing political structures in the Arab world. Satellite
TV's contribution to a public sphere does, however, contribute
to pluralism in a region with a history of state media monopoly,
and this must not be overlooked as a source of hope, he said.
"You have a choice of dying in silence or screaming out,"
he added. "Even a venting mechanism is good. Everything
starts with an idea."
However, the conference's tendency to focus on the news media,
especially Al Jazeera, at the expense of the vast majority of
entertainment and religious programming on satellite TV reflects
a perhaps unfortunate tendency among observers and analyzers
of Arab media to over-stress news programming when it is only
a fraction of the satellite viewing experience in the Middle
East. Although the importance of Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and
other news outlets cannot be denied and forms a natural focus
for a conference on Arab politics and the media, Naomi Sakr
made a good point during a question-and-answer session when
she said, "It's a mistake to think entertainment is not
political. The personal is political." A few exceptions
to this tendency to focus on news programming were Shereen
Abou Al-Naga's paper on the image of women in music
videoclips, and Lindsay Wise's
paper on Islamic television preacher Amr Khaled.
ASB's relationship
with the West added another dimension to the conference. US
Ambassador Mark Hambley, director of the Media Outreach Center
in London, presented "Official Western Views of ASB,"
a paper that stressed America's support for the free speech
opportunities represented by the Arab satellite channels, while
also outlining objections to what the US government considers
misleading, inaccurate, and biased reporting by Al Jazeera.
(He was more positive about Al Arabiya's record.) In the same
session, Jon Alterman, director of the Center for Strategic
and International Studies in Washington, D.C., reversed the
question with his paper "Occidentalism: the West on ASB,"
arguing that the "effect of superficial knowledge producing
stereotypes and distrust (on Arab satellite TV) is paralleled
almost precisely by the effects of many Western media portrayals
of the Arab world."
Unfortunately,
the conference did not have time to hold a concluding session,
and as a result, many loose ends remained untied at the end
of the proceedings, and participants did not have much opportunity
to try to reach consensus or summarize the main findings of
the conference. A few issues did stand out, however. There were
repeated calls for more content-based research, as well as fieldwork
and surveys to help assess the impact of satellite programming
on Arab audiences. Shibley Telhami,
who gave the keynote address, touched on a key stumbling block
in the field when he described the difficulty of obtaining reliable
polling data on viewership patterns and audience attitudes in
the Arab world because survey work is severely restricted by
security-minded regimes. For his own research, Telhami had to
sneak political questions into marketing research, and even
then his samples were relatively limited.
In addition,
Hroub urged participants to think about the need for a universal
Code of Ethics to help satellite channels define key principles
such as "objectivity" and "credibility,"
and make tough decisions like whether to air graphic war footage
or hostage videos. While no formal rules were proposed during
the conference, there was general consensus that satellite coverage
should err on the side of caution and respect for viewers as
well as for victims of violence and their families. Iqbal
Qazwini, Hani Al-Masri from Al-Ayyam newspaper in Palestine,
and Ehab Bessaiso from the University of Cardiff made the case
that insensitive saturation coverage of the Palestinian and
Iraqi conflicts may lead to the desensitization of viewers and
the stereotyping of Palestinians and Iraqis as victims and martyrs
rather than as human beings in a local, day-to-day context.
They called for more in-depth and humanizing documentaries that
would portray the conflicts respectfully and in all their complexities
The conference's
greatest strength was also a weakness: In bringing together
academics and media professionals, the Cambridge Arab Media
Project offered both theorists and practitioners an invaluable
opportunity to hear from each other and exchange ideas and perspectives.
On the other hand, it also runs the risk of leaving participants
dangling in an indistinct middle ground between theory and practice,
trapped in the chicken-before-the-egg conundrum of what it means
to have freedom of expression without democracy. Most participants,
however, agreed that while it was too much to ask Arab satellite
broadcasting to adopt a democratic agenda, there is no question
that it enables, for good or for ill, more voices to enter the
politicized arena of the public sphere.
Lindsay
Wise is deputy managing editor of Transnational Broadcasting
Studies journal at the American University in Cairo's Adham
Media Center. She has an M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies
from St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, where she earned
distinction for her thesis on Amr Khaled. Titled "Words
from the Heart: New Forms of Islamic Preaching in Egypt,"
the thesis explored the recent rise of Islamic "televangelists"
through satellite television and the Internet. In addition to
her work with TBS Journal, she is also a freelance journalist
in Cairo.
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