The Shift in the Media World

by Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh

the Jordan Times. (used w/permission).

IN THE Arab world, a radical shift has occurred in the media-people relation, especially since the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Arabic satellite stations started to emerge. Prior to this, the media - especially radio and television - were primarily (if not exclusively) state-owned.

For decades before the 80s and 90s, Arab citizens got much of their information and formed much of their ideas regarding Arab and world events from state-owned media. While citizens, depending on where they are in the Arab world, would rely on one or two radio or television stations, they always had the option (and they did make much use of this) of listening to or watching other state-owned Arab stations.

The only exceptions to this were the Arabic BBC and, later, Monte Carlo, which were largely (though not always) neutral as far as Arab issues are concerned, and the Arabic Israeli radio, which represented the position of the state of Israel.

The point to stress here is that the situation for an Arab listener or viewer, prior to the media revolution of the period stated above, was much less complicated than it is now. When it came to overall Arab (pan-Arab) issues, the Arab media, in times of peace and in times of war, said what the Arab citizens liked to hear (or what they wished the Arab citizens to hear). The BCC, Monte Carlo and, especially, Radio Israel provided, radically or mildly, depending on the event and the condition, an antithetical view. In other words, the world of the Arab viewer and listener was largely uniform, at worst (or best) bipolar.

When it came to Arab-Arab (i.e., intra-Arab) issues, the matter varied. Each Arab state (or block of states) presented its own views which, at times, differed remarkably from that of another Arab state (or block of states). The Arab citizen, however, knew well that each radio or TV station represented, and naturally so, the viewpoint of the Arab state which owned and steered it, and this Arab citizen dealt with the information presented with such understanding and formed his/her opinion accordingly.

Under the present circumstances, the situation has become much more complex. The sources of information (visual or audio) have more than doubled, tripled or quadrupled. Some newspapers, radios and TV and satellite stations (especially) have become, since the last war on Iraq, particularly, very prominent; they attract millions of viewers from all the Arab world, as well as Arabs living throughout the globe.

More importantly, the volume and intensity of analysis have increased and widened remarkably. The number of talk shows, phone-in programmes, interviews and reports of all kinds have spread, and still are, at a very fast, even alarming, pace. Add to this the fact that so many issues which were considered taboo are debated freely, and several individuals and parties who had no chance of airing their views in the past can now air them quite easily.

One may argue that this is all good. And I agree. Nevertheless, and this is what I am trying to emphasise, these developments pose a real challenge to the Arab viewers who are largely unprepared for them. How to deal with the information coming from all these stations is a challenge. What to make of the analyses in all sorts of programmes and by all sorts of experts is another. The world of the Arab viewer or listener has become multipolar. It is an ocean of information and analysis for which the Arab viewer has been little prepared.

Moreover, does the fact that many of these media organisations are "private" (we know, of course, that some of them are either owned or supported by governments or interest groups of sorts) necessarily mean that they are "neutral"? Are private media, generally, necessarily better at conveying "truth" than state media? Our experience with private media in Europe and the US has taught us that the matter is not that simple, for private media cater to their own private interests and the last thing on their commercial mind is truth.

Therefore, how Arab are these so-called Arab TV or satellite stations? Naively, many Arab citizens take what they hear for granted, thinking that these new organisation are either disinterested or "Arab".

No matter what, the Arab citizen needs to be prepared (and many in fact are) for the fact that truth, as conveyed by the media, is a problematic matter. One needs to know that what one hears from the newscaster, the analyst, the reporter, the interviewer or the interviewee is a narrative that stands not for the truth but (at best) for part of a truth. In our postmodern, media-controlled world, the "truth" is not simple. Also, more news items and more sources does not necessarily mean that truth is easier to arrive at.

For the Arab viewer, the shift from the uniform or bipolar to the multi-polar world of information and analysis is not an easy one. A knowledge of this very fact, however, may be helpful, as a start.

Note: this article was originally published in the pages of the Jordan Times. It is used here with permission.