Abstract III: Naomi Sakr & Transnational Media in the Middle East

Naomi Sakr addresses the proliferation of satellite television in the Middle East, assessing their effects within the broader concepts of globalization and democracy. Her study, which spans the Arab world from Morocco to the Gulf, focuses on the 1990s as the decade that saw the creation and development of satellite channels in the region. Sakr challenges the general assumption that satellite media, by transcending national borders, is capable of providing the impetus for more liberal political practices throughout the region. Indeed, the idea that satellite television is less prone than territorial television to censorship, as typical of government-controlled media are in the Middle East, is misleading. Sakr demonstrates that for the exception of Al-Jazeera, (whose controversial programming has made it a pariah of governments and many an advertiser) most satellite channels are still state-owned, or affiliated to powerful political parties, and thus content-controlled. In terms of globalization, Sakr states that the research is inconclusive: if globalization is meant as a single politico-economico-cultural ideology, the study reveals resulting cultures of resistance, and reorientation, as well as integration into a system. In terms of globalization’s potential to unify society, Sakr shows that although a bigger mass of people is reached, this group is divided in terms of program preferences. In subsequent chapters, and via elaborate research that draws on articles, books and conferences, covering fields as varied as media, sociology, politics, Arab history, popular culture, international law, NGOs, advertising and marketing, economics, international and regional policy-making, Sakr seeks to define the various forces at play in the satellite television scene. Her research shows that power, money and ideas in satellite media are still widely linked to the power structures in the political arena (ex: MBC-Saudi royal family, Future TV-Hariri family, Nile Channels-Egyptian government). Many stations perceive their role as intrinsically propagandist, showing the “good” side of Arab culture, to attract investors, and are tools for governments or politicians to resolve domestic issues, or devise (foreign) policy. Even NGOs, which could play a unifying role at civil society level by promoting freedom of expression and human rights, are mostly denied access to satellite presence, furthering the point that globalization via satellite media is yet to be achieved. As such, Sakr suggests that it is more accurate to describe satellite channels in the Arab World as ‘transnational’ rather than ‘global’. Although Sakr’s extensive research includes many statistics and numbers, she frequently points out that accurate quantitative studies are sorely lacking in the Middle East. Some arguments provided by Arab media experts, are actually merely educated guesses on their part to fill in gaps. The study would have surely contained these numbers, had they been available, but this also raises interesting questions as to whether these studies can ever be performed. Sakr’s work is very effective in defining the context in which satellite television developed in the Middle East and offers a very comprehensive introduction. Political events that have followed the publishing of this book have however greatly affected the media scene, and given birth to new news players (Al-Manar, Al Arabiyya), have given higher credibility to some (Al-Jazeera), and have changed the focus of others (Future Television). It would be interesting to compare and contrast the state of satellite media in the Arab world today, in its second decade of existence, to discover whether the great pace of change in both technology and politics have managed to achieve any perceptible differences at television level, and the development of a more truly global arena of communication.

Sakr, N. (2001). Satellite realms: Transnational television, globalization and the middle east. London: I.B.Tauris