Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research - Volume 2, Issue 1-2, 2009

The city is an allegory for social order, culture and civilization. The city in the postmodern condition extols both order and the subversion of that order through a myriad of latent and overt symbols and activities. The city's space is constructed both through material and visual practices, and equally through (media and mediated) discourses where these become sites for examination of ideological power and social relationships. This article examines the veil as an object of cultural signification through the politics of form and contextualizes its interface in the post-9/11 urban space where media and official discourses construct it as disruptive visually and socially to the urban spaces of order and administration.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had been firmly placed in the media spotlight following the participation of fifteen Saudi nationals in the September 11 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. For the international media, this catastrophe turned into an ongoing media event. The British press was no exception. This study analyses the portrayal of Saudi Arabia in four British Sunday newspapers, The Observer, The Sunday Times, The Sunday Mirror and The News of the World, over three time periods: (1) immediately after 9/11; (2) the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001; (3) the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. A combination of content and qualitative analysis methods were employed to examine and categorize the newspaper articles that make references to Saudi Arabia.While the Sunday tabloids employed bin Laden as a figurehead to sexup their stories and in turn demonize Saudi Arabia, they utilized a tabloid format through which to criticize Islam and Islamic culture. In contrast, the more highbrow Sunday newspapers veered away from this style: their need to pander to their readers was evident in downgrading the strength of Arab society relative to that in the West. The more liberal Observer newspaper often focused on themes which questioned the human rights record of the Kingdom as well as the role of religion in the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. However, The Sunday Times adopted a more sensationalist journalistic style utilizing bin Laden as a vehicle through which to portray the problems inherent in Saudi Arabia, suggesting that a revolution instigated by bin Laden could trigger the fall of the Kingdom. A more complex and in-depth reporting of the involvement of the Saudi state against the terror cells originating from the Kingdom's anti-monarchy factions was not evident; instead new articles published in The Sunday Times and The Observer reinforced previously established ideas and norms as they were often rehashed stories with little new information or direction.

This paper examines the patterns of Internet usage by 81 governmental websites in the Arab World to enhance their relationship with the public and media. The study concludes that Arab governmental websites did not draw heavily on using the Internet as a public relations tool, and did not take full advantage of the dialogic capacities of the Internet, despite their emphasis on the promotional features of their organizations. The study also showed that Arab governmental websites have a strong interest in realizing public information and press/agentry models and low interest in the asymmetrical and symmetrical models. Significant shortcomings were detected in: the content provided to media and public; using online tools; and applying the dialogic communication.

Words play an effective role in determining the impact of media on people's attitudes and reactions to events. And it is known that media can play either a positive or a negative role in people's lives, and the trends of any media are governed by the goals and strategies of those who use and direct the media machinery. This has occurred clearly in the consequences of the tragic events of September 11 2001 and the vital role the media played in that. After the attack on America, a new discourse emerged in the media; this discourse associated the war on Afghanistan, the aftermath of the Taliban defeat and fall of its government with 9/11. This went in tandem with America's invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has significant importance for the deep impact it made on the world in general and in the region in particular. Most importantly, this war has affected the historical and civilized heritage of Iraq. Since, these events have affected the region, their impact have reached the media as well. Then it is of great importance to examine and understand the way media in the region particularly responded to the daily events and developments in Iraq. This article reports an analysis of the discourse used by the media in dealing with the Iraq issue. The discussion focuses primarily on issues pertaining to the general trends of the Arab media in its coverage of events and the specific words used for this purpose, as well as the degree of independence and depth of the coverage. The study is an attempt to raise issues of media discourse analysis and the impact that had on the public's view of the events.

After many decades of heavily relying on local newspapers and controlled radio and TV, many Kuwaitis switched to the Internet to obtain information, news and political analysis. The political dispute of power after the death of Kuwaiti Emir Sheik Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah on 15 January 2006, followed by parliament's demands to change the electoral constituencies voting system of the National Assembly in May 2006, forced many Kuwaitis to go online to get the latest news and analysis regarding the two disputes. Kuwaiti online journalism created an online public sphere to discuss issues that were banned locally and became a source of instant updated information during the disputes.The researcher used online content analysis to determine the role online journalism plays in political disputes, focusing on the most popular Kuwaiti personal writers' sites, weblogs and forums. The results show that the language of online journalism took a different direction from the local press, with more freedom to write, discuss, and share ideas online with less fear of government retribution. What was considered a taboo red line in the local press became acceptable green line online. Also online journalism has consolidated offline users with online users to force the government to accept their demands.

Postcolonial and media literatures have documented the West's association with Muslim/Arab woman and images of passivity and oppression. The literature has yet to systematically consider western depictions of the Muslim Arab woman who is a trendsetter. How does the western press depict this powerful woman and do western and Arab media depict this woman similarly or differently? This article reports on a discourse analytical study of 32 articles that mention prominent Saudi women achieving positive firsts in the Kingdom, half from the Arab press and half from the western press. The articles were coded along 27 discourse variables and then statistically analysed for discourse strategies. Western articles diverged considerably in genre and register. Though replication is required, this study suggests that in response to the consistent findings of western orientalist depictions of Muslim woman in weak roles, the western press exhibits wider variation depicting powerful Saudi women.

This study attempted to answer the question: how does agenda-setting work in a country like Egypt? By looking at the most prominent issues in the media coverage in the main Egyptian newspapers (media agenda) and the ranking of the most important issues in the public consciousness (public agenda), this study aims to bring to attention the dynamics of agenda setting in Third World countries countries that have different economic, social and political contexts. It thus presents a further step towards understanding the intricacies of agenda setting when applied to the quasi-democracies of some Third World countries.The study adopted two research methods: content analysis and questionnairebased survey research. Two main daily Egyptian newspapers, Al-Ahram as a national (state) newspaper and Al-Wafd as an opposition newspaper, were contentanalysed to determine the media agenda. A questionnaire-based survey research was conducted among 400 respondents to investigate the public agenda. The findings supported a positive correlation between media agendas and public agendas at the aggregate level. Furthermore, the results indicated a significant correlation between the opposition newspaper's agenda and that of its readers. Little support was found between the governmental newspaper's agenda and that of its readers.

CAMMRO'S Third Annual Doctoral Symposium on Arab & Muslim Media Research 25 April 2009, King's College, University of London The Emerging Foundations of a Growing Field of Inquiry