Books about Al jazeera from Amazon.com

The battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East is being fought not on the streets of Baghdad, but on the newscasts and talk shows of Al Jazeera The future of China is being shaped not by Communist Party bureaucrats, but by bloggers working quietly in cyber cafes. The next attacks by al Qaeda will emerge not from Osama bin Laden’s cave, but from cells around the world connected by the Internet.

In these and many other instances, traditional ways of reshaping global politics have been superseded by the influence of new media—satellite television, the Internet, and other high-tech tools. What is involved is more than a refinement of established practices. We are seeing a comprehensive reconnecting of the global village and a reshaping of how the world works.

Al Jazeera is a paradigm of new media’s influence. Ten years ago, there was much talk about “the CNN effect,” the theory that news coverage—especially gripping visual storytelling—was influencing foreign policy throughout the world. Today, “the Al Jazeera effect” takes that a significant step further. The concept encompasses the use of new media as tools in every aspect of global affairs, ranging from democratization to terrorism, and including the concept of “virtual states.”

“The media” are no longer just the media. They have a larger popular base than ever before and, as a result, have unprecedented impact on international politics. The media can be tools of conflict and instruments of peace; they can make traditional borders irrelevant and unify peoples scattered across the globe. This phenomenon, the Al Jazeera effect, is reshaping the world.
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This timely work discusses the role of Arab transnational media in the emergence of a new pan-Arabism McArabism, the author suggests, represents the convergence of local tribal identities with globalization and the forming, or reforming, of a new regional Arab identity. The book explores the emergence of McArabism and its impact on Arab society, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and new representations of the West and the Islamic and Arab World..
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In the mid 1990s, the emir of Qatar conceived the idea of a satellite channel that would further the progressive image he hoped to establish for his small Arabian/Persian Gulf state. At the same time, a short-lived partnership between the BBC and a Saudi company had left a handful of BBC-trained Arab journalists and broadcasters up for grabs. That was the inception of Al Jazeera--a satellite channel which changed forever the face of Arab broadcasting with its uncensored news and bold talk show programs. The September 11 attacks on the United States and the war on terrorism vaulted Al Jazeera to international prominence but also turned it into a source of controversy. Despite the controversy--or perhaps in part because of it--in less than a decade the channel has transformed itself from an obscure regional news broadcaster to a multi-channel, multi-lingual, multi-service global enterprise.

This book's in-depth look at Al Jazeera examines whether its global success reflects particular organizational strengths. It explores whether Al Jazeera is merely a fad thriving on the thirst for free speech in the Middle East, or a new medium whose success will be sustained by its organizational culture and model. This work delves deep into the culture, workings and challenges of this powerful media organization to provide insights on its achievements, its future, and the true measure of its success..
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From November 2002 to May 2003, Steve Tatham worked alongside American military planners in the Gulf, coordinating the huge media campaign that foreshadowed and accompanied the eventual invasion of Iraq.

From first hand experience he witnessed how, in advance of the outbreak of hostilities, the US planned to win over skeptical Arab hearts and minds. Yet as the campaign unfolded, Tatham, the Royal Navy's public spokesman in Iraq, saw how differently the British and Americans regarded the media and how badly journalists from the Arab world, in particular from Al-Jazeera satellite television, were treated in comparison to those from coalition nations. His book is highly critical of how the United States handled its information war.

Notwithstanding the best efforts of well meaning senior US officials, the mounting death toll, both military and civilian, saw the Americans all but ignore the Arab media , focusing instead on a largely acquiescent domestic press, one still obsessed with Al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the homeland and only too happy to fly the Stars and Stripes. Images of dead and captured coalition servicemen led to Arab channels being accused of bias against western forces, and such was the demonisation of some channels that many observers began to wonder if President Bush's declaration that 'you are either with us or against us' applied not just to nation states but also to the world's media..
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The Al-Jazeera television network has been called many things, usually not very complimentary. The Israeli government says it is anti-Israeli, the Syrians call it a Zionist front. Some Arabs say it is a CIA plot, while U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has accused it of "working in concert with terrorists" and "consistently lying." The upstart Qatar network's remarkable story is now finally told in journalist Hugh Miles's book Al-Jazeera. Miles, an Arabic-speaking British journalist born in Saudi Arabia, tells how Qatar's liberal young emir, Sheikh Hamad, created Al-Jazeera in 1996, a year after coming to power in a coup against his own father. Shekh Hamad stunned the Arab world by liberalizing the country, giving women the vote, introducing limited democracy, and ending press censorship. Other Arab media outlets slavishly kowtowed to their governments and were distrusted by the public, but the emir gave Al-Jazeera complete editorial freedom. Its motto was: "The opinion and the other opinion." Arabs were amazed to see TV news that finally broadcast interviews with dissidents and held their governments accountable for policies. Some Arab states retaliated by closing Al-Jazeera bureaus, disrupting potential ad revenues, and breaking off relations with Qatar.

Al-Jazeera was already enormously popular in the Arab world when 9-11 occurred. After the terrorist attack, it became notorious for airing the communiqués and videos of Osama bin Laden and filing reports critical of the U.S. from its Iraq bureau. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell described Al-Jazeera as "horrible" and "slanted." One American newspaper called on the U.S. military to shut it down. Miles tells of how a U.S. bomb flattened the network's bureau in Kabul, while U.S. soldiers and aircraft killed and injured several of its journalists during the war in Iraq--although U.S. officials deny targeting the network. As Al-Jazeera gears up to open an English-language channel, Miles writes, its story will only get more interesting. No doubt! --Alex Roslin.
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Few phenomena in the Arab world are more controversial than Al Jazeera - the satellite television news channel that, despite its brief history, has made its impact known throughout the world and changed the face of a formerly parochial Arab media.

This timely collection of articles, many by Arabic-speaking scholars, gives us more information and analysis of the network - and how it has affected the public and even the foreign policies of Western governments - than any other of the very few books published in English up to now.

The book provides rare insights into Al Jazeera's politics, its agenda, its programs, its coverage of regional crises, and its treatment of the West. The authors attempt to gauge the station's impact on ordinary Arab viewers, understand its effect on an increasingly visible Arab public sphere, and map out the role it plays in regional Arab politics. The image of Al Jazeera that emerges from this book is much more complex than its depiction in American media. It reveals the powerful role that the network plays in shaping ideas and reconstructing Arab identities during a crucial juncture in Middle Eastern history and politics..
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Timely research and analysis on the controversial pan-Arab news channel..
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