Search results for ""author naomi sakr""

There is a great deal at stake for everyone in the future of Arab television. Political and social upheavals in this central but unsettled region are increasingly played out on television screens and in the tussles over programming that take place behind them. Al-Jazeera is of course only one player among a still-growing throng of satellite channels, which now include private terrestrial stations in some Arab states. It is an industry urgently needing to be made sense of; this book does exactly this in a very readable and authoritative way, through exploring and explaining the evolving structures and content choices in both entertainment and news of contemporary Arab television. It shows how owners, investors, journalists, presenters, production companies, advertisers, regulators and media freedom advocates influence each other in a geolinguistic marketplace that encompasses the Arab region itself and communities abroad. Probing internal and external interventions in the Arab television landscape, the book offers a timely and compelling sequel to Naomi Sakr's "Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East", which won the Middle Eastern Studies Book Prize in 2003.

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Who analyses children's screen content and media use in Arab countries, and with what results? Children, defined internationally as under-18s, account for some 40 per cent of Arab populations and the proportion of under-fives is correspondingly large. Yet studies of children's media and child audiences in the region are as scarce as truly popular locally produced media content aimed at children. At the very time when conflict and uncertainty in key Arab countries have made local development and diversification of children's media more remote, it has become more urgent to gain a better understanding of how the next generation's identities and worldviews are formed. This interdisciplinary book is the first in English to probe both the state of Arab screen media for children and the practices of Arabic-speaking children in producing, as well as consuming, screen content. It responds to the gap in research by bringing together a holistic investigation of institutions and leading players, children's media experiences and some iconic media texts.With children's media increasingly linked to merchandising, which favours US-based global players and globalizing forces, this volume provides a timely insight into tensions between differing concepts of childhood and desirable media messages.

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Transformations in the Arab media landscape are a key element in regional dynamics of political change. Where do private owners of Arab media outlets stand on the scene? What part, if any, have they played in weakening dictatorships, countering sectarianism and political polarisation, and reforming business practices in the Arab world? Arab Media Moguls charts the fortunes of some leading media investors and entrepreneurs from Egypt, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia to examine their motives, management styles, financial performance and links to political power. The resulting profiles offer intriguing insights into the place of family, education, religion and media regulation in regional power structures. Globally, the rise of small digital media, increased competition law and the precedence of more digitally-savvy younger generations have fuelled doubts as to whether the archetypal ‘media mogul’ is a phenomenon with a future. How do such factors affect power plays in Arab media? Responding critically to existing Western scholarship and commentary on magnates in US and European media, this book explores how far existing assumptions and perceptions about powerful media owners’ eccentricity, innovation and risk-taking apply in the Arab context and offers a range of alternative approaches to understanding the central position of certain individuals in the fast-changing Arab media business.

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