The Foreign Service Journal, May 2012

Western media companies are in the works, as well. A Saudi company, Rotana, and U.S.-based Bloomberg are jointly launching Alarab, while British-based Sky Broad- casting has plans to introduce a channel called Sky Arabia, in partnership with Abu Dhabi Media Investment. Al-Jazeera, which changed its top executive last Sep- tember, has begun shifting to more locally focused pro- gramming. For instance, it has started a separate channel targeting Egyptian viewers. Social Media and Politics: A Rising Liberal Democratic Tide? While weekly use of Arab satellite TV is at nearly a sat- uration point in Egypt, according to surveys, use of online news sources also continues to grow rapidly. Surveys show that more than a quarter of Egyptians and more than a third of Tunisians have Internet access, with access and usage growing steadily since last year. A November 2011 poll released by U.S.-based Zogby Research shows that about 9 in 10 respondents in Egypt and Tunisia use social media sites as a source of news and information, far more than other regional countries sur- veyed. Most accessed these sites at home, but use of smart phones was increasing dramatically. At the same time, however, Zogby’s polling shows tra- ditional sources of news such as television and newspapers remain dominant. Even among younger or university-ed- ucated Arabs, the heaviest users of social media, traditional media still rated highest in news reliability. For many Arabs, “the jury is still out on the trustworthiness and ob- jectivity of Internet- and social media-derived news,” the Zogby report said. Voting patterns in the two countries also belie the im- pression, spread during the Arab Spring, that a rising lib- eral democratic populace stood ready to seize the political reins. Experts say the best-organized social forces in both states continue to be conservative Islamic groups. The vic- tories in the late-2011 votes bear this out, though in the Egyptian case it remains unclear that the military clique will cede power easily. 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 2 F OCUS