The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

yielded to a limitless world with hundreds of crystal-clear channels, hundreds of thousands of DVDs, and digital video recorders that render broadcast schedules irrele- vant. Potential audiences are huge, but they are fickle, and beyond the control of any single individual, group or movement. What once had been arcane is now com- monplace. The Middle East is going through a similar transition. Although access to media and information remains far more restricted than it is in Western Europe and the United States, in relative terms the change is just as rev- olutionary. There, too, a new generation is emerging. They share with their Western counterparts the creativi- ty that follows from an exponentially freer media envi- ronment, and the growing sense of individualism that such an environment creates. What is confounding to many in the United States is that this new generation does not feel an instant kinship with the media-rich Western culture. If anything, a growing menu of Arab media offerings has accentuated divisions between the Arab world and the West, and made more raw the feel- ings of anger, injustice and unfairness that many Arabs feel toward the non-Arab world. In the near term, the primary effects of the informa- tion revolution in the Arab world are likely to be domes- tic. Old categories will be challenged, and a richer spec- trum of thought and belief will spring up. Governments that relied on familiar tools to mobilize the public and censor undesirable views will find themselves stripped of the capacity to do either; nongovernmental groups and individual personalities will have a reach within and between countries that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. The world this new generation creates will likely — but not necessarily — be more democratic, but it may be even less liberal than its predecessors. Most important to remember is that information and communications tech- nology will reshape the task of governance in the Middle East, and governments who fail to respond to the new environment will do so at their peril. The second half of the 20th century in the Middle East was the age of mass media. Government newspapers reached out to the newly literate, and government televi- sion reached out to those suddenly wealthy enough to own a television. In places like Cairo and Baghdad, elite politics gave way to populist politics, and the children of the newly urbanized became the newly politicized. An Age of Media Plenty Now, in the first half of the 21st century, Middle Eastern governments are losing their strangleholds on their publics. It is an age of media plenty. Any notion that there is a single “Arab line” on a matter of interest is demolished nightly on Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and a host of other stations. It is fascinating to see how different the new generations growing up in this environment are from their elders: so much more questioning of their identities, so much more individualistic, so much more impatient. Much has been written about the relative youth of Middle Eastern societies. Forty-six percent of Yemenis and 45 percent of Palestinians are under 15, according to U.N. numbers. Half of Saudis are under 18. Many Arab countries are among the youngest societies in the world. What is often forgotten in the mix, however, is how much more literate young people in the region are than their parents’ generation. In just the last 15 years, UNESCO estimates, adult literacy in Yemen has shot up from 50 to 68 percent, and in Syria from 80 to 95 percent. Egypt’s overall literacy rate among those 15 and older is 55 percent; its literacy rate among youth aged 15 to 24 is 73 percent. Jordanians, Palestinians and even Omanis now enjoy youth literacy rates above 95 percent, suggest- ing that complex information can pass hands far more easily than even a generation ago. Feeding into this more literate population is a smor- gasbord of information platforms that barely existed a decade ago. First off is the publishing revolution that computers created. The ability to publish not only books, but, even more importantly, pamphlets and fliers, has become a great equalizer for those with limited resources. Marginal tracts can be produced with great skill, and the key challenge is no longer to get something in print. The challenge, instead, is convincing someone to read one’s work instead of a myriad of other articles, pamphlets, tracts and books that can be found on any street corner in the region and outside every mosque. In the same way, local newspapers have a harder time staying relevant. Elite regional papers — often edited in F O C U S D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 37 Jon B. Alterman is a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. He is a former member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State.