The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

London and distributed to satellite- linked printing facilities throughout the region — cover the news more authoritatively than national papers, and domestic audiences increasingly turn to a wide variety of television news programs for information and analysis. Local papers often respond by playing up their “local-ness,” accentuating nationalist concerns and day-to-day interests. For elite readers, the local press in many places has become merely a way to keep track of where the government stands on many issues; it has lost its role as either a leader or shaper of opinions. The Birth of MBC The greatest change in the regional information envi- ronment has been the rise of Arab satellite television. Its roots lay in Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 — an invasion that went unremarked on Saudi domestic television because news editors were unsure how to report the events. An urgent desire to understand what was happening next door gave rise not only to Saudi and Egyptian rebroadcasts of CNN on their terrestrial network, but it breathed life into the idea for a small Saudi-owned station called the Middle East Broadcast Center. MBC was launched as a subscription-free satellite ser- vice in 1991, with a mix of news, entertainment and movies. The revolutionary idea behind MBC’s news pro- gramming was that a truly Arab channel could cover developments in the Arab world better than any of its Western competitors. The correspondents and editors would know the context, they could do away with a cum- bersome apparatus of translators and fixers, and they would have the advantage of speaking to an informed Arab audience instead of a fickle Western one. There were two problems. First, no one had ever done it before. Equally daunting, how could such a daring experiment flourish in an environment as restrictive as Saudi Arabia? Owners located the station in London, which simultaneously gave it access to top- flight technical talent and distance from the stultifying hand of Saudi censors. Now, just 15 years later, more than 150 Arab satellite channels fill the airwaves. Most are available at no charge and, contrary to popular belief in the West, most focus on entertainment rather than news. U.S. government officials often complain bitterly about the lat- est outrage on Al-Jazeera, which con- tinues to garner the highest marks in the region for the trustworthiness of its coverage. Yet the bulk of Arab audiences — and especially young ones — are not Al-Jazeera junkies. Instead, they tune in to a daily diet of game shows, music videos and reality television. The audience for the Arab channels is impossible to estimate precisely, but upwards of 50 million Arabs — about 17 percent — have access in their own homes. Combined with the number who watch in public places like coffeehouses and those who watch videotapes of particularly newsworthy programming, the number of Arabs who are touched by satellite broadcasting begins to approach the number who have an interest in it. The Internet’s Reach Internet access is far less common than satellite tele- vision access. The International Telecommunications Union’s 2004 figures put Internet access rates in two key Arab countries, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, at just 6.3 per- cent and 5.4 percent, respectively. While most surveys suggest somewhat higher numbers, the Internet is not yet a mass medium in most countries in the region, with the exception of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates. Among young elites, however, it is a totally different story. E-mail offers further opportunities for communi- cation, especially for those with friends or relatives over- seas. Chat rooms abound, many of which are password- protected and all but inaccessible to outsiders. Arab pop stars maintain impressive sites, often in multiple lan- guages. A variety of sites provide religious guidance from all points of view and, for readers who are only comfort- able in Arabic, such sites provide the bulk of what many turn to for research on the Internet. Surveys suggest Al-Jazeera’s Arabic Web site is by far the most popular for those seeking news, generating more than a million hits per day. Among Western sites, those from sources as diverse as the New York Times , the Jerusalem Post and the BBC are popular in newsrooms, F O C U S 38 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 The Internet is not yet a mass medium in most countries in the region. Among young elites, however, it is a totally different story.