Is Libyan media more free after the revolution? (New research report)

Polis visiting research fellow Fatima el Issawi (@elIssawi) has just published the latest of her series of reports on Arab media in transition after the recent Political upheavals. Her latest is on Libya. Here she gives you a taste of the challenges and opportunities facing mainstream Libyan journalists

The painful rebirth of Libya’s mainstream news media (guest blog)

How are Libya’s journalists coping after the end of the Gaddaffi regime? Polis research fellow Fatima El-Issawi has been to find out. Here she gives a flavour of her trip

Tunisia: winter of politics, spring of media?

“It might be the winter of politics in Tunisia but it is definitely the spring of the media”: the statement by a Tunisian secular journalist disappointed by the victory of Islamists in the recent elections of the Constituent Assembly is very well reflective of the “awakening” of Tunisian media, long-time muzzled by the dictatorship of Zine el Abbidine Ben Ali. The opening of the media industry which used to be maliciously operated by a clientalist system run by Ben Ali’s family and friends, has inevitably turned into a complex reform process. Modernising the media industry towards accurate, balanced and plural journalism, is a tough challenge in Tunisia where, under a repressive legal umbrella and lack of media institutionalism and the minimal protection and job security for journalists, the industry was confined to praising the rulers and publishing their press releases. The legal and structural reform of the media industry proceed alongside the urgent task of introducing new media practices, improved editorial policies and a coherent set of ethics. Deeper challenges have emerged for a post-authoritarian media, the most important of which is the change in attitude and adaptation towards modernity necessary to better understand the complexity of modern media spheres. This challenge has yet to be met

All talk? Egypt’s complex media revolution (guest blog)

Polis Research Fellow, Fatima el Issawi reports on her latest field trip, to Egypt, as part of our project looking at Arab media in transition

Egypt's media war

The Egyptian national media coverage of the bloody clampdown on the Muslim Brotherhoods sit-ins and the violence that erupted in its aftermath in Egypt gives even more evidence to support the finding of our research project on Arab media under political transitions

Tunisia’s media spring?: new research project

Polis Visiting Research Fellow Fatima el Issawi is just back from her first field investigation in Tunisia, trying to understand how Arab media is coping with the transitional political phase and how Arab journalists are redefining their identity and role. Not only is there a new political environment, but social media is also transforming journalism and political communications. This Polis research project is partly funded by the Open Society Foundation.* Read her Tunisia research report here. Here are her first thoughts

Egyptian journalists and the struggle for change following the 2011 uprising: The ambiguous journalistic agency between change and conformity

The Egyptian media displayed a high level of content diversity in the final years of the Mubarak regime, prior to the 2011 uprising. This diversity expanded considerably after the uprising when national media embodied expressions of dissent with unprecedented openness, in defiance of the entrenched identity of the journalist as the regime’s guard. This article investigates the dynamics of journalistic agency in Egyptian newsrooms in search for a new identity, investigating the challenges, hopes and trade-offs of a painful process of change. It looks at the complex interplay between these agentic dynamics and inherited structures within an uncertain and highly contested transition to democracy, which finally collapsed into a new chapter of authoritarianism. The article argues that while journalistic agency helped support trends towards democratization in media and politics in the immediate aftermath of the uprising, it also acted as powerful platform in ‘othering’ opponents preparing the ground for the return of autocratic practices and ultimately the fall of the democratic experiment

Islamism in Egypt: The long road to integration

This article is second in a special series of posts commissioned by LSE IDEAS exploring Islamism and the Arab Spring. The series also includes articles on the history of political Islam, Egypt, Libya, and a concluding post on pluralism and minorities

Alternative Public Spaces in Hybrid Media Environments: Dissent in High Uncertainty

Independent news websites and press played a vital role in creating spaces of contention in the context of the Moroccan pro-democracy movement of 2011. This article looks at the role of this press in disseminating alternative narratives in the hybrid media and political environment that followed the pro-democracy movement. Based on extensive interviews with journalists, this article examines journalists’ practices in countering hegemonic media and political discourse, to understand how they contribute to—or hinder—the formation of counter publics under tough repression. The article uses the critical frameworks of dominant and counter-publics and Judith Butler’s concept of silencing

Conference 2014 speaker series: an interview with Fatima El Issawi

Polis research fellow Fatima El Issawi speaks about her new report on post-uprising Egyptian Media: “Egyptian Media Under Transition: In the name of the regime… In the name of the people?