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Index / Activities / Conferences and debates / Thirty years after “Desert Storm”: changes in the media’s coverage of the MENA region
Thirty years after “Desert Storm”: changes in the media’s coverage of the MENA region
May 12, 20216:00 p.m.
ONLINE
Casa Árabe’s YouTube and Facebook Live channel.
6:00 p.m.
In English, with no translation.
On the upcoming date of May 12, we will be hosting this conference by three experts on this topic. The event will be broadcast live on our YouTube and Facebook Live channels.
The first Gulf War (1991) ushered in pioneering real-time coverage of conflict, which seemed to portend great opportunities in the world of news and information. However, the many red lines drawn by the Pentagon, which biased and restricted the content that could be broadcast, kept footage and sounds from being broadcast immediately or translated into a deeper understanding of the conflict by the public.
After that experience, over the last three decades we have witnessed countless foreign operations and interventions in the region. From those carried out by the United States in countries such as Iraq or Yemen, and with NATO in Libya, to those recently orchestrated by Arab states (with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the forefront); and those carried out by Israel (over ten in Gaza since 2005 and one in Lebanon in 2006), they have all contributed to upheaval in the already complex map of interregional conflicts. In addition to this, the Arab uprisings of 2011 and coverage in countries such as Egypt, Syria and Bahrain have posed major challenges to grassroots journalism.
As a result, many questions and controversies surrounding the documentation of war conflicts remain thirty years later. How has the media landscape in the Middle East and North Africa changed since the end of the twentieth century? What has the coverage of these conflicts meant for journalists, audiences and media practices? What has the impact been due to increased competition for audiences arising from the major rise in channels and means for conveying information? What gaps continue to exist between East and West?
To answer all of these questions, we have invited three experts with extensive experience in media coverage of conflicts: Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English; Zahera Harb, director of the Master’s Degree in International Journalism at the City University of London, and Adel Iskandar, an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University. The debate will be moderated by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s International Relations Coordinator.
Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English, covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent sectarian conflict by traveling alongside allied forces in Anbar and Tikrit. More recently, she was responsible for reporting on the Arab Springs in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, and since 2014 she has been documenting the situation of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe. Before taking over her current position, she worked for ABC News during the United States’ “Operation Desert Fox” in Iraq (1998).
Zahera Harb is the director of the Master’s degree programs in International Journalism and Media and Globalization at the City University of London (CUL). Her publications include the collections “Reporting the Middle East: the Practice of News in the 21st Century” and “Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Palestine and Lebanon”. Harb has more than 11 years of experience as a journalist in her native Lebanon, working for both local and international media (BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera).
Adel Iskandar Adel Iskandar is an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada and co-editor of the online journal Jadaliyya. His most notable works include “Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution”; “Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism”; “Mediating the Arab Uprisings,” and “Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring.” Prior to this, he taught at Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and MA in Communication, Culture & Technology).
After that experience, over the last three decades we have witnessed countless foreign operations and interventions in the region. From those carried out by the United States in countries such as Iraq or Yemen, and with NATO in Libya, to those recently orchestrated by Arab states (with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates at the forefront); and those carried out by Israel (over ten in Gaza since 2005 and one in Lebanon in 2006), they have all contributed to upheaval in the already complex map of interregional conflicts. In addition to this, the Arab uprisings of 2011 and coverage in countries such as Egypt, Syria and Bahrain have posed major challenges to grassroots journalism.
As a result, many questions and controversies surrounding the documentation of war conflicts remain thirty years later. How has the media landscape in the Middle East and North Africa changed since the end of the twentieth century? What has the coverage of these conflicts meant for journalists, audiences and media practices? What has the impact been due to increased competition for audiences arising from the major rise in channels and means for conveying information? What gaps continue to exist between East and West?
To answer all of these questions, we have invited three experts with extensive experience in media coverage of conflicts: Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English; Zahera Harb, director of the Master’s Degree in International Journalism at the City University of London, and Adel Iskandar, an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University. The debate will be moderated by Karim Hauser, Casa Árabe’s International Relations Coordinator.
Hoda Abdel-Hamid, a correspondent for Al-Jazeera English, covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent sectarian conflict by traveling alongside allied forces in Anbar and Tikrit. More recently, she was responsible for reporting on the Arab Springs in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, and since 2014 she has been documenting the situation of migrants and refugees arriving in Europe. Before taking over her current position, she worked for ABC News during the United States’ “Operation Desert Fox” in Iraq (1998).
Zahera Harb is the director of the Master’s degree programs in International Journalism and Media and Globalization at the City University of London (CUL). Her publications include the collections “Reporting the Middle East: the Practice of News in the 21st Century” and “Narrating Conflict in the Middle East: Discourse, Image and Communication Practices in Palestine and Lebanon”. Harb has more than 11 years of experience as a journalist in her native Lebanon, working for both local and international media (BBC, CNN, Al-Jazeera).
Adel Iskandar Adel Iskandar is an associate professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University (SFU) in Canada and co-editor of the online journal Jadaliyya. His most notable works include “Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution”; “Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism”; “Mediating the Arab Uprisings,” and “Media Evolution on the Eve of the Arab Spring.” Prior to this, he taught at Georgetown University (Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and MA in Communication, Culture & Technology).