ABSTRACT

This edited volume presents ground-breaking empirical research on the media in political transition in Tunisia, Turkey and Morocco. Focusing on developments in the wake of the region’s upheavals in 2011, it offers a new theoretical framework for understanding mediascapes in the confessional and hybrid-authoritarian systems of the Middle East.

In this book, media scholars focus on three themes: the media’s structure as an expression of governance, the media’s function as a reflection of the market, and the media’s agency in communicating between power and the public. The result is a unique addition to the literature on two counts. Firstly, analysis of similar players, issues and processes in each country produces a thematically consistent comparative assessment of the media’s role across the southern Mediterranean region. The first cross-country comparison of specific media practices in the Middle East, it covers issues such as women in talk shows, media’s relationship with surveillance, and comparative practices of media regulation. Secondly, actualising the idea that media reflects the society that produces it, the studies here draw on field data to lay the foundations for a new theory of media, Values and Status Negotiation (VSN), which evolved from the region’s unique characteristics and practices, and offers an alternative to prevailing Western-centric approaches to media analysis.

Media and Politics in the Southern Mediterranean will appeal to students and scholars of politics, sociology, Media Studies, Cultural Studies and Middle Eastern Studies.

chapter |26 pages

Introduction

part |130 pages

Structure

part I|63 pages

Structural status of media in governance and law

chapter 1|16 pages

Turkish media structure in judicial and political context

An illustration of values and status negotiation

chapter 2|24 pages

Government-media relations in Tunisia

A paradigm shift in the culture of governance?

part II|60 pages

Structures of media and surveillance

chapter 4|19 pages

The scissors and the magnifying glass

Internet governance in the transitional Tunisian context

chapter 5|20 pages

Social media in Turkey as a space for political battles

AKTrolls and other politically motivated trolling

chapter 6|19 pages

Under watchful eyes

Internet surveillance and citizen media in Morocco, the case of Mamfakinch

part |94 pages

Function

part III|88 pages

The function of media values in the politics of sector transition

chapter 7|20 pages

All is flux

A hybrid approach to macro-analysis of the Turkish media *

chapter 8|27 pages

What is private, what is public, and who exercises media power in Tunisia?

A hybrid-functional perspective on Tunisia’s media sector

chapter 9|23 pages

Media in Morocco

A highly political economy

chapter 10|16 pages

Local media in Turkey

The growth of Islamic networks in Konya’s radio landscape

part |159 pages

Agency

part IV|57 pages

Women on the small screen

chapter 11|20 pages

Negotiating identity

Gender and Tunisian talk shows

chapter 13|14 pages

Understanding ‘New Turkey’ through women’s eyes

Gender politics in Turkish daytime talk shows 1

part V|58 pages

Contestation and positionality between power and public

chapter 15|18 pages

Reinforcing citizenship through civil society and media partnerships

The case of community radios in Tunisia

chapter 16|22 pages

Radio and political change

Listening in contemporary Morocco

part VI|37 pages

Media status and the implications of covering terror

chapter 17|16 pages

Representation of terror and ethnic conflict in the Turkish press

An analysis of the Kurdish peace process in Turkey *

chapter 18|19 pages

Islamist cyber-activism in Tunisia

Contesting the message, redefining the public