al jazera - Google Play

On November 20, 1979, worldwide attention was focused on Tehran, where the Iranian hostage crisis was entering its third week. The same morning-the first of a new Muslim century-hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam's holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global jihad in modern times. Led by a Saudi preacher named Juhayman al Uteybi, they believed that the Saudi royal family had become a craven servant of American infidels and sought a return to the glory of uncompromising Islam. With nearly 100,000 worshippers trapped inside the holy compound, Mecca's bloody siege lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslim rage against the United States and causing hundreds of deaths. Despite U.S. assistance, the Saudi royal family proved haplessly incapable of dislodging the occupier, whose ranks included American converts to Islam. In Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini blamed the Great Satan-the United States-for defiling the shrine, prompting mobs to storm and torch American embassies in Pakistan and Libya. The desperate Saudis finally enlisted the help of French commandos led by Captain Paul Barril, who prepared the final assault and supplied the poison gas that knocked out the insurgents. Though most captured gunmen were quickly beheaded, the Saudi royal family responded to this unprecedented challenge by compromising with the rebels' supporters among the kingdom's most senior clerics, helping them nurture and export Juhayman's violent brand of Islam around the world. This dramatic and immensely consequential story was barely covered in the press in the pre-CNN, pre-Al Jazeera days, as Saudi Arabia imposed an information blackout and kept foreign correspondents away. Yaroslav Trofimov now penetrates this veil of silence, interviewing for the first time scores of direct participants in the siege, including former terrorists, and drawing on hundreds of documents that were declassified upon his request. Written with the pacing, detail, and suspense of a real-life thriller, The Siege of Mecca reveals how Saudi reaction to the uprising in Mecca set free the forces that produced the attacks of 9/11 and the harrowing circumstances that surround us today.

Blowback: A Thriller

Brad Thor

"Scot Harvath is the perfect all-American hero for the post-September 11th world." —Nelson DeMille

A weapon designed to decimate the Roman Empire has just become the number one threat to the United States.
From the national bestselling author of The Lions of Lucerne, Path of the Assassin, and State of the Union comes the most gripping international thriller yet featuring Navy SEAL turned covert counterterrorism agent Scot Harvath.

When a mystery thousands of years in the making threatens to catapult the enemies of America to a sure and decisive victory, the only person the president can call for help is the man the administration has just fired.

Caught live on Al Jazeera in an off-the-books operation, Scot Harvath's career has been terminated and he is forced to go to ground as the president bows to pressure from a ruthless senator with her sights set on the White House. But when the tide in the war on terror suddenly turns against the U.S., the president has no choice but to secretly bring Harvath back inside.

Ducking a congressional subpoena, Harvath travels to the Mediterranean, where he learns of a shadowy organization that has been combing the earth for decades in search of the ultimate weapon to use against the United States and her allies.

Now, after three summers of record-setting heat across present-day Europe, one steadily melting Alpine glacier has given up an ancient secret--one with the potential to thrust civilization back into the Dark Ages.

From Cyprus, London, and Paris, to Italy, Switzerland, and Saudi Arabia, Harvath must race against the clock to stop one of the greatest evils ever to face the United States. With his characteristic high-voltage action, sweeping international locales, and meticulous research, Brad Thor has created another supercharged novel that is sure to thrill.

Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Scorched Earth

George Galdorisi

In this gripping thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Out of the Ashes, an Islamic extremist is on a quest for vengeance after his only son is killed and it’s up to Op-Center to stophis lethal plot.

General Bob Underwood—a special presidential envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL—is en route to the Syrian city of al-Bukamal when a rocket-propelled grenade strikes the side of his Humvee and the heavily armored convoy comes under attack. The general’s bodyguard is brutally murdered, and Underwood himself is kidnapped. Hours later, the President and top officials watch in horror from the Oval Office, as the general is viciously beheaded by an ISIL leader—broadcast on live television through a direct feed from Al Jazeera.

The world is stunned by the bloody scene, but even more so that this supposedly loose-knit terrorist organization was able to orchestrate a lethal attack on the world’s most powerful military. American forces goes into high gear on land and sea to retaliate, but when the ISIS leader's son is killed in an American bombing raid, his rage knows no bounds and he determines to wreak vengeance on the American homeland itself.

With everything in the balance, Op-Center must assemble both its domestic strike force, as well as its international intervention force—built around a seasoned squad operating out of the secretive unit that captured Osama bin Laden—to stay one step ahead of a ruthless enemy.

The View from Flyover Country: Dispatches from the Forgotten America

Sarah Kendzior

NEW YORK TIMES and MIBA BESTSELLER

From the St. Louis–based journalist often credited with first predicting Donald Trump’s presidential victory.

"A collection of sharp-edged, humanistic pieces about the American heartland...Passionate pieces that repeatedly assail the inability of many to empathize and to humanize." — Kirkus

In 2015, Sarah Kendzior collected the essays she reported for Al Jazeera and published them as The View from Flyover Country, which became an ebook bestseller and garnered praise from readers around the world. Now, The View from Flyover Country is being released in print with an updated introduction and epilogue that reflect on the ways that the Trump presidency was the certain result of the realities first captured in Kendzior’s essays.

A clear-eyed account of the realities of life in America’s overlooked heartland, The View from Flyover Country is a piercing critique of the labor exploitation, race relations, gentrification, media bias, and other aspects of the post-employment economy that gave rise to a president who rules like an autocrat. The View from Flyover Country is necessary reading for anyone who believes that the only way for America to fix its problems is to first discuss them with honesty and compassion.

“Please put everything aside and try to get ahold of Sarah Kendzior’s collected essays, The View from Flyover Country. I have rarely come across writing that is as urgent and beautifully expressed. What makes Kendzior’s writing so truly important is [that] it . . . documents where the problem lies, by somebody who lives there.”—The Wire

“Sarah Kendzior is as harsh and tenacious a critic of the Trump administration as you’ll find. She isn’t some new kid on the political block or a controversy machine. . . .Rather she is a widely published journalist and anthropologist who has spent much of her life studying authoritarianism.” —Columbia Tribune

The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton: A Parody

John Moe

The explosive secret e-mails Hillary Clinton doesn’t want you to read
(Or maybe she does…She’s crafty like that.)

Remember that time Hillary Clinton admitted that she deleted thousands of e-mails from her ultra-secret personal e-mail address while Secretary of State? Thousands of e-mails, she claimed, about her daughter’s wedding? Well, people aren’t buying it: “Hiding the truth” says The New York Post. “Conspiracy or incompetence?” asks Al-Jazeera. “Hillary Clinton Don’t Give a Sh*t” claims Wonkette. Clearly, these e-mails need to be released immediately.

Now, thanks to John Moe and WikiLoox, the lost messages have been retrieved and placed in this dossier. For the first time, we’ll get a look inside HRC’s well-coiffed head, reading intimate conversations with family (Bill, Chelsea), friends (Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Oprah, Beyonce), and frenemies (Obama, Palin, Putin) alike. We’ll also learn essential details about her private life, from her pop-culture obsessions to her thoughts on yoga, baking cookies, "Scandal," and much more.

Make no mistake—this is a book of critical national importance. Following her journey from mother-of-the-bride to commandress-in-chief, we’ll see how HRC handles the most challenging situations she might face in the White House, including how to respond to people who "reply all" to e-mails and how to wrangle pantsuit retailers as they compete, with increasing desperation, for her attention. Along the way, we will finally get the portrait we need—the one our country deserves—of the woman we may soon call "Madam President."

Read by Sarah Scott, Robin Rae Eller, Kimberly Farr, Jim Meskimen, and John Moe.

Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World

Susan Silverman

From activist, speaker, mother of five, and Rabbi Susan Silverman (sister of comedian Sarah): a funny, moving, sparkling memoir about home, identity, family, and faith. Susan Silverman is a writer, activist and speaker. She has written for and appeared in The Forward, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post, The Jerusalem Post, The New York Post, Al Jazeera, and CNN, among others. She speaks on social justice issues, including partnering with her sister, comedian Sarah Silverman, to address issues and ideas of common concern, most recently at Lincoln Center as part of Tina Brown's "Women in the World" conference. She is the co-author, with her husband, of Jewish Family & Life.

The Beijing Conspiracy

Adrian d’Hagé

The message on the Al-Jazeera television network is chilling. Dr Muhammad Bashir, the mastermind behind some of al-Qaeda's most deadly bombings against the West and a close confidant of Osama Bin Laden, has warned of a single horrific biological attack on civilisation. There is no cure for what al-Qaeda threatens to unleash, and there are no vaccines. The White House has dismissed the broadcast as scaremongering, and the President has reasserted his position that the West is winning the war on terror. Denzel O'Connor, the CIA's most experienced counter-terrorism expert, knows the President is bluffing. Holly Braithwaite, a brilliant young Australian biochemist, has already revealed how a deadly super virus can be genetically engineered. Now, not only has Holly Braithwaite shattered the Presidential Administration's complacency, but several vials of the deadly viruses are missing. O'Connor suspects the vials have found their way into the hands of al-Qaeda - but where are they?

Green on Blue

Elliot Ackerman

What makes Green on Blue so brilliantly poignant is Elliot Ackerman's feeling of empathy, his ability to get under his characters' skin, reminding us not only of our vast differences but of our shared humanity."-Azar Nafisi, author of Reading Lolita in Tehran "Green on Blue is harrowing, brutal, and utterly absorbing. With spare prose, Ackerman has spun a morally complex tale of revenge, loyalty, and brotherly love. The saga of young Aziz is a chilling and often disturbing glimpse into one of the world's most troubled regions."-Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner "If we're looking for answers-and after fourteen years of war we damn well better be-Elliot Ackerman's brilliant, audacious novel is an excellent place to start. For so many years the war has been about "us" and "them," but Green on Blue blows open the standard narrative by showing just how fluid and fraught that distinction can be. If we're tempted to think this war has been simple and clean, Ackerman's unflinching novel should wake us up to the messy, heartbreaking reality of it all."-Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk "Elliot Ackerman, a former Marine deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, has performed that most difficult of all military operations - the achievement of radical empathy. In Green on Blue he has entered the world and the consciousness of a young Afghan soldier, one who is orphaned, impoverished and placed under the obligation of revenge. In doing so, Ackerman has brought to us a new understanding of the complicated layers within Afghanistan's tribal society, and the penetrating beauty of that country's landscape. This is a brave and impressive debut."-Roxana Robinson, author of Sparta and Cost "Green on Blue is a remarkable achievement, a novel of war, betrayal, love, and honor that feels equally timeless and timely. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn once wrote that the line dividing good and evil doesn't run between nations, but through every human heart. Elliot Ackerman traces that shifting line with enormous empathy and intelligence."-Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena "With a tension and tenderness reminiscent of Graham Greene, Elliot Ackerman's gripping novel of revenge and honor deftly reveals the complex machinations of a too often oversimplified war."-Alexander Maksik, author of You Deserve Nothing and A Marker to Measure Drift "This is the best novel of the Afghan-Iraq wars to date, striking a lyrical cord akin and equal in power to Hemingway's For Whom The Bell Tolls. Elliot Ackerman captures both the deep brutality and the innate humanity of the Afghan Pashtun world and its collision with the west in clear, cold strokes. This fearless and pitch perfect first novel is a heart-breaking wonder."-Admiral James Stavridis, USN (Ret), former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and Dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University "Like The Thin Red Line's Guadalcanal, Green on Blue's Shkin is one war's heart, marked by loss, ambition, blood. Only Ackerman (a veteran, like Jones) isn't channeling the American view; his extraordinary empathy marks this novel as something more than brilliant. It is brave."-Lea Carpenter, author of Eleven Days "In all too many accounts of the Afghan War, the Afghan people caught in the cross-fire are rendered invisible. Elliot Ackerman's eye-opening Green on Blue places them front and center, taking us into the life of a Pashtun orphan navigating the impossible choices offered to him by the brutal realities of his war-torn country. An incisive and moving glimpse into the human consequences of decades of conflict."-Phil Klay, author of Redeployment From a decorated former Marine, CIA officer, and White House Fellow, a stirring debut novel, an incredible act of empathy and imagination, about a young Afghan orphan. Book Description Aziz and his older brother Ali are coming of age in a tiny village in the pine forests and endless mountains of eastern Afghanistan. There is no school, but their mother teaches them to read and write, and once a month she sends the boys on a two-day journey to the bazaar in Orgun. The family is not "large or prosperous," but, inside their mud-walled\home, they have stability and routine. This is all destroyed in a single day when a convoy of armed men arrive in their village. Aziz and Ali elude these militants, but, in a random act of violence, their parents are taken from them. The boys make their way to Orgun, where they sleep among the orphans in the surrounding hills. They learn to beg, and, eventually, they earn work and trust from the local shopkeepers. Ali saves their money, and sends Aziz to school at the madrassa. When U.S. forces invade the country, the militants launch increasingly brutal attacks, and the brothers find themselves caught in a deadly conflict whose shape they barely comprehend. After Ali is horribly disfigured in a militant bombing, Aziz meets an Afghan wearing an American uniform in the hospital and is recruited into the Special Lashkar, a U.S. funded militia. Driven by a desire for revenge and a need to provide for his brother, Aziz-no longer a boy, but not yet a man-departs for the untamed border region to train as a soldier. Trapped in a conflict both savage and entirely contrived, Aziz struggles to understand his place in this world. Will he embrace the brutality of war or leave it behind, and risk placing his brother-and a young woman he comes to love-in jeopardy? A former Marine and CIA officer, Elliot Ackerman has written a gripping, morally complex debut novel, an astounding act of empathy and imagination about the duplicitous nature of war. Powerful, emotionally resonant novel, from decorated veteran: Ackerman served five tours of duty as a Marine lieutenant in Afghanistan and Iraq, and is the recipient of the Silver Star (Iraq), Bronze Star for Valor (Afghanistan), and the Purple Heart (Iraq). A self-taught writer, his prose is taut--yet filled with feeling and energy and completely accessible. Great tradition of the soldier/agent turned novelist: From Scribner's own Jason Matthews, a former CIA agent, to recent acclaimed writers like Kevin Powers (Yellow Birds) and Phil Klay (Redeployment), there is a great tradition of books by ex-servicemembers who turn out to be exceptional writers, transforming their expertise and experiences into great stories. Attention-grabbing combination of author and subject: For an ex-Marine and ex-CIA agent to imagine the experience and inner-life of a young Afhani boy, an orphan, is an unusual pairing of author/subject, and it will garner curiosity and feature coverage. Military and political analyst with extensive media connections: As an expert military analyst, Ackerman has made numerous TV appearances, ranging from the CBS Evening News to Al Jazeera America. From 2011 to 2012, Elliot served as COO of Americans Elect, an election reform organization. In that role, he made appearances on highly coveted programs such as The Colbert Report, NPR's Talk of the Nation, and Charlie Rose. Ackerman is a former White House Fellow and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. His current job is with a Turkish-based NGO, monitoring the civil war in Syria. Champions of Ackerman in author community: Ackerman is good friends with many authors, including New York Times-bestseller Ben Fountain (Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk), Azar Nafisi (Reading Lolita in Tehran), Phil Klay (Redeployment); and David Ignatius (Body of Lies); among many others. All four have pledged blurbs. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elliot Ackerman is a former marine and CIA officer. He served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and is the recipient of the Silver Star, Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. A former White House Fellow, his writing has appeared in the New Republic, the Daily Beast, Ecotone, Politico, and elsewhere. He currently lives with his wife and two children in Istanbul, Turkey, where he is a Senior Fellow for the Syrian Research and Evaluation Organization.

Ebooks

Al-Jazeera as a tool for Qatari foreign policy?

Sukayna El-Zayat

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: 7.5 out of 10, Maastricht University (European Studies), language: English, abstract: Since its first appearance, the Arabic network of Al-Jazeera has been the target of many different critics. Some say, the channel supports terrorism; others praise it as the first free and independent Arab media. Al-Jazeera has been funded by Qatar since its beginning and it is now led by a member of the Qatari royal family; the question which then arises is whether Al-Jazeera is as independent as it claims. This paper analyses the relationship between Qatar and Al-Jazeera. Therefore, firstly Qatar’s foreign affairs and interests are presented, and then a comparative analysis of Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab spring follows. My thesis states that Al-Jazeera functions as an instrument for Qatari foreign policy or is at least heavily influenced by it and is consequently not able to present balanced reporting independently. Using the examples of Libya and Bahrain, this essay shows that the tendencies of Al-Jazeera’s coverage match the respective tone of Qatar’s foreign policy. Additionally, it looks more deeply at the replacement of Wadah Khanfar, ex-director of Al-Jazeera who has been replaced by a member of the Qatari royal family.

The Al Jazeera Effect: How the New Global Media Are Reshaping World Politics

Philip Seib

The battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East is being fought not on the streets of Baghdad, but on the newscasts and talk shows of Al Jazeera. The future of China is being shaped not by Communist Party bureaucrats, but by bloggers working quietly in cyber cafes. The next attacks by al Qaeda will emerge not from Osama bin Laden's cave, but from cells around the world connected by the Internet.

In these and many other instances, traditional ways of reshaping global politics have been superseded by the influence of new media—satellite television, the Internet, and other high-tech tools. What is involved is more than a refinement of established practices. We are seeing a comprehensive reconnecting of the global village and a reshaping of how the world works.

Al Jazeera is a paradigm of new media's influence. Ten years ago, there was much talk about “the CNN effect,” the theory that news coverage—especially gripping visual storytelling—was influencing foreign policy throughout the world. Today, “the Al Jazeera effect” takes that a significant step further. The concept encompasses the use of new media as tools in every aspect of global affairs, ranging from democratization to terrorism, and including the concept of “virtual states.”

“The media” are no longer just the media. They have a larger popular base than ever before and, as a result, have unprecedented impact on international politics. The media can be tools of conflict and instruments of peace; they can make traditional borders irrelevant and unify peoples scattered across the globe. This phenomenon, the Al Jazeera effect, is reshaping the world.

Al Jazeera English: Global News in a Changing World

P. Seib

Although Al Jazeera English has yet to receive to receive the attention accorded to its Arabic-language elder sibling, it is in many ways the more interesting of the two. It seeks to redefine global news coverage by focusing on areas that are traditionally neglected by most news organizations, and its potential audience is many times larger than that of the Arabic channel. This will be the first book to thoroughly examine this channel's coverage methods, effects on its audience, and its place in the world of mediated geopolitics.Al Jazeera recognized that if it was to expand its worldwide influence, it could not do so wholly in Arabic. And so, in 2006, it launched Al Jazeera English, the first English-language news channel to be headquartered in the Middle East. With its principal broadcast centers in Doha, Washington, London, and Kuala Lumpur, the channel faced the task of proving itself to be more than a curiosity and just a junior version of the all-news English-language channels such as the BBC or CNN. After several years of operation, Al Jazeera English seems well on its way to defining its place in the market. The breadth of its coverage, particularly its emphasis on reporting from the global South, has distinguished it from many of its competitors. Thorough coverage from the Middle East and from Africa provides a perspective that other major satellite channels have rarely offered their audiences. Initially, Al Jazeera English was available to 80 million cable and satellite households. It was, however, accessible by only a small number of viewers in the United States (mainly those accessing it through several online providers) primarily because of political reasons. Whatever the political back-story may be, gaining access to a larger global market will depend on audience demand. If Al Jazeera English does a better job of covering major stories, particularly in the Middle East and the global South, than other channels do, and if its competitors find themselves saying, "As Al Jazeera English reported today . . .," news consumers will eventually demand access. This book will examine these political issues and will also analyze the channel's audience base, particularly in Africa and South Asia. The book will also offer evaluations of Al Jazeera English's defining moments to date - its reporting during the 2008-2009 war in Gaza (written by Palestinian and Israeli scholars), and its coverage of the "Ground Zero Mosque" controversy in 2010. The volume will also consider Al Jazeera English in the context of public diplomacy and the growing significance of diasporic populations.

Mission Al-Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World

Josh Rushing

Blending his riveting personal story with innovative ideas about how to win the war on terror, former marine turned Al Jazeera reporter Josh Rushing addresses all the issues he was not allowed to talk about when he was in uniform. If we are to win the war on terror, Rushing explains, we have to interact with the media at home and abroad in order to control the way we are perceived. By refusing to appear on Al Jazeera, Western leaders allow people who disagree with the current administration to represent the West to the Arab world in a skewed, negative way. By taking readers inside Al Jazeera, Rushing offers a unique behind-the-scenes look at the controversial news channel and shows how the West can harness it to its advantage, relay a positive message to the Arab public, and hear what it has to say in return.

The Culture of Al Jazeera: Inside an Arab Media Giant

Mohamed Zayani

In the mid 1990s, the emir of Qatar conceived the idea of a satellite channel that would further the progressive image he hoped to establish for his small Arabian/Persian Gulf state. At the same time, a short-lived partnership between the BBC and a Saudi company had left a handful of BBC-trained Arab journalists and broadcasters up for grabs. That was the inception of Al Jazeera—a satellite channel which changed forever the face of Arab broadcasting with its uncensored news and bold talk show programs. The September 11 attacks on the United States and the war on terrorism vaulted Al Jazeera to international prominence but also turned it into a source of controversy. Despite the controversy—or perhaps in part because of it—in less than a decade the channel has transformed itself from an obscure regional news broadcaster to a multi-channel, multi-lingual, multi-service global enterprise. This book’s in-depth look at Al Jazeera examines whether its global success reflects particular organizational strengths. It explores whether Al Jazeera is merely a fad thriving on the thirst for free speech in the Middle East, or a new medium whose success will be sustained by its organizational culture and model. This work delves deep into the culture, workings and challenges of this powerful media organization to provide insights on its achievements, its future, and the true measure of its success.

Al Jazeera and the Global Media Landscape: The South is Talking Back

Tine Ustad Figenschou

This book analyzes how and why Al Jazeera English (AJE) became the channel of choice to understand the massive protests across the Arab world 2011. Aiming to explain the ‘Al Jazeera moment,’ it tracks the channel’s bumpy road towards international recognition in a longitudinal, in-depth analysis of the channel’s editorial profile and strategies. Studying AJE from its launch in mid-November 2006 to the ‘Arab Spring’, it explains and problematizes the channel’s ambitious editorial agenda and strategies, examines the internal conflicts, practical challenges and minor breakthroughs in its formative years.

The Al Jazeera-phenomenon has received massive attention, but it remains under-researched. The growth of transnational satellite television has transformed the global media landscape into a complex web of multi-vocal, multimedia and multi-directional flows. Based on a combination of policy-, production- and content analysis of comprehensive empirical data the book offers an innovative perspective on the theorization of global news contra-flows. By problematizing the distinctive characteristics of AJE, it examines the strategic motivation behind the channel and the ways in which its production processes and news profile are meant to be different from its Anglo-American competitors. These questions underscore a central nexus of the book: the changing relationship between transnational satellite news and power.

Changing Perceptions - How the U.S. view on Al Jazeera changed in time

Adam Balogh

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Communications - Media and Politics, Politic Communications, grade: A bzw. 1,3, Central European University Budapest (Department of Public Policy), course: Fundamentals of Media and Communications Policy, language: English, abstract: On 13 November 2001 a 230 kilograms heavy U.S. bomb hit the Kabul office of the TV channel Al Jazeera and destroyed the whole building (BBC 2001). Although the incident occurred during the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, the station was located in a residential area and the Pentagon was informed about its location. International concerns rose up the next weeks and after BBC constantly brought new disclosures about the incident to light, the Pentagon relented and published an official statement in which it confirmed a deliberate destruction. In the eyes of the Pentagon and U.S. government the bombing was legitimate because in their estimation, Al Jazeera is as a part of the propaganda machine of the “enemy”, cooperating with terrorists (Miles 2005, 165-167). About 10 years later things seem to have changed a lot. In March 2011, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Al Jazeera provided more informative news coverage than the opinion-driven coverage of American mass media (The Huffington Post 2011). However, she is not the only one whose perception about the TV channel seems to have changed in the last years. “Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus [...] and Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, all have appeared on the network's Arabic and English channels in the last year.” writes the Los Angeles Times at the end of 2011 and claims that “The Obama administration is courting the pan-Arab television network Al Jazeera in an attempt to improve a history of testy relations with one of the most influential news outlets in the Middle East.” (Los Angeles Times 2011).

Al-jazeera: The Story Of The Network That Is Rattling Governments And Redefining Modern Journalism Updated With

Mohammed El-nawawy

Al-Jazeera, the independent, all-Arab television news network based in Qatar, emerged as ambassador to the Arab world in the events following September 11, 2001. Arabic for "the island," Al-Jazeera has "scooped" the western media conglomerates many times. With its exclusive access to Osama Bin Laden and members of the Taliban, its reputation was burnished quickly through its exposure on CNN. During the 2003 war in Iraq, Al-Jazeera seemed to be everywhere, reporting dramatic stories and images, even as it strived to maintain its independence as an international free press news network. Al-Jazeera sheds light on the background of the network: how it operates, the programs it broadcasts, its effects on Arab viewers, the reactions of the West and Arab states, the implications for the future of news broadcasting in the Middle East, and its struggle for a free press and public opinion in the Arab world.

Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media

Mohamed Zayani

Few phenomena in the Arab world are more controversial than Al Jazeera - the satellite television news channel that, despite its brief history, has made its impact known throughout the world and changed the face of a formerly parochial Arab media.This timely collection of articles, many by Arabic-speaking scholars, gives us more information and analysis of the network - and how it has affected the public and even the foreign policies of Western governments - than any other of the very few books published in English up to now.The book provides rare insights into Al Jazeera's politics, its agenda, its programs, its coverage of regional crises, and its treatment of the West. The authors attempt to gauge the station's impact on ordinary Arab viewers, understand its effect on an increasingly visible Arab public sphere, and map out the role it plays in regional Arab politics. The image of Al Jazeera that emerges from this book is much more complex than its depiction in American media. It reveals the powerful role that the network plays in shaping ideas and reconstructing Arab identities during a crucial juncture in Middle Eastern history and politics.

Al Jazeera and Democratization: The Rise of the Arab Public Sphere

Ezzeddine Abdelmoula

Al Jazeera and Democratization analyses the increasing role of the media in political transformations with a special emphasis on the Arab world. Taking the Al Jazeera media network as a case study, the author explains how engaging the public and providing platforms for open debate and free expression contributed to the emergence of a new vibrant Arab public sphere.

The launch of Al Jazeera in 1996 was a significant event that led to subsequent changes both in Arab media and politics. Among these changes, the Arab spring is certainly the most remarkable. This unprecedented phenomenon has already resulted in political change in a number of countries and is expected to generate a democratizing wave and reshape the face of the region. The Arab spring provides us with a telling empirical example where the interplay between media and politics is manifest. The public sphere that has emerged out of this newly communicative environment has undoubtedly played its role in the current political transformations. In this context, Arab democratization is no longer an abstract, it is rather a developing process that needs our attention and requires concerted scholarly efforts.

Highly topical, this book provides a fresh theoretical perspective on Arab democratization in light of the Arab Spring, and is essential reading for researchers and students of Middle East Politics, Media Studies and Democratization.