Review: European Journal of Communication

Ramez Maluf, of the Lebanese American University, included Voices in his review of several books on the Arab media for the European Journal of Communication  22 (2).  The review essay also includes comments on a volume on new media in the Middle East edited by Philip Seib which hasn't been published yet - I haven't even seen proofs of my chapter, so how did he review it? Weird.

It's the most disappointing review of the book I've seen - he gives a fair summary of the argument, but also makes a number of criticisms which just don't really hold up.  For instance, he complains about the book's primary focus on al-Jazeera since there are so many other stations.  Chapters one and two, especially, give a pretty detailed defense of the choice to focus on al-Jazeera as a primary site of the new Arab public;  I would have liked to see him engage those arguments.   And since the book argues precisely that we've passed from an age of al-Jazeera's supremacy in the news arena to an era of market fragmentation and competition - a point he tries to make in the review- I really can't say much more than "well, yeah, that's what I said." 

His primary criticism is this:  "Lynch has indeed shown that there was considerable debate on al-Jazeera, but has failed to show how the debate mattered."  I don't know... that's what four chapters of the book did.  He offers no evidence in support of his contention that the media debates didn't matter other than a reference to an article which tracked Arab newspapers to show Arab hostility to the American invasion of Iraq.  I can't quite understand how this study is meant to challenge my account, which covers the period from 1991-2004 in considerable detail and shows exactly why Arabs opposed the invasion.  The cited article actually supports my point about the difference between the political discourse on Arab TV as opposed to national newspapers, rather than challenges it.