Writing about local media in the Arab world is not an easy task, and perhaps only specialized researchers can comprehend the scale of the obstacles on this path. There is a lack of investment in this type of media and a scarcity of studies, despite the vast geographical area and the need to empower citizens with the right to connect and communicate. The shortage of studies in this field is likely due to these reasons.

Media outlets in the Arab world have benefited from the flexibility and low cost offered by new technologies. However, the agendas of authority and the focus on sensationalism have primarily dominated the content. Consequently, there is a clear inability to perform the most vital functions, chief among them being enlightenment and shaping public opinion to mobilize energy for the service of development. In the countries of this region, the passivity and dependency of individuals are widespread phenomena due to the absence of enlightening media that encourages engagement and participation in development projects. Arab governments share responsibility for the entrenchment of negative stereotypes about the desired form of media. These negative stereotypes, with the building of the national state, transformed into permanent rules and a methodology for work.

Unfortunately, some researchers and media professionals have adopted this idea and believe in defending its validity, looking down on media produced outside the capitals. They base this on the phenomena that accompanied the early beginnings of journalism in Europe, where it was primarily an urban medium. However, these phenomena began to disappear with the end of World War II and its accompanying changes, as development accelerated and extended to all regions. Thus, the historical gap between the city and the village narrowed in developed countries, unlike in underdeveloped countries where this gap widened.

The current geographical distribution of media institutions in Arab countries does not satisfy the individuals' needs for enlightening local media, making them feel wronged, deprived, and excluded from the right to communication, especially in relatively large countries with ethnic and cultural diversity like Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Morocco, and Syria. Arab media, in most of its manifestations, is a top-down, linear media based on monopolizing the truth and condescending to everyone. This is an outdated idea adopted by intellectuals at a certain stage of development when they were heralding what was known as 'the great causes' such as freedom, justice, and destiny, as they refrained from addressing daily concerns and minor issues. As media is a mirror of society, this condescending view was reflected in the discourse of media outlets that adopted the idea, leading to a widening gap between media with centralized, authoritarian agendas and the public with its neglected private agendas.

In addition to these ideas that frame the work of media in the Arab world, censorship has stood as another relentless enemy. Media institutions in most Arab countries are highly centralized due to governments' desire to control them, treating them as a part of the state rather than an independent authority. This explains the bias in content towards central activities related to the authority. This excessive centralization has led to an imbalance in the level of individual participation in public affairs and has confined the sense of citizenship to its lowest limits, causing them to lose support and enthusiasm for development policies. Thus, the gap between the village and the city widened on more than one level, reinforcing stagnation, swelling the reservoir of dissent, and entrenching the phenomena of isolation and alienation.

Governments in the Arab region still promote the welfare state that renders the citizen a dependent individual, and therefore, they are hostile to freedom of expression, viewing it as a factor of division and a distraction from efforts to mobilize the internal front. This perception is based on the construction of the central state, which was historically founded on coercive power. These stereotypes have begun to recede in recent decades, as local media has started to wrest space and audience from the central media with the changing perception of the intellectual's role and their retreat from carrying the burden of the 'great causes' that Sartre dreamed of in the 1960s.

Local media has begun to experience a revival, as if living the beginnings of a promising golden age. Notably, this form of media is no longer limited to democratic countries that adopt decentralization in managing society's affairs but has expanded to include countries seeking development and modernization through enlightenment. A conviction has formed about the futility of the welfare state idea, which is fading away. Amidst this shift in mentalities, local media has found its place despite the intense momentum of communication means. Thus, new positive convictions have replaced old negative ones in viewing local press as an essential tool to dispel feelings of marginalization and isolation and to help form a necessary local public opinion as a decisive factor in stimulating sound local decision-making, which helps society build its own capacities and utilize its latent and untapped potential.

This book is unique in addressing all these issues, sometimes by clarification and other times by critiquing practices as they are. It is the fruit of years of monitoring the evolution of the media scene, a scene that now teeters between profiteering from the tables of power or turning its back on the message of enlightenment and rushing towards sensationalism. It is also an original academic work that answers a pressing need in its field, which suffers from a severe deficit. Therefore, it is an effort worthy of appreciation, and I am certain it will be an important resource for students who have chosen the path of media, perhaps helping them to correct the course by overcoming the mistakes of the past and present.

• Weight: 978 kg
• Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
• ISBN: 978-9957-12-937-8