Table Of ContentThe Al Jazeera Effect
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ALSO BY PHILIP SEIB
Headline Diplomacy: How News Coverage Affects
Foreign Policy
Taken for Granted: The Future of U.S.–British Relations
Going Live: Getting the News Right in a Real-Time,
Online World
The Global Journalist: News and Conscience in a
World of Conflict
Beyond the Front Lines: How the News Media
Cover a World Shaped by War
Media and Conflict in the Twenty-first Century (editor)
Broadcasts from the Blitz: How Edward R. Murrow Helped Lead
America Into War
New Media and the New Middle East (editor)
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The Al Jazeera Effect
HOW THE NEW GLOBAL MEDIA
ARE RESHAPING WORLD POLITICS
P S
HILIP EIB
Potomac Books, Inc.
Washington, D.C.
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Copyright © 2008 by Potomac Books, Inc.
Published in the United States by Potomac Books, Inc. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except
in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and
reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seib, Philip M., 1949–
The Al Jazeera effect : how the new global media are reshaping
world politics / Philip Seib.— 1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59797-200-0 (alk. paper)
1. Television broadcasting of news. 2. Online journalism. 3.
Government and the press. 4. Al Jazeera (Television network) I.
Title.
PN4784.T4S44 2008
302.23’45—dc22
2008013320
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper that
meets the American National Standards Institute Z39-48
Standard.
Potomac Books, Inc.
22841 Quicksilver Drive
Dulles, Virginia 20166
First Edition
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
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For Christine
Lo, soul! seest thou not God’s purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann’d, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross’d, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
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C
ONTENTS
Preface ix
1 Beyond the Clash of Civilizations 1
2 Channels and More Channels 19
3 The Internet Surge 47
4 The Rise of the Virtual State 65
5 Global Connections, Global Terrorism 91
6 The Cyber-struggle for Democracy 111
7 Transforming the Middle East 141
8 What It All Means 175
Notes 193
Selected Bibliography 213
Index 219
About the Author 227
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P
REFACE
T
he battle for hearts and minds in the Middle East is being
fought not only on the streets of Baghdad but also on the news-
casts and talk shows of Al Jazeera. China’s future is being shaped
not solely by Communist Party bureaucrats but also by bloggers
working quietly in cybercafes. Al Qaeda’s next attacks will not
necessarily be directed 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 shap-
ing 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 prac-
tices. We are seeing a comprehensive reconnecting of the global
village and reshaping of how the world works.
Whenever we ponder the day’s news, we need to recognize
that beneath the surface of events is a virtual reality that provides
a new context for both turmoil and progress. Understanding this
is crucial because peaceful change and terrorist attacks share the
virtual terrain.
Al Jazeera is a symbol of this new, media-centric world. It
affects global politics and culture, particularly by enhancing the
Islamic world’s clout. As it delivers its programming in Arabic
and English (and perhaps soon in additional languages), and as
its message meshes with content from Islamic Web sites, blogs,
and other online offerings, Al Jazeera helps foster unprecedented
cohesion in the worldwide Muslim community.
More than that, Al Jazeera is a paradigm of new media’s
influence. Ten years ago, there was much talk about “the CNN
ix
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x THE AL JAZEERA EFFECT
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 farther.
Just as “the CNN effect” is not about CNN alone, so too is “the Al
Jazeera effect” about much more than the Qatar-based media
company. 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 de facto nation of Kurdistan is a good example of the
virtual state. It is not officially recognized by governments and
does not appear on commonly used maps, but it exists, knitted
together largely by a combination of radio and television stations
and an array of Web sites and online communication. Common
media reach Kurds who live in Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and elsewhere,
sustaining the Kurdish identity and accelerating its political matu-
ration. The phenomenon of the virtual state may encompass
entities far larger than Kurdistan, such as individual nations’
diasporic populations and the ummah, the global Islamic com-
munity. If new media bring cohesion to the ummah, policymakers
throughout the world will have to reckon with a significant new
player in international affairs.
The growth of new media has been explosive. In the Middle
East, Al Jazeera has plenty of company on the airwaves. From a
mere handful of stations a few years ago, more than 450 Arab
satellite channels are now on the air and most are privately owned,
bringing an end to the dominance of government-run media in
the region. In Latin America, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez
is the moving force behind Telesur, a regional channel on the
model of Al Jazeera. Chávez says Telesur is a means of “counter-
acting the media dictatorship of the big international news
networks.” Similar ventures are being planned for sub-Saharan
Africa and elsewhere. In each instance, the new arrivals are wrest-
ing influence away from CNN, the BBC, and other Western news
organizations on which much of the world has relied for many
years.
Many governments dismiss these emerging media, especially
Al Jazeera, because they are not “objective” providers of information
and therefore presumably have little clout with their audiences.
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