How Arab Satellite Stations Show the Unrest in the Arab World

inn ^ | 1/27/11 | David Lev

[Nachum]

With no fewer than five major areas of unrest/revolutions/regime changes going on in the Arab world, Arab satellite television, one of the mainstays of information dissemination in the Middle East, has been playing a major role in communicating news – or attempting, if not to suppress it, then at least to spin it.

For most Westerners (and Israelis), “satellite TV,” like cable TV, means a mix of entertainment and news stations – mostly entertainment. And with the decline of terrestrial TV in most parts of the world, families and individuals who want to watch television usually take out a subscription to a cable or direct satellite service. In Israel, these two services are provided respectively by HOT and YES.

In the Arab world, however, where government control – or at least domination – of the local media is the rule, most householders have a satellite dish, to pick up the hundreds of free to air (fta) television stations broadcasting around the Arab world. Many of these stations are sponsored by governments, and make no attempt to present a balanced picture. There are many religious-oriented stations, as one would expect,, with both Sunni and Shi'ite stations crowding the TV dial. For religious minorities in overwhelmingly Muslim countries, satellite TV broadcasts are often one of the few links to their religious brethren.