The Foreign Service Journal, May 2012

M A Y 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 19 F OCUS ON THE A RAB S PR ING T HE A RAB M EDIA ’ S S HAKY A WAKENING n activist media, and citizens’ savvy use of online platforms, played an impor- tant role in the protests that turned out dictators in Egypt and Tunisia and ignited upheaval across the Arab world. But in the second spring since those uprisings, the growth of media freedom has been uneven in those states. Satellite television channels have continued to grow in an already crowded market, Internet use has spread rap- idly, and citizen journalism has assumed a vital watchdog function. Yet early actions by transitional leaders in each country have given cause for concern. While Egypt has yet to pass laws underpinning press freedoms, it has cracked down on hundreds of civil society groups, signaling an intention to stifle freedom of expres- sion. In Tunisia, high-profile cases against a newspaper and broadcaster have generated concern about the new leadership’s commitment to media freedom. And ruling forces in both countries have reasserted control over still- influential state media. For the moment, a new media landscape offers Arabs and outside audiences alike a fascinating glimpse into the ferment of societies ruled for decades by repressive regimes. Tunisia and Egypt, having conducted initial rounds of free elections, can serve as key testing grounds for Arab press freedom. Few, however, see the media gains as irreversible. Transformative, Troubling Media By the time of the Arab upheavals in early 2011, media outlets throughout the region had already been undergo- ing profound changes for more than a decade. Easing up on media controls as a sort of release valve, a number of re- pressive regimes permitted broadcasters and press re- porters more leeway, including the freedom to air taboo subjects. In the case of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, some believe this deci- sion may have sowed the seeds of their own destruction. Activists’ use of Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and the extraordinary reach of pan-Arab channel Al-Jazeera, trained a spotlight on regime abuses and opened crucial portals to information and debate. “This opening of closed regimes to raw information and opinion, a faith in the power of public ideas, was itself one of the key ideas un- derpinning the Arab uprisings,” Marc Lynch, an expert on the region and professor at The George Washington Uni- A FTER BREATHTAKING EXPANSION OF THEIR FREEDOMS , THE MEDIA NOW REFLECT THE UNSTEADY ADVANCE OF DEMOCRACY IN THE M IDDLE E AST . B Y R OBERT J. M C M AHON Robert J. McMahon is editor of CFR.org , theWeb site of the Council on Foreign Relations. Before that, he was director of central news for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and has written about media in transitional societies since 1995.