The aim of this chapter is dual: it aims to provide an overview of the emergence of journalism and mass communication as an academic discipline in the Arab universities, while providing a critical evaluation of Arab as well as Western scholarship on Arab media. Clearly, this is an ambitious aim that needs a book-length treatment, and I would provide only a superficial account of this issue if I attempted to survey all Arab States. Therefore, I have chosen to confine my exercise to certain Arab States of the pioneering generations of Arab media scholars. My overall aim, then, is to show the gradual consolidation of journalism as an academic discipline.

The review would not be complete, however, without a discussion of the role of Arab academia in shaping the contours of the journalistic profession, and of how it sees its position vis-à-vis Western scholarship. I dedicate a large part of this chapter to a critique of the Arab methodology endorsed in Arab academic institutions, and the discussion concludes, albeit briefly, with an assessment of the claim that Arab scholarship may adhere to a particular “Arab” epistemology.

To round up, I juxtapose the contribution of Arab scholarship with that of Western scholarship on Arab media. As I argue below, Western scholarship, particularly the scholarship that emerged following 9/11, has not yet proven insightful in binding Arab media and journalism closely to social theories. I also conclude with a brief comparison between the roles of each scholarship vis-à-vis peer academics in the field (assumed to be autonomous power) and policy-makers (the political power).