If the buzzword for the past decade was “globalization”, for this decade it is “Middle East”, a region that has usually been associated with a fair amount of violence and turmoil since the independence of its states. Knowledge and research about this region, particularly the Arab States, has recently moved from a focus on politics and history into the field of media and popular culture. This shift has been made possible because of the increased interconnections brought about by globalization and the technological leap that has made access to information and news concerning this region fast and easy. The emergence of new Arab media outlets marking an Arab presence on the world communication scene has further stimulated the change. Recent research has moved beyond the thesis of the clash of civilizations into a new “clash of voices”, wherein the Arab voice is constantly compared with Western voices, making the representations on Arab screens versus those seen in Western media the focal point of media research.

Despite the volume of publications about Arab media, our knowledge about this particular field is still limited in many aspects, and there are many questions that are still unanswered; alas, they have never even been posed. What is more, the issue of Arab journalism in particular has been sidestepped in Western scholarship, which tends to favor issues of representation, public diplomacy or media policies.