Bullets and Bulletins

The editors, both attached to Georgetown University in Qatar, recruited eight other academics for the production of this book: Fatima el Issawi, Naila Hamdy, Diana Matar, Marwan M. Kraidy, Jo Khalil, Abeer AlNajjar, Zahera Harb, and Philip Seib. Individual chapters deal with the state, space, and cultural production of Arab Media, also in their transition, particularly in Egypt, Libya, and Tunisia. Attention should also be called to the book’s final chapter on US Public Diplomacy and the Media in the Middle East (pp. 179–197). Many Arab societies recently experienced a tremendous form of romanticised release from media in transition, termed “awakening”, “revolution”, and “spring”, to citizen journalism and demanding accountability from those in power (while ridiculing them). Arab publics have indeed taken media tools into their own hands, ensuring that the future of information is no longer the monopoly of the state (p. 5), Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, being of historical importance, sparked wider protests against Arab authoritarianism.....