What was a failed venture of the BBC is now an independent 24/7 television news channel based in Qatar. Al Jazeera was launched in November 1996. Sheik Hamad of Qatar was disappointed by the lack of press freedom in the Arab world that he pledged to back the network and give it full editorial and content control. Sheik Hamad said: "I believe criticism can be a good thing," the emir said in a 1997 speech, "and some discomfort for government officials is a small price to pay for this new freedom." In a history about Al Jazeera on Allied-Media.com it... Continue reading

Iraqi journalists regularly hold protests calling for greater freedom of speech [GALLO/GETTY] Iraqi media has a long history of repression under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi media suffered relentless repression for 25 years under Saddam Hussein. According to a report from Reporters Without Borders titled The Iraqi Media: 25 years of relentless repression, Iraqi media used to be one of the freest in the Middle East through the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire and under the English monarchy. The radio stations and printed press played an active role in promoting Arab nationalist ideology. Iraqi media until the revolution... Continue reading

The media in Afghanistan is constantly changing post Taliban control. In the years immediately following the ousting of the Taliban regime Afghan media experienced unprecedented journalistic freedom. This freedom though is only truly enjoyed by media in the capital city of Kabul. According to Reporters Without Borders the capital city has seen an explosion of private independent media: "One year after the flight of the Taliban from Kabul, 150 publications are being sold on the streets of the city. Electronic media projects are springing up and dozens of journalists are taking advantage of the various forms of training established by... Continue reading

In recent history Afghanistan's media has two distinct periods. There is the period when Afghanistan was under control of the Taliban and now where the landscape of Afghanistan's media is changing post Taliban control. During Taliban control of Afghanistan, media was under strict control of the Taliban. The Taliban who originally were ultra orthodox religious seminary students of Islam wanted to restore stability and enforce their strict interpretation of Islamic law because of the unending civil war between rival tribes in the capital and other parts of the country. In an essay by Lutfullah Mashalan student in the institute for... Continue reading

China's communist government has been on alert since the uprisings have begun in North Africa and the Middle East. The are similarities between what is going on in these regions. According to a NY Times article by Didi Kirsten Tatlow from 2/23/2011: "Even the government concedes that China shares many of Egypt’s problems, like rampant corruption, social injustice, a growing wealth gap and inflation." Since all of Chinese media is state run they have controlled over what is being written and shown about the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. It was strange looking and searching different Chinese... Continue reading

China is a country with great cultural history that stretches back nearly 4,000 years. It is also the most populous country in the world with a reported 1.35 billion people in 2010. Under Mao Zedong, after World War II, the Communists established an autocratic socialist system that imposed strict controls over everyday life and cost the lives of tens of millions of people while ensuring China's sovereignty. China has the largest media market in the world but Chinese media is strictly controlled by the government. It also has the largest online population in the world with 389 million users reported... Continue reading

Imaging sitting around having a cup of coffee, waiting to get a tweet telling you to come to a specific place and once you get there, someone is there to take you to another location just to watch a group of theater actors perform politically and socially relevant material. Well if you wanted to see the Belarus Free Theater in Belarus that is what you would need to do to see their performances. Belarus Free Theater was founded in 2005 by Natalia Koliada and Nikolai Khalezin. They are an underground theater group that is forced to perform in secret because... Continue reading

Eastern Europe is a region that encompasses many different countries, cultures, languages and histories. The largest country is Russia. The rest of eastern Europe is made up of: Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Moldova, Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Ukraine and Belarus, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia. These countries were once known as the U.S.S.R.-the United Soviet Socialist Republic-which was formed soon after Vladimir Lenin seized power in 1917. The U.S.S.R. split under General Mikhail Gorbachev in December of 1991. Many of the countries are independent republics and Russia has moved... Continue reading

In an effort to control the protesters in Tahir Square, the Egyptian government severed internet and cell phone communications early Friday morning January 28th. Egpyt is under an autocratic government, and in times of tension and unrest these types of government try to control the means of communication between its people. Matt Richtel writes in an article for the NY Times: "Autocratic governments often limit phone and Internet access in tense times. But the Internet has never faced anything like what happened in Egypt on Friday, when the government of a country with 80 million people and a modernizing economy... Continue reading

Facebook, Twitter, and other social media has made it possible for people in countries like Tunisia, Iran and Egypt fuel their protests and send their messages across the world. Normally people around the world would have to wait to hear or see what is going on in Tunisia on their nightly news program. Now we are able to see what is happening literally seconds to minutes after it has occurred but can it be said that Facebook, Twitter and other social media are responsible for the revolutions. In a Op-Ed piece in the New York Times written by Andrew K.... Continue reading