Amr El Shobaki ,Amr ElShobaki

Egypt ,Lebanon ,Morocco ,Tunisia

“Reforming the Media in the Arab Region: Professionalism and Institutionalization” is written by a group of writers and researchers from several countries in the Region: Hanan Bader, Amal Al-Makki, Hisham Allam, Wafaa Sandi, Radwan Boudjomaa, Abdel Haq Saef, Fadel Belibesh and Rabie Barakat, and edited by: Amro ElShobki.

This book is the second phase of an integrated project about media. While the first one talks about the relationship between media and political systems and the process of democratization in different Arab countries, the second one deals with the challenges and professional problems faced by the press and the media, whether in relation to the type of ownership, the future of print journalism, or what is referred to as alternative media or citizen media, as well as the new role of satellite channels in the Arab arena. The book also seeks to address these problems and challenges.

The book is divided to an introduction and eight chapters included in three main parts. The introduction summarizes the main points of the book. While the first chapter discusses the future of print journalism and the challenges facing it on the financial level. The second chapter reviews the experiences of digital media in four countries: Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria. And the third one presents the issue of press institutions’ ownership in both Tunisia and Morocco. While the final chapter presents the main features and challenges of the new media project by reviewing the experience of the Lebanese newspaper “Assafir”, which was closed in 2016.

This book summarizes the structural crisis of the press by declining both distribution and advertising amid competition from new patterns of information production, noting some solutions such as giving priority to digital marketing instead of paper one. The case studies in Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Algeria agree that print journalism suffers from major problems especially with the rise of digital media, which also faces obstacles, mainly financial and legislative ones, but still promising. The book indicates that there is diversity in media ownership in Morocco, while in Tunisia, hopes are based on new legislations aimed to keep the media away from partisan quotas and loyalties. The book also talks about recent initiatives to launch independent digital platforms free from financial administrative and other burdens.

The Book is available in Arabic at the following link:
https://bit.ly/2Nrv6NC