For a very long time, almost everyone agreed that media in the Arab world did not reflect the reality of things in a part of the world that has been plagued with wars and conflicts over the past six decades.
Some 10 years ago, satellite TV channels started to proliferate in the region ushering in a new era for Arab media, especially with the introduction of channels like Al-Jazeera, which changed the way we received our news. However, Arab media remained for the most part either owned or controlled by governments, and the few alternative news sources available were highly censored and access to them was limited if not nonexistent.
Then the internet entered the homes of Arab families and with it a whole new world of possibilities: thanks to the internet, people are no longer passive consumers of traditional media. The Web has given people the chance to talk and discuss their issues more freely. Of course, governments try to impose censorship over electronic content, but the fact that getting around censorship online is very easy has made such steps useless.
But the power of the Web as a tool for political and social change did not become clear until the appearance of applications that facilitated ordinary people using the web, including fast communication and networking. One of the most important applications of these was ‘”blogging, which introduced an easy-to-use yet powerful method for individuals to express themselves independently and freed from the filters of traditional media.
The rapid growth of the blogging phenomenon in the Middle East in the past five years, with the number of blogs today estimated in the hundreds of thousands, was marked by the rise of fresh voices that succeeded to make their presence noticed and to distinguish themselves in this age of information overload. But these bloggers were not simply trying to make their voices heard; they also wanted to be an active force changing the status quo in their countries, and some of them have actually managed to do that as we have seen in Egypt and Kuwait. These young men and women were watching the media closely and exposing its lies and hypocrisies as well as organizing demonstrations to call for reforms and protest against corruption.
Unfortunately, this did not come without a price and some bloggers in Arab countries were silenced by their governments in different ways including through threats, jail, or torture. And although the Arab blogosphere was at first composed mostly of the liberal reform-minded, it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before conservatives discovered the new medium and started to use it to serve their agenda. This resulted in flame wars in some countries such as Saudi Arabia where the clash between liberal and conservative bloggers was featured in traditional media several times during 2006.
Blogging and other forms of citizen media such as podcasting, photoblogging and vlogging, can be crucial in the Middle East, where freedom of expression barely exists. Blogs can provide news, analysis and commentary; they can antagonize government propaganda; they can also serve as vehicles for ideas of political and social reforms. Moreover, blogs can provide a good environment for dialogue in the region between people and their governments as well as among people themselves in the same country or in different countries. This dialogue can help create better understanding on the way to resolve conflicts and reduce tensions.
Governments in the region should stop wasting time and resources cracking down on bloggers and should focus more on the benefits they can gain from blogging. Blogs can give indications of trends and public opinion regarding pressing issues in every country, and leaders and officials should learn to be more open to criticism: they should realize that being in the public eye does not give them some kind of immunity. On the contrary, it is the other way around.
At the end of the day, these blogs are written by normal people and are based on people’s experiences of life. Bloggers pour their hearts out on these pages, and they don’t do it for the money. Why are they doing it? Because they are concerned citizens who do not want to watch their nation’s struggle from the sidelines: They want to contribute to ensure reform and progress. Ahmed Al-Omran is a college student and a blogger from Saudi Arabia. His blog is called Saudi Jeans (www.saudijeans.blogspot.com). This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.
