Plain Tlak

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By Mursi Saad El-Din

I've just finished reading Unveiling the Truth about the Middle Eastern Media, a book with the provocative subtitle Privatisation in Egypt: Hope or Dope?

Ibrahim Saleh, the author, is a young academic working as a lecturer at the Modern Sciences and Arts University. I stress the author's youth because his book reflects the thinking of young people on privatisation, one of the main preoccupations of the government.

In his foreword to the book Hussein Amin describes it as "both rare and timely... one of the few books that examine and document the issues of private media in Egypt and the Middle East. It is essential for all students of journalism and mass communication and it is a must read for media academics, professionals and decision-makers in the region."

It is also valuable reading for ordinary citizens who remain confused about what to make of the media revolution.

The book tries to answer questions in a courageous and clear fashion. What is the role of the private media in the formation, or rather reformation, of society? Egypt was one of the first countries in the region to accept the idea of media privatisation. The creation of Media Production City and the Nile-Sat projects marked the beginning of privatisation.

The book examines the status of Middle Eastern media within the framework of the three Cs, context, contest, and content. Context refers to "the whole media system including sociopolitical and economic dimensions". Contest indicates "the competitive symbiosis, the interrelationship between the different media players within a particular society on both the micro and the macro level", while content implies "the logistic and geographic milieu of the available media taken from a transactional standpoint".

After explaining the theoretical framework of media management, giving a bird's eye view of themes and paradigms, we are introduced to media in the West, ie Italy, France, Spain, Germany and Britain, and in North Africa and the Middle East. The author deals in detail with the media in Arab countries and in newly established media free zones in Jordan, Bahrain, Dubai and Egypt.

Indeed, Egypt is offered as a case study. We are given a history of the media, where private broadcasting stations were started as early as 1920, the programming comprising mostly light music and commercial items. The British company Marconi became a major investor in Egyptian broadcasting and it was only on 23 July 1949 that radio was accorded independent status under a 13-member board headed by the prime minister.

The charter stipulated that radio broadcasts must be impartial and party political bias was explicitly outlawed. Then came the 1952 Revolution and propaganda crept into radio. TV started up in Egypt in 1960 and in 1971 the Egyptian Radio and Television Union was established. The Union marked the direct involvement of the government which maintained a monopoly over radio and television, excluding the possibility of private channels.

In a clear and concise style the author takes us through the phases which eventually led to the introduction of private channels. He examines the political, cultural and economic background of private broadcasting and assesses the current boom in business, furnishing a plethora of detail about the different channels that exist today.

In his afterward Ibrahim Saleh sums up his arguments, which are mostly on the side of privatisation. In the past, because of the state monopoly, the mass media lacked credibility. Now the situation is changing. Arab countries, writes the author, "certainly contain the basic communication infrastructure as well as the professional personnel but the private transnational media should move a step forward towards the realisation of the know-how of success through the use of professional research units for data collection and analysis".

The author expresses the hope that eventually authoritarian systems in the Middle East will begin to realise that the role of their governments as entrepreneurs acting within an essentially monopolistic system are doomed to failure from the outset.