Media in political transition, focus on Tunisia

Abstract

Tunisia's place in the historical record of what has variously been called the Arab Awakening or Arab Spring is, by any count, unchallenged. It was not only the first state to start the demonstrations which led to the wave of uprisings throughout the Arab world in late 2010-2011, but also the first to oust its dictator, Zin-e Abeddine Ben Ali, and unique, among the states involved, to continue its dogged commitment towards building a democracy. The 'revolution' as many Tunisians call it, was based on widespread, regional as well as urban, popular outrage and shared communicative action. From the outset, the challenge has been to turn change into progress. Fundamental to that endeavour is the construction of a liberated mediaa project that goes to the heart of a society in which media and partisanship have been poisonously linked, and in which the rule of law needed strengthening to the point where it would protect the public sphere. The media is much like other sectorsthe financial, the judicial and the industrial, for examplethat in the wake of a dictatorial system, require complete reconstitution, from professional practices and transparent management structures, to regulatory relations with the state. However, unlike most other sectors, the media is publicly produced on a daily basis, to be consumed by the population as a whole. Its output is information, encompassing civic, economic, cultural and political knowledge, and the way it frames that information provides the bellweather for the discourses and identities of a nation. Thus, the media, as both product and profession, represents perhaps more than any other sector, a public asset; whether the media is publicly or privately owned, the population views it as reflecting their lives and their state, the viability of their society, and the level of their freedom. It is not surprising that the liberation of the media is frequently cited by Tunisians as the greatest achievement of their revolution. This issue is the outcome of a year-long study conducted from August 2013 to July 2014 through the University of Cambridge-al-Jazeera Centre of Studies Media Project. The research focused on Tunisia's media as it contributed to, and itself underwent, political transition in the post-revolution period. In contrast to many studies on the media, the focus of this research was

Mediering af politiseret religiøs identitet blandt den tunesiske diaspora i Europa

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Evaluation of Nawaat Coverage of the Political Assassinations in Tunisia After the Jasmine Revolution

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