Embers of the Arab Revolutions

the Transformation of theMedia Landscape in the Middle East

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the transformation of the media

landscape in Middle Eastern countries since the beginning of the Arab Spring

began. Although a series of protests started as requirements for better governance,

political freedom, and qualified life, its outcomes seem to have been far

from successful. To date （excluding Tunisia）, there have been no countries

experiencing substantial democratic progress. Therefore, contrary to the initial

optimistic views on the uprisings that emphasized people’s power and the effectiveness

of social movement regarding authoritarian governments, recent studies

tend to take a more severe viewpoint of the incidents. Although many

observers regard the Arab Spring as momentous historically for showing the

power of media freedom enabled by the development of media technologies,

most studies have never focused on the whereabouts of media freedom in Middle

Eastern countries after these uprisings. For a better understanding of the

relationship between media and the Arab Spring, this study considers the Arab

Spring’s impact on media situations, as well as the media freedom situation in　the Middle East since the beginning of the uprisings. As this paper shows,

except for Tunisia, media freedom in Middle East has not improved; rather, a

deterioration can be observed. Though the Arab Spring remains in people’s

minds as showing the power of media, the mid-to-long term trend may show

that the incident was just an opportunity for Arab authoritarian governments

to upgrade their adaptability to the new media environments.