- April 26, 2024
Media
Indispensable IslamOnline Must Not Fail
By RAMZY BAROUD A widely popular Islamic website has been, until very recently, an undisputed success story. IslamOnline arrived at a time that millions of Muslims needed a common platform and a unifying outlet. Here was a website that neither shunned nor alienated. Its influence was upbeat and positive, rather than destructive or divisive. While […]
Challenging History: Why the Oppressed Must Tell Their Own Story
By RAMZY BAROUD When American historian Howard Zinn passed away recently, he left behind a legacy that redefined our relationship to history altogether. Professor Zinn dared to challenge the way history was told and written. In fact he went as far as to defy the conventional construction of historical discourses through the pen of victor […]
Western Media, Not Israeli Hasbara
By RAMZY BAROUD With the dreadful threat of yet another Israeli war in the Middle East looming, Israeli propaganda machine is likely to go into full gear. In fact, trial balloons have already been sent out bearing supposedly unrehearsed comments by former Israeli Army general and current Minister Yossi Peled, suggesting that another war is […]
Iran and Latin America: The Media States Its Case
By RAMZY BAROUD Should the United States be concerned about Iran’s determined efforts to reach out to Latin America? Or, as was suggestively described in the Economist, by the Ayatollahs’ strategy of cozying up to Latin America? The US continues to see the world as its own business. It gives itself and its allies, most […]
Media Vultures Are Coming: Freedom of Expression at Risk
By RAMZY BAROUD As you flip through a range of channels on your TV or browse through a stack of newspapers and magazines at a newsstand, you may feel lucky about living in a world where such a plethora of viewpoints is available. It might also seem that the apparent increase in media choices also […]
Globalization Unchecked: How Alien Media is Suffocating Real Culture
By RAMZY BAROUD A Muslim family sits across of me in café, in a largely Muslim Asia country. An older woman shyly hunches over and desperately trying to avoid eye contact with the giant plasma screen TV, blazing loud music on the popular music video channel, MTV. The scantily dressed presenter introduces her ‘top song’ […]
War, Negation and Muslim Identity Revisited
By RAMZY BAROUD A Muslim writer begins an article with, ‘who says the campaign for animal rights was started in the West ..’ She goes on to argue that Islam provided the original treatise on the humane treatment of animals. Her case was poorly constructed, inadequately executed, although the essence of her idea was to […]
Journalistic Imperatives: Saying What Others Mightn’t
By RAMZY BAROUD The world of journalism, like any other profession, can be muddled with a plethora of distractions, self-interests and agendas that certainly do not serve the cause of a free press. Outside as well as inside pressures and interests often compromise the very essence of the journalist’s mission. In general terms, a journalist […]
Palestine in the American Imagination: Religion, Politics and Media
By RAMZY BAROUD Abstract: A study of the political, religious and cultural factors underlying the pro-Israeli bias apparent in the Western media today, as depicted in the mainstream news and television programmes. As Palestinians hurriedly buried their loved ones in the Gaza Strip following a deadly Israeli onslaught, which further contributed to Gaza’s worst humanitarian […]
Beyond Media Revolutions: Is Arab Media Truly Free?
By RAMZY BAROUD On February 12, 2008, Arab League information ministers issued a communiqué outlining ‘tough’ guidelines for Arab satellite channels. The new guidelines specifically prohibited the broadcasting of negative reporting of heads of state, religious or national figures. In following days, a massive campaign of denunciation, led by those who felt targeted by the […]
Basra Battles: Barely Half the Story
By RAMZY BAROUD When it comes to Iraq, reporters appear intent on omitting or fabricating news. The latest battles in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city and a vital oil seaport, furnished ample instances of misleading and manipulative practice in corporate journalism today. One commonly used tactic is to describe events using self-styled or "official" terminology, […]
Where Are the Iraqis in the Iraq War?
By RAMZY BAROUD Five years after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, mainstream media is once more making the topic an object of intense scrutiny. The costs and implications of the war are endlessly covered from all possible angles, with one notable exception — the cost to the Iraqi people themselves. Through all the […]
‘Unwavering Commitment’ to Inequality
By RAMZY BAROUD Death hovered over Gaza long before locally-made Palestinian rockets struck near the Israeli southern town of Sderot on February 27, killing Roni Yechiah and sparking an Israeli ‘retaliation’ that has already claimed over 120 Palestinian lives. Yechiah’s death was actually the first of its kind in nine months, and understandably so. The […]
Media Language and War: Manufacturing Convenient Realities
By RAMZY BAROUD In the competitive world of media today, swift and conveniently selective reporting is of prime importance. GoogleNews, for example, claims to scan 4,500 news sources, of which only a few are highlighted as main stories. There are thousands of similar services, all competing to produce a story in the fastest time. Thorough […]
A Matter of Opinion
By RAMZY BAROUD What do an organic farmer from Spain, a union worker activist from Brazil and a human rights scholar living in London have in common? They are all individuals who affect substantive change in their communities and they are also individuals who are overlooked by the corporate media. The latter has its own […]
Policing Truth: The Debate on Palestine, Israel
By RAMZY BAROUD The last time I spoke publicly in the United States before my current tour was nearly four years ago. During that time I travelled the world, passing my message to people in nearly 20 countries. Wherever I went, my calls for justice for the Palestinian people and for global alternatives to racism […]
Managing Consent: The Art of War, Democracy and Public Relations
By RAMZY BAROUD It is Edward Bernays who fine-tuned the art of public relations in the 20th century. Using many of the psychoanalytic theories put forward by his uncle Sigmund Freud, he developed a mastery of public manipulation, suggesting that such manipulation was essential to democracy itself. Bernays strongly believed that people are simply "stupid" […]
The Alternative Media: Free Speech is Still Possible
By RAMZY BAROUD To speak of an alternative media is to acknowledge the deficiency of the prevailing media, the mainstream, in addressing the issues, catering to the concerns, and responding to the woes of the general public, the overwhelming majority of people who are almost completely disregarded by the corporate media everywhere. It is disheartening, […]
From Palestine to Rotterdam: The Perfect PR Disaster
By RAMZY BAROUD In Rotterdam, Holland’s third largest city, thousands of Palestinians gathered on May 5 for the annual Palestinians in Europe conference. I too opted to participate only to witness a PR disaster, which could have not possibly taken place at a more critical time. This article is another attempt at self-critique and reflection, […]
Freedom for Alan Johnston
By RAMZY BAROUD In Trafalgar Square in London, dozens of journalists representing every major news organisation descended on a designated corner in the tourist infested area in support of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent kidnapped in Gaza on March 12, 2006, one month after his ordeal began. Awaiting the arrival of Alan’s family to a […]
A Democracy in Crisis: Who is Really in Control?
By RAMZY BAROUD Years back, an old and astute professor at the University of Washington ended a fascinating lecture to a small group of freshmen with the following contention: "Our country might find itself in a position that could force it to deprive its citizens from certain freedoms to preserve basic rights." The political atmosphere […]
Al Jazeera English: The Plot Thickens
By RAMZY BAROUD The launch of Al Jazeera English on Nov. 15 was hardly an ordinary event. It was another notable addition to the growing global efforts aimed at counterbalancing American-European domination over world media: Deciding on what story is to be told and how, thus shaping public opinion, reinforcing Westerns policies, disseminating its own […]
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
By RAMZY BAROUD US President George W. Bush once again blamed Arab media for his country’s image problem. "I recognise we’ve got an image issue, particularly when you have television stations, Arabic television stations that are constantly just pounding America — saying America is fighting Islam, Americans can’t stand Muslims, this is a war against […]
Murdoch Almighty; When Public Loses Opinion
By RAMZY BAROUD People imagine that their opinions are their own, not those of corporate moguls who compete to colonise the public sphere. We are not as free in thought as we think. German philosopher and political scientist Jèrgen Habermas is often credited for his immense contribution to sociology and critical theory among other areas […]
