In the construction of their media infrastructure, most of the Arab countries are spending millions of dollars on US and Western contracts. Regarded as one of the fastest growing and dynamic markets for media technologies in the world, the region may lack a clear media policy as a guideline to shed light upon the mega million investments on the industry. Some critics suggest that the advanced media technologies provided to the Arab world are mostly initiated by Western sales/marketing strategy rather than Middle Eastern choice and initiative. They see the process as a reaction to the Western media practices, rather than a pre-planned policy. This study is directed toward constructing a critical understanding of the development, and current status, of media policy and infrastructure in the Arab world. Being undertaken as the basis of a Ph. D. thesis in an inter-disciplinary department, the research is informed by a strong inter-disciplinary perspective, but with a clear political economy emphasis. The study seeks to examine whether there is a clear media policy in the Arab world, either at a national or regional level. Within this context, ARABSAT, perhaps the most popular media system in the Arab world, constitutes a specific case study. Inaugurated in 1985, the system has been the subject of extensive debate, sometimes heatedly discussing its pros and cons. Its long period of operation, the extensive contribution of most Arab/Muslim countries in the process of the creation and operation of ARABSAT, as well as the footprint coverage of the system including the Middle East, most parts of Asia, the Indian subcontinent and some parts of Europe, make the contribution of ARABSAT within the Middle East media environment of particular interest. Now, nearly 15 years after the advent of ARABSAT, established and supported by the overwhelming majority of the Arab states, a critical assessment of the system in terms of policy/strategy is timely.

In the construction of their media infrastructure, most of the Arab countries are spending millions of dollars on US and Western contracts. Regarded as one of the fastest growing and dynamic markets for media technologies in the world, the region may lack a clear media policy as a guideline to shed light upon the mega million investments on the industry. Some critics suggest that the advanced media technologies provided to the Arab world are mostly initiated by Western sales/marketing strategy rather than Middle Eastern choice and initiative. They see the process as a reaction to the Western media practices, rather than a pre-planned policy. This study is directed toward constructing a critical understanding of the development, and current status, of media policy and infrastructure in the Arab world. Being undertaken as the basis of a Ph. D. thesis in an inter-disciplinary department, the research is informed by a strong inter-disciplinary perspective, but with a clear political economy emphasis. The study seeks to examine whether there is a clear media policy in the Arab world, either at a national or regional level. Within this context, ARABSAT, perhaps the most popular media system in the Arab world, constitutes a specific case study. Inaugurated in 1985, the system has been the subject of extensive debate, sometimes heatedly discussing its pros and cons. Its long period of operation, the extensive contribution of most Arab/Muslim countries in the process of the creation and operation of ARABSAT, as well as the footprint coverage of the system including the Middle East, most parts of Asia, the Indian subcontinent and some parts of Europe, make the contribution of ARABSAT within the Middle East media environment of particular interest. Now, nearly 15 years after the advent of ARABSAT, established and supported by the overwhelming majority of the Arab states, a critical assessment of the system in terms of policy/strategy is timely.

Ce travail de recherche se propose de revenir sur l'histoire médiatico-politique de l'Égypte comme élément central de l'espace public arabe, dans un cadre régional prenant en compte d’autres pays périphériques tels que le Qatar, le Koweït ou l'axe Saoudo-Émirati.Il invite en particulier à une réflexion sur la(-les) politique(-s) communicationnelle(-s) à l’œuvre sous les différents gouvernements de ce que l’on peut appeler la « République des officiers », expression reprise à Yazid Sayegh pour désigner les prises de pouvoir successives de l’Égypte contemporaine par des militaires de profession, à savoir Nasser, Sadate, Moubarak et enfin Sissi.Du journalisme arabiste de résistance offensive à partir des années cinquante jusqu’au développement commercial des médias dans les années quatre-vingt, il sera question d’un examen approfondi de la démarche informationnelle et journalistique des régimes en place, en lien avec les diverses sphères de l’espace public, c’est-à-dire les intellectuels, religieux, ou encore activistes de tous ordres issus de la société civile. Le rôle du régime cosmopolitique fera l’objet d’une analyse également, non pas tant comme phénomène transnational de pacification mondiale au sens d’Ulrich Beck, mais tel que cette instance informelle est exploitée et dévoyée par l’administration américaine et la haute représentation européenne à des fins moins altruistes.Avec la création d’Aljazeera en 1996, signant l’avènement d’un néo-panarabisme communicationnel promu cette fois par un micro-État rentier des pays du Golfe, le Qatar, c’est un vent nouveau qui va souffler sur le traitement télévisuel des questions politiques dans le monde arabe, faisant réagir les autres pays de la péninsule et entraînant la naissance d’une pléthore de chaînes arabes, commerciales pour la plupart. Le développement des réseaux sociaux et des nouvelles technologies de l’information en général ne sont pas oubliés, amenant à interroger les mutations de ce système médiatique qui se complexifie. Entre le schéma de co-isolation dans lequel s’inscrit l’évolution de la chaîne qatarie et le projet contre-révolutionnaire auquel participe financièrement l'axe Saoudo-Emirati suite à l’élection de Morsi, inaugurant dès lors une période de l'absurde politique se généralisant à l'ensemble des interstices de l'espace public régional, il s’agira de décrypter tout particulièrement les paradoxes du système, en articulation avec la notion d’éthique et le concept de reconnaissance. / This research purports to retrace the media and political history of Egypt, as a central element of Arab public space, within a wider regional framework constituted of peripheral countries such as Qatar, Kuwait or the Saudi-Emirati axis.It invites more particularly to a reflection upon the communicational politics at work under the respective governments of what can be called the “Republic of officers”, a phrase borrowed from Yazid Sayegh to designate the successive takeovers of contemporary Egypt by military men, namely Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak, and finally Sisi.From the Arabist journalism of offensive resistance from the fifties’ on, to the commercial development of media in the late eighties’, a thorough examination of the informational and journalistic approach of the regimes in power will be undertaken. This will be linked with the diverse spheres of the public space, i.e. the intellectuals, religious, and all kinds of activists from the civil society. The role played by the cosmopolitical regime will be asked too, not as much as the transnational phenomenon of global pacification in Ulrich Beck’s sense, but rather as this informal body is exploited and corrupted by the American administration and high European representation for not so altruistic aims.When Aljazeera channel was created in 1996, paving the way to a communicational neo-panarabism now promoted by a rentier micro-State of the Gulf region, namely Qatar, a new wind started to blow on the television treatment of political issues in the Arab world. The other countries of the peninsula soon responded, allowing the birth of an abundance of channels, most of which were commercial. The development of social networks and the new information technologies in general are not forgotten leading us to interrogate the mutations of this system which is getting more and more complex. In-between the scheme of co-isolation within which the evolution of the Qatari channel is inscribed and the counter-revolutionary project financially supported by the Saudi-Emirati axis after Morsi’s election, then inaugurating an era of political absurdity permeating all and every interstice of the regional public space, our point will be to decipher more particularly the paradoxes of the system, in articulation with the notion of ethics and the concept of recognition.

This thesis aims to explain the role of media reports in the situation of wars and conflicts where the Ukrainian/Russian war will be the focus. Since the Ukrainian war has become the most global political debate worldwide because it has transferred from a national crisis to a geopolitical conflict, it becomes necessary to observe how different media has portrayed this war. It is a comparative desk study based on the discourse analysis method. The methodological framework is qualitative research because it seeks after a specific war by collecting and analysing different sources. The comparative research design gives depth answers to the four research questions identified. The discourse analysis method uses the collected news articles from two online newspapers, Al Jazeera and the Guardian. The first one is written in Arabic and the second one in English, giving a comprehensive view of the Ukrainian/Russian war. The selected news articles are limited to only the first week of the war because of the intensive reports presented by the media to understand the reason behind the war. The thesis uses abductive reasoning, while the securitization theory is used as the theoretical framework to highlight how the Ukrainian/Russian war has been securitized in different contexts. The results show that Al Jazeera and the Guardian have portrayed the war differently; the selected news articles from the Guardian have succeeded in a securitization process where it considered the Ukrainian/Russian war a threat to western security that has pushed the government leaders to security acts. On the other hand, the Arab media portrayed the Russian invasion as a security threat to Ukraine’s presence.