Arabic media

Arabic media is derived from Arab culture and contains the media content, organizations, and journalists surrounding Arab culture and people, both historically and currently. Media content and organizations can include anything related to print media, broadcasting, news media, advertising, cinema, and more.

The term "Arab" refers to any individual who speaks Arabic as a first language and can be ethnically and religiously heterogeneous in its makeup. The Arab world, according to scholars, consists of 22 countries in the Middle East and Africa which belong to the Arab League, including Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

Arabic media sources have contributed to a world-wide Arab culture, and the many global diasporic communities of Arabs, by reproducing culture, media, and Arab interests. As well, social media of Arabic origination has led to the continuation of political uprisings, like the Arab Spring, and it continues to yield influence on politics and culture worldwide.  

Arabic media, as an idea, is believed to have begun with the production of poetry in the Arabic language, which was regarded as the main source of communication among people as well as propaganda from states and leaders. As the development of the printing press began, the media landscape changed dramatically with the integration of mass media organizations, newspapers, and the liberalization of local media forms.

The Arab world is one of the slowest to fully embrace the internet as a mass media organization, though its use has grown significantly in the past decade. While initial internet penetration, which is the percentage of a country's population with access to the internet, was significantly slower than Western countries, the Arab League has grown to be an extremely large user of the infrastructure.

Al Jazeera, which was created in 1996, is an Arab state-funded broadcasting agency that continues to be the most-watched organization in the Arab world. As of 2017, it has 80 international bureaus, and is regarded as the Arab-created organization with the largest global reach, even reaching large viewerships in North America, Europe, and Asia. Though it has received criticisms, Al Jazeera has been given international recognition, and was even cited by then-American Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2011 as "real news", and winning the "information war" against the United States' broadcast media.

The majority of modern Arabic media organizations have reflected Western journalistic principles, like objectivity, transparency, and fairness. These journalistic standards, outlined in the Code of Ethics of Journalists

However, some Arabic organizations and journalists have rejected these ideals in order to reflect the political sphere of the Arab world. Because of large scale government regulations on media, and a lack of the protection of the free press, some journalists and cooperations have disregarded balanced reporting to place themselves politically either against or with the current state government. In fact, the organization Al Jazeera, as introduced above, is critiqued by many, especially Western media organizations, to be a thinly veiled source of state-sponsored propaganda.

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