Independent Media: Reimagining the Arab Public Sphere

This panel brings together a group of independent media producers in the Arab World, to reflect on the role independent media play in providing accurate and relevant information to publics, in and despite conditions of extreme flux and violence.

Abstract

The MENA region has been a site of one war after another, many fought simultaneously. Besides violence and destruction, people are in perpetual displacement. Borders are being redrawn, economies are failing, societies are breaking apart and political prospects seem unavailable. 

A group of independent media in the region has been reporting in and about those countries and people, carving out a space for accurate well-sourced information and much needed reflection. In doing so, they promise companionship, catharsis, as well insight and the possibility of imagining otherwise. Born at different points in the past two decades, these media have played an elucidating role in their communities’ public consciousness, rewriting what it means to be a local or a regional media, an Arab media. Part of institutionalising these spaces has also been an exercise of building a media economy that is neither dependent on public support nor on private investments. The result is volatile, urging the question of whether a people’s supported media in the region is possible.

This panel will discuss what it means to be an independent media platform in the Arab region, and hear the experiences of:

• Alhudood: The Middle East leading satirical news website
• Al-Jumhuriya: An award winning independent platform covering Syria and the Syrian diaspora
• Jummar: An Iraqi media platform that offers analysis and human-centered stories from Iraq, covering key national and societal issues as well as everyday life and vernacular realities.
• Khateera: The leading feminist and Women centric platform in the Arab world
• Mada Masr: A leading, award-winning independent news media based in Egypt
• Megaphone: A Lebanon-based media organisation providing in-depth analysis and fact-checked news, using innovative formats

Image: Shubham Sharan (Unsplash)