Reporting in the MENA Region

Mohammad Ayish is professor of communication at the American University of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates. He served as Dean of the College of Communication at the University of Sharjah from 2002-2008. He has over 60 published articles and book chapters on Arab satellite television, media and democratization, development communication, Arab-Islamic communication perspectives. His most recently published books include Arab Media (co-author, 2011) and The New Arab Public Sphere (2008). Noha Mellor is professor of media at Bedfordshire University, UK. She’s the author of several volumes about Arab media, including The Making of Arab News (2005), Modern Arab Journalism (2007), Arab Journalists in Transnational Media (2011) and Arab Media (co-author, 2011).

A great strength of this book is its recency...Considering the long turn-around cycle for publishing a book, this recency is quite impressive. It is also noteworthy that the authors are clearly experts in the subject matter, as demonstrated in the very knowledgeable and authoritative observations, comments, and arguments.... While journalists elsewhere, particularly those struggling in severe state-controlled and ideologically censored communication environments, continue to manage to survive in this social media era, this research has great global relevance.