The Making of Arab NewsNoha Mellor

Reviewed by Ehab Hamdi, Alexandria University.Mellor, Noha. The Making of Arab News. Roman& Littlefield Publishers, Inc.2005 ISBN 0-7425-3818-4(cloth: alk.paper)—ISBN 0-7425-3819-2(pbk. Alk.paper)

. The aim of this book is to shed light on the current news value of the Arab news media

.To emphasize the frame of these values, a comparative approach was adopted, relating Arab news values to American news values.

The book argues that news values in the

Arab media share some characteristics with the news values known from The American news media.

Mellor begins her book with a chapter titled: The Arab region: similarities and Differences

After reviewing the existing statistics she tried to give the reader a background about the freedom of expression, Literacy rates, and Access to media in the Arab countries.

Freedom Index of Arab Countries

0-30 Free 31-60 Partly Free 61-100 Not Free

Freedom House report 2004

Kuwait

Qatar

Morocco

Jordan

Algeria

Lebanon

Iraq

Yemen

Bahrain

Oman

UAE

Egypt

Tunisia

Syria

Saudi Arabia

Sudan

Palestinian Authority

Libya

57

61

61

63

63

66

66

67

70

74

75

76

80

80

80

85

86

94

Partly free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

Not Free

year# of dailies

Circulation

(in Million)

Of world Total in %

19751083.01.4

19851256.41.48

19961401401.66

CountryRadio Receiver

TV receiver

CountryRadio Receiver

TV receiver

Yemen

Libya

Iraq

Syria

Bahrain

Qatar

Algeria

Jordan

Oman

43

213

224

264

575

438

238

251

580

267

138

74

89

439

457

71

175

61

Sudan

Tunisia

Morocco

UAE

Kuwait

Egypt

Saudi Arabia

Lebanon

270

200

226

271

473

312

291

891

86

156

145

263

373

126

269

268

While the main thesis of the book is the Arab news values the book gives a lot of details about the History of Arab news, In the second chapter Mellor refers to the historical development of the Arab press.

Beginning from the poetry as one important means of communication in the Arab world prior to Islamic era until the establishment of the first Arabic newspaper in the region Al Tanbeeh during the short French rule of Egypt.

The Book introduced criticism for the" shortcomings" of Rugh s theory and his Typology of Arab Press into four types:

Mobilized press in Syria, Libya, and the Sudan, where the national governments use the media as a political mobilization tool.

Loyalist press in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Palestine, Bahrain, Qatar, and UAE. Here, an amount of freedom is granted to the press and private ownership is allowed .

Diverse press in Kuwait, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, characterized by less authoritarianism and a diversity of opinion.

Transitional press systems in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan and Tunisia, of which transition to a different type of system.

In Chapter 4, the book examines news values in contemporary Arab media, focusing on four major criteria: abundance of political news, the social responsibility of the news, prominence, and newness. A comparative approach was adopted to help locate the similarities and differences between American and Arab news values.

In sum, it can be argued that there is a form of "value convergence" where news values from western news media affect the traditional values of the Arab media. Moreover, the news media in both regions seem to adopt the same principle of objectivity.

One of the book's greatest achievements is shedding light on the news genre in the Arab news media and the development of MSA. It traces the development of this genre in an attempt to identify a clear definition of news and its major characteristics both as a textual and a social system.

Anyone who is interested in contemporary Arab media will undoubtedly find this short book informative. Overall, it is highly sophisticated and will be of considerable interest to scholars.