A platform to analyse the Arab Spring

The Qatar-based global public television broadcaster Al Jazeera has charted what is known as the Arab Spring - the uprisings that began in Tunisia and spread to Egypt and other parts of the Arab world. But the channel, which broadcasts in Arabic and English, also gave local academics an unparalleled platform to explain and analyse events in their own region.

"A lot of local voices, including academics, have been given prominence on Al Jazeera," said Tony Burman, who was Managing Director of Al Jazeera English until last year and is now head of strategy for the Americas.

"We want to ensure that as issues are discussed, the views and perspectives of those who live in the developing world are heard. There are a lot of elements in our society that do not participate. Al Jazeera made an effort, for example, in Tunisia, to make sure these voices were heard despite the government, though it is not our mission to determine the outcome," he told the the WorldViews conference on Higher Education and the Media in Toronto.

Later, speaking with University World News, Burman said: "As the only global broadcaster based in the developing South, Al Jazeera has a special place in many of these countries affected by the Arab Spring.

"There was on the part of many academics a real eagerness to communicate with Al Jazeera and have their views reflected because I think there is always a resentment that in other global news organisations western voices are often brought into interpret what's going on or perhaps expat voices, from people who currently live outside the country.

"If anything, Al Jazeera represents the reverse of that. We have reporters that live in these regions and who understand the language and who are really a part of the society, and we also draw on the voices , particularly academic voices from within those countries, so there is a kind of common cause between academics for example in Egypt and Al Jazeera, and both sides take advantage of that."

He said that in Egypt, for example, there was a greater sense of freedom for academics to be outspoken. Although Al Jazeera did not focus on higher education as such, "we weave in academic viewpoints, a lot of the Arab Spring was driven by young people and many of these kids were university education and we did a lot of stories from the students perspectives.

"There was a real focus in Al Jazeera of the state of the education and the value of education in changing and developing the society."

Burman said the emphasia was on ensuring diversity of issues and speakers: "The mission of Al Jazeera is to ensure there isn't a lock on opinion of certain nationalities."

Young people were incredibly involved and committed, and many of their teachers were similarly committed and this would have an impact over time on their parents who had lived in those societies longer and perhaps were somewhat defeatists. But these events were so overwhelming there was no difficulty in tapping into a multitude of voices, he said.

Yojana Sharma
19 June 2011
universityworldnews.com