Monthly Archives: November 2013

Overview Of Media Structure in Morocco

Posted on November 30, 2013 by | Leave a comment

The country of Morocco has a diverse ownership in the way the media is owned in the country. Seventy percent of the print media is owned privately, but the government owns a good amount of the broadcast media. In the print business, magazines control most of the landscape and production, but Morocco also has a variety of newspapers that are published. Despite being privately owned, the government has helped the print business by giving aid to newspapers. In 2005, the state gave about $5 million U.S. Dollars to newspapers to help the business, which was taking a hit similar to what is happening to U.S. newspapers.

The broadcast media began taking a more privately-owned shift when the government established the High Authority of Audiovisual Communication, which allowed for independent broadcasters. One of the first television stations to take adavntage of this was 2M-TV, which was the second station in Morocco. Despite being privately owned at the time, the government now owns 80 percent of its shares. The government also owns a television station named ‘Société Nationale de Radiodiffusion et de Télévision.’ A privately owned station, Medi-1, is independent and one of the more popular stations in the country.

Online is a growing medium for the people of Morocco as more and more use the internet to view the news. Morocco follows the Initiative for an Open Arab Internet, which says citizens are free to browse any sites they choose, but the country still blocks some sites. Most of the blocked sites are ones that encourage radical Islamist activities and terrorism. However, Morocco does not block sites of the Polisario independence movement, which the country has been in a conflict with for 26 years. A popular tool of the internet for the Morocco people are blogs. Over the past few years, blogs have been a growing phenomenon and people use them usually for causes, which are generally not blocked by the government.

Sources:

http://www.journalismnetwork.eu/index.php/_en/country_profiles/morocco/

http://www.linktv.org/mosaic/broadcasters/morocco

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Egyptian censorship continues under new government

Posted on November 27, 2013 by | 1 comment

Adli Mansour, Egypt's chief justice and head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, attends his swearing in ceremony as interim president in Cairo

In July, 2013 the new Egyptian government began detaining journalists and censoring news outlets, especially those associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.  This concerned the Committee to Protect Journalists because the new government and interim president Aldy Mansour originally expressed the intention to being more of a liberal media system by being inclusive with the media, but these actions clearly contradict that.  The Muslim Brotherhood is a religious and political group that believes Islam is not just a religion, but a way of life.  The Muslim Brotherhood officially rejects violent means to secure goals, but offshoots of the group have been linked to attacks in the Middle East.  Former Egyptian president, Mohammed Morsi, was a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and therefore has much support from the organization.

The CPJ’s Middle East and North African program coordinator, Sherif Mansour, said that if the new government in Egypt is sincere about pursuing democracy it must begin to respect the freedom of press and all voices, including the Muslim Brotherhood, should be heard.  Examples of recent censorship in Egypt include the Al-Ahram government printing house refusing to print the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice daily.  The military also raided Al-Jazeera’s Egyptian television station and shut down at least three stations that are supportive of previous Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi.  Police also arrested two Islamist television hosts and dozens of staff, including journalists, were detained in undisclosed locations without contact to lawyers or families.

Reading this article it is easy to see the hypocrisy that the Committee to Protect Journalists is noticing with the new Egyptian government.  The interim president expresses the want for Egypt to be a democracy; however he censors any form of media that is supportive of the former president.  By raiding media outlets and detaining journalists they are censoring the voices of people in the country that contradict the current president.  Egyptian citizens have the right to know about the viewpoints of all different political organizations, so they can form their own informed opinion on their current and former leaders.  As long as Egypt continues to not follow freedom of press to the full extent than the country will never be a true democracy and liberal media system.

Posted by Tyler Ainge

Source: http://www.cpj.org/2013/07/egyptian-authorities-step-up-censorship.php

 

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Morocco: An American Perspective of Tangier

Posted on November 25, 2013 by | 1 comment

The cities of Morocco, once a place of rest from western chaos in the early 60s, still shine brightly today through the eyes of Americans.

Tangier, a city in Northern Morocco famously dubbed the “Interzone” by American writer William S. Burroughs, is a culturally rich place and home away from home that exemplifies Moroccan life.  Burroughs called the place the “Interzone” because between the years of 1924 and 1956 Tangier was very loosely governed. He referred to the city as “one of the few places left in the world where, so long as you don’t proceed to robbery, violence, or some form of crude, antisocial behavior, you can do exactly what you want.” And he certainly wasn’t far off. During those years everyone from writers, artists, war criminals and spies traveled to the Interzone for escape in a neutral area.

Today things aren’t much different. People travel to Tangier for the culture, including, but not limited to, the food and the music.  It is in Tangier where the “4000 year-old rock band,” coined by Burroughs, resides.

“For years, if you were a rock god, you had to come here,” said Anthony Bourdain, who traveled there for the cooking culture. Many notable bands, but most famously the Rolling Stones, traveled to Tangier to rock with the oldest known band.  The band was so revered that they were excused from manual labor in order to practice music.

Bourdain, of course, went to Tangier for the entire culture, but mostly for cooking.  He visited many different Café’s, which are essential to daily life, and many restaurants, detailing his meals as he went.  According to Lara Brunt “if you don’t like cumin, you may starve,” but Bourdain may as well have proven her wrong.

Tangier isn’t only popular because of its food or culture . . . or now well-defined laws.  One major reason why the city is a good tourist attraction is because of the diversity in languages. “Multilingual Moroccans will put you to shame,” Brunt says, because of their diverse amount of languages and dialects used and with the fluidity in which they change languages. Berber, Arabic, Spanish and French are all spoken in Tangier. Berber and Arabic are regional tongues, French has been passed on since the time of French colonialism, and Spanish simply by proximity. This allows westerners to learn languages which use the Latin alphabet and are therefore easier for them to learn.  This also allows them to explore African and Middle-Eastern culture without the hassle of learning Arabic languages. Morocco is also one of the very few nations that solved their “language question” by choosing to teach two languages – both Arabic and French – at school.  This shows the infusion of French into Moroccan nationalism and may be an interesting case study for historians studying nations.

Thus, Tangier continues to play a major role in tourism in Morocco, despite being continuously invested in by foreign markets. And though the investors may seek different business points, many natives believe that “Tangier’s unique character will survive.” According to Bourdain, “Tangier is Morocco, Always was Morocco.”

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/video/shows/anthony-bourdain-parts-unknown/episode5/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/08/travel/10-things-morocco/

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