In this context, Jamel Zran believes the Arab media has undergone a rebirth process and took a new shape with the advent of Al Jazeera, which “introduced viewers to new elements – a plurality of discourses and issues around which national public debate has become possible, such as local public affairs, political pluralism, resistance, foreign in- tervention, political opposition and freedom” (1) . According Zran, these changes reflect Jazeera’s impact on the Arab media landscape, the Arab state system, and relations between the West and the Arab world. This impact triggered different forms of reaction, which can be seen in “the hundreds of complaints against Al Jazeera, mostly from Arab states, with many going so far as to ban the channel from broadcasting. Al Jazeera’s presence has also provoked sharp political and diplomatic crises, with the withdrawal of ambassadors and the imprisoning and targeting of the channel’s journalists” (2) . Removing Al Jazeera from the Arab media scene after all its im- pact is akin to, according to Zran, the elimination of “the viewer in the communication process, and prohibiting the broadcasting of Al Jazeera is also a ban on television, not only as a means of communication, but as the first mass communication means for decades and as a common public platform contributing to the legitimation of differences and the formation of the public sphere (3) . Records show, Al Jazeera was the target of many governments, and by the end of 2018, it was officially banned in more than a third of the Arab countries (4) . The restrictive acts and infringement of press free- doms occurred in just about the entire region of the Arab world, as per the following: Jordan: was the first country to take public punitive mea- sures against Al Jazeera. It closed the channel’s bureau in Amman in (1) Jamel Zran, “Perceptions of Al Jazeera: Pluralism, reception and the public sphere” in Mapping the Al Jazeera Phenomenon : Twenty Years On , (Beirut: Al Jazeera Centre for Studies and Arab Scientific Publishers, 2016), p. 43.
(2) Ibid.
(3) Ibid.
(4) The Price of Truth: Monitoring and Documenting Violations , Al Jazeera Centre for Public Liberties & Human Rights, Issue 1, 2017.
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