For the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al Jazeera Effect is no better than the irresponsible secularization of the Arab public sphere. Seib, however, defines it as “the superseding of the traditional media connections that have brought identity and structure to global politics by connectivity of new media, a rewiring of the world’s neural system.” His term is primarily about alternative media, not a single satellite channel. Al Jazeera, as the doyen of the new media, represents their nature, characteristics, ethos and self-identification and definition.
Drawing on Seib’s work, scholars of Arab media have studied the Al Jazeera Effect in the Arab world. Some were limited to the effects of Al Jazeera itself in creating a new era of political diversity in the Arab world. Others focused on the intensification of trends in media and politics in the Arab world that Al Jazeera started. Indeed, in the past few years, one can get a hard time finding any research in politics and media that doesn’t mention Al Jazeera in one way or another. It is early days to know whether all the academic excitement is justified; the Al Jazeera Effect may prove to be as fleeting as the much touted CNN Effect of the early 1990s. Media effects are usually overhyped. Be it as it may though, there is no denying that Al Jazeera has brought something to the media scene (mainly broadcast) in the Arab world that was not a feature previously: a vast intake basin.
Since the 1950s, most broadcast outlets in the Arab world were controlled by either governments or groups that were too afraid or too acquiesced to criticize them. The very few channels, which were started by opposition groups here and there, were largely propaganda-sque in their approach. When it was launched in 1996, Al Jazeera defied this Arab tradition by acting as a soapbox of very diverse opinions and views in the Middle East. Media scholar Yochai Benkler calls this Universal Intake. “The basic requirement of a public sphere is that it must in principle be susceptible to perceiving and considering the issues of anyone who believes that their condition is a matter appropriate for political consideration,” Benkler argued in his highly impressive work The Wealth of Networks.
