Naomi Sakr
Professor of Media Policy
Email:n.sakr01@wmin.ac.uk
Biography
Naomi Sakr was previously a journalist, editor
and country analyst. She worked at the Economist Intelligence Unit
(1985-97) as a Middle East specialist and managing editor of
political risk and economic forecast reports. She left the EIU to
research Arab media for a PhD and as a consultant to international
organisations, including Article 19, Amnesty International and the
United Nations Development Programme (1998-2004).
Her early published work on Arab television coincided with growing
international interest in Al-Jazeera, and her first book,
Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and
the Middle East (2001), appeared at a time of mounting Western
concern over the uses of media in Arab states. Sakr became a Senior
Lecturer at the University of Westminster in 2004, Reader in
Communication in 2006, Director of CAMRI's Arab Media Centre in
2007, and Professor of Media Policy in April 2009 (see page
6 of Summer 2009 issue of Findings).
Awards
Middle Eastern
Studies Book Prize, awarded in 2003, for Satellite Realms:
Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle
East
Research Statement
In her work on the political economy of Arab
media, Sakr focuses on transnational television, media policy,
media development and human rights.Her two edited collections
reflect these interests.
Arab Media and Political Renewal: Community, Legitimacy and
Public Life (2007) resulted from a two-year international
seminar series organised by the University of Westminster with ESRC
funding. Women and Media in the Middle East: Power through
Self-Expression (2004, reprinted 2007) followed Sakr's
involvement in a Danish-funded project to research Arab media
treatment of women's rights.
Her most recent single-author book,
Arab Television Today (2007), explores conflicting
political and economic impulses that stimulate and constrain
competition among the region's proliferating channels. It
investigates law and policy, content creation and the status of
journalists, including women presenters and war reporters. Current
projects involve further research on processes and outcomes of
interplay between different agents, including content creators, and
structures of Arab corporate cultural production.
Selected Publications
"Fragmentation or Consolidation? Factors in the Oprah-ization of
Social Talk on Multi-Channel Arab TV", in Graeme Turner and Jinna
Tay (eds) Television Studies After TV: Understanding Television
in the Post-Broadcast Era, London: Routledge, 2009, pp.
168-177
"Le public et les 'questions de société' sur les chaînes
arabes", in Yves Gonzalez-Quijano and Tourya Guaaybess (eds) Les
Arabes parlent aux Arabes: La revolution de l'information dans
le monde arabe, Paris: Editions Sindbad (Actes Sud) 2009, pp.
180-190
'Women and Media in Saudi Arabia: Rhetoric, Reductionism and
Realities, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies,
35/3, December 2008, pp 385-404
"Diversity and Diaspora: Arab Communities and Satellite
Communication in Europe", Global Media and Communication,
4/3, December 2008, pp 277-300
Arab Television Today, I B Tauris, London,
September 2007
'Challenger or Lackey?: The Politics of News on Al-Jazeera' in
D. K. Thussu (ed) Media on the Move (Routledge,
2006)
'Foreign Support for Media Freedom Advocacy in the Arab
Mediterranean: Globalization from Above or Below?',
Mediterranean Politics, 11 (1), 2006
'Media Policy in the Middle East: A Reappraisal', in J. Curran
and M. Gurevitch (eds) Mass Media and Society,
4th edition (Hodder Arnold, 2005)
'The Changing Dynamics of Arab Journalism, in H. de Burgh (ed)
Making Journalists (Routledge,
2005)
Sample of speaking
invitations
Talk on Arab media to journalists in Copenhagen, March
2009
Conference presentation on Gulf media laws, New York University
Abu Dhabi, January 2009
Lecture on using media to promote women's economic rights in the
Mediterranean, Brussels, November 2008
Talk on Arab media to European Commission Press and Information
Officers, Brussels, April 2008
Panelist at New York Museum of Television & Radio debate, April
2007
Lecture on history of Arab satellite TV at Augsburg
Film Festival, March 2007
Plenary Lecture on Media and Empires to IAMCR
annual conference, Cairo, July 2006
Conference presentation on decision making in
Arab TV, Georgetown University, May 2006
Guest lecture on competition and collaboration
in Arab broadcasting, Lelio Basso Foundation, Rome, April
2006