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Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: a Foreword and Two Reports University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Departmental Papers (ASC) Annenberg School for Communication May 2007 Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: A Foreword and Two Reports Monroe Price University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Douglas Griffin Albany Associates Ibrahim Al-Marashi University of Pennsylvania Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers Recommended Citation Price, M., Griffin,., D & Al-Marashi, I. (2007). Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: A Foreword and Two Reports. CGCS Occasional Paper Series, 1 Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/59 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/59 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: A Foreword and Two Reports Abstract In the avalanche of analyses about what went wrong in Iraq, one area should be of particular interest to communications scholars: the development of a media system in Iraq. The emerging media system incorporates many significant strands: the conflict-related and post-conflict actions concerning media policy, the considerable growth of faction-related and entrepreneurial broadcasters after the conflict, the efforts by interests in the region (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and others) to affect the media environment, interventions by the United States and other Western countries, and their complex and often inept media- related reconstruction initiatives, the effort of non-government organizations (NGOs) to repeat or adopt practices from other conflict zones. There's a tendency in the communications studies literature to be concerned with particular U.S.-centric frames of discussion: access by Western journalists to information, depiction of the United States on Al- Jazeera and other satellite broadcasters, the combination of media and Islam as a mode of altering general public attitudes. I focus here — as an introduction to the two accompanying papers — on the emerging structure of media or media influences domestically in Iraq to understand the influence of the successor to Saddam's state television, the relationship between external state-sponsored influences, and pluralism within, and what consequence "media policy" or subsidy and private or party patronage has had on media institutions there. Finally, it will become increasingly important to understand the relationship between these media institutions and the actuality of continuing conflict and search for political solutions within Iraq. This "Occasional Paper" includes two reports. The first is a paper written by Ibrahim Al-Marashi, one of the few scholars systematically tracking media developments within Iraq. Dr. Al-Marashi was a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and has, for the last year, been an Open Society Institute (OSI) Policy Scholar at the Center for Policy Studies at Central European University in Budapest. He has recently joined the faculty at Koç University in Istanbul. The second was commissioned by the Republic of Iraq Communications and Media Commission (CMC), the agency established first under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) then maintained by the Iraqi governing authorities, and presented at a conference at UNESCO in January 2007. The report is the result of a contract between the CMC and the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London. This book is available at ScholarlyCommons: https://repository.upenn.edu/asc_papers/59 Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: A Foreword and Two Reports Monroe E. Price • Douglas Griffin • Ibrahim Al-Marashi CGCS Occasional Paper Series NUMBER ONE ‑ MAY 2007 h Center for Global Communication Studies Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania 3620 Walnut Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 www.global.asc.upenn.edu Published with the support of the University of Pennsylvania’s Middle East Center. A version of this paper will be published in 25 Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal (forthcoming 2007). Toward an Understanding of Media Policy and Media Systems in Iraq: A Foreword and Two Reports Table of Contents Foreword . 3 Monroe Price Policy Recommendations Concerning Broadcasting in Iraq . .15 Communications and Media Commission of Iraq Part One: The Iraqi Broadcasting Sector and the Regulatory Environment in which it Exists . 16 I . Introduction . 16 II . Brief Introduction to Iraqi Broadcast Media . 17 III . Regulatory Framework for Media in Iraq . .19 IV . Human and Institutional Capacity Building . 28 Part Two: Policy Recommendations . 30 I . Introduction . 30 II . Legal Framework . 31 III . Communications and Media Commission of Iraq . 35 IV . Public Service Broadcaster . 50 V. Other Efforts to Enhance the Media Landscape . 53 Appendix A: Selections From the Penal Code of 1969 . .58 Appendix B: Iraqi Constitution:Freedom of Expression and Independence of Media . 60 Appendix C: Model IECI Regulation on Media During Elections . .62 Appendix D: South African Media Development Fund (SAMDEF) . 65 The Dynamics of Iraq’s Media . .67 Ibrahim Al-Marashi Introduction . 68 Ownership, Programming and Content in Iraqi Media . 74 Iraq’s Media and the Regional Satellite Environment . 86 The Future of Iraq’s Media . 87 Conclusion . 90 Recommendations . 91 Appendix A: Sample of Ethno-Sectarian Media in Iraq . 98 Appendix B: References . 100 1 2 Foreword Monroe Price *1 * Director of the Center for Global and Communications Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania and Professor of Law at the Benjamin N . Cardozo School of Law, New York City . I want to express my gratitude to Libby Morgan who helped edit this Foreword and to Simon Haselock and Douglas Griffin who made comments on various drafts. 3 Foreword Iraq and the Making of State Media Policy In the avalanche of analyses about what went wrong in Iraq, one area should be of particular interest to communications scholars: the development of a media system in Iraq . The emerging media system incorporates many significant strands: the conflict-related and post-conflict actions concerning media policy, the considerable growth of faction-related and entrepreneurial broadcasters after the conflict, the efforts by interests in the region (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and others) to affect the media environment, interventions by the United States and other Western countries, and their complex and often inept media- related reconstruction initiatives, the effort of non-government organizations (NGOs) to repeat or adopt practices from other conflict zones. There’s a tendency in the communications studies literature to be concerned with particular U .S .-centric frames of discussion: access by Western journalists to information, depiction of the United States on Al- Jazeera and other satellite broadcasters, the combination of media and Islam as a mode of altering general public attitudes. I focus here—as an introduction to the two accompanying papers—on the emerging structure of media or media influences domestically in Iraq to understand the influence of the successor to Saddam’s state television, the relationship between external state-sponsored influences, and pluralism within, and what consequence “media policy” or subsidy and private or party patronage has had on media institutions there . Finally, it will become increasingly important to understand the relationship between these media institutions and the actuality of continuing conflict and search for political solutions within Iraq . This “Occasional Paper” includes two reports. The first is a paper written by Ibrahim Al-Marashi, one of the few scholars systematically tracking media developments within Iraq . Dr . Al-Marashi was a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania in 2006 and has, for the last year, been an Open Society Institute (OSI) Policy Scholar at the Center for Policy Studies at Central European University in Budapest . He has recently joined the faculty at Koç University in Istanbul . The second was commissioned by the Republic of Iraq Communications and Media Commission (CMC),1 the agency established first under the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) then maintained by the Iraqi governing authorities, and presented at a conference at UNESCO in January 2007 . The report is the result of a contract between the CMC and the Stanhope Centre for Communications Policy Research in London 2. 1 Alternately referred to as the INCMC or NCMC (http://www.ncmc-iraq.org/). 2 A few words about Stanhope would help . Stanhope (www .stanhopecentre .org) is what might be called a virtual center for the conducting of policy research and training . I founded Stanhope and have served as its chair . One of its original functions was to focus on media in conflict zones and it was involved in a study with the Crisis States Research Centre at the London School of Economics (see “Why Templates for Media Development do not Work in Crisis States,” available at http://www.crisisstates.com/download/publicity/FINAL.MEDIA.REPORT.PDF). Stanhope became the home of the Iraq Media Newsletter, a collection of materials about emerging Iraq media. That material is archived at http://www.stanhopecentre.org/2007/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid =9. In 2002-2003, I helped prepare materials about
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