1. University of Mostaganem
Faculty of Arts and Literature
Department of English Studies

2.  Introduction
 What is Mass Media ?
 The Role and Power of the Mass Media
 The Political power
 The Social Power
 The Infulence of Mass Media in the Arab World
 « Aljazeera »…As a Practical Example
 Conclusion
 References

3.  In the study of mass communication, there has been a
continuous debate about the powerful effects of the media on
the public and about the role of mass media in the political and
social change of a society ,which introduces few of the several
queries :
 Does the Social Media have political power?
 Has it been lately the factor behind popular uprisings across the
world ?
 Are they empowering people and, thus, promoting democracy?
 Will the media articulate the voices of society and break the political
near-monopoly of the state?

4.  By definition, mass communication is a message
created by a person or a group of people sent through
a transmitting device (a medium) to a large audience
or market.
 So What Exactly is Mass Media?
 Mass media is any medium used to transmit mass
communication. Until recently mass media was
clearly defined and was comprised of the eight mass
media industries; Books,Newspapers, Magazines, and
Recordings,Radio, Movies, Television and The
Internet.

5.  the role of the mass media in global society has been evolving over the
past century towards the following goals and duties:
1. The media informs the public, provides information and amusement,
generates political ideas, mobilizes political and social action groups, and
generally helps to shape the public policy agenda and priorities.
2. The media plays a role of political accountability and checks-and-
bal-ances, keeping an eye on public officials and institutions and
con-stantly challenging them via reports, interviews, debates, etc.
3. The media can sometimes play the role of a direct political actor, such
as happened in the arab world ,when the press reveals political actions or
plans that impact on the political scene.
4. In the end, the media is a reflection of society. Very rarely can the mass
me-dia actually make people change their minds or their views instantly.

6.  In the words of theorist power
Castells, “Political
becomes dependent on the control of, or the
influence on, the apparatus of communication
and persuasion – primarily the information and
communications technology that is central to
what we call the media and, thus, the materials
they convey”
 From the words of the theorist Castells ,that push us to know
the reasons that made the people use the
term,”Political power of the media”,we find
ourselves in front of this following question:
 wh a t h a s h a d b e e n h a p p e n i n g
i n t h e l a s t ma n y y e a r s t h a t
h a s l e d t o t h e i d e a o f t h e

7.  An answer to that question could be known ,if we returned to
what have happened In Moldova, Twitter, Facebook and again
text messages helped organize mass protests against
Communist Party in 2009, which, ultimately, lost power.
 The church sexual abuse case was exposed by” the Boston
Globe ,news papper” in 2002. The exposure led to the filing of
lawsuits against the Catholic Church for harboring child rapist.
 more recently, the Arab uprising has spread from Tunisia to
Egypt to Bahrain and other states. The mass protests within
states were partially helped organized by the mass or social
media .

8.  From a theoretical point of view, the media show
varying potential to contribute to political change within
various types and phases of transformation. However, in all
possible situations, the mass media are not primary political
actors but rather mediators between the government, the
opposition and the people. For the Arab media to be
successful in catalyzing change, it is vital that they maintain
relations with the political opposition and civil society, and
their interaction with political cultures
influences the formation of democratic attitudes and values

9.  social power is summarily defined as a social
relation between groups or institutions , involving
the control by a (more) powerful group or institution
(and itsmembers) of the actions and the minds of
(the members) a less powerful group. Such power
generally presupposes privileged access to socially
valued resources, such as force, wealth, income,
knowledge, or status.

10.  Chaney (1996) agreed with John Thompson, who developed the Social
Theory of the Media in 1995. He looked at the way media impact society
through his Social Theory of the Media with the assumption that mass
communication changes our frameworks of understanding, at both the
communal and individual levels.
 Thompson’s theory can be applied in the Arab region for many reasons.
For example, he purports that mass media have created new forms of
social interaction which are more limited than everyday social
interactions. This social interaction created by the mass media is slanted
and probably prejudicial because mass media is used to create and generate
propaganda (Chaney, 1996).

11.  What we need to be aware is that most of our
decisions, beliefs and values are based on what
we know for a fact, our assumptions and our
own experience. In our work we usually know
what we have to do based on our experience
and studies, however on our daily lives we rely
on the media to get the current news and facts
about what is important and what we should
be aware of.

12.  In the last 50 years the media,in the Arab
counteries, influence has grown exponentially
with the advance of technology, first there was
the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper,
magazines, television and now the internet.
 We live in a society that depends on information
and communication to keep moving in the right
direction and do our daily activities like work,
entertainment, health care, education, personal
relationships, traveling and anything else that we
have to do.

13.  While Islamists seek to mobilize people through
moral rigor, social networks and political
organizations, the media in the arab world have
inspired people’s minds through their liveliness,
plurality and dynamics. The old idea that a
“triangle of taboos”— politics, sex and religion—
expresses Arab culture is outdated in the new
media age. While religion is still sensitive,
hedonism is an element of many Arab programs
and it has become an acceptable part of life to
debate politics.

14.  All what we have seen about the political
and social power ,could be ,clearly,
presented by Aljazeera news channel.
 Al Jazeera offers their viewers a different and
new perspective, it was the first of the Arab
TV stations to break the unwritten rules that
one does not criticize another Arab regime.

15.  The role of Aljazeera in the coverage of the
Arab uprisings that has spread from Tunisia
to Egypt to Bahrain , help to influence the
people and bring a popular revolution that
changed the long-standing regime in Tunisia
and Egypt and history will record the
channel's crucial galvanizing role in the
extraordinary events that are now unfolding
in Egypt and Tunisia.

16.  The mass media transmits the information,
the flow of which creates transformation. Now
this transformation can be positive and bad.
However, the effects of bad or positive
transformation are determined by the
economic environment of any state. I
conclude my presentation by this question:
I f t h e me d i a s h a p e
t h e p u b l i c a g e n d a ,
wh a t o r wh o s h a p e s
t h e m e d i a ’s a g e n d a ?

17.  Castells, Manuel (2004), Power and Politics in a Networked
Society, Ralph Milliband Memorial Lecture,
http://annenberg.usc.edu/images/faculty/facpdfs/Castells-
LSE-lecture.pdf.
 Chaney, D. (1996). Media and modernity: A social theory of
the media.
 Thompson, J. B. (1995). The media and modernity: A social
theory of the media. Stanford University Press.
 Altheide, D L. 1985. Media Power. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
 Zayani, Mohamed. Introduction: The Al Jazeera
Phenomenon.London,2005