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Podium 2: What role does the media play in North Africa of today?
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Journalists thrown into jail or even killed, the closure of independent media sources, monitoring of (social) media through government authorities – in large parts of North Africa, this is the bottom line for people seeking to conduct independent journalism or spread unfiltered information.
What options are there at all for Libyan or Egyptian journalists to report on controversial issues? What constraints are laid upon them when collecting information or making politically delicate scoops public? Another perspective: what possibilities do journalists and bloggers in Tunisia have today thanks to the revolution? After the North African governments obviously were not prepared for the rapid mobilizations via social media in 2011, how have they adapted? Does social media still have the same potential for mass mobilization or is it turning into a tool for ruthless manipulation à la Big Brother?
Our panel guests will be the Tunisian blogger Lina Ben Mhenni, the Libyan journalist Salah Zater, the Egyptian journalist Lina Attalah and the Egyptian internet activist and journalist Wael Abbas.