Fridays of Rage

Abstract

Abstract Fridays of Rage reveals for the first time Al Jazeera’s surprising rise to that most respected of all Western media positions: the watchdog of democracy. Al Jazeera served as the nursery for the Arab world’s democratic revolutions, promoting Friday as a “day of rage” and popular protest. This book gives readers a glimpse of how Al Jazeera has strategically cast its journalists as martyrs in the struggle for Arab freedom while promoting itself as the mouthpiece and advocate of the Arab public. In addition to heralding a new era of Arab democracy, Al Jazeera has come to have a major influence on Arab perceptions of US involvement in the Arab world, the Arab–Israeli conflict, the rise of global Islamic fundamentalism, and the expansion of the political Far Right. Al Jazeera’s blueprint for “Muslim democracy” was part of a vision announced by the network during its earliest broadcasts. Al Jazeera presented a mirror to an Arab world afraid to examine itself and its democratic deficiencies. But rather than assuming that Al Jazeera is a monolithic force for positive transformation in Arab society, Fridays of Rage examines the potentially dark implications of Al Jazeera’s radical reconceptualization of media as a strategic tool or weapon. As a powerful and rapidly evolving source of global influence, Al Jazeera embodies many paradoxes—the manifestations and effects of which are only now becoming apparent. Fridays of Rage guides readers through this murky territory, where journalists are martyrs, words are weapons, and facts are bullets.