Power, Censorship, and the Press: The Case of Postcolonial Algeria

Abstract

The history of the press in Algeria is linked to and closely reflects the contradictions of this North African country's postcolonial regime as well as the evolution of its social and political movements and its struggle for democracy. In this respect, the context of its emergence, its operating conditions, and its changing status are directly related to the forces that created and have continued to control the modern Algerian economy, political structures, and institutions for more than thirty years. Indeed, since the country's independence in 1962, the Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN, the National Liberation Front), a military and political structure conceived and born during the anti-French resistance and National Liberation War (1954-62), has been determining all aspects ofthe economy, education, political organizations, and state institutions, as well as the dissemination of information nationwide.