Abstract | Recent structural changes to the Arab audio-visual media scene have encouraged an increasing number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in media freedom advocacy to launch initiatives aimed at making Arab broadcast media more pluralistic and boosting the independence and professionalism of broadcast journalists. Some interventions follow a top-down formula, sidestepping existing institutions that may be undemocratic, whereas others seek to work for change from below and within. This article, while conceptualizing such divergence in terms of Falk's distinction between globalization-from-above and globalization-from-below, also follows Wilkin in questioning whether these two categories can plausibly be separated from each other. Using two case studies of organizations that channel foreign grants into media-related activism in countries such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine, the essay explores how separate these categories may be in practice and assesses the validity of claims that foreign funding of advocacy NGOs depoliticizes and fragments civil society. |
---|