Media and Contemporary History between Europe and the Middle East
Over the last century, media has been becoming an ever more powerful tool, its link to contemporary history strengthening as the breadth of Media grows. Media, as a tool of analysis reflects, and as a tool of persuasion shapes public opinion. The alleged power of the media is media’s influence on public opinion. However, there is little scientific proof to back this assertion. Recent developments in media as well as social studies have encouraged the project partners to analyze the media’s alleged power in relation to its environment, and to consider the actors and processes, which link the production of media messages and their reception. This is especially pertinent in view of the developments in information and communication technologies that have revolutionized media landscapes in both Europe and the Middle East since the mid-1990s. They, in turn, have provoked new regulations and restrictions seeking to limit free access to information and free communication in a number of Middle Eastern countries. The comparative approach of research regarding interrelations, similarities and differences between historically and politically linked regions such as Europe and the Middle East is in its preliminary stages of development. This project contributes to comparative research on the media landscape between Europe and the Middle East. It questions synoptically the structure of media landscapes in Europe and the Middle East, and assesses the margins left for alternative media and other forms of public expression. Global events in contemporary history demonstrate how the interdependent relationship of media and public sphere can substantially affect international political and economic relations. In this way, the media contribute to defining the terms and ranking the topics of public debate both in the Middle East and in Europe.
Therefore, the organizing institutions make a substantial contribution to the necessary academic discussion of the relationship between Europe and the Middle East. The project and the discourses it produces aim at analyzing the impact of the media on the typical picture of “the other culture” in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, as well as on the relations between both of them, including the broader framework of stereotypical concepts as ‘the West’ and ‘the Muslim world’ in general. The intended double balance between academia and media professionalism as well as Eastern and Western perspectives and concepts proves itself as a productive comparative, inter- and cross-disciplinary approach, and is beneficial to the generated discourse.

The conferences of the project are so far: BMF 2005: The Influence of the Virtual Dialogue in the Media on the European-Middle Eastern Relations; BMF 2006: Public Opinion and the Media between Europe and the Middle East; BMF 2007: Middle Eastern Conflicts in the Media – Censorship and Representation. The BMF 2008 will take place from November 21-22: Media Discourses on Islamist Movements.
The Publication of the project will appear in autumn 2008 under the title The Middle East in the Media, Saqi, London and Beirut.