Fragile finance: The revenue models of oppositional news outlets in repressive regimes

Media, Culture & Society

Smets

2021

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the precarisation of journalistic work by looking at the case of Syrian exiled journalists in Turkey, whose professional and personal lifeworlds are underpinned by multiple layers of precarity. The article builds on data collected during a 3-month-long period of participant observations at the newsroom of Enab Baladi, a Syrian news outlet based in Istanbul, Turkey. It develops a relational notion of precarity through insights from the growing body of work on precarity in the journalistic field, as well as research on precarity and migration. It proposes a multidimensional understanding of the ‘precarious newsroom’ that takes into account the people, organisation and place, as a way to map how different layers of precarity, and responses to them, are articulated, experienced and negotiated. Our research underlines the complex anatomy of the precarious newsroom as a paradoxical place and an amalgamation of precarity and agency.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anatomy of a precarious newsroom: precarity and agency in Syrian exiled journalism in Turkey

Media, Culture & Society

Smets

2021

“…The challenges of balancing an array of ethicopolitical and professional choices in the context of a political economy constituted by development aid are not limited to emerging media in the MENA region; analogous examples from Burma/Myanmar (Brooten, 2016), Nigeria (Myers, 2018), and other countries (Cook, 2016a(Cook, , 2016b reflect similar dynamics and challenges. More broadly still, the questions faced by these actors on issues from editorial independence, financial viability, and the increased precarisation of journalistic work echo contemporary debates in the field of journalism writ large (Deuze & Witschge, 2020;Waisbord, 2019;Zelizer, 2015).…”

Section: Voice Agency and Precaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Emerging Media: Voice, Agency, and Precarity in the Post-2011 Arab Mediasphere

2021

MaC

The decade following the 2010–2011 Arab uprisings saw a flourishing of emerging media organisations across the region. The most recognisable examples of these new independent media actors include <em>Enab Baladi</em> in Syria, <em>Mada Masr</em> in Egypt, and Inkyfada in Tunisia. However, this phenomenon comprises a much more diverse set of actors from small-scale associative radio stations in Tunisia to numerous exilic Syrian media outlets. Building on previous research as well as recent fieldwork in Tunisia and Turkey, this article is an attempt to make sense of the genesis, development, and relevance of this new class of media actors. We argue that these emerging media organisations can be seen to represent specific interventions into the politics of voice in their various national and local contexts, but ones that share similar logics. To elucidate this argument, we propose a multi-dimensional understanding of these interventions that brings together voices (actors, issues, discourses), modalities of voice (organisational models, values, production value), and the underlying political economy of these emerging media (funding, institutionalisation). However, the article also argues that these interventions, and the logics they share, themselves belie a complex interaction between the political and professional agency and precarity of these media organisations and the individuals, and groups, behind them. We believe that combining these two perspectives is a necessary step for a more nuanced understanding of the nature and practice of these emerging media organisations.

“…Nevertheless, the narrower scope of their oppositional politics can also be an advantage under certain conditions. The alternative and exilic conditions bring about another gamut of challenges, in particular with relation to their financial sustainability and their dependence on grant and assistance funding which are seen as ethically preferable to other sources of financing (Cook, 2016b(Cook, , 2016a.…”

Section: Alternative Exilic and Oppositional Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

Strategies and (survival) tactics: The case of Syrian oppositional media in Turkey

Journal of Alternative &Amp; Community Media

2020

This article aims to investigate the regulatory, financial and political environment negotiated by oppositional Syrian media operating in exile in Turkey, as well as to identify the main tactics used by them in negotiating between these constraints to ensure their survival in an increasingly difficult environment. As the war in Syria increased in intensity, many oppositional media chose to move their centres of operations into Turkey ‐ forcing them to adapt to a completely foreign regulatory environment, and an unstable political context. Furthermore, and in parallel, their institutional links with the media development sector were being deepened as well. The study draws on in-depth interviews with Syrian media professionals in Turkey, as well as with their interlocutors in international media development organizations. Using Michel de Certeau’s model of strategies and tactics, the study aims at arriving at a better understanding of the complex system of choices made by exilic media organizations to guarantee their survival and achieve their objectives. Within the strategic universes circumscribed by the powerful institutional actors of the Turkish state and the international media development sphere, one can locate the agency of Syrian media actors in their responsive tactical manoeuvrings. The article contends that the tactics employed are also reflective of the identity of these media actors located at the intersection of the alternative, exilic and oppositional.