Hamas and the Media

Wael Abdelal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317267140
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Políticas de Oriente Medio

The Islamic resistance movement 'Hamas' is, arguably, one of the most important Palestinian organizations in recent decades. Since Hamas' establishment, it has extensively utilized media as a means of mobilization for its political and ideological agendas, and its tactics have undergone a remarkable evolution, from graffiti art to satellite broadcasting.

This book presents the first systematic and historical contextualization of the development of Hamas' media strategy. It determines three key phases in Hamas' development and explores the complex and important relationship at work between its politics and use of media. Assessing four elements of the Hamas media strategy; the media message (discourse), the media objectives, the infrastructure, and the target audience, this book tracks how Hamas grew its media infrastructure, and looks at how the idea of resistance has permeated the media discourse. Determining both tactical and strategic objectives and detailing the various layers to the target audience, it offers the first in-depth academic study of the Hamas media strategy.

This book's exploration of the key role the media plays in the Palestinian issue makes it a timely and relevant contribution to the study of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and a valuable resource for students, scholars and policymakers working in Middle Eastern studies.

1
Background

Media strategy, the Arab and Palestinian media, and Hamas and its media

This chapter aims to review the existing literature on Hamas’s media. It will highlight the significance of the research project to the subject area by critically assessing existing articles, books and unpublished dissertations on Hamas. The chapter is divided into three sub-sections that are related directly and indirectly to the subject area. The first section covers the literature on media, including alternative media approaches and media strategy. The second section focuses on the literature on the existing media paradigms, namely the Arab and Palestinian media. The last section discusses the literature on Hamas and its media.

Media and alternative media

It should be clear that the mass communication theory is really mass communication theories, each more or less relevant to the given medium, audience, time, conditions, and theorists. But this should not be viewed as a problem. Mass communication theory can be personalised; it is ever evolving, it is dynamic.¹

Indeed, theorising a particular media paradigm requires an understanding of the context in which it is framed. This study argues that the emergence of the Hamas media strategy is inseparable from the context of its political development and the Palestinian issue. It is also connected to regional and international factors. For this study, conceptualising the media–political relationship within the Palestinian, regional and international contexts is important for understanding the development of the Hamas media strategy.

Today, there is no doubt that media has become an essential part of life. Media have become instruments of political and economic power, as well as social and cultural life. Pioneer scholars in the field such as Frederick Siebert, Theodore Peterson and Wilbur Schramm articulated four media theories in the mid-1950s, namely authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility and communist.² Each theory deals with the media and its roles from different angles. For instance, the libertarian approach posits that media are ‘free to publish what they like’³ and ‘journalists and media organizations are given full autonomy’.⁴ In contrast, the authoritarian approach holds that ‘media serve the needs of the state through direct government control’,⁵ with journalists and media organisations working under the ‘censorship and punishment of those caught breaking the rules’.⁶

Sarah Oates summarised the definitions of media in regard to the above-mentioned theories.⁷ As Baran and Davis indicate, media theory is ‘ever-evolving [and] dynamic’, and there is no exact description for such theory. In almost all the theories, media represent instruments for exercising power in all aspects of life, including culture, economics, politics and societies. Eoin Devereux emphasises that in politics the media are ‘means of exercising power by virtue of the relatively privileged access that politicians and agents of governments can gradually claim from the media as a legitimate right’.⁸ Robert Kolker in Media Studies: An Introduction had the same opinion, articulating that political power is exercised through media.⁹

Notwithstanding the hundreds, if not thousands, of books and articles dealing with media and their political milieu, literature on the alternative media is limited. Chris Atton has written a number of books on the alternative media model, arguing that there are different approaches that comprise the paradigm. For Atton, the use of alternative media depends on the spatial–temporal circumstances, the people in charge and the issues adopted. Atton argues that ‘even within a single area of alternative media there is much heterogeneity’.¹⁰ Hence, ‘alternative media’ scholars define the term from different perspectives with multiple meanings. Mitzi Waltz attempts to present a simple definition, stating: ‘the media are alternative to, or in opposition to, something else: mass-media products that are widely available and widely consumed’.¹¹

Olga Bailey, Bart Cammaerts and Nico Carpentier determine four approaches to alternative media.¹² The first approach focuses on the role alternative media play in serving the community. In this instance, coverage pertains to community matters and the discussions are limited to community members. In this context, alternative media prioritise the concept of the community. They do so by covering issues designed to enhance and strengthen the community. Vinod Pavarala and Kanchan K. Malik in Other Voices: The Struggle for Community Radio in India apply this approach to examining community radio.¹³

The second approach links alternative media to civil society. Consequently, alternative media are considered part of civil society.¹⁴ This approach, it is argued, has the potential to play a significant role in democratisation through media by permitting civil society organisations to participate in public debate.¹⁵ Hock Guan Lee, in Civil Society in Southeast Asia, examined the role played by the media as actors in civil society.¹⁶ The third approach is ‘alternative media as rhizome’.¹⁷ The metaphor of the rhizome is used to describe ‘the ways ideas and tactics flow, like underground root systems, across space to unite [the] highly diverse and geographically scattered constellation of social change advocates’.¹⁸ Accordingly, alternative media in this context are considered ‘as the crossroads where people from different types of movements and struggles meet and collaborate’.¹⁹ They enhance and link diverse democratic struggles²⁰ through debates on a multitude of subjects related to political and social changes. These kinds of alternative media are used widely by individuals in Iran, the Arab world and the developing world in general. Blogs and forums became the main outlets of such kinds of media.

The fourth approach treats alternative media from the angle of opposition: that is, as a counter-hegemonic critique of the mainstream media.²¹ This approach is exploited by revolutionary organisations, struggle movements and political opposition groups, especially those who lean toward the adoption of ideological or religious propositions. Atton emphasises that ‘the alternative media are inseparable from ideology, domination and the Gramscian notion of hegemony’.²² Annabelle Sreberny, Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and Ali Mohammadi, in Small Media, Big Revolution: Communication, Culture, and the Iranian Revolution,²³ present the experience of the Iranian revolution and the use of such kinds of media against the Shah in the late 1970s. Media messages of the Iranian activists were a reflection of the ideological and revolutionary nature of the Iranian revolution. Consequently, they adopted an ‘anti-hegemonic’ discourse. In a similar context, David Wigston historicised the South African alternative media/press in their struggle against the apartheid system.²⁴

John Downing agrees with Atton when referring to the Gramscian notion of the ‘organic intellectual’ to be re-rendered as a ‘communicator/activist’. Gramsci was particularly concerned with the role of the intellectual in the change process.²⁵ Downing, thus, situates the alternative media within the framework of the state power, hegemony and insubordination nexus. Martin James in his reading of Gramsci discusses the role of the media, stating:

Gramsci understood the power of literature, newspaper, [and] films in the creation of consensus. He was, no doubt, aware that Linen had discussed literature and especially film as part of the vanguard of revolutionary change, and possibly how Walter Benjamin had examined the role of newspaper and film in revolutionary and counter-revolutionary terms.²⁶

Daniala Baratiri places the cinema in Algeria in the 1950s and 1960s in the frame of anti-colonial struggles.²⁷ Similarly, Anthony R. Guneratne and Wimal Dissanayake also situate their study in this framework.²⁸

There are a limited number of studies which utilise the fourth approach in the examination of the region. As the above referenced literature suggests, they concentrate on Algeria and Iran. A lack of such studies is problematic given the important role media has played in the rise of resistance movements throughout the entire region in the colonial and post-colonial period. These movements, whether religious or secular, can be situated within this paradigm and as actors in the Gramscian context. Movement mobilisation depended on the development of the counter-hegemonic frame from the colonial and, later, mainstream narrative.

While the alternative media paradigm and the fourth approach is the most applicable and used in this study to examine the development of Hamas’s media strategy, it should be noted that the theories discussed above demonstrate the problem of theorising in general. The theories fail to examine and account for the new changes and shifts within the media such as the role and development of media institutions by non-state actors. Non-state actors play a significant role in global, regional and domestic politics. Thus, the lack of theorising in that regard is problematic.

Resistance has used the media in their strategies and tactics. Yet, what distinguishes the past from the previous twenty years in the area of resistance is the evolution of movements’ media inst...