Stabilizing Authoritarianism

Drawing on satellite television news, this study examines how media organisations and ruling elites in Arab countries are bound together. It places that relationship against a backdrop of intense rivalry among world powers, which seek influence over the region's strategic resources and consumer markets. The author notes that the Middle East has been described as "organized chaos", a region marked by growing political instability and tangled sources of internal unrest.

Using the internal conflict in Palestinian society as a case study, the book traces how power elites interact at three levels: international, regional and domestic politics. It shows how these links are carried through the news coverage that satellite channels produce. The work is aimed at scholars of Middle Eastern politics, of media and authoritarian rule, and of the sociology of the Arab world.