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Professional and academic debates on the role of media accountability instruments (MAIs) have so far largely focused on Western democracies and on solving the issues of transparency and trust through press and media councils, ombudspersons, media criticism fora, and digital forms of media accountability. They have notably ignored the disruptive force of media technologies in the context of the rise of algorithm-driven platforms. This paper draws on Von Krogh [Von Krogh, T. 2012. Understanding Media Accountability Media Accountability in Relation To Media Criticism and Media Governance in Sweden 1940–2010. PhD Diss. Mid Sweden University] amended version of McQuail (2005) and Bardoel and d'Haenens' models (2004. "Media Responsibility and Accountability: New Conceptualizations and Practices." Communications 29: 5–25. doi:10.1515/comm.2004.007) to propose an enhanced model that takes into account the state/media relations in non-democratic societies and the disruptive force of media technologies and algorithm-driven platforms. In-depth semi-structured interviews with 12 prominent media practitioners were conducted. The findings suggest the limits of normative conceptualizations of media accountability when adopted and applied to non-democratic countries. We propose a model that explains the role of media technologies and algorithms-driven platforms as game changers in the debate on media accountability in non-Western countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introduction of subscription video-on-demand (SVoD) services has transformed the media landscape in the television market of Arab Gulf countries. This article adopts Silverstone's domestication theory as a conceptual framework to analyze how users, as individuals and households, incorporate Netflix and engage with its content, how they create their own symbolic meanings and social practices, and how they integrate its algorithmic recommendations and personalization into their temporal-spatial routines. This article relies on qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with 18 young urban adults from the six Gulf countries. The computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software package NVivo was used to conduct a series of qualitative analyses. The findings suggest that the users are deliberate in their adoption of Netflix and of the entertainment content they consume, and that Netflix has been incorporated into the users' daily routines and activities to fit with their own personal and cultural needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital platforms have empowered individuals and communities to re-negotiate long-established notions of religion and authority. A new generation of social media influencers has recently emerged in the Muslim world. They are western-educated, unique storytellers, and savvy in digital media production. This raises new questions on the future of Islam in the context of emerging challenges, such as the openness of technology and the often-perceived closedness of religious and cultural systems within Muslim societies. This paper uses a multiple case research design to examine the roles of social media influencers in reimagining Islam and reshaping spiritual beliefs and religious practices among young people in the Gulf Region, the Arab world, and beyond. We used thematic analysis of the Instagram and YouTube content of four social media influencers in the Gulf Region: Salama Mohamed and Khalid Al Ameri from the United Arab Emirates, Ahmad Al-Shugairi from Saudi Arabia, and Omar Farooq from Bahrain. The study found that social media influencers are challenging traditional religious authorities as they reimagine Muslim identities based on a new global lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-censorship, the deliberate suppression of one's own right for expression, has lately become a systematically normalised practice in Moroccan media. Since privatisation of the press in the 1990s, critical reporting on sensitive matters of genuine public interest has not been as conspicuously scarce as it is today. Both content quality and normative social responsibilities of the press have been subverted because of excessive self-censorship. This paper draws on this problem to assess Moroccan journalists' perception of their experience as self-censors. It gauges the personal, institutional, environmental, and discursive considerations that they recall while dealing with sensitive events and critical topics. The assessment draws on the assumption that self-censorship is a highly conscious experience whereby journalists are fully aware of the risks accompanying news reporting in Morocco. Their consciousness accordingly makes them forestall undesirable reactions from authorities and eventually either avoid certain topics completely or implement specific maneuvers when they have to report them. The paper uses a quantitative procedure to survey 120 journalists working in 9 popular newspapers and newsmagazines. The findings confirm the preset hypothesis relating the practice of self-censorship to journalists' state of self-consciousness and absence of professional agency. The findings also underscore important implications like: (a) journalists' socioeconomic profile as a potential predictor of their tendency to self-censor, (b) an extrapolated perception of gatekeepers and impermissible redlines, and (c) organisational culture as primary cultivator of self-censorship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ever-mutating socio-political environment within which the Moroccan private press has evolved since the beginning of the 1990s has made it difficult for researchers to trace its general features over 25 years. After contextualising the non-partisan media takeover in the 1990s, this paper proposes a rereading of the political history of the Moroccan private press by dividing it into four periods: Uncertain Beginnings (1991-1998), Free Retrospection (1999-2005), Confrontation and Censorship (2006-2011), and Normalisation and Self-censorship (2011-2016). The designation of each phase draws on a scale of six indicators: political environment, media environment, principal titles, editorial features, ratings, and censorship. The paper focuses on the interaction between the press and the authorities along these phases and draws the implications of this interaction for the social functions of the private press and the status and utilities of press freedom in Morocco. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]