"The headline is a lie. I never did stop worrying about the Middle East and my hatred for its dictators is just as virulent as ever. But one thing has changed: I no longer feel the despair and indifference borne of years reporting on the region’s leaders. And that’s thanks to blogs," says Mona Eltahawy.

The future of political blogging in Egypt greatly depends on its fostering links with mainstream independent media, says Rania Al Malky. But what, if anything, has the blogging-led reform movement achieved to date?

The real-world impact of blogs in the Middle East remains to be seen. But women bloggers stress that there is agency and empowerment in just being able to write, reports Sharon Otterman.

When Claudia Gazzini went in search of the Libyan blogosphere, she found neither the blogs nor the bloggers. But what she did find was an increasingly vocal exile community using interactive websites and forums to push for change in their homeland.

During the 2006 Lebanon War, bloggers were able to influence the agenda for traditional media coverage more than ever before. But they will not overtake mainstream media anytime soon, argues Will Ward.

The degree to which Israel’s attacks on Al Manar could be considered lawful and legitimate in international law depends largely on the actions of Al Manar and whether it played a role as an interested party on the battlefield, says Andrew Exum.

The war in Iraq has taken a grisly toll on journalists. Reporters Without Borders has called it the deadliest conflict for journalists since World War II. For Pan-Arab news network Al Arabiya, the violence has hit home, killing at least 11 of its staff in Iraq and severely limiting the …

BREAKING NEWS : Jihadi TV Al Zawraa in Europe? TBS Publisher Lawrence Pintak: Insurgent TV Coming to a Satellite Near You? "A controversial TV channel that is the voice of Iraq's anti-American insurgents looks set to open another front in the propaganda war against the U.S. The head of Al-Zawraa, which airs footage …

Tracking Sami Yusuf's move into the mainstream is key not only for understanding Sami Yusuf as an Islamic artist but also as a useful index for how Muslims see themselves as participants in Western modernity. Christian Pond asks, will they, as encouraged by Sami Yusuf, choose the path of Islamizing modernity? Or will they choose the more complicated path of modernizing Islam?

In contemporary Syria, the TV industry’s centrality renders it a particularly revealing site of ethnographic endeavor. It provides a valuable point of access to a complex and rapidly changing society, argues Christa Salamandra.