In this edited version of the 11th Templeton Lecture on Religion and World Affairs, Abdallah Schleifer looks at the development of journalism in the Arab-Islamic World, attempting to explain factors shaping journalism practice in the region.

During the Hizbullah-Israel War, blogs provided alternative on-the-ground accounts of events, says Sune Haugbolle. But can they challenge the social authority of old media?

All the journalists working with Kalima have been persecuted in their family life, in their job and so on. Every member of our team has faced a great many violations of their rights, reveals Sihem Bensedrine in conversation with Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.

There are several reasons why the new Democratic 110th Congress, the Bush administration, or both need to take a hard, new look at the American networks without delay, says Alan L. Heil Jr.

We are hardly ever innocent bystanders to conflict. Merely with their presence journalists influence the parties they report on, so we are participants rather than bystanders. And our choice of what to report and how always serves certain power interests, argues Dutch journalist Joris Luyendijk.

Paul Cochrane tracks Israel’s attempts to strike a lethal blow to Hizbullah’s satellite channel.

In all previous Arab-Israeli wars Israel had dominated on all counts. But in the 2006 war, the influence of the Israeli media on global opinion seemed to have been tempered by the greater range of Arab voices, argues Jihad Fakhreddine.

Lebanese women journalists braved bombs, bullets and missiles to report the conflict between Hizbullah and Israel in the summer of 2006, sometimes surpassing their male colleagues’ coverage by providing insight into the conflict’s human nature, says Magda Abu-Fadil.

The times, as Bob Dylan sang in another context, are a’ changin’. Across the Middle East, new television stations, radio stations and websites are sprouting like incongruous electronic mushrooms in what was once a media desert, says Co-Editor Lawrence Pintak.

For its willingness to take on and expose dominant elite ideologies, this book deserves real credit, argues Courtney Radsch.