Summary

“Epilogue” discusses Al-Jazeera’s placement “at the center of any exploration of Middle Eastern politics and the public exchange of ideas” (197). El-Nawawy and Iskandar state that the network has created a shift in which Western monopoly of the global exchange of news and information is no longer dominant, and the war in Afghanistan was the setting in which Al-Jazeera rose to prominence. The authors state that Al-Jazeera’s broadcast of Osama bin Laden’s videotape contributed to the network’s notoriety, however if bin Laden had sent his tape to CNN to be aired instead, the latter would have followed the same steps that Al-Jazeera did and thus criticism of Al-Jazeera’s opportunism is misplaced.

The authors state that they do not defend Al-Jazeera’s airing of the bin Laden videotapes however they do wish to demonstrate that a free channel like Al-Jazeera is...