New era for Tunisian media.

In an article in Tunisialive entitled  "The Explosion of New Media in Tunisia" Hayet Rais Skandrani  the Managing Director of Mindshare reviews the development of new media following the overthrow of Ben Ali.

Under his regime there were  two television stations  (Tunisie 7, Canal 21), six or seven radio stations, and barely a dozen newspapers.International satellite TV and press was hardly ever present. Tunisia was isolated and subject to a thought police system worthy of George Orwell's  novel 1984 especially with regard to the use of the internet.

Since January 14, 2011, Ms Skandari writes, new media channels have blossomed. Tunisians can now enjoy three new TV channels and five new radio stations. Others will follow soon, not to mention the rapid growth of internet traffic. This was fueled by the launch of many new websites, catalyzed by the lifting of censorship, and buoyed by rising levels of penetration – estimated at 35% and growing.

For her the question is; how is audience behavior changing to reflect this new-found diversity? She notes that the balance of power is shifting and this has implications  for media in Tunisia. Consumers are now free to click on and caste aside what dies not interest them . Advertisers have to attract and maintain attention. The audience is
sophisticated and knows what it wants.People want content that meets their needs regardless of the medium and loyalty to a particular channel or website is a thing of the past. Such a situation is familiar in the West but is
a startling new phenomenum in Tunisia. The skill is to know what the audience wants and to provide it but with such audience fragmentation is not always easy to achieve. 

Tunisian Media owners are now concentrationg on content and engagement with the consumer but they face the twin challenge of  more competition in the Tunisian marketplace and at the sametime an increased challenge from international media now freely available in Tunisia.

Fatima El-Issawi is a visiting fellow at POLIS, the journalism and society think tank in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics (LSE). She is leading the research project on ‘Arab revolutions: Media Revolutions’ looking at the transformations in the Arab media industry under transitional political phases within the current uprisings.

She writes about her impressions of Tunisian media  in the context of the changes in media wrought by the Arab Spring in the LSE Europp blog. She notes how in the explosion of fredom to publish journalists are nevertheless subject to the media owners whose publications and broadcast stations were being transformed into a tool for personal vendettas, accusations and libel. The media is part of the revolutionary porcess which it reflects and the often  chaotic situation. This includes the anger of the young unemployed and the deteriorating economic situation and the clash between secularists and salafists.

Mainstream media reflects this clash of ideas and ideologies and who will eventually control mainstream media.
Fatima El-Issawi concludes that the journalistic culture of dependency towards political power and clientelism has not been eradicated by media reform."The road to professionalism for local Arab media after the Arab Spring will undoubtedly be very long and thorny." She emphasises the need to train journalists to change their role in preserving entrenched attachments and preserving real journalistic freedoms. A theme echoed by Robert Fisk of The independent in a recent speech in Tunisia at the conclusion of a training course for journalists run by the  British based Journalism Foundation .