New Media and its Impact on some Socio-political Values in the Arab World: An Analytical Vision

Abstract

One of the proven facts that studies have confirmed by field evidence, is that the new media affects individuals and societies, and indeed affects the course of human development. And that there is a causal relationship between exposure to the new media and the human behavior reflecting the social values. The media interaction that characterizes the new media can work to remove a value, install another, support an existing one, or confronting coming ones. This was clearly evident in the events of the socalled "Arab Spring" that invaded the Arab world since the end of the year (2010), and its activities and results still continue in a number of Arab countries. This paper aims to identify the role of the new media, represented in the "Internet and satellite channels", in emphasizing some socio-political values, or entrenching them in the Arab world, specifically after events of the Arab social-political mobility, or what has been called the "Arab Spring." To achieve this goal, the paper reviewed the most important previous research literature related to media and values issues to explore the most important socio-political values that have been addressed, and then be subjected to theoretical analysis. It has been found that the most important socio-political values are: "the value of freedom of opinion and expression", "the value of pluralism" ,and "the value of dialogue." The paper advanced several practical recommendations, the most important of them are: Imposing strict legal legislation, to organize the phenomenon of new media in the Arab world, as well, reducing the primacy of technical form over the content side.

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Keywords: New media, Social value, Plotical value, Socio-plotical value