Communications and Society Program

Introduction

When a band of new media types from the United States and the Arab world gathered at the lowest point of earth—1800 feet below sea level on the Jordan side of the Dead Sea—their discourse was sometimes salty and decidedly buoyant.

The fifth in an ongoing series of Arab–U.S. editors' dialogues, this one focused exclusively on the impact of new media in spanning the cultural and informational divides between the Arab and American media worlds, and in dissolving the harmful stereotyping in which both worlds so readily engage.

Arab-American commentator Rami Khouri makes the point that the information war is the only one in which the Arab world, with the ex-plosion of satellite television and its offshoots, has "fought the Americans to a draw."

Draw or not, the dialogue has been joined to foster cooperation, not heighten competition. Entitled "The New Media Environment: Paths to Understanding," the 2008 forum focused primarily on state-of-the-art new media and the opportunities for increased understanding and cultural empathy they provide.

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