Once upon a time, the Middle Eastern media environment was predictable and staid, dominated by a few prominent outlets that in Arab countries were often owned and operated by the governments’ information ministries.
No longer. Over the past three decades, the region has witnessed an explosion in information and connectivity. In the 1990s and 2000s, a “satellite revolution” dramatically expanded the number of media sources available to Arab publics, broadening their engagement in regional politics and world affairs. Subsequently, in the 2010s, an expansion of digital connectivity further transformed the Mideast media environment by empowering citizen journalism, challenging traditional informational sources and forcing the region’s broadcasters onto the digital domain.
Today, that ecosystem is evolving still further, as a range of players attempt to shape the “hearts and minds” of Arab publics.
Russia is one of them. Over the past three years, the Kremlin’s war of choice on Ukraine, and informational activities in support of it, has commanded headlines worldwide. Moscow seeks to sway global publics to its side – and against the West – in what Russian ideologues see as nothing short of a civilizational contest.
Outreach to the Middle East is a big part of that effort, via RT Arabic, which reaches a daily viewership of millions across the Middle East and North Africa. RT Arabic now outstrips outlets like the BBC and surpasses regional sources like Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya in terms of social media engagement. It is augmented by other state broadcasters, like Sputnik Arabic and Russia Today Documentary Arabic, which have helped further expand Russian messaging to the region.
Russian media has been largely shut out of Western media markets following the invasion of Ukraine, but remains accessible in the Middle East, helping to shift the narrative in favor of Moscow. So pervasive is this outreach that it has been likened to a “disinformation war” by Western scholars. Its objectives are clear: to turn Middle Eastern audiences against the West, and to expand sympathy for Russia’s worldview.
China is another. Through the Arabic service of state broadcaster China Global Television Network (CGTN), Beijing’s official messaging now reaches millions across the Middle East and North Africa. CGTN’s outreach is supplemented by the Arabic version of China’s official Xinhua news agency, which boasts a presence in most Arab capitals, and by China Radio International Arabic, as part of Beijing’s multi-billion dollar annual investment in foreign language media operations.
“Many Arabs see China as a friend,” Mideast scholar Merissa Khurma notes, “Chinese state television promotes economic relations with the region while contrasting political stances with the West.” This strategy has had a material impact on regional attitudes. Even before the tragic events of Oct. 7, 2023, polls indicated that affinity for China was outstripping support for the United States among Arab publics. Since then, China’s very vocal criticism of Israel, its support for the Palestinian cause, and its criticism of the West have only helped cement the shift further.
Iran, too, is investing heavily in informational activities. A decade ago, the Islamic Republic was already estimated to be spending some $1.6 billion annually on a range of propaganda efforts, much of them directed toward Arab publics. These are spread via official outlets such as the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting network (IRIB), Press TV and Al Alam, by state news agencies such as IRNA, and through an array of digital disinformation tools designed to promote conspiracy theories and sow political discord across Iran’s geopolitical neighborhood.
This focus has continued – and intensified. Last year, Iran International estimated that the Iranian government, despite a deepening economic crisis, had allocated at least $600 million for propaganda-related activities. But the actual sum Iran’s regime spends on its information warfare mission, which Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has termed an “Explanation Jihad,” remains shrouded in mystery. What is clear is that the Islamic Republic sees this as an essential mission.
Then there is Qatar’s Al Jazeera, with 430 million regular viewers, a presence in more than 95 countries, and over 70 bureaus globally. Qatar’s ruling family (which has a seat on its Board of Directors) has, when needed, stepped in to supplement the channel’s billion dollar annual operations. Like other outlets, Al Jazeera has adapted to exploit the digital era; in 2014, it launched AJ+, a digital program optimized for social media and mobile communications outreach to younger publics. Today, AJ+ is estimated to reach millions of users monthly with anti-Western and pro-Islamist content.
During a visit to Al Jazeera’s Doha headquarters last year, I was told by its executives that, since 2009, the dedicated outreach arm, known as the Al Jazeera Media Institute, has trained some 80,000 foreign journalists from over a dozen countries. Today, this activity is visible in Syria. As the Middle East Media Research Institute has detailed, the newly established government of Ahmed Al-Sha’ara has welcomed training and other media initiatives spearheaded by the network throughout the country, thereby giving the channel a front-row seat in shaping the post-Assad order.
In response, Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya and the UAE’s Sky News Arabia have their own “soft power” programming aimed at engaging domestic and foreign audiences. Concrete numbers are hard to come by, but regional states are cumulatively estimated to have spent billions on media outreach in recent years. And yet, it would be fair to say that America’s Arab allies are struggling to make themselves heard amid an increasingly crowded, contested informational space.
So, too, has Israel. Over the past eighteen months, Israel’s military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has been punctuated by tactical battlefield successes but massive informational setbacks, as Jerusalem has lost control of the global narrative surrounding the conflict. The consequences have been dire, both for Israel’s global standing and for the vibrancy of its regional partnerships.
Belatedly, the Israeli government is moving to rectify the situation. Its latest budget, passed in late March, for the first time includes a $150 million allocation for public diplomacy efforts abroad. This has been accompanied by a deeper and more meaningful conceptual shift. Israeli officials are now reconceiving the traditional information mission, which was focused on explaining Israel’s actions in the hopes that it would result in more understanding. The new approach, foreign ministry officials say, will prioritize key information to global audiences. This shift is still nascent, and the country’s communications strategy is still very much a work in progress.
The United States appears to be rapidly headed in the opposite direction. In mid-March, the Trump administration took a hatchet to the US Agency for Global Media, the official institution that oversees US official international broadcasting. The Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), the only official US Arabic-language outlet, was stripped of funding. Other broadcasters with reach into the Middle East, such as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and the Voice of America, are also now facing an uncertain future. If this trend continues, America will soon lack any informational outreach toward the Middle East – something that would be tantamount to a unilateral US disarmament in the “war of ideas” now taking place in the region.
Such an outcome isn’t inevitable. But preventing it requires the United States to reinvest meaningfully in public diplomacy in general, and outreach to the Middle East in particular.
The reality which America’s regional allies have already grasped is this: The US and its partners need to be present in force in the Middle Eastern informational space because their adversaries most assuredly will be.
