‘We Cannot Let it Loose’: Geopolitics, Security and Reform in Jordanian Broadcasting

Abstract

What makes structural reform truly structural? Arab broadcasting appeared to undergo major structural shifts with the growth of the pan-Arab satellite market, which forced Arab governments to rethink their national broadcasting policies. The policy Jordan adopted was one that, if expressed in headlines, could potentially be labelled as structural reform. It promised an end to the state monopoly, a licensing system for private terrestrial stations and a revitalized public broadcaster, equipped to face a new era of competition. Such a welcome for reform accorded with Jordan’s reputation as enjoying a more open and responsive political system than the neighbouring dictatorships, whose oppressed populations erupted in anger in 2011. One analyst summarized this reputation in February 2011 by drawing comparisons with Egypt under its recently ousted president Hosni Mubarak. The Jordanian regime can be harsh, he wrote, but does not resort to the ‘daily thuggishness’ of Mubarak’s Egypt. Its establishment press is ‘restrained but not Orwellian’. Its elections have been manipulated and its parliament marginalized, but only up to a point, and its top figures are ‘not as impervious’ as the Egyptian leadership in Mubarak’s final days.¹