It has been said of satellite dishes owned by migrant communities in Europe that they are like ears listening out for news of "home". The various policies adopted by European countries towards residents of Arab origin or heritage have included different approaches to the transmission and content of transnational broadcasting in Arabic. At the same time, diverse groups who receive this programming use it and relate to it in different ways. This panel aims to explore the reach of such broadcasting, as well as its implications in terms of the integration of diasporic audiences into host communities and the optimum regulatory response.

Panel moderator:

Dr. Naomi Sakr, a Senior Lecturer in Communication at the University of Westminster, is the author of Satellite Realms: Transnational Television, Globalization and the Middle East (I B Tauris, 2001), editor of Women and Media in the Middle East (I B Tauris, 2004), and a contributor to recent books on Al-Jazeera, the making of journalists, media reform, international news, the regionalisation of transnational television, and governance in Gulf countries.