Monday, January 31, 2011

aljazeera english blacked out across most of the u.s.

HuffPo | Canadian television viewers looking for the most thorough and in-depth coverage of the uprising in Egypt have the option of tuning into Al Jazeera English, whose on-the-ground coverage of the turmoil is unmatched by any other outlet. American viewers, meanwhile, have little choice but to wait until one of the U.S. cable-company-approved networks broadcasts footage from AJE, which the company makes publicly available. What they can't do is watch the network directly.

Other than in a handful of pockets across the U.S. - including Ohio, Vermont and Washington, D.C. - cable carriers do not give viewers the choice of watching Al Jazeera. That corporate censorship comes as American diplomats harshly criticize the Egyptian government for blocking Internet communication inside the country and as Egypt attempts to block Al Jazeera from broadcasting.

The result of the Al Jazeera English blackout in the United States has been a surge in traffic to the media outlet's website, where footage can be seen streaming live. The last 24 hours have seen a two-and-a-half thousand percent increase in web traffic, Tony Burman, head of North American strategies for Al Jazeera English, told HuffPost. Sixty percent of that traffic, he said, has come from the United States.

2 comments:

ProfGeo said...

I know you look more at system-wide effects, but locally (family level) this means that only people with Internet access and an inherent desire to check Al Jazeera will get any info from them. My mom and several siblings, for example, with only "regular" TV and no Internet at home, will only get what Brian Williams has to say about the situation. No accidental stumbling across Al Jazeera while channel-surfing, either. Now there's a digital divide I can get my teeth into...

CNu said...

Just think about what Bubba and Cleetus are getting from Hush Bimbo and Glenn Beck....., ay, yay, yay, yay, yay......,

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