The reform and change movements in Syria are experiencing a media siege laid not just by the regime, but also by Arab media outlets. This media previously sided with revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia and today has sided with revolutionaries in Libya. Although things are different in Yemen, they have not yet reached the point there that they have in Syria. The Syrian media siege is part of the belated resistance that the old Arab regime has begun to put up toward popular revolutions. In spite of the deep divisions persisting within it, this old regime is displaying a remarkable capacity for solidarity.
 
No doubt the Tunisian and Egyptian societies benefited from the element of surprise in their anti-regime revolutions, both in the suddenness with which the uprisings began and in the way their demands swiftly moved from reform to regime change. The Tunisian and Egyptian regimes had not prepared themselves for this type of mobilization or its speed and spread. This greatly aided their overthrow. As for today, months after popular movements began in various countries, the element of surprise is gone. Perhaps the foremost factor in its absence is ability to control the media – something at which the regimes targeted today are excelling.

Today there are two states experiencing movements in the direction of change: Yemen and Syria. Each of these regimes has undertaken control operations in its own way.  In Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh decided to confront demonstrations demanding his overthrow in Change Square in Sanaa with his own similar demonstration, massing his supporters in the opposite square. It is true that he also decided to confront demonstrators with the army and police. Yet before this, he decided that images of crowds could only be fought with images of similar crowds. He forced media outlets to split their reports between scenes of the two demonstrations. If they refused to comply, he expelled them from Yemen.

In Syria something more radical and dramatic happened. Only images of pro-regime demonstrations were allowed to be broadcast. All journalists were considered opponents and had to leave the country. Many were expelled from Syria. Those who remained were controlled via the regime’s relationship with the countries that owned the media outlets, before the security agencies handled this control.

The Syrian opposition activists then shifted to the YouTube technique. Media outlets saying that images were not reaching them from their Syrian offices had only to download them from this website. However, this too was outflanked, via the solidarity of the old regime with the targeted regimes.

The war between clear images taken from the ideal angle with low-quality images taken by a cell phone could have resulted in a victory for the weak this time. This could have been a victory of the amateur camcorder’s unprofessional image against large, hi-tech cameras’ professional images. Often we wished that the station we were watching would favor us with a bad picture, not so that it could hurt our eyes, but because it would be an opportunity for hope.
Yet even a humble wish of this kind was refused. The Arab solidarity is real this time.