The Ethical Dimensions of Public Service Advertisements in the Middle East: The Case of Anti-Terrorist Campaigns

Abstract

The anti-terror public media campaign started in lraq around 2004 and was called 'Terrorism has no Religion' in order to combat the threats of Al-Qadea and other affiliated militant groups in the country and aiming at convincing the Iraqi public to cooperate with the US-led coalition forces. After the withdrawal of the US forces from the country in late 2010, the campaign stopped but a new one emerged whose advertisements mostly targeted the Saudi public. This new campaign that is called 'Say no to Terror' is still running and the two Saudi-owned pan Arab regional channels - Al-Arabiya and MBC- are instrumental in airing its advertisements. This article discusses the ethical dimensions of these media campaigns with special focus on the issue of overt violent scenes which they contain and the bias in depicting certain sects ratherthan the others.