Welcome

Look, read and speak freely about what you see here. This website aims not only to document the conference “Boundaries of Free Speech – German and Israeli journalism and growing rifts between the ‘West’ and the ‘Muslim world’”. It wants to enhance and continue the collection of views and data for future discussion. Many nerves have been touched, as the forum is at its beginning. The presentations on this site provide different examples from the experience of journalists or bloggers as well as analytical perspectives of media experts on three topics: Stereotypes, Relevance/Objectivity and Representation in media are the up to date predominant kinds of boundaries. By unfolding insights, contradictions and general views, the professionals from both fields mainly criticize the media in the “West”.

The debate about freedom of speech is maybe old. But with both the political frame and new technology it renders future questions. On the conference Hisham Abdullah, the journalist from AFP – Agency France Press, summed up a panel by different bloggers about new ways of expression through alternative media: “Even after blogging, the situation for the Palestinians deteriorated. There are the tools of bloggers or my own professional tools (as a mainstream journalist – added) but what did we do with them?” Evidently, there are overall questions for media to tackle. How can groups not involved in the “power of speech” change or alternate the discourses? How can journalists with at least some “power of speech” sense and influence the shaping of symbols within mainstream media, which ultimately shape reality? In the end it boils down to: How are the growing political rifts between the Muslim and the Western world built by all kinds of media? And, how can their distribution be stopped within the world of symbols, meaning the media, before they become reality?

We therefore warmly invite every one to comment on the lectures presented on this site. Furthermore, we plan to add and thus ask for more articles by professionals in the field. We want to develop the nascent stages of this discussion. At the same time, the website should be a source of information and inspiration for all those who try to attack contemporary freedom of speech for its drawbacks.