After a couple of readings and some documentary watching, it has been shown how much from the very beginning of creating media and television channels, the latter was always in the hands of political and economy-related people and businessmen. As one can see, Lebanon has multiple religious practices, more specifically 18, so from that point before the political parties came around, some channels were created according to religions. For example, the NBN channel was related to the Muslims more specifically the Shia, and the Tele Lumiere channel was related to the christians. One can say that people were affected by this division, even during the Lebanese civil war, parties were shown and broadcasted on specific channels.
Moving on, during the years and after the application of the audiovisual media, the law was born in 1994 to organize media there was a distribution of the license according to sectarian and political standards After that, officially every party had its channel, for example, the Future tv was founded by Rafik Hariri a former Prime Minister of Lebanon.
Another point was clarified in a short movie (Fallen Television, 2015 ), that media was created for all to share and receive multiple perspectives on any topic given or presented, but what was shown in the Lebanese television was the non-diversity in interviewing guests. All the channels would interview people who are from the same party or religion that the channel represents which leads to a lack of development and different opinions.
Also, sexism was very applied at the beginning of launching audio-visual media in Lebanon, for example, the Manar Tv did not broadcast Julia Boutrous’s Song and did not announce or participated in sharing news on the death of Sabah just because both of these women are and were known as female artists. But they have participated to share news of the death of the Male Lebanese poet Said Akl even though he was known for his hustle stand.
To sum up, Lebanese television was and is still being controlled by political and businessmen who are in control of what we receive and see.
References:
Maya Majzoub, (1 May 2018), Fallen Television.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2ZHGeCLLqA&t=1706s&fbclid=IwAR1j2D4iYxoCTSRCjPGu4h8yEzaIG96s3BjRRmeCU8KNOF1CtVMZHNQXzDM&app=desktop
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