A... historical soap opera based on the life of... Suleiman the Magnificent, it’s just one of more than 100 shows produced last year by Turkey’s booming TV-drama industry. The programs are becoming a wildly popular cultural phenomenon across the Middle East, bringing in their wake a renaissance in Turkey’s soft power and ushering in a low-key social revolution among the housewives of the Arab world.

Those who follow attitudes toward the West on the Arab street need to make room these days for nuance. As the daily televised drama of revolt in Libya and Syria makes plain, the desperate internal struggles, unleashed during the Arab Spring, still command center stage.

Those who follow attitudes toward the West on the Arab street need to make room these days for nuance. As the daily televised drama of revolt in Libya and Syria makes plain, the desperate internal struggles, unleashed during the Arab Spring, still command center stage. As long as they continue, the United States, in particular, is likely to be viewed through the prism of these upheavals.

And how precisely is that?

Al Jazeera helped overthrow Hosni Mubarak,...and has now turned against its onetime ally Syria. The victory over Libya—won in part with Qatari money and weapons and fighters, in addition to the soft power of Al Jazeera—may have been the crowning touch.

At a time when even the Chinese have realised the soft power of the media and been trying to understand it, speak its language and make it a national asset and not a national vulnerability, it is disquieting that your Government is reported to be thinking of setting up a small group to deal with issues concerning the accountability and regulation of media...

Since 9/11, the documentation of conflict...often by civilians carrying camera-equipped mobile phones, whose footage can be viewed almost instantaneously across the globe—actually takes precedent in the public mind over context and analysis. In 2011, when history happens, it is more often than not a nonjournalist with a pocket camera, a blog or a Twitter account who files the initial dispatch.

What should President Barack Obama do next as a U.S. public diplomacy measure vis-à-vis the Arab world? As the regime in Libya crumbles to the cheers of Arab citizens across the region, the Syrian regime is still clinging to power, and even lending a voice to Libya’s fallen leader Muammar Qaddafi, who has been broadcasting defiant messages on a private pan-Arab satellite channel called Al-Oroba, which now shares its broadcasts with Syrian-based pro-regime channel Al-Rai.

Over the last seven days, a national drama unfolded on television, beginning with the arrest of anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare...as Hazare enters the eighth day of his anti-corruption hunger strike, media experts too are wondering if the Indian press has lost its sense of perspective. The non-stop coverage has led to a near blackout of other news events of importance.