6 Country Report: Information Network

Traditional Periodicals:

Algeria Press News: An Algerian online news aggregator with a long history that posts articles of all types relating to Algeria, including but not limited to, politics, economy, culture, and sports, especially to present the facts, actions, and achievements of Algeria as a nation. The news website started in Tunisia and reported on Algeria’s state during the French Revolution, and later transferred its headquarters to Algeria post-independence, where it posts over 600 news dispatches a day.  It assures that it has continued to report news and commentary from an objective stance to comply with “ethical and requirements of public service.” The website can be translated into six languages total, including English, French, and Arabic, which most Algerians can read and understand. APS counts a staff of nearly 460 employees including 300 reporters, photographers, and translators to cover the news in real-time 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The team is divided up so that each region reporting news has its own set of journalists and photographs that travel and report news coverage of varying provinces.  I think this is a great source for people that have superficial knowledge about the country to use because it is an easily navigable source for both native Algerians and foreigners, and it is very accommodating to people who don’t only know Arabic or French to access first-hand news coverage from Algerians themselves. You can access it through this link: https://www.aps.dz/en/

Al-Jazeera: An independent newspaper course funded in part by the Qatari government that seeks to “deliver content that captivates, informs, inspires and entertains” and “to provide a voice for the voiceless in some of the world’s most unreported places.” Al-Jazeera started off in the Arabic language in the 90s and began to expand their audience by offering more languages, starting with English in 2006.  It started out as a news channel that was dedicated to news coverage and live debates, but now it covers politics, economy, culture, sports, and everything in between on a daily basis. It also started out as reporting media about Arab nations and now on the website, you can find tabs for every region in the world. Furthermore, it has become one of the world’s most influential news sources and a  network with over 70 bureaus around the world and comprises over 10 channels and divisions. I cannot think of any weaknesses for this source, but one of the strengths I noticed from scrolling through the website is how much-individualized attention and resources are directed to each region and country when it comes to news coverage. Another strength I noticed was in Al Jazeera’s Code of Ethics, where they pledge to highlight multiple perspectives and seek the truth through every article they publish. You can access this source through this link: https://www.aljazeera.com/

Inspire: Algerian Network for Scientists & Researchers: A magazine created and led in 1997 by volunteer contributors with the objective to acknowledge Algerian academics, scientists, researchers and practitioners and providing members with effective means to corroborate their expertise and benefit from their peers inside and outside of Algeria. Contributors to the platform range from PhD candidate researchers to post-grad professionals working in the scientific field. The news source seemed to be very active before the pandemic hit but activity stifled around the peak of Covid in the summer of 2020. The majority of their articles published are in the Arabic language but most of the notable contributors on their “Team” page are well versed in English with degrees from English speaking universities such as Oxford and Cardiff University and the articles can be auto translated by Google for a near perfect translation. They offer an objective view of research and scientific discoveries but they only focus on Algerian made scientific discoveries as a way to spotlight Algerian intellectuals. I think this is a valuable source because it allows people to see what Algerian experts have to offer the scientific world from an impartial view. The source can be accessed online at this  link: http://www.new.anasr.org/

Memoria: Memoria is an online magazine created in 2006 that aims to uncover historical archives of Algeria from the beginning of their independence in 1962. The magazine’s FAQ page states they are looking to report on facts and testimonies of the war against France through interviews and collaborations with credible historians and economists. From the articles and interviews that I have read, the page is compiled by Algerians who highlight the contributions of leaders in the war but they tend to frame anybody involved in Algerian liberation as war heroes. Just like many Algerian news sources, this page has not been updated much since the peak of the pandemic in 2020. There isn’t much information on who the contributors to the magazine are but I thought this source was important to include because of how much digging into archives were done to make this magazine possible and it would give someone with lack of knowledge on the country of Algeria a very in-depth overview of its history economically and politically since the war. You can access the magazine here: https://memoria.dz/

Additional News Sources:

Global Voices: A magazine-style collection of articles and stories that talk about all regions of the world with writers and editors from around the world. Global Voices does not compensate its contributors, as it is a volunteer to write basis organization that relies on grants and donations for funding. This means that anyone with credentials in writing can volunteer, and this allows for diverse perspectives and varying languages to be displayed and represented. Algeria is represented through different perspectives, as some authors are Algerian and some are not, and this also opens the door to stories and articles being written about Algeria in different languages. A weakness of this source is its flexibility under a volunteer basis for articles. If more people volunteer to write for a specific country or region more than another, then there is a disproportionate amount of information in relation to different places. Also, if there are fewer people who speak a certain language, then there is less of a chance that a story or article will be written in that language. I think this is a good source for people looking to not only gather facts about a story or incident but also take a look at some of what people in the actual country are saying and feeling about a certain event. You can access this through this link: https://globalvoices.org/

Algerian Black Pearl: A youth-led radio station based in the capital of Algeria to talk about Algerian news in English. This podcast is aimed at the young Algerian diaspora and claims to be updated 24/7. They have a following of over 20k people and on their Facebook page, the transparency policy shows that they have been active since 2017 and have never run ads or changed their username. The radio station is an opinionated source in which the hosts analyze social situations and share perspectives on other Algerian youth as well as their own so I think this would be a useful source to consider if you are an analyst or just interested in public opinion because you can use it to gather data on people in large groups. You can access this source through this link: https://abpradio.com/

Alger Républicain: An Algerian based, Arabic written newspaper founded in 1938 and has an online platform available in the French language. It is composed of 6 notable journalists who cover daily news. It had ties to Communism in the past and admits that their media was censored in order to support the movement. This source experienced more ways of censorship through French and Algerian governments in the past but has revoked independence since. Today, the newspaper has ceased but still remains online as an archive to show the historical social, economic, etc, struggles Algeria has faced since their independence in 1962. While I think this source is important for people learning about Algeria to it may be a restriction to people who try to look for multiple perspectives in this source because it seems to hold a very nationalistic view of Algeria and its journey to independence, as many news sources based in Algeria do. You can access this source using this link: http://www.alger-republicain.com/

New Media Text-Based Sources:

DZ Breaking: An Algerian blog with traditional headlines and pictures that aims to cover and be updated as per groundbreaking news from not only Algeria-related content but from the content around the world.  The website does claim to have a biased view on the country of Algeria, claiming to report on “all the country’s territory through providing an objective and positive image.” It is composed of a “dynamic team,” of which three members aim to provide accurately compiled and translated information. They list a journalist and two web redactors, with one of the web redactors doubling as a photographer. The main redactor holds a Bachelor’s in English Literature and a Master’s degree in Simultaneous Translation, which supports her ability to translate information accurately. They are based in Algeria and pride themselves in being one of the few Algerian news sources to completely write in English, and their goal is to introduce the “Anglophone world to discover [their] country.” I think this is a valuable source for English speakers of the world to get introduced to the country of Algeria, but because of the limited number of individuals working around the clock to keep the site updated, I have concerns that there are not enough editors to go over written work and make sure everything is coherent and flowing nicely for people to be able to follow the information being provided. The source can be found through this link: https://www.dzbreaking.com/

ElChorouk: An online website that stems from the TV media broadcast company Al-Chorouk Foundation for Media and Publishing, which was created in 2005 to be one of the first news websites in Algeria and the Arab world to report on worldwide news aimed for Algerians to tune in by being available in Arabic, French, and English. It is updated around the clock both on their website and live on TV. It is an Algerian-based media company and even offers interactive polls among Algerian citizens to get census opinions of things like Algerian-related politics, sports, entertainment, and future economic projections. The source prides itself in being independent and objective, only aiming to report on news happening real-time. I think this source is valuable because it offers reliable media written by hundreds of Algerian and Arab intellectuals who are able to break down news in multiple languages to make it available for everyone within their intended audience (Algerians) to be able to understand. You can access this source through this link: https://www.echoroukonline.com/

Algerie360: An online website that delivers worldview information about Algeria regarding everything from politics, economy, sports, housing, technological advancements, travel, to miscellaneous news such as breaking news concerning Algerian diaspora (arrests and injustices). The site was founded in 2009 and has reinvented itself in 2019 to reach a wider audience. They expanded their team to currently include ten expert journalists and a head editor that specialized in web journalism. The site prides itself in its site engagements, with statistics showing its monthly views per month surpassing 13 million and millions of followers across its social media platforms with new articles being published every day. All their articles are written in French with accurate English translations from Google available. I think this website is important to include because of how much it offers all in one place but I think a weakness it has is it seems to focus more on quantity over quality. The focus on engagements and numbers raises skepticism in me because many media outlets I am used to that focus on engagements usually have more clickbait or misleading headliners so I would not advise this be a sole source of information but one of many. You can access this source with this link: https://www.algerie360.com/

Social Media Sources:

Algerian National News: A Facebook page that aims to share neutral national news, through which they look forward to spreading facts and news in all transparency regarding things happening in Algeria. The page was established in the Summer of 2020 and seems to be updated monthly with important news, whether it has to do with sports or politics. The page is offered in Arabic, but Facebook’s translation feature allows this to be accessible to anyone in their native language with a near-perfect translation. The page is based in Algeria and services thousands of people who visit the page for news updates. I think a weakness of this source is the frequency in which it is updated. With it being updated several times a month, I think this gap opens up the possibility of significant news updates being missed or left out altogether. Because this source only reports on the most essential of things, I think this would be a good source for a beginner that is interested in learning about Algeria but does not know where to start. You can access this page here: https://www.facebook.com/%D8%A3%D8%AE%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D8%B2%D8%A7%D8%A6%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%D9%86%D9%8A%D8%A9-Algerian-National-News-101401971618478

Algeria Today: A Facebook page that in its ‘About’ page, shows is being run from Algeria by two people and was created in 2020. It is a page that not only posts breaking news about Algeria but also highlights positive aspects of the country such as tourist sites, beautiful architecture, and Algerian foods. Each post is accompanied by a photo of some sort that is related to the news. Over 16,000 people follow and like the page and it shows to be updated multiple times a day. Facebook’s transparency policy regarding news pages shows us that the page has never changed its name in the past and has never run ads on its page for profit. I would recommend this page for people who want frequent updates about Algeria in small doses because of its reliability based on its ad-free history. This shows it is an independent source with no ties to any corporations so freedom of speech can be practiced fully with no restrictions. You can access this page using this link: https://www.facebook.com/AlgeriaToday100/?ref=page_internal

Radio Algerienne: A Twitter page created in January of 2011 to report on news relating to Algeria in small doses for people to follow. It is based on the online newspaper Radio Algerie that is updated every day to talk about sports, economy, health, and society but with a special focus on Algerian politics as it is all over their front page and Twitter feed. Interestingly, the website is mostly in Arabic but the Twitter account is run in French the Twitter translation feature comes in handy when reading headlines. The Twitter page has close to 500k followers and just like the website, the page is also updated multiple times a day with a history of over 30k tweets overall. A weakness of this site is that neither the Twitter page nor newspaper site do not mention who specifically runs the Twitter page. Knowing what I know from my Final Country Report, which is that Arabic run news states that talk about governmental and political matters are more censored and restricted in what they can say so that is another limitation of this source as it is written in Arabic and only translated to English through Google’s feature but a pro is that the Twitter page does a good job of providing more context for headlines by linking every headline tweeted to its official article on the website. This allows viewers to have easier access to the information they are looking for specifically. I still recommend this Twitter page because it talks about more than just politics and does a good job of providing information quickly and conveniently for its followers. You can access this Twitter page at this link: https://twitter.com/radioalgerie_ar

Data Sources:

Knoema- World Data Atlas: A database that compiles statistics on the country of Algeria using data directly from the National Statistics Office in Algeria. Knoema is the premier data platform and a comprehensive source of global decision-making data that has information from countries all over the world. Here, you can find information regarding things like marriage, death, birth statistics, socioeconomic statistics, education statistics, tourism statistics, and more. The database is behind a paywall which makes accessibility more difficult, but behind a paywall is a tool for data visualization where you can pick the variables you want to compare, and it will build the visualization for you using stored statistics from its database. This would be a great place to explore if you were an individual looking to compare numbers and facts, in contrast to looking for articles that offer insight on perspectives and personalized stories. I think a strength of this source is that it gets information directly from the country itself, but that within itself can be a weakness because it may introduce bias depending on what that country’s government wants to report. You can access this source here: https://knoema.com/atlas/sources/National-Statistics-Office-Algeria

GHDx: A database that has census information for countries all over the world including Algeria. In Algeria, they measured things like population, quality of life, health, housing, education, and expenditures from data going back to 1987 until the present day. Related organizations that aid them in their data compilation are ‘The National Commission of Censuses and Statistical Surveys’, ‘General Statistical Service’ (Algerian Government), ‘Directorate of Statistics’ (Algerian Government), Afrobarometer (non-partisan, pan-African research and data collection institution). The database is free for the public to access and offers a plethora of different data visualizations to show different types of statistics. The only weakness in this source is that not every year shows the same amount of data collected in Algeria. For example, One year may report on health and housing but the next will only report on housing so I wish all factors were tracked and represented every year to make comparisons within Algeria easier. A pro to this database is that while it uses government data as references, it also uses non-partisan data as references so as viewers, you don’t only see what the government chooses to report on, but both sides to the story. You can access this database using this link: https://ghdx.healthdata.org/organizations/national-office-statistics-algeria

CEIC: An online database that collects and has tools for comparison of in-depth and accurate census data which was founded in 1992 by a team of economists and data analysts. It collects and compares data for over 200 economies, including first and third-world countries, and aims to be a helpful tool for other economists, analysts, researchers, students, corporations, and investors. The source traces data back to the 1950s for Algeria specifically and tracks hundreds of variables within the country’s census. They pride themselves in having offices operating in 18 countries around the world to help get as close to the country they report on to have the most accurate information possible. The source offers an objective perspective on their data and does not limit themselves to one source of information, but rather multiple channels through “unique relationships with primary agencies and organizations in 213+ economies.” The source is updated in the English language daily. I think a strength of this source is the scope in which it operates and all the information it has available for people to explore but I think a weakness is a paywall that the site has that withholds more information that could be explored. Overall, I think I would still recommend this source because even the free information available is vast so you could still do a pretty in-depth analysis without paying for anything. You can access this source using this link: https://www.ceicdata.com/en/country/algeria

Visual/Audio Based News Source:

Radio Alger: A Radio channel that talks about the latest oriental Algerian news with a music break in between topics. It is facilitated by two radio DJs that lead conversations about what is going on in Algeria and occasionally debate on air. It is distributed using a blend of the Arabic and French languages and is based in Algeria. You can listen to the radio channel either using your internet browser or by downloading their app called Radio.net on the Apple Store. This is the link to the web browser: https://www.radio.net/s/radioalger1

ENRS: A radio channel based in Algeria that emerged in 1986 as a predecessor of an original public broadcasting network founded in 1956 known by the acronym RTA, which is historically known as the oldest audiovisual service in Algeria. For reference, RTA is split into different broadcasts and ENRS is the National Company of Sound Broadcasting which we will be focusing on. The ENRS Algerian radio aims to exercise public service missions through promoting social communication and the protection of the national identity in all its diversity. On August 1, 1963, ENRS was placed under the authority of the Ministry of Information on the basis of the decree of radio and television having been assigned the mission of public service so this means that the government recognizes ENRS’s importance and impact on Algerian society and legitimizes them. Before the ENRS became an extension of the government, it used to operate as a financially independent service and made the switch in 1991. The radio is broadcasted in two national languages ​​(Arabic and Tamazight) as well as foreign languages ​​(French, English, and Spanish). While I think this may be a somewhat biased news source because of their close association with the government, I think getting insight into what the government wants you to see and exploring other media sites that show opposition against the government might be valuable for someone wanting to learn about the country. You can access this source using this link: https://mytuner-radio.com/radio/radio-algerienne-el-bahdja-dh-lbhj-416137/

StatusHour: A visual-audio magazine, also self-referenced as a podcast, that aims to bring attention to cultural production and the various processes of knowledge production and information dissemination for public consumption, via social or traditional media. They have a large team with partners at the regional and global level, both outside and within the Middle East, that participate in production and language translation of their interviews, stories, and analyses on countries within the Middle East in whihc make up the contents of the site. Outside of sponsors and partners, the on-ground team consists of over 40 producers, hosts, translators, editors, and directors.  The source is not an objective source but seeks to capture personal testimonies and stories through their interviews and on-seen-reports. It was founded in 2014 and has been consistently updated weekly throughout the years. I would reccommend this source for someone looking for primary sources or real stories from people who lived through historic times in Algeria. You can access this source using this link: https://www.statushour.com/en/home

Search Process:

For most of my sources, I used my parents as guides, as they are both native Algerians who indulge in Algerian media more than I do. I did try to do some searching on my own for podcasts and radio stations, but I ran into many dead ends on Spotify and SoundCloud, mainly because there weren’t many podcasts that existed, and the ones that did have no description of what their content was made up of.  I had an easier time finding Data sources and News sources because I used the University Library website to look. Furthermore, I found my knowledge of the Arabic language helped a lot when trying to find media sources because things like captions and bios that were not easily translatable were things that I just read myself and this also came in handy when listening to the radio channel which was a mostly Arabic source. I also ran into difficulty when finding sources because a lot of outlets use names that resemble each other pretty closely so it was hard to tell them apart and many outlets have good information but they don’t provide a lot of information on who contributors are and what the outlets goals and intended audience are so I’ve had to rely on reading between the lines to figure out motives for most of my sources.