HIBAPRESS
The media landscape in Algeria has recently witnessed a noticeable escalation in the discourse directed against the Kingdom of Morocco, an escalation that goes beyond the boundaries of political criticism to adopt a strategy of intensive propaganda mobilization that operates around the clock. This media activity comes in a tense regional context, where sensitive and dangerous events, including boasting about the killing of Moroccan citizens, are employed as tools in a media battle with political and security dimensions.
This new strategy relies on charging the official and semi-official "propaganda machine," by harnessing public media, platforms close to the military establishment, in addition to media outlets known for their loyalty to the authorities. The declared and undeclared goal is to damage the image of Morocco and its regional interests, through the repetition of specific narratives and the magnification of certain issues. In this context, there is a striking focus on carefully selected topics, foremost of which are the Moroccan Sahara file, the issues of the Rif, and the "separatism" discourse, in addition to direct targeting of what is called in the Algerian discourse "the Makhzen." These topics are not presented from the point of view of objective analysis or balanced political discussion, but are often presented within an incitement discourse, which aims to create a systematic negative image of the Moroccan state and its institutions. It is also noted that this media campaign does not operate with the logic of circumstantial reaction, but according to a plan that seems more organized and continuous, where the pace of work has been raised to a 24/24 pattern, which reflects a central political decision to internationalize the media conflict, and to try to influence regional and international public opinion through repetition and intensive pumping of directed content. The use of the Algerian military establishment, directly or indirectly, in this type of media campaigns, raises serious questions about the nature of the relationship between politics and the media in Algeria, and about the extent to which hostile discourse is used as a tool to export internal crises or to rearrange priorities within the Algerian political scene. In contrast, this reality puts Morocco before the challenge of dealing with an unconventional media war, that goes beyond classical diplomatic statements, and calls for a calm reading, and a smart communication strategy, capable of dismantling the directed discourse, and revealing its backgrounds and goals, without sliding into the logic of uncalculated escalation. In the end, this media escalation cannot be separated from the general political context in the region, where the media has turned from a means of transmitting news into a strategic weapon in the struggle for influence, whose battles are managed with words, but whose effects go beyond the screens to affect relations between peoples and countries.
