The [Iraqi] government, which has been proceeding quietly on the new censorship laws, said prohibitions were necessary because material currently available in the country had had the effect of encouraging sectarian violence in the fragile democracy and of warping the minds of the young.
This new development makes me want to add a chapter to my dissertation I wrote in 2006, when I argued that the emergence in Iraq of pluralist, polarized, unmistakably partisan media outlets, as well as the rapid diversification of Iraqi media ownership, could be explained as
natural reactions to de-Baathification. I attempted to measure the extent to which political factionalism caused, or was caused by, media partisanship, and whether de-Baathification magnified the impact of political factionalism and media partisanship. I concluded that Iraqi democracy is in danger because the emergent media environment is so heavily partisan.
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