Four Phases in the History of the Moroccan Private Press

Abstract

The ever-mutating socio-political environment within which the Moroccan private press has evolved since the beginning of the 1990s has made it difficult for researchers to trace its general features over 25 years. After contextualising the non-partisan media takeover in the 1990s, this paper proposes a rereading of the political history of the Moroccan private press by dividing it into four periods: Uncertain Beginnings (1991-1998), Free Retrospection (1999-2005), Confrontation and Censorship (2006-2011), and Normalisation and Self-censorship (2011-2016). The designation of each phase draws on a scale of six indicators: political environment, media environment, principal titles, editorial features, ratings, and censorship. The paper focuses on the interaction between the press and the authorities along these phases and draws the implications of this interaction for the social functions of the private press and the status and utilities of press freedom in Morocco.