Political Bytes

Mark Seddon, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic correspondent, hosts this global discussion

Political Bytes is something new: an online discussion – the first of its type – which will attempt to link East with West.

Hosted by Mark Seddon, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic correspondent, Political Bytes will bring together different voices from across the world, linking people from different backgrounds and perspectives via the internet and creating an online global conversation.

Political Bytes is exclusively available on aljazeera.net and the Al Jazeera English channel on YouTube, where viewers can carry on the conversation and add video contributions.

In this episode of Political Bytes:

Nadine and Clayton in Amman

In this first edition of Political Bytes Mark Seddon is joined by Nadine, an independent film-maker, in Amman, Jordan, Clayton Swisher, Al Jazeera’s Middle East analyst, who is in Amman with Nadine, and Mark Boxer from the Education for Employment Foundation, which promotes education opportunities among young Arabs, who joins the discussion from Washington.

Each reveals their own hopes for the Political Bytes project and stresses the need to create a platform for dialogue that will allow the voices on the street – those that are not heard in the more formal media – to be heard and which will connect people across regions, allowing them to hear from ‘the other side’ and to engage in a progressive conversation on issues that really matter.

Mark Boxer in Washington

Nadine, Clayton and Mark discuss the issues of importance to them and the conversation takes in topics such as how young people in the Middle East view the issues that engage the media, attitudes on the Arab street toward the policies made in Washington and US troop presence in Iraq.

Political Bytes discusses the concerns of young people in the Middle East and the US and how the two groups view each other and whether the negative images Americans see of the Middle East are really a reflection of a region where there is, in fact, a sense of optimism.

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