UAE

The United Arab Emirates is a federation of seven emirates led by President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, serves as Vice President and Prime Minister, while Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan also serves as Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court. The UAE has one of the most developed, commercially sophisticated and heavily capitalised media sectors in the Arab world, anchored in large government-owned media groups and a globally oriented soft-power strategy.

Media operate within a tightly regulated environment in which federal and emirate-level authorities own, fund, license and oversee the principal outlets. Federal media, cybercrime and online-content legislation constrains independent and critical journalism, while ownership and governance structures keep the main media groups closely aligned with state priorities. The result is a polished, professional and outward-facing media landscape that nonetheless leaves little room for autonomous reporting on the country’s leadership, governance or strategic interests.

The 2025/26 cycle brought a significant restructuring of federal media governance. Federal Decree-Law No. 11 of 2025, issued on 30 September 2025 and in force from 1 January 2026, established the National Media Authority, a Cabinet-affiliated federal body that consolidated the UAE Media Council, the National Media Office and the Emirates News Agency (WAM) into a single authority responsible for strategic media direction, regulation, licensing, monitoring, official messaging and the federal state news service. Under the new framework, WAM became one of the authority’s sectors and the official national channel for publishing, distributing and translating approved state news.

Emirate-level media structures also continued to evolve, including the reconstitution of the Dubai Media Council, the continuing development of Abu Dhabi’s media ecosystem under the Abu Dhabi Media Office, and Sharjah’s investment in a unified government media hub. These changes modernised and centralised media governance without creating independent safeguards for editorial autonomy.

Reporters Without Borders ranked the UAE 158th of 180 in its 2026 World Press Freedom Index, up six places from 164th in 2025, with its score rising from 26.91 to 30.86. The improvement came from a very low base, and the country remains in the “very serious” category for press freedom. RSF notes that most Emirati media outlets are owned by press groups with ties to the government, that journalists and bloggers face surveillance and prosecution when they criticise the authorities, and that repression intensified in 2026 in the context of the war in Iran and its repercussions on the UAE.

There is no independent media regulator separate from the state, and no tested statutory safeguard protects editorial autonomy. The UAE’s federal framework of media regulation, cybercrime law and online-content controls continues to restrict critical journalism, especially on the ruling families, domestic governance, security, foreign policy and strategic economic interests.

SMM maps seven principal UAE media organisations. For the 2026 cycle, the picture is almost uniformly one of captured-public or state-managed control. Six outlets or groups are classified Captured Public/State-Managed: Dubai Media Incorporated and Arab Media Group in Dubai; Abu Dhabi Media Network and International Media Investments in Abu Dhabi; Sharjah Broadcasting Authority in Sharjah; and Sky News Arabia. The seventh, the Emirates News Agency (WAM), is classified State-Controlled as the official federal news agency now consolidated within the National Media Authority.

The defining development of the cycle is the reclassification of Sky News Arabia from Independent State-Managed to Captured Public/State-Managed. The earlier classification rested on the channel’s long-standing 50:50 joint venture between Sky and International Media Investments, which provided a balancing independent foreign shareholder and a formal editorial firewall. That structure ended in 2026, when Sky exited ownership and operational involvement, leaving IMI, a ruling-family-controlled Abu Dhabi media group, in full strategic and operational control while Sky retained only a brand licence.

The mapped UAE outlets are commercially run, professionally produced and technologically advanced rather than crude state mouthpieces. However, their ownership runs to the federal state, emirate governments, state-owned investment vehicles or ruling-family-controlled media companies. None operates under an independent statutory or oversight mechanism capable of safeguarding editorial autonomy. The UAE therefore presents a mature, well-resourced state-aligned media system whose structural determinants of control remained intact across the cycle, even as federal governance was consolidated, digital investment accelerated and the country recorded a modest improvement in its international press-freedom standing.

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