FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 24, 2026 CONTACT | Heather Birks | 202.602.0584
BEA Awards the 2026 BEA Book Award to Frequencies of Deceit: How Global Propaganda Wars Shaped the Middle East by Margaret Peacock, University of Alabama
Washington, D.C. – Frequencies of Deceit: How Global Propaganda Wars Shaped the Middle East by Margaret Peacock, University of Alabama, has been selected for the 2026 BEA Book Award.
This book (published by University of California Press) traces the history of deception and propaganda in Middle Eastern international radio. For two decades, British, Soviet, American, and Egyptian radio voices created an audio world that was characterized by deceit and betrayal. Peacock makes the compelling argument that this betrayal contributed to the loss of faith in western and secular state solutions for many in the Arab world, laying the groundwork for the rise of Political Islam.
For scholars and practitioners of broadcasting and media studies, the book offers a detailed exploration of how radio ecosystems evolve, how messaging routines form and harden, and how audiences navigate the resulting informational terrain. It provides a rare, multilingual reconstruction of mid-century Arabic-language broadcasting and expands the global history of radio to include voices, institutions, and listeners often absent from standard accounts.
Margaret Peacock is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Alabama and a Global Fellow and Co-director of CARE International Project at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
The BEA Book Award was established in 2020 to recognize an outstanding book written by a BEA member(s) in the field of broadcasting and mass communication. Each year the recipient will be recognized at BEA’s annual convention in Las Vegas.
About the BEA Convention – BEA’s annual convention is held in conjunction with NAB Show in Las Vegas every spring. BEA’s annual convention attracts 1,300 educators and students with 250 sessions, events, research panels, technology workshops and an exhibit hall, making BEA the largest conference partner of NAB Show.
About the Broadcast Education Association (BEA) – BEA is the professional association for professors, industry professionals and graduate students interested in teaching and research related to electronic media and multimedia enterprises. There are currently more than 2,500 individual and institutional members worldwide. Visit www.beaweb.org for more information.