The suspension of the Twitter account of former U.S. president Donald Trump after violating the platform’s publishing policies brought forth significant controversy and aroused many questions about the right to freedom of expression and its boundaries, not only in the United States, but across the globe. In the Arab region, …
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Regional Media Debate the Strength of American Democracy
For a region that has had to deal with the aftermath of decades of U.S. intervention, occupation and punishing sanctions under the banner of democracy and human rights, the live pictures of American pro-Trump rioters storming the U.S. Capitol were nothing short of astounding. Public ridicule and scorn came fast …
Read More »Rami Khouri on Lebanon’s Outlook and What Has Happened to the Country’s Media
On October 17, 2019, protests began in Lebanon with angry and largely disenfranchised citizens calling for a complete overhaul of the country’s unique political system. In the year that has followed, Lebanon has suffered through one disaster after another, with seemingly unending political shifting. On October 22, 2020, former Prime …
Read More »Info-Deficiency in an Infodemic: The Gender Digital Gap, Arab Women and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Abstract: This article tackles the complex struggles faced by Arab women, including multiple layers of invisibility, marginalization and inequality,[1] all of which have significantly worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. This examination includes a special focus on how and why the “digital divide,” defined as the gap between the technological haves …
Read More »The Development of British Public Diplomacy in the Arab World
Abstract This paper attempts to map the major changes and developments of British public diplomacy in the Arab world. I argue here that the BBC and the British Council have greatly assisted British public diplomacy efforts and can be regarded as effective because exerting influence in an indirect way can …
Read More »Journalism and Media Education in Times of Conflict: Three Cases from the Arab Region
Abstract This paper examines the journalism and media education programs in three countries in the Arab region (Libya, Syria, Yemen) that have been or are still in the throes of civil wars and/or polarization along conflicting political ideologies and control of different geographical zones. Based on an online questionnaire distributed …
Read More »Precedented History: Arab Media Coverage of the Israeli – UAE – Bahrain Normalization Agreement
On September 16, 2020, U.S. president Donald Trump hosted the signing ceremony for the tripartite diplomatic normalization agreement, known as the Abraham Accords, between the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Israel at the White House. The UAE is the third Arab country to declare normalization with Israel after Egypt …
Read More »Hagia Sophia: An Analytical Overview of Religious and Media Argumentation (Arabic)
Scroll down for the Arabic abstract. Turkey’s Council of State, the highest Turkish administrative court, handed down its decision on July 10, 2020 regarding Hagia Sophia. The council reversed the monument’s status from a museum back into a mosque as from July 24, sparking heated debates between those in favor …
Read More »Building Up the Arab Science Journalism Landscape
Science journalism in the Arab world has passed through many ups and downs; this has been particularly true for the better part of the last decade. Science journalists and editors were initially optimistic that the opening of the media landscape ushered in by the uprisings of 2011 would provide the …
Read More »A Critical Analysis of the Dialectic Science-Religion Relationship in Popular Science Show Discourse
Abstract In light of the advancing digital environment and the interest in boosting scientific content published on digital platforms, this paper seeks to define and critically analyze the discourse of popular science shows (henceforth, “PSS”). Considering the fact that religion serves as a major foundational component in the Arab social …
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