Read an excerpt of Marwan Kraidy's latest book The Naked Blogger of Cairo here. On Tuesday, December 6, 2016, a strange sight appeared on Rabin Square in Tel Aviv. Close to city hall, passersby saw a four-meter high gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a suit, legs firmly planted …
Read More »The Birth and Death of 25TV: Innovation in Post-Revolution Egyptian TV News Formats
Abstract This case study highlights an experiment that aimed to disrupt traditional television news production and presentation models in post-revolution Egypt. It is a snapshot of a brief moment in Egyptian television history when an attempt was made at innovating news production and content, but much like the Egyptian revolution, …
Read More »Syrian Children Hold Up Pokémon Pleading for People to Find Them
August 9, 2016—The Revolutionary Forces of Syria Media Office released an emotional photo series on social media today. The photo series aims to garner the attention of fans of the newest gaming craze, Pokémon Go.
Read More »Libya’s Ministry of Education Tries to Ban Social Media After Exams Leaked
July 18, 2016—Amidst a leaked exams crisis, Libya's Ministry of Education is seeking to block social media sites for the duration of the secondary school exams.
Read More »Coup Bid in Turkey Reported Live on Social Media Despite Blockages
July 16, 2016—Despite restricted access to social media sites, Turkey’s attempted military coup exploded across Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube late last night.
Read More »BOOK REVIEW | Visual Propaganda and Extremism in the Online Environment
Ronnie Close, an academic and assistant professor at the American University in Cairo, welcomes the volume into the discourse on visual content. He contextualizes the scholarly work by providing information on related fields, and he assesses the compilation's overall cohesion.
Read More »Social Media Users Protest Detention of Members of a Young Egyptian Satirical Group
May 12, 2016—A social media campaign of selfies went viral yesterday in response to the recent prosecutorial decision to detain members of the group Street Children for 15 days. These activists and social media users called for the Street Children’s freedom by posting personal selfies with the Arabic hashtag, “Does the phone camera shake/scare you?”
Read More »PODCAST | We are all…NETWORKED.
Dr. Rasha Abdulla, associate professor in the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at the American University in Cairo speaks with us about her work on big data, social media and the Egyptian Revolution. Together with a group of scholars from the University of Amsterdam, Dr. Abdulla conducted big data research using the contents of the “We Are All Khaled Said” Facebook page. Dr. Abdulla was lead on an article investigating the role of the page as a venue for lessons in democratic participation.
Read More »Egyptian Novelist Ahmed Naji on Trial for ‘obscene sexual content’
December 12, 2015—Egyptian writer and journalist Ahmed Naji was brought to court Saturday, where he faces trial for publishing "obscene sexual content" in a literary weekly.
Read More »Cases of Contention: Activism, Social Media and Law in Saudi Arabia
In a systematic examination of Saudi law, Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi explores how the Kingdom has justified its crackdown on activists and dissenters on social media. Golesorkhi investigates how these laws have been applied in the cases of nine different activists in the last four years. Mapping their trajectories alongside the language enshrined into Saudi law, this article offers valuable insight into why and how these actions have been taken by the Kingdom.
Read More »