In our information-driven society, individuals increasingly consume news instantly via online platforms, including news websites, social media, blogs, and forums. In particular, social media platforms have become fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news, where false information is produced and widely disseminated, often from untraceable IP addresses (Shae and …
Read More »Book Review | Routledge Handbook on Arab Media
First Edition - Edited By Noureddine Miladi, Noha Mellor (Routledge, 2020) The Routledge Handbook on Arab Media is an encyclopedic depiction of the history, roles, models of ownership, and regulations of print, broadcast, and online media in 20 Arab countries out of the 22 Arab countries represented in the Arab …
Read More »Al-Jazeera’s relationship with Qatar before and after Arab Spring: Effective public diplomacy or blatant propaganda?
Abstract Since its foundation in 1996 until the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011, the Qatar-based and funded channel, Al-Jazeera, was considered by many media and politics scholars as a major element of a “pan-Arab public diplomacy” and even a “virtual state.” The main reasons behind Al-Jazeera’s success as an effective …
Read More »The Arab Spring in Israeli Media and Emergent Conceptions of Citizenship
Abstract This article returns to 2011 and the beginning of the Arab Spring in order to ask how the Israeli middle class came to draw similarities between their conditions and those of the Arab citizens who had risen against authoritarian rule. This question is also about the movement of ideas …
Read More »Middle Eastern Minorities in Global Media and the Politics of National Belonging
Abstract Since the Arab uprisings began in 2010, some communities have experienced increased levels of violence or insecurity on the basis of their ethnic, religious, or linguistic identity. This article examines how such communities have mobilized and developed their media strategies in order to protect themselves and adapt to their changing …
Read More »BOOK EXCERPT | Creative Insurgency in The Naked Blogger of Cairo
In the wake of the Arab uprisings, journalists, activists, and scholars coupled creative with revolution (or dissent, protest, resistance) to describe political graffiti, rap, art, and video. Distinguished institutions, from the Prince Claus Fund of the Netherlands to the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, lend the concept gravitas. …
Read More »FILM REVIEW | Revolution from a Farmer’s Perch – A Review of I Am The People
Anna Rousillion’s feature documentary I Am the People follows Farraj and his family through four tumultuous years in Egyptian history, beginning just before revolution and chronicling their lives in its aftermath. Farraj, the film’s protagonist, is a wiry farmer in the southern province of Luxor, who earns a living tilling …
Read More »Creative Insurgency and the Celebrity President: Politics and Popular Culture from the Arab Spring to the White House
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 »BOOK EXCERPT | Syria’s Drama Outpouring from Syria from Reform to Revolt, Vol. 2
Enduring Commitment Syrian drama has oscillated between accommodating and challenging persistent authoritarianism, the Islamic tendency, and the neoliberal moment. In addition to sensational thrillers and costume dramas, Syrians continue to produce works that harken back to an earlier era of Arab cultural production. Realist dramas join sociopolitical satires in critiquing …
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