Digital Media And The Politics Of Transformation In The Arab World And Asia

In times of increasing mediatization and digitalization media play an important role in political and societal transformation processes. The authors of this volume take an actor-centered perspective to shed light on current cases in Arab and Asian countries. They inquire into the ways processes of networking and mobilization evolve in the context of restricted media systems and state-dominated public spheres. It features original research about various social and political actors such as women’s rights activists, public intellectuals, anarchists and Islamists.

Did digital media really "cause" the Arab Spring, or is it an important factor of the story behind what might become democracy's fourth wave? An unlikely network of citizens used digital media to start a cascade of social protest that ultimately toppled four of the world's most entrenched dictators. Howard and Hussain find that the complex causal recipe includes several economic, political and cultural factors, but that digital media is consistently one of the most important sufficient and necessary conditions for explaining both the fragility of regimes and the success of social movements. This book looks at not only the unexpected evolution of events during the Arab Spring, but the deeper history of creative digital activism throughout the region.

The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand the profound and complex changes shaping the 21st century. With trans-regional contributions from established and emerging scholars, this ground-breaking volume offers conceptual essays and in-depth chapters that present rich analyses grounded in historical and geopolitical contexts, as well as key theory and empirical research. Rather than viewing the Middle East as a monolithic culture, this Handbook examines the diverse and multi-local characteristics of the region’s knowledge production, dynamic media, and rich cultures. It addresses a wide range of topics, including the evolving mainstream and alternative media, competing histories in the region, and pressing socio-economic and media debates. Additionally, the Handbook explores the impact of regional and international politics on Middle Eastern cultures and media. Designed to serve as a foundation for the next era of research in the field, The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East is essential reading for all academics, scholars, and media practitioners. Its comprehensive scope makes it an excellent primary or supplementary textbook for undergraduate or graduate courses in global studies, media and communication, journalism, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, and history.

This book offers a diachronical and inter-/transmedia approach to the relationship of media and fear in a variety of geographical and cultural settings. This allows for an in-depth understanding of the media’s role in pandemics, wars and other crises, as well as in political intimidation. The book assembles chapters from a variety of authors, focusing on the relation between media and fear in the West, the Middle East, the Arab World and China. Besides its geographical and cultural diversity, the volume also takes a long-term perspective, bringing together cases from transforming media environments which span over a century. The book establishes a strong and historically persistent nexus between media and fear, which finds ever-new forms with new media but always follows similar logics.

The handbook delves into the shifting power dynamics in diplomacy, exploring the establishment of embassies in technology hubs, the challenges faced by foreign affairs departments in adapting to digital technologies, and the utilization of digital tools as a means of exerting influence.

This volume provides a comparative analysis of media systems in the Arab world, based on criteria informed by the historical, political, social, and economic factors influencing a country’s media. Reaching beyond classical western media system typologies, Arab Media Systems brings together contributions from experts in the field of media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to provide valuable insights into the heterogeneity of this region’s media systems. It focuses on trends in government stances towards media, media ownership models, technological innovation, and the role of transnational mobility in shaping media structure and practices. Each chapter in the volume traces a specific country’s media – from Lebanon to Morocco – and assesses its media system in terms of historical roots, political and legal frameworks, media economy and ownership patterns, technology and infrastructure, and social factors (including diversity and equality in gender, age, ethnicities, religions, and languages). This book is a welcome contribution to the field of media studies, constituting the only edited collection in recent years to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of Arab media systems. As such, it will be of great use to students and scholars in media, journalism and communication studies, as well as political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in the MENA region.

The attempts to evict Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah in May 2021 caught the attention of the world. While this small Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem had long been central to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the planned expulsions pushed the situation back into the spotlight. This book discusses the complexity of the media war that took place at the same time. Across 20 chapters, it compares Israeli, Western, Palestinian and Arab media to understand how different narratives were discussed, supported and challenged. In particular, the book captures how social media became a site of online activism and alternative war narratives. The volume is unique in focusing on a specific event from many different perspectives and with material from different countries and media platforms. Case studies include the Spanish press; the African press; the BBC; Al-Jazeera English; TRT World Television; and digital media such as TikTok and Facebook, as well as the impact of social media activism. In doing so, the book also comments on the extent that citizen journalists challenge the propaganda war.

This book critically analyses the hegemony of Egypt's business and military elites and the private media they own or control. Arguing that this hegemony requires the exercise of power to maintain consent under changing conditions such as the 2011 uprising and the 2013 military coup, the book answers the central question of why and how Egypt's ruling elites control the media. Situated within the interdisciplinary domain of 'critical political economy' (CPE), the book focuses on popular privately-owned newspapers and TV channels and their ownership using a qualitative approach involving fifteen interviews conducted over seven years with key actors and experts in the Egyptian media landscape for unprecedented insight. As the first book on the political economy of Egyptian media, The Political Economy of Egyptian Media serves as a case study and a country profile and will be of appeal to scholars and experts of Middle Eastern studies, political sciences, media and the political economy of communication, among others.