"Is there an inevitable global violent clash unfolding between the world's largest religions: Islam and Christianity? Do religions cause violent conflicts, or are there other factors at play? How can we make sense of increasing reports of violence between Christian and Muslim ethnic communities acro
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ss the world? By seeking to answer such questions about the relationship between religion and violence in today's world, Ziya Meral challenges popular theories and offers an alternative explanation, grounded on insights inferred from real cases of ethno-religious violence in Africa and the Middle East. The relationship between religion and violence runs deep and both are intrinsic to the human story. Violence leads to and shapes religion, while religion acts to enable violence as well as providing responses that contain and prevent it. However, with religious violence being one of the most serious challenges facing the modern world, Meral shows that we need to de-globalise our analysis and focus on individual conflicts, instead of attempting to provide single answers to complex questions." (Publisher description)
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"Digital Middle East sheds a critical light on continuing changes that are closely intertwined with the adoption of information and communication technologies in the MENA region. Drawing on case studies from throughout the Middle East, the contributors explore how these digital transformations are p
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laying out in the social, cultural, political, and economic spheres, exposing the various disjunctions and discordances that have marked the advent of the digital Middle East." (Publisher description)
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"Entrepreneurship and innovation are currently high on the media industry agenda, but focus has so far been mostly on the economic sustainability of new ventures. Considering the repressive political climate in Egypt, Naomi Sakr explores the tension between economic growth and the ethical, democrati
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c practices of Egyptian startups. The study highlights, among other things, the temporal dimensions of sustainability, where focus on social sustainability can be seen as investment in stakeholder relationships that create long term economic returns." (Page xxxii)
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"Egyptian journalists' most important role orientations are to be a detached observer, to report things as they are, to provide information people need to make political decisions, to let people express their views, to motivate people to participate in political activity, and to provide analysis for
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current affairs. As the reasonably low standard deviations indicates, there is little disagreement among journalists as to the importance of these roles. The least important journalistic roles among Egyptian journalists were to convey a positive image of political leadership (21.4%), support government policy (22.1%), and to provide entertainment and relaxation (35.2%). Still, a majority of journalists in Egypt found it important to influence public opinion, advocate for social change, monitor and scrutinize political leaders, and support national development. On the other hand, journalists were not as supportive of interventionist role orientations such as set the political agenda and providing advice, orientation and direction for daily life." (Journalistic roles, pages 1-2)
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"Culture and Crisis Communication presents an examination of how politics, culture, religion, and other social issues affect crisis communication and management in nonwestern countries. From intense human tragedy to the follies of the rich, the chapters examine how companies, organizations, news out
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lets, health organizations, technical experts, politicians, and local communities communicate in crisis situations. Taking a wider view than a single country’s perspective, the text contains a cross-cultural and cross-country approach. In addition, the case studies offer valuable lessons that organizations that wish to operate or are operating in those cultures can adopt in preparing and managing crises. The book highlights recent crisis events such as Syria’s civil war, missing Malaysia Flight MH370, andJapan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster. Each of the case studies examines how culture impacts communication and responses to crises." (Publisher description)
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"This edited collection argues that the connective and orientation roles ascribed to diasporic media overlook the wider roles they perform in reporting intractable conflicts in the Homeland. Considering the impacts of conflict on migration in the past decades, it is important to understand the capac
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ity of diasporic media to escalate or deescalate conflicts and to serve as a source of information for their audiences in a competitive and fragmented media landscape. Using an interdisciplinary perspective, the chapters examine how the diasporic media projects the constructive and destructive outcomes of conflicts to their particularistic audiences within the global public sphere. The result is a volume that makes an important contribution to scholarship by offering critical engagements and analyzing how the diasporic media communicates information and facilitates dialogue between conflicting parties, while adding to new avenues of empirical case studies and theory development in comprehending the media coverage of conflict." (Publisher description)
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"Maestri and Profanter highlight that the methodological approaches adopted in this volume are both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. Focusing on the changing relationship between the dynamics of Arab communication spaces and the role of Arab women both in and through the media, the introduct
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ion reveals the editors’ ambitious task to link a series of chapters reflecting applied research on highly sensitive and pivotal issues. The influence of new technologies and feminism is seen as an important historical determinant of the human development process in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Maestri and Profanter highlight the rise of new convergences between secular and Islamic aspirations in the Arab female world and in their media and cyberspheres, where education is confirmed as a vehicle of mutual respect." (Extract)
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"Children, defined internationally as under-18s, account for some 40 per cent of Arab populations and the proportion of under-fives is correspondingly large. Yet studies of children's media and child audiences in the region are as scarce as truly popular locally produced media content aimed at child
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ren. At the very time when conflict and uncertainty in key Arab countries have made local development and diversification of children's media more remote, it has become more urgent to gain a better understanding of how the next generation's identities and worldviews are formed. This interdisciplinary book is the first in English to probe both the state of Arab screen media for children and the practices of Arabic-speaking children in producing, as well as consuming, screen content. It responds to the gap in research by bringing together a holistic investigation of institutions and leading players, children's media experiences and some iconic media texts.With children's media increasingly linked to merchandising, which favours US-based global players and globalizing forces, this volume provides a timely insight into tensions between differing concepts of childhood and desirable media messages." (Publisher description)
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"At the forefront in its field, this Handbook examines the theoretical, conceptual, pedagogical and methodological development of media literacy education and research around the world. Building on traditional media literacy frameworks in critical analysis, evaluation, and assessment, it incorporate
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s new literacies emerging around connective technologies, mobile platforms, and social networks. A global perspective rather than a Western-centric point of view is explicitly highlighted, with contributors from all continents, to show the empirical research being done at the intersection of media, education, and engagement in daily life. Structured around five themes—Educational Interventions; Safeguarding/Data and Online Privacy; Engagement in Civic Life; Media, Creativity and Production; Digital Media Literacy—the volume as a whole emphasizes the competencies needed to engage in meaningful participation in digital culture." (Publisher description)
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"This book provides empirical analysis of the day-to-day use of online platforms by activists in Egypt and Kuwait. The research evaluates the importance of online platforms for effecting change and establishes a specific framework for doing so. Egypt and Kuwait were chosen because, since the mid-200
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0s, they have been the most prominent Arab countries in terms of online and offline activism. In the context of Kuwait, Jon Nordenson examines the oppositional youth groups who fought for a constitutional, democratic monarchy in the emirate. In Egypt, focus surrounds the groups and organizations working against sexual violence and sexual harassment. This book shows how and why online platforms are used by activists and identifies the crucial features of successful online campaigns. Egypt and Kuwait are revealed to be authoritarian contexts but where the challenges and possibilities faced by activists are quite different. The comparative nature of this research therefore exposes the context-specific usage of online platforms, separating this from the more general features of online activism. Nordenson demonstrates the power of online activism to create an essential 'counterpublic' that can challenge an authoritarian state and enable excluded groups to fight in ways that are far more difficult to suppress than a demonstration." (Publisher description)
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"This edited volume offers the first extended, cross-disciplinary exploration of the cumulative problems and increasing importance of various forms of media in the Middle East. Leading scholars with expertise in Middle Eastern studies discuss their views and perceptions of the media’s influence on
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regional and global change. Focusing on aspects of economy, digital news, online businesses, gender-related issues, social media, and film, the contributors of this volume detail media’s role in political movements throughout the Middle East. The volume illustrates how the increase in Internet connections and mobile applications have resulted in an emergence of indispensable tools for information acquisition, dissemination, and activism." (Publisher description)
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"Die ägyptische Muslimbruderschaft hat in den fast 90 Jahren ihres Bestehens immer wieder neue Kommunikationstechnologien adaptiert und Medienpraktiken inkorporiert, um ihre Außenkommunikation zu professionalisieren. Der Beitrag zeigt unter Rückgriff auf Ansätze der Sozialen-Bewegungs-Forschung
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sowie zu Medienpraktiken, wie diese Anpassungen im Kontext politischer Entwicklungen vorgenommen wurden und mit veränderten Materialitäten, Kompetenzen und Bedeutungszuschreibungen in Zusammenhang stehen. Das Fallbeispiel der Rabi’a-Ereignisse von 2013 illustriert schließlich einen Höhepunkt der auch performativen und transnational zirkulierenden Medienpraktiken der Muslimbruderschaft." (Abstract)
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"Governments around the world have dramatically increased their efforts to manipulate information on social media over the past year. The Chinese and Russian regimes pioneered the use of surreptitious methods to distort online discussions and suppress dissent more than a decade ago, but the practice
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has since gone global. Such state-led interventions present a major threat to the notion of the internet as a liberating technology. Online content manipulation contributed to a seventh consecutive year of overall decline in internet freedom, along with a rise in disruptions to mobile internet service and increases in physical and technical attacks on human rights defenders and independent media. Nearly half of the 65 countries assessed in Freedom on the Net 2017 experienced declines during the coverage period, while just 13 made gains, most of them minor. Less than one-quarter of users reside in countries where the internet is designated Free, meaning there are no major obstacles to access, onerous restrictions on content, or serious violations of user rights in the form of unchecked surveillance or unjust repercussions for legitimate speech." (Page 1)
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"Compared to five years ago, internet penetration rose in all six countries surveyed and most dramatically in Jordan, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Smartphone ownership tracks closely with internet use in the six surveyed countries. Nearly all nationals in Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE own a sma
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rtphone compared with 83% of Jordanians and 65% of Tunisians. Use of Arabic online has increased proportionally with the increase in internet users. In comparison, use of the internet in English remains essentially flat, 25% in 2013 and 28% in 2017, despite the increase in internet use. As internet penetration rises, nationals are less likely to be using offline media platforms compared with 2013. Most nationals still watch TV, but the rate declined modestly since 2013 (98% in 2013 vs. 93% in 2017). Rates of newspaper readership, however, declined more sharply from 47% in 2013 to 25% in 2017. Radio and magazines also declined in popularity since 2013 (radio: 59% in 2013 vs. 49% in 2017; magazines: 26% in 2013 vs. 19% in 2017)." (Executive summary, page 10)
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"Journalists from 17 countries, mostly around the Mediterranean, have examined the quality of media coverage within their respective national contexts. They highlight examples of good work marked by careful, sensitive and humanitarian reporting and also expose the shortcomings as well as the darker
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side of media driven by political bias, hate speech and opportunism. The conclusions from many different parts of the Mediterranean are similar; there are inspirational examples of journalism at its best – stylish, resourceful, and painstaking – and equally powerful instances of media stereotyping and social exclusion. But everywhere the study paints a picture of journalists and journalism under pressure: of under-resourced media unable to provide the time and money needed to tell the story in context; of poorly trained journalists uninformed about the complex nature of the migration narrative; of newsrooms vulnerable to pressure and manipulation by voices of hate, whether from political elites or social networks. The influence of social media cannot be underestimated in an age when many, if not most, consumers get their information firstly from social networks and through their mobile devices. The publisher is more likely to be a major internet company, such as Facebook, which requires fresh thinking on how to promote core standards of journalism in covering migration on all platforms." (Executive summary)
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"This MeCoDEM working paper presents an overview of the main findings from a quantitative content analysis covering different types of democratisation conflicts (i.e., conflicts over citizenship, elections, transitional justice and distribution of power) in four countries: Egypt, Kenya, Serbia and S
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outh Africa. The sample involves 5162 newspaper articles and news stories in the four countries selected on the basis of two main criteria: the degree of independence of media outlets from government and political parties, and their relevance. The key findings from the content analysis are organised around several themes: causes of democratisation conflicts, portrayal of conflict parties, preferred solutions to conflicts, perceptions of democracy, role of the media, authoritarian past, and tone of reporting and polarisation. Although this paper focuses principally on description, we also speculate about the main factors that shape similarities and differences in media coverage of democratisation conflicts. The main finding from the content analysis is that cross-national variations that we found in media reporting of democratisation conflicts appear to depend on several factors." (Executive summary)
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"The structural conditions of journalism are shaped by legacies of the past (marked by non-democratic regimes and sometimes colonial rule) and persisting power structures. The state and powerful political actors are perceived to play an important role in the media sector, mirrored in different forms
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of political interference directed at newsrooms and individual journalists in the way of repressive legal frameworks, political ownership and advertising, economic censorship and blackmail, as well as threats directed at the physical and psychological safety of journalists. Journalists perceive the relationship between different communities in society to be reflected in the constitution of and atmosphere among newsroom staff. Even though journalists operate in a more liberal environment than under autocratic rule in Kenya, Serbia and South Africa, media privatisation has created new dependencies and pressures: Against the background of profit-making pressures in capitalist and highly commercialised media markets, journalists claim to work under precarious working conditions, marked by time constraints due to short-staffed newsroom and juniorisation, high professional insecurity and poor salaries arguably making journalists vulnerable to bribery and corruption. Challenges relating to journalistic professionalism also translate into insufficient training on conflict-sensitive reporting and safety measures for journalists reporting on conflicts, low professional organisation and self-regulation, as well as a lack of professional solidarity and prestige." (Executive summary)
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