Mediated Identities and New Journalism in the Arab World: Mapping the "Arab Spring"

218 Pages·2016·2.624 MB·English

by  Aziz Douai, Mohamed Ben Moussa (eds.)

Mediated Identities
and New Journalism
in the Arab World
Mapping the “Arab Spring”
Edited by
Aziz Douai and
Mohamed Ben Moussa
Mediated Identities and New Journalism in the
Arab World
Aziz Douai • Mohamed Ben Moussa
Editors
Mediated Identities
and New Journalism
in the Arab World
Mapping the “Arab Spring”
Editors
Aziz Douai Mohamed Ben Moussa
University of Ontario Canadian University of Dubai
Institute of Technology Dubai , United Arab Emirates
Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
ISBN 978-1-137-58140-2 ISBN 978-1-137-58141-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58141-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957293
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C
ONTENTS
Part I Mediated Identities and “Arab Spring” Politics 1
1 Beyond the Technology Debate: A General Introduction 3
Mohamed Ben Moussa
2 S ocial Media, Global Communications, and the Arab
Spring: Cross-Level and Cross-M edia Story Flows 21
Joo-Young Jung
3 N ew Media and Public Will Mobilization in the 
Tunisian and Egyptian Revolutions of 2011 41
Sahar Khamis and Katherine Vaughn
4 I slamists and New Media: The Muslim Brotherhood
Digital Presence in English 61
Eid Mohamed and Emad Mohamed
5 A gainst All Odds: Defi ning a Revolutionary
Identity in Syria 83
Naomí Ramírez Díaz
v
vi CONTENTS
Part II New Media Journalism and Political Change 101
6 2 5 TV: A Case Study of the Media During the Egyptian
Uprising 103
Christopher J. Harper
7 J ournalistic Transparency in Egypt and the United
Arab Emirates: Parallels Between Phenomena of the
Arab Spring and the Demand for Web-Based
Transparency Tools 127
Andreas Sträter
8 M apping the “Arab Autumn”: A Framing Analysis
of CBC and Al-Nahar Networks’ Coverage of Egypt’s
Military Coup 143
Mohamad H. Elmasry, Philip J. Auter, and Heidi Makady
9 The 2011 Popular Protests in the Sultanate of Oman 165
Ahmed Al-Rawi
10 Network Journalism and the Egyptian Revolution 185
Ahmed El Gody
11 The Mediated “Arab Spring” Foretold: Conclusions 205
Aziz Douai
Index 211
E ’ B
DITORS IOS
Aziz   Douai PhD in Mass Communications, Pennsylvania State University, USA is
Associate Professor of Communication and Digital Media Studies at the University
of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada. He is also the Founding Director of
the Media and Cultural Studies Program at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
His research focuses on new media and activism, Arab media and democracy, global
media and international confl ict, among other areas of international communica-
tions. He is the co-editor of N ew media infl uence on social and political change in
Africa (2013) and the Editor of the American Communication Journal . Dr Douai
has published more than 40 book chapters and journal articles in leading peer-
reviewed journals.
Mohamed   Ben   Moussa is the acting dean of the school of communication and
media studies at the Canadian University Dubai (CUD). He obtained his PhD in
communication studies from Concordia University, and an MA in communication
from the University of Leeds. Prior to joining CUD, Dr Ben Moussa was assistant
professor at the American University in the Emirates and post-doctoral fellow at
McGill University. In addition to contributing to several edited books, his publica-
tions have appeared in A pplied Journalism & Media Studies , Westminster Papers in
Communication & Culture , and Arab Media & Society , among others.
vii
C ’ B
ONTRIBUTORS IOS
Ahmed   K.   Al-Rawi obtained his M.A. degree in 1999 and his fi rst PhD in English
literature from Baghdad University, Iraq, in 2004. He did a second PhD study in
media and mass communication research at the University of Leicester, UK (2012).
The thesis focused on the way Iraqi TV news channels covered the general elections
in Iraq in 2010. Before joining Erasmus University Rotterdam in 2011–2014,
Al-Rawi taught journalism and communication, intercultural communication, and
English language and literature courses for over fi ve years in the Middle East,
mostly in the Sultanate of Oman. Al-Rawi is currently teaching communication at
Okanagan College in British Columbia, Canada.
Philip   J.   Auter is a professor of communication and the graduate program coor-
dinator in the Department of Communication at the University of Louisiana (UL).
He holds the Hubert Bourgeois Endowed Professor in Communication at UL
Lafayette. Auter is also the Executive Director of the American Communication
Association and a member of the board of directors of the Arab-US Association of
Communication Educators.
Naomí   Ramírez   Díaz holds a degree in Arabic Studies from the Autónoma
University of Madrid and a Master’s degree in Contemporary Arab and Islamic
Studies from the same university. She spent one year in Syria studying at the Institut
Français du Proche-Orient, and she completed her PhD thesis on political Islam in
Syria and neighboring countries. She has published several articles on Syria in both
English and Spanish, and she has taken part in various international conferences.
Since the Syrian revolution started, she has appeared regularly on TV and radio
broadcasts as well as in print media.
Ahmed   El Gody ( PhD, Orebro University) is senior lecturer of global journalism and
director of Journalism Connected MA Program, Orebro University-Sweden. His cur-
rent research focuses is in social media and political reform, public diplomacy and new
ix
x CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOS
media, and digital journalism. He is author of a number of books, including J ournalism
in a Network (2012) and African Media and ICT4D: Documentary Evidence: A base-
line study on the state of media reporting on ICT and Information Society issues in Africa ,
published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Mohamad   H.   Elmasry i s an assistant professor in the Department of
Communications at the University of North Alabama. Dr. Elmasry held assistant
professorships at Qatar University from 2009 to 2011 and at the American
University in Cairo from 2011 to 2014. His research on Arab press systems and
the sociology of news has appeared in several refereed publications, including the
International Communication Gazette , the I nternational Journal of Communication ,
the Journal of Middle East Media , the Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research ,
and the Global Media Journal . Dr Elmasry is also a political and media analyst and
has appeared regularly on international television news networks, including CNN,
BBC, Al-Jazeera English, and Al-Jazeera America.
Christopher   J.   Harper i s a professor of journalism at Temple University in
Philadelphia, He has written extensively about journalism, the Middle East, and
other subjects. Harper worked in the media for The Associated Press, N ewsweek
(Washington and Beirut), ABC News (Cairo and Rome), and 20/20 in New York.
Since joining New York University in 1994, where he taught one of the fi rst classes
in using the Internet for journalism, he has written and edited seven books on jour-
nalism. He has taught multimedia reporting for many years, including at the
Multimedia Urban Reporting Lab at Temple, which has gained national and world-
wide attention for its work.
Joo-Young   Jung (PhD, University of Southern California) is a senior associate
professor of media and communication at International Christian University in
Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests include social implications of the Internet,
mobile phones, and social media in the changing communication environment.
Specifi c research/theoretical focus includes digital divide and Internet connected-
ness, media system dependency theory, and the relationship between new and old
media in communication ecology. Her research has been published in communica-
tion books such as the O xford Handbook of Information and Communication
Technologies and journals such as Communication Research , New Media & Society ,
Political Communication , and A sian Journal of Communication .
Sahar   Khamis is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at
the University of Maryland. She is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the
former head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in
Qatar University. She is the co-author of the books I slam Dot Com: Contemporary
Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace and E gyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging,
Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism , both published by Palgrave Macmillan.
CONTRIBUTORS’ BIOS xi
Heidi   Makady i s a master’s student at the Department of Communication at the
University of Louisiana (UL), focusing on mass communication. Her research
interests include social media, news values, and news production. She was awarded
the Dr Jung-Sook Lee Endowed Scholarship in 2013 at UL Lafayette. She also
worked as a news reporter and wrote news stories on several United Nations con-
ferences held in Qatar in 2012.
Eid   Mohamed is assistant professor of transnational literary and cultural studies at
the Comparative Literature Program at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (DI).
Before joining the DI, Dr Mohamed has been an adjunct assistant professor at the
University of Guelph, an academic consultant and a lecturer of Arab Studies at
Renison College, and a research fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs
in the University of Waterloo in Canada. Dr. Mohamed has authored and co-edited
many books, including: A rab Occidentalism: Images of America in the Middle East
(2015), W ho Defi nes Me: Negotiating Identity in Language and Literature (2014),
Tahrir Square and Beyond: Critical Perspectives On Politics, Law and Security
(2016), and E ducation and the Arab Spring: Shifting Towards Democracy (2016).
Emad   Mohamed (PhD, Indiana University, 2010) is currently assistant professor
of linguistics at Suez University Egypt. Emad’s main interests are digital humanities
and corpus linguistics.
Andreas   Sträter MA Journalistik, is writing his PhD thesis about journalism train-
ing in the UAE, Qatar, and Oman. In 2011, he worked for the German Konrad-
Adenauer-Foundation in Abu Dhabi, named after the fi rst German chancellor.
Besides his academic work, he is working as a freelance journalist mainly for the
WDR, a public TV-station based in Cologne, and for the Axel-Springer owned
weekly newspaper W elt am Sonntag .
Katherine   Vaughn M PP MBA, is a graduate of the University of Maryland
School of Public Policy and RH Smith School of Business. She is an expert on
gender and entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as social
media use during the Arab uprisings. She works for the Millennium Challenge
Corporation as a gender data specialist with the Gender and Social Inclusion
Practice Group, Department of Compact Operations.