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.

Joe F. Khalil, Associate Professor of Global Media and Communication, Northwestern University in Qatar. His research and teaching straddle legacy, alternative, and emerging media. He is the co-author of Arab Television Industries and co-editor of Culture, Time and Publics in the Arab World.

Gholam Khiabany, Reader in Media and Communications, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK. His academic career has focused on the relationship between citizenship, political activism and media and cultural practices. He is the author of Iranian Media: The Paradox of Modernity and co-author of Blogistan, and Media, Democracy and Social Change; he is also co-editor of Liberalism in Neoliberal Times: Dimensions, Contradictions, Limits; and After Charlie Hebdo: Terror, Racism and Free Speech.

Tourya Guaaybess, Associate Professor, Research Centre on Mediations (CREM), University of Lorraine, France. She was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and Visiting Researching at the University of Oxford. She has published numerous books and articles on the political economy of media and journalism in the Arab world.

Bilge Yesil, Associate Professor of Media Culture, College of Staten Island; Doctoral Faculty of Middle Eastern Studies, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her research interest is in global communication and media. She is the author of Video Surveillance: Power and Privacy in Everyday Life and Media in New Turkey: The Origins of an Authoritarian Neoliberal State.

Introduction: Media and Culture in the Middle East                                                       the editors

Part I Theories, Ideologies and Problematics

1.            Orientalism and Culture                                                                                                         Annabelle Sreberny

2.            Muslims, Art, and Invisible Modernities                                                               Nabil Echchaibi

3.            Development and Modernization in the Middle East                                      Karin Wilkins

4.            Hybridity and the Geopolitics of the Digital-Popular                                                       Marwan Kraidy

5.            Arab Cultural Studies: Phenomenology, being digital and other notes       Tarik Sabry

Part II Politics, Gender, Minorities and Class

6.            Intellectuals, the emerging public sphere and the question of ‘modernity’                 Gholam Khiabany

7.            Feminisms and Feminist Movements in the Middle East                                Gul Marshall

8.            Labor Activism and Media                                                                                                      Anne Alexander           

9.            The Meaning and Purpose of ‘Minority Media’ in the MENA                         Elizabeth Monier

10.         Public Diplomacy                                                                                                                       Jihad Fakhreddine                      

Part III Media Industries, Markets and Technologies

11.         Media Policies                                                                                                            Tourya Guaaybess

12.         Press in the MENA                                                                                                                    Lawrence Pintak

13.         Purposes and practices of MENA television: Components of an

ever-evolving medium                                                                                             Naomi Sakr

14.         Digital MENA: An overview of digital infrastructure, policies, and media practices in the Middle East and North Africa                                                                                                        Carola Richter

15.         Documents, Archives, Absence: Current Challenges and Insights from Media Research in the Middle East and Beyond                                                               Kaveh Askari & Hatim El-Hibri

Part IV (Mass) Media, Cultures and Contexts

16.         Freedom of speech and expressing in the Arab World                                    Joan Barata

17.         Arabic News Channels in the Middle East: Development and

Transformation                                                                                                           Yushi Chiba

18.         MENA Independent media: Negotiating the logics of media development

Programs                                                                                                                                     Yazan Badran

19.         Alternative Journalism In Turkey? The Coverage Of Operation

Peace Spring                                                                                                                Ozan Asik

20.         Kurdish cinema: politics, aesthetics, and transnational pathways                Suncem Kocer

21.         Aesthetic Arabism: The Syrian Musalsal Beyond Borders                                Christa Salamandra

22.         The dynamics of Advertising in MENA: An empirical model                                          Ilhem Allagui

23.         Reconfigurations of religio-political traditions and identities: mediated

religion in the Arab countries                                                                                 Ehab Galal

24.         Muslim Women and Media in the Middle East; Participating in social        Asmeh Ghasemi

progress and reconstructing the image of women                                                                                       

25.         Mediations of Political Identities in Arab Animation                                                        Omar Sayfo

26.         Breaking Barriers: The Emergence of a Videogame Culture and Industry

in the Arab World                                                                        Vít Šisler, Lars de Wildt, Samer Abbas

Part V Alternative, Independent and Social Media

27.         Taking revolution seriously: A keywords approach to Middle

East Studies                                                                                                                 Omar Al-Ghazzi

28.         Alternative and Citizen Journalism(s) in the Middle East: the Egyptian

Case in the Spotlight                                                                                                 Marianna Ghilglia

29.         A Revolution of Smiles? The Function of Humor in Algerian Media during the 2019-2020 Protests                                                                                                                             Ali Sonay

30.         Creating emotional echo-chambers: Activism and self-expression on                      

social media                                                                                                                Hande Eslen-Ziya

31.         Practice as Precedent: the Political Economy of the Digital Image in ME   Anthony Downey

32.         New Media Technologies and Politics in Iran                                                                    Mehdi Semati

33.         Branding jihadi proto-states: A comparative analysis of the governance communications

of the Islamic State and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham                    Charlie Winter and Haid Haid

34.         Beyond the Arab Uprisings:  Politics of Rap in the Middle East                     Stefano Barone

35.         Political Graffiti on the West Bank Wall in Israel / Palestine                           Mohamed Abdel Hamid

36.         LGBT Media in the Middle East and North Africa                                              Iman Al Ghafari

37.         Women’s movements in North Africa                                                                  Kenza Oumlil

38.         The Kurdish Media in the Middle East and Diaspora: alternative public

and participatory spaces for a non-state nation                                                Jiyar Aghapouri

39.         Arab-American Media                                                                                               Will Youmans

40.         Contemporary Arab Media and Cultural Landscape in Istanbul                    Franck Mermier

Part VI Perspectives

41.         Cultural Politics of the Diaspora                                                              Orit Yekutieli & Yigal Nizri

42.         Dialectics of Resistance, Youth in the Middle East                                                           Joe F. Khalil

43.         Borders                                                                                                                         Helga Tawil Souri

44.         Activism and Surveillance in the Middle East                                                                    Bilge Yesil

Appendix A: Major Middle East Media Companies

Appendix B: Middle East Media Milestones

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