Digital Islam

The Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research released its new issue (Vol. 8, Issue 3, 2015), edited by Noureddine Miladi from the Qatar University. The issue focuses on media representations of conflicts, portrayals of social groups, and social networks advertising.

-mz-, 24 Jan 2016

New Book: Headlines from the Holy Land: Reporting the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Based on new archive research and original interviews with leading correspondents and diplomats, the book explains why this fiercely contested region exerts such a pull over reporters: those who bring the story to the world. Despite decades of diplomacy, a just and lasting end to the conflict remains as difficult as ever to achieve. Inspired by the author's own experience as the BBC's correspondent in Gaza from 2002-2004, and subsequent research, this book draws on the insight of those who have spent years observing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Starting from a historical perspective, it identifies the challenges the conflict presents for contemporary journalism and diplomacy, and suggests new ways of approaching them.

-mz-, 30 Sep 2015

New Book: Surviving Images: Cinema, War, and Cultural Memory in the Middle East

The book explores the prominent role of cinema in the development of cultural memory around war and conflict in colonial and postcolonial contexts. It does so through a study of three historical eras: the colonial period, the national-independence struggle, and the postcolonial. Beginning with a study of British colonial cinema on the Sudan, then exploring anti-colonial cinema in Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, followed by case studies of films emerging from postcolonial contexts in Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, and Israel, this work aims to fill a gap in the critical literature on both Middle Eastern cinemas, and to contribute more broadly to scholarship on social trauma and cultural memory in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

-mz-, 14 May 2015

New Book: Visual Occupations: Violence and Visibility in a Conflict Zone

The book shows how the Israeli Occupation of Palestine is driven by the unequal access to visual rights, or the right to control what can be seen, how, and from which position. Israel maintains this unequal balance by erasing the history and denying the existence of Palestinians, and by carefully concealing its own militarization. Israeli surveillance of Palestinians, combined with the militarized gaze of Israeli soldiers at places like roadside checkpoints, also serve as tools of dominance. Hochberg analyzes various works by Palestinian and Israeli artists, among them Elia Suleiman, Rula Halawani, Sharif Waked, Ari Folman, and Larry Abramson, whose films, art, and photography challenge the inequity of visual rights by altering, queering, and manipulating dominant modes of representing the conflict.

-mz-, 12 May 2015

New Book: Digital Militarism: Israel's Occupation in the Social Media Age

This book traces the rise of Israeli digital militarism in the global context—both the reach of social media into Israeli military theaters and the occupation's impact on everyday Israeli social media culture.

-mz-, 1 Apr 2015

Book: Arab Cultural Studies: History, Politics and the Popular

This book seeks to both showcase and further develop innovative research and debates on contemporary Arab cultural production. Popular culture in the form of cinema, popular music, literature, visual media and cyber-cultures, both local and imported, enjoy a central role in Arab cultural life, and the contributors to this innovative collection showcase the tremendous cultural output emerging from the Arab world. They present sensitive, conceptual readings whilst remaining mindful of the place of this work within a wider framework that seeks to prevent isolationist readings of cultural phenomena. Making sense of the place of culture in the Arab world, and agreeing upon a broadly recognisable and commonly accepted set of terms within which to discuss this output, is a new and urgent challenge.

-mz-, 22 Dec 2014

New Book: Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses

The book is concerned with conceptions of language, knowledge, and thought about political conflict in the Middle East in two national news media communities: the United States and the United Kingdom. Arguing for the existence of national perspectives which are constructed, distributed, and reinforced in the print news media, this study provides a detailed linguistic analysis of print news media coverage of four recent events in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in order to examine ideological patterns present in print news media coverage. The two news communities are compared for lexical choices in news stories about the conflict, attribution of agency in the discussion of conflict events, the inclusion or exclusion of historical context in explanations of the conflict, and reliance upon essentialist elements during and within print representations of Palestine-Israel.

-mz-, 3 Nov 2014

Alhabash, S. and Wise, K., PeaceMaker: Changing American college students’ attitudes toward Palestinians and Israelis through video game play. International Journal of Communication 6 abstract PDF

Alhabash, S. and Wise, K., Playing their game: Changing evaluations of Palestinians and Israelis through video game play. New Media and Society March 2, 2014 abstract full text

Book: Ethnic Minorities and Media in the Holy Land

This anthology comprises selected studies about minorities and the media in Israel. The book's articles are written by key Israeli minority studies and media scholars, with special emphasis on those who are themselves part of minority groups. Based on an innovative paradigm that differentiates between media for minorities and media by minorities, the book contains important insights for understanding the place and roles of the minority media in other national contexts.

-mz-, 23 May 2014