Digital Forays in Middle Eastern Studies // A year-long series 2020-2021:
This year long series starts from a simple premise: What does it look like to think, engage, and do research in this digital age? This is not a call for researchers to simply produce digital outputs – but we live in an ever increasingly digital world. In order to better activate our scholarship, and to grasp the terrain in which our research questions unfold, we must reimagine our methods, modes of collaboration, and how to participate in a quickly changing digital landscape. See full series overview
Many dynamic “alternative” news portals & collaboratives have developed during/since the Arab Spring. How do they spread information and create publics beyond the traditional news cycle? Most often this happens through websites, social media and by creating dynamic content across various digital entanglements. Yet how do they mobilize their messages across different platforms specifically? Why one platform over another? For instance, why Instagram videos vs Tweets / Youtube channels versus Facebook – how might we understand the logic and practice of creating media, public, and engagement through their various digital practices – and how are these embedded in a larger media landscape where “traditional” media are often connected with the state. This week questions the role of the app/medium/phone in how these organizations reach, disseminate, and engage digitally with their (counter)publics.
Join the Kevorkian Center with Josette Khalil (MEGAPHONE), Gürkan Özturan (Dokuz8 Haber), Lina Attalah (Mada Masr) and discussant Bilge Yeşil on September 24, 2020, at 12:30 pm (EST) to think through these questions and discuss together issues of digital platforms and publics. To register please follow the link here or copy and paste the link to your browser: bit.ly/NYUKevoDF924
In order to prepare for this event, we recommend that you read/explore the following resources provided by the panelists & Kevorkian Staff.
– Northwestern University in Qatar – MEDIA USE IN THE MIDDLE EAST, 2019 (Platform)
– Alexei Abrahams, Regional Authoritarians Target the Twittersphere (MERIP, 2019)
– Tinius Talks, The search for media freedom in Turkey
Lina Attalah is an Egyptian media figure and journalist. She is co-founder and chief editor of Mada Masr, an independent online Egyptian newspaper and was previously managing editor of the Egypt Independent prior to its print edition closure in 2013. She is active in the fight against the restriction of honest journalism.
Josette Khalil leads the product development and R&D effort at Megaphone, a social media native news platform covering Lebanese politics. With a 10-year experience in design and design entrepreneurship, she specializes within the Megaphone team in user engagement and media design. In addition to being on the editorial board, her day-to-day involves analyzing audience engagement with the published material, story-editing of videos, and content optimization. Josette’s personal research and art practice revolves around the intersection of subjectivity, agency, and history with technology and more specifically social media.
Gürkan Özturan is the executive manager of rights-focused independent citizen journalism platform dokuz8news. He was trained in the field of European Studies as a researcher on radicalization during his two masters degrees at Centre International de Formation Europeenne and Istanbul Bilgi University. Mr. Özturan now works as a journalist and executive manager at dokuz8NEWS and from time to time appears on international media as a commentator on Turkey. Previously he contributed to several publications in Turkey and Europe, writing on digital rights & liberties, commenting on populist movements and increasing radicalization & polarization. He has served as a board member for various anti-racism and human rights NGOs and social movements, currently, he is a board member for Turkey-European Foundation and Media Research Association. Özturan is a registered member of the Journalists Union of Turkey and the International Federation of Journalists.
Discussant: Bilge Yeşil is an Associate Professor of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island (CUNY) and Doctoral Faculty of Middle Eastern Studies at The Graduate Center. Yesil’s research interest is in global media and communication with a particular focus on Turkey and the Middle East, global internet policies, online surveillance and censorship. Her book, Media in New Turkey: The Origins of an Authoritarian Neoliberal State (University of Illinois Press, 2016) examines Turkey’s media system as the byproduct of the tensions between longstanding authoritarian state forms and the country’s experiences with globalization in the post-1980 era.
Accommodation requests related to a disability should be sent to kevorkian.center@nyu.edu by September 17, 2020. A good-faith effort will be made to fulfill requests. A captioned version of this presentation will also be made available within a month to our Youtube page.
Also, be advised that this Zoom event will be recorded and made available after the event on our Youtube page.
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