MEDIA IN THE MIDDLE East

Reflection

Instructor: Professor Mohamed Zayani

Media in the Middle East covers a broad range of topics around the development of media and communication within the Arab World. There are two main goals which were definitely achieved through this class and sums up what we learned which is to “Understand how changes in information and communication technologies are affecting the region” and to “Understand the role media play in Middle Eastern culture and politics”. The class started off by discussing the history and development of communication technologies such as a radio and the television which had a huge impact on the Arab World and the identity of many individuals. The class also covered journalistic practices in the Middle East as well as how entertainment media has created new spaces for artists and social activists. The class mainly aimed to highlight how media and communication has transformed and developed to continually take up new roles within several communities.

The class consisted of a series of papers and examinations. For every paper, we had to do a 5 minute presentation on our topic and answer questions the class may have. The three papers for the class asked us to search about media transformations within the Middle East. The task allowed us to understand how one element such as VR has affected the Middle East and how it continues to transform our understanding of technology.

There were two topics I chose to highlight which are the Use of VPN in the Middle East and the Rise of Marketing through Social Media Influencers. This paper required me to use a new strategy which was a challenge because these trends are evolving. I could not rely only on academic articles and books, but had to also look at social media, blogs and newspaper articles. The Use of VPN is very prominent in the Middle East since the government blocks applications such as Skype. VPN also grew during the time of the blockade since many were worried that governments were monitoring their calls. In terms of marketing through social media influencers, I learned through my research is that companies are starting to abandon traditional forms of marketing and moving towards bloggers and specifically micro-bloggers with loyal followers. These two papers allowed me to study trends that see in my everyday life and probably affects people all over the Middle East.

Within the class, a portion of the class went to understanding journalism. An important question that was highlighted in the class is can we truly be objective and this was a heated discussion in class. One side was arguing that we can be objective if we only focus on the facts, while others argued that facts themselves are subjective. This was meant to highlight that we must be critical of what we read as there truly may be “two sides to the same coin”.

Class outcomes