Reframing Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa

A decade on from the Arab uprisings, debates continue to reiterate exceptionalist discourses about the region and its peoples which tend to deny individual agency. They also neglect long collective histories of mediated political cultures that have emerged within colonial and post-colonial structures and outside peripheries of formal power and politics. This book problematizes the relationship between politics and communication in the Middle East and North Africa region, paying attention to the diversity of communicative forms and political practices outside formal institutions and structures while remaining conscious of the power dynamics within institutional practices. Examining political communication in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Turkey,Tunisa and Iran, the book’s chapters challenge Western-centric theories and methodologies that dominate the broad field of political communication by reframing the discussions to include the politics of the marginal or the peripheral, the informal, and the grassroots.

Dina Matar is a Professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK. She is the Chair of the SOAS Centre of Palestine Studies. She is Series Editor of the series Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa, and SOAS Palestine Studies.