London School of Economics fellowship to result in publication on Arab youth media
Doha, Qatar – September 8, 2012 – Northwestern University in Qatar’s professor Joe Khalil has been awarded a visiting research fellowship at the prestigious London School of Economics, where he will be publishing his research on youth media in the Arab world.
Khalil, an Associate Professor in NU- Q’s Communication program, will be developing a research paper at LSE under the supervision of mentor Sonia Livingstone, former president of the International Communication Association and a world renowned expert on children, youth and media, as well as participating in research colloquia and dialogues. He began the project in London this summer and will be publishing his work in 2013.
Khalil’s research is part of the Media@LSE series and relates to his ongoing work on youth-generated media in the Arab world – a subject he has been researching and writing about since 2006. He says that “because youth are at the center on many contentious debates around the world, it is important to pay closer attention to their self-expressive artifacts such as tweets, graffiti or rap songs.”
Khalil’s focus on youth extends to teaching a course at NU-Q titled “Youth Cultures of the Middle East,” which has students examine how Arab youth use, value and negotiate meanings via case studies on social media, fashion, music, cinema and sports. The course is co-taught with Geoff Harkness, an assistant professor of sociology, and is part of NU-Q’s move to use team teaching as an educational tool.
Everette Dennis, dean and CEO of NU-Q, said the fellowship award “represents the growing recognition coming to our faculty—and allows for continued interaction with the world’s leading scholars.” He said Professor Khalil has a “growing international reputation for his research on the Arab media and media scene. Increasingly, leading thinkers the world over are looking to Khalil and other members of our faculty for the latest intelligence on communication in the Middle East and Arab world.”
Khalil has also recently started serving a two-year term as secretary for the Global Communication and Social Change division of the International Communication Association, an academic association for scholars of human and mediated communication. Khalil is associated with a division that encourages research on the production, distribution, content and reception of communications media at local, global and “glocal” levels.
These achievements mark a productive season of high-level research for Khalil, including ongoing industry research on Ramadan television programming and a study of transnational media governance and its importance in the emerging Arab media landscape. The former is part of a multi-year study in Beirut, Cairo and Dubai that assesses the change and continuity in programming as Arab television industries become increasingly integrated in global media practices.
While in London this summer to initiate his fellowship, Khalil was invited by the THINKlab at Suffolk University to share his research on the development of media cities across the Middle East. The presentation, which addressed a leading group of media professionals and academics, took place at the newly opened MediaCityUK in Manchester, UK.
