The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South (#IAS_NUQ) hosted Northwestern Qatar Professor Yasmeen Mekawy and Noureddine Miladi, professor of Media and Communication at Sultan Qaboos University, as part of its spring 2024 Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) Virtual Seminar Series.
Remembering the Midan: Nostalgia & Propaganda in Egyptian Media and Pop Culture
Yasmeen Mekawy
Yasmeen Mekawy, assistant professor in residence in the Liberal Arts program at Northwestern University in Qatar, was the inaugural speaker of the #IAS_NUQ AIMS Virtual Seminar Series for spring 2024. The seminar, titled "Remembering the Midan: Nostalgia & Propaganda in Egyptian Media and Pop Culture," explored the various affective ranges and nostalgic discourses through which the 2011 Egyptian revolution is portrayed in state and revolutionary media.
Mekawy analyzed the utopic, hopeful, mournful, disenchanted, and dystopic sentiments in post-2011 Egyptian media and posed compelling questions surrounding collective memory, nostalgic recollections, and the revival of contentious discourses, debates, interpretations, and imaginaries of the uprisings in Egypt.
Mekawy centered her argument around the concept of nostalgic memory—a longing for the collective effervescence and euphoria experienced during the revolutionary moments in Tahrir Square. She argued that nostalgic memory practices are ambivalent in political affect and effect; they can evoke hope and despair, pleasure and pain, or mobilization and demobilization. She highlighted that despite attempts made by the Sisi Regime to suppress, erase, and revise memories of the revolution, expressions of nostalgia persist, serving as a potent means of preserving the positive valence of memory amidst political defeat and erasure. She elucidated how generational and class cleavages contribute to the ambiguity surrounding nostalgia, ultimately shaping the circulation of counter-hegemonic discourse within Egyptian society.
In her conclusion, Mekawy underscored the role of social media as a contested terrain for negotiating collective memory and challenging state-sanctioned narratives. She argued that despite its susceptibility to manipulation and polarization, social media continues to serve as a vital arena for the popular contestation of historical narratives and the renegotiation of the meanings and boundaries associated with revolution.
Supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project at #IAS_NUQ is developing the field of critical media and information studies in the Arab region, transforming it into a more interdisciplinary, multilingual, collaborative, research-oriented, and policy-relevant field.
Digital Media and the War of Narratives in Reporting the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Noureddine Miladi
Noureddine Miladi, professor of Media and Communication at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, was the speaker for the second installment of the #IAS_NUQ AIMS Virtual Seminar Series for spring 2024. In his seminar, "Digital Media and the War of Narratives in Reporting the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict," Miladi presented valuable insights into the contested global media narratives in the coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Drawing from the empirical work of his recent book Global Media Coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2023), Miladi underscored the pivotal role and influence of global narratives in shaping public perceptions. He argued that there are striking similarities in the construction of media narratives and recurrent patterns in the media portrayals of the Palestinian-Israeli conflicts.
A focal point of Miladi's discussion was the importance of contextual understanding, particularly illustrated through the events of Sheikh Jarrah. Miladi meticulously dissected how Western, Israeli, and Arab media outlets portray the conflict, emphasizing the influence of media framing—what he aptly termed "the language of the news." He underscored the imbalance in media coverage, noting the heavy reliance of Western media on Israeli government sources and the limited operational presence in Palestinian territories, especially Gaza. Miladi concluded by stressing the significance of virtual platforms as the new space where war narratives are reported and challenged at the same time.
Miladi’s research posits a significant contribution to the vast literature on media narratives. His conceptualization of the ‘war of narratives’ serves as a reminder of the power of language, symbolism, and narrative construction in shaping political perceptions, as well as a challenge to prevailing Western narratives and media discourses surrounding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project at #IAS_NUQ is developing the field of critical media and information studies in the Arab region, transforming it into a more interdisciplinary, multilingual, collaborative, research-oriented, and policy-relevant field.
