Back
| Semester | spring semester 2019 |
| Course frequency | Once only |
| Lecturers | Ali Sonay (ali.sonay@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | This seminar explores the role played by the media during and after the revolutionary upheavals which spread across the Middle East and Nord Africa (MENA region) and beyond following the fall of Ben Ali in Tunisia in January 2011. As regimes across the region tottered, a powerful narrative emerged which ascribed an enabling and activating role to digital and particularly social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This seminar starts from an alternative perspective, which restores agency to the activists and explores the creation of synergies between ‘old’ and ‘new’; ‘citizen’, ‘private’ and ‘state’ media that shaped the unfolding revolutions. This approach will illuminate the media trajectory starting short before the uprisings up until today. The seminar is divided in three thematic parts. The first explores historical and theoretical perspectives on the region`s modern media environment, looking at legal and economic frameworks and the overall relationship to political power. Secondly, we will discuss the medias and their function during the 2011 upheavals. Finally, we will examine the governments’ media strategies to counter these new dynamics and reassert authority after the popular uprisings. Case studies include Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Bahrain, and Turkey. |
| Learning objectives | Students will • become familiar with the media structures in the MENA region and their theorizations. • learn to contextualize the different functions of media used by activists since 2011. • be able to follow the strategies states in the region have started employing since the 2011 events. |
| Bibliography | The literature will be announced during the seminar and made available on ADAM. |
| Admission requirements | The number of participants is limited to 30 students. The places are assigned according to the date of enrollment. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|
No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
| Modules |
Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften B.A. (Bachelor's degree subject: Political Science) Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften M.A. (Master's degree subject: Political Science) Modul: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Media and Imagination (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Politik und Geschichte der Region (Neuzeit und Gegenwart) (Master's degree subject: Near & Middle Eastern Studies) Modul: Ungleichheit, Konflikt, Kultur (Master's degree subject: Sociology) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | Students will write a Seminararbeit which will be marked with Pass or Fail |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | no repetition |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Nahost-Studien |