Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World

Ahmed Al-Rawi

Description

Following the Arab Spring events in 2011, a number of important women's social movements, as well as female figures and online communities, emerged to create positive change and demand equality with men. In Women's Activism and New Media in the Arab World, Ahmed Al-Rawi discusses and maps out new feminist movements, organizations, and trends, assessing the influence of new media technologies on them and the impact of both on the values and culture of the Middle East. Due to the participation of many women in the events of the Arab Spring, he argues, a new image of Middle Eastern women has emerged in the West. As a result of social media, women have generally become more effective in expressing their views and better connected with each other, yet at the same time some women have been inhibited since many conservative circles use these new technologies to maintain their power. Overall, however, Al-Rawi argues that social media and new mobile technologies are assisting in creating changes that are predominately positive. Often assisted by these new technologies, the real change makers are women who have clear agencies and high hopes and aspirations to create a better future for themselves.
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments

1. Cultural Values, New Media Technologies, and Globalization

2. Influential Female Activists and Sociopolitical Change

3. Religious Activism and Online Communities

4. Political Activism and Social Movements

5. Social Activism and Civil Society

6. Cultural Activism and Anti-Violence Campaigns

Conclusion

Notes
Works Cited
Index

Sujets

• Science
• Médias sociaux
• Mathematics
• Media studies
• Social network service
• Social media

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438478678
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 14 Mo

Extrait

Women’s Activism and New Media in the Arab World
Women’s Activism and New Media in the Arab World
A HMED A L -R AWI
Cover painting by Alaa Al-Musalli
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2020 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Al-Rawi, Ahmed K., author.
Title: Women’s activism and new media in the Arab world / Ahmed Al-Rawi.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019036158 | ISBN 9781438478654 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438478678 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Feminism—Arab countries. | Women—Arab countries—Political activity. | Mass media and women—Arab countries. | Social movements—Arab countries.
Classification: LCC HQ1784 .A6734 2020 | DDC 305.420917/4927—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036158
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To my daughters, Wejd and Rend, with all my love. You’re my hope, life, and future!
Artist’s Statement
Alaa Al-Musalli
Scheherazade: The Powerful Storyteller
Legend has it that a king named Shahryar, a heartless man overwhelmed with wrath and hatred of women, began to wed virgins every night then had them beheaded the next day. Hundreds of young women lost their lives until he wed his minister’s daughter, Scheherazade, the well-read beauty who ended his deadly rampage. She captured Shahryar’s mind through cleverly interwoven stories that she would start just before bedtime and stop halfway just before the crack of dawn, with the promise to finish the next day. Many stories of beasts and kings of bygone times lasted 1,001 nights, until Shahryar’s mind and soul were completely taken by the powerful storyteller, whom he made his queen. This book cover is inspired by the Arabian Nights and is meant to show the patriarchal nature of most Middle Eastern societies, yet it also emphasizes women’s empowerment, for despite all adversaries and violence, women can and will find their right places and achieve equality.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1 Cultural Values, New Media Technologies, and Globalization
Chapter 2 Influential Female Activists and Sociopolitical Change
Chapter 3 Religious Activism and Online Communities
Chapter 4 Political Activism and Social Movements
Chapter 5 Social Activism and Civil Society
Chapter 6 Cultural Activism and Anti-Violence Campaigns
Conclusion
Notes
Works Cited
Index
Illustrations
Figures
3.1 Image from Facebook page “My Hijab is my Salvation.”
3.2 Facebook page profile of “Women of Heaven.”
3.3 Two images from “Niqabi yes, Complicated no!” Facebook page.
Tables
1.1 Internet and Facebook Use in the Arab World
2.1 Social Networking Sites Cited in the Chapter
3.1 Social Networking Sites Cited in the Chapter
4.1 Social Networking Sites Cited in the Chapter
5.1 Social Networking Sites Cited in the Chapter
6.1 Top Ten Most-Viewed and Commented-On Videos on Sexual Harassment
6.2 Social Networking Sites Cited in the Chapter
Preface
O ne of the main reasons I was encouraged to write this book was the gap in empirical research in this important field of study on women’s activism in the Arab world. More research is needed, as rapid changes continue to occur and new issues to emerge. The book is divided into six chapters. Drawing from a variety of sources, the first chapter provides an introductory account on the social and cultural status of Arab women and the nature of the prevalent cultural values that exist in the Arab world. It also offers an understanding on the changing beliefs and values that the Arab world is witnessing, partly due to the emergence of new media technologies influencing the lives of people in different ways. I argue that technology is useful in creating change, yet women’s agency remains paramount in achieving equality and social justice amidst the many social and political forces that resist such change. The first chapter concludes with a methodology section that explains the different approaches followed. In general, the book draws its materials from raw data collected from many social media outlets—among them Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube—and a variety of social science computational methods are applied to analyze the data. Later, proper contextualization and relevant theoretical frameworks are provided to assist in interpreting the data.
The second chapter deals with a number of leading female activists in the Arab world and how they strive to create sociopolitical change in such various aspects as sexual literacy, ethnic and racial equality, freedom, and human rights.
Each subsequent chapter deals with a particular form of women’s activism—religious, political, social, or cultural—and how it is aided by new media technologies and manifested through popular online mobilization and awareness campaigns. Each chapter presents important case studies that are empirically investigated to illustrate the complexities and challenges of women’s activism in the Arab world. I end the book with a short conclusion that sums up the main findings, predicts the future trajectories of women’s activism and the role of new technologies in the region, references the limitations of the study, and recommends possible future research.
Acknowledgments
T his book’s genesis can be traced back to when I was teaching an undergraduate course entitled “Media and Cultural Context” (COMS367) from 2015 to 2018 in the Communication Studies Department of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada. The course included lectures on women’s equality, social movements, and rights from around the world, and my classes consisted of hundreds of enthusiastic, passionate, and active students from diverse backgrounds. I believe writing this book would have been impossible without the rich discussions and debates I enjoyed in this course. I would like to thank all of my students for inspiring me.
I would also like to thank many people who have directly and indirectly encouraged me to pursue this research project, especially my wife, Alaa Al-Musalli, for her generosity and making everything magically possible, and my mother, Nawal Namuq, from whose life and struggles I learned many lessons that have helped me along the way. I also wish to thank my two daughters, Wejd and Rend, to whom I dedicate this book. I am eager to see in the future how my daughters, who have lived most of their lives outside the Arab world, relate to the many causes, issues, and concerns of women in the Arab world. I have personally witnessed the injustice, mistreatment, and harassment that women in the Arab world, and elsewhere, continuously experience, which has been another motivating factor for writing this book.
I would additionally like to thank the NGO leaders and managers, especially Dareen Hasan, Roula El Masri, and Thuraya Rufaat, who generously responded to my inquiries and answered my questions about their important feminist activities. Many colleagues, friends, and students have been supportive of this project in particular and/or my research and career in general, including the following from Concordia University: Yasmin Jiwani, Stephen Monteiro, Brian Gabrial, Elizabeth Miller, Brian Lewis, and Charles Acland. I also thank Maha Tazi, Taghrid Alhowish, and Aranzazu Gutierrez for the interesting discussions on feminism, women’s issues, and social movements that I had with them. I thank Karim Karim (Carleton University), Oumar Kane (UQAM), Jeroen Jansz (Erasmus University), Jacob Groshek (Boston University), Amin Saikal (National University of Australia), Cecile Rousseau (McGill University), and Tareq Ismael (University of Calgary) for their general support through the years. Further, I wish to sincerely thank the staff at SUNY Press, particularly senior production editor Diane Ganeles and senior acquisitions editor Dr. Michael Rinella, who has shown continuous support from the beginning. Thank you, Michael, for the numerous positive responses to my endless inquiries and emails, and for your great patience and understanding. I also thank the copy editor of my manuscript, John Wentworth, for the thorough, detailed, and insightful feedback and revisions made.
Finally, I want to acknowledge that some of the content of Chapter 4 on women’s movements and social media was previously published in a paper that appeared in Information, Communication Society in 2014.
Chapter 1
Cultural Values, New Media Technologies, and Globalization
E ach chapter in this book delves into a different aspect of contemporary social media, highlighting its affordances and the ways in which women from diverse backgrounds have managed to use these new technologies to empower themselves. As ample ethnographic literature is available on the cultural and social aspects of women living in the MENA region, this book focuses instead on mapping new media outlets and their roles in changing the lives of women. I argue here that new technologies are assisting in creating predominately positive change, though sometimes negative consequences appear as wel