Marwan M. Kraidy

A Times Higher Education Book of the YearUprisings spread like wildfire across the Arab world from 2010 to 2012, fueled by a desire for popular sovereignty. In Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and elsewhere, protesters flooded the streets and the media, voicing dissent through slogans, graffiti, puppetry, videos, and satire that called for the overthrow of dictators and the regimes that sustained them. Investigating what drives people to risk everything to express themselves in rebellious art, The Naked Blogger of Cairo uncovers the creative insurgency at the heart of the Arab uprisings. “A deep dive into the cultural politics of the Arab uprisings…Kraidy’s sharp insights and rich descriptions of a new Arab generation’s irrepressible creative urges will amply reward the effort. Reading Kraidy’s accounts of the politically charted cultural gambits of wired Arab youth rekindles some of the seemingly lost spirit of the early days of the Arab uprisings and offers hope for the future.”—Marc Lynch, Washington Post“The Naked Blogger of Cairo is a superb and important work not just for scholars but for anyone who cares about the relationships between art, the body, and revolution.”—Hans Rollman, PopMatters

Global Media Studies is unique in its coverage of places, peoples, institutions, and discourses. Toby Miller and Marwan M. Kraidy provide a comprehensive ?how-to? guide to the study of media, going far beyond the established English-language literature and drawing on the best methods and research from around the world. They look at political economy, global policymaking and governance, and the past and present manifestations of cultural imperialism. In addition to providing a survey of the field, the book introduces a new form of textual analysis, with a special focus on reality television, as well as models of audience research. The authors include original analyses of the US, European, Latin American, and Arab worlds, and case studies of mobile telephony, the impact of US media, and reality television. This original and uniquely global textbook will be an essential resource for students of global media and international communication.

Global Media Studies is unique in its coverage of places, peoples, institutions, and discourses. Toby Miller and Marwan M. Kraidy provide a comprehensive ?how-to? guide to the study of media, going far beyond the established English-language literature and drawing on the best methods and research from around the world. They look at political economy, global policymaking and governance, and the past and present manifestations of cultural imperialism. In addition to providing a survey of the field, the book introduces a new form of textual analysis, with a special focus on reality television, as well as models of audience research. The authors include original analyses of the US, European, Latin American, and Arab worlds, and case studies of mobile telephony, the impact of US media, and reality television. This original and uniquely global textbook will be an essential resource for students of global media and international communication.

In recent years, Arab television has undergone a dramatic and profound transformation from terrestrial, government-owned, national channels to satellite, privately owned, transnational networks. The latter is the Arab television that matters today, economically, socially and politically. The resulting pan-Arab industry is vibrant, diverse, and fluid - very different, the authors of this major new study argue, from the prevailing view in the West, which focuses only on the al-Jazeera network. Based on a wealth of primary Arabic language sources, interviews with Arab television executives, and the authors' personal and professional experience with the industry, Arab Television Industries tells the story of that transformation, featuring compelling portraits of major players and institutions, and captures dominant trends in the industry. Readers learn how the transformation of Arab television came to be, the different kinds of channels, how programs are made and promoted, and how they are regulated. Throughout, the analysis focuses on the interaction of the television industry with Arab politics, business, societies and cultures.

What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic 'Arab Street' and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.

What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic 'Arab Street' and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.