DOHA: How mobile media are changing the communication landscape in the Middle East is explored in a new book published under a research grant at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The book, Mobile Disruptions in the Middle East, co-authored by John V. Pavlik, Everette E. Dennis, Rachel Davis Mersey and Justin Gengler and published by Routledge, offers lessons from the Arabian Gulf, notably Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, and draws on data collected.
It was conducted as part of a $726,000 award from the Qatar National Research Fund.
Pavlik, a professor of journalism at Rutgers was formerly associate dean for research at NU-Q where Dennis is dean and CEO. Mersey is an associate professor at NU’s Medill School while Gengler is assistant research professor at the Social and Economic Survey Research Center at Qatar University.
As lead author Pavlik said, “The Gulf states are the perfect setting for a study that tests the impact of modern media disruption as the region rapidly adopts mobile media from laptops and smartphones to wearable devices.”
Qatar and the UAE have the highest internet penetration in the world with 99 percent of the population covered, according to the 2018 Global Digital report. Mobility, the NU-Q based study notes, “has long been an important aspect of life in the Middle East… [and] has a strong and deep sociological foundation in Qatar and Arabian Gulf with the movement of Bedouin tribes and their traditions shaping the lifestyle and values of the Gulf.”
This cultural and historical context for mobile communication, even before the digital age, set the stage for rapid development as these wealthy nations were able to engage with the internet and mobile devices early on, the book suggests. In addition to the Al Jazeera Networks and BeIn Sports, both based in Qatar, the UAE has a notable media city with scores of media companies and other digital enterprises.
Dennis notes that the study “benefits from the collaboration of scholars from four institutions and is aimed at analyzing the advanced media scene of the Gulf States with lessons for the global community. It has the advantage of connecting with the world-wide concern about media disruption in one of the most dynamic digital battlegrounds anywhere,” he said.
Commentators in the Middle East have long hoped that advanced communication in the region would lead to a more accurate and nuanced image of the Arab world than is presently seen in Western media and the book aims to break down communication flawed by inaccuracies and misunderstandings that distort the image of the region and its peoples.
As the book was a being written a four-nation blockade of Qatar set off an information war between the two states under study in the volume (UAE and Qatar) among others that challenges accurate and reliable information amid fake news and other deliberate distortions. Data for the book was collected before the blockade occurred in June 2017, though interviews with key sources continued after that.
The book looks at audience engagement with mobile media including internet use and such specific content as news—and how media organizations adapt and respond to mobile media while tracking trends in the development of innovative content aimed at attracting and serving individuals and audiences.
Set in the context of the convergence of modern, digital media, the authors address the role of disruption innovation and transformation changes based on results from the large-scale study of mobile media disruption conducted over three years by the authors.
