The advent of the internet and social media in the past thirty years has inspired first utopian and now dystopian visions of society’s future. Fantasies of liberation through universal access to information have twisted into fears of a post-truth society wracked by fake news. This seeming communication revolution is forcing us to rethink the relationship between communication, technology, and politics both historically and in contemporary society. Theoretical mainstays of the twentieth century, such as the concepts of the public sphere or propaganda, now seems antiquated and mismatched in this new media landscape.
EUME Berliner Seminar
Mi 26 Jun 2019 | 15:00–19:00
Mi 26 Jun 2019 | 15:00–19:00
The Politics of Communication Across the Mediterranean: From Manuscripts to the Internet
Workshop convened by Nir Shafir (University of California, San Diego / Irmgard Coninx Prize EUME Fellow 2018/19), and with Arthur Asseraf (University of Cambridge), Omar al-Ghazzi (London School of Economics and Political Science), and Heidi Tworek (University of British Columbia)
Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin
The Middle East as a region has likewise never fit neatly into traditional narratives of communication revolutions. For example, the persistent flourishing of manuscript culture, even until the early twentieth century, has continued to perturb social scientists who have tried to explain this supposed lack of modernity. Yet, what was seen as a “failure” in previous decades actually provides us with a novel perspective on communication and politics in the twenty-first century. For example, a new research on the extremely decentralized nature of book production in the manuscript culture of the Middle East aligns more closely with the decentralized dissemination of information in the internet age. The Middle East, in both historical and contemporary contexts, can actually take a central position in the formulation of new theoretical concepts and ideas about media, society, and politics.
This afternoon workshop brings together four scholars of media and society to have a roundtable discussion on what the history of the Middle East and Europe can tell us about the changes to the media landscape we are witnessing today. Are the changes we are seeing unprecedented? How have markets and the state structured the media? And what is the history and future of news?
Participants:
Arthur Asseraf is a Lecturer in History at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on the history of information, colonialism, rumor and race in North Africa and the Mediterranean. His first book, Electric News in Colonial Algeria, is out with Oxford University Press.
Omar Al-Ghazzi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Al-Ghazzi’s research expertise is in conflict reporting and representation, with a focus on digital media and collective memory in the Middle East and North Africa.
Nir Shafir is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. His research explores the intersection of technology, communication, and religion in the early modern Ottoman Empire. He is also part of the editorial team of the Ottoman History Podcast.
Heidi Tworek is Assistant Professor of International History at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Harvard University Press just published her book, News from Germany: The Competition to Control World Communications, 1900-1945. She is a co-editor of the Journal of Global History.
