Collection

Media, Technologies, Cooperation – Rethinking Publics and Publicness in the MENA Region

Submission status
Closed
Based on a conference held in December 2018 at the University of Siegen, we have invited colleagues to contribute their insights from case studies in the respective region to this special issue. These case studies include research on the establishment of a computer club in the High Atlas region of Morocco, with a focus on its application for learning purposes and broadening participation in the national public sphere; the situation and development of technology-based start-up companies in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories; reflections on decolonization, self-organized resource distribution and food supply in refugee camps in Syria; an approach for a Humanitarian Research Framework with refugees in war zones (Fisher, in this issue); and state restrictions and civil counter-strategies on Social Media use in Iran. Needless to say, this is neither a complete nor a representative compilation of studies from the addressed MENA region. Nevertheless, these studies represent a highly relevant sample of rich, long-term ethnographic studies in the Middle East and North Africa, capturing and depicting media use practices in different life situations in the region concerned. The editors hope that this issue will contribute to the body of knowledge on media use in the MENA region and, where appropriate, also provide evidence of creative, innovative and improvised media use in conflict regions.

Editors

  • Konstantin Aal Konstantin Aal , 

    Konstantin Aal

    Konstantin Aal studied Business Informatics at the University of Siegen, and is since 2012 an active employee at the department for Business Informatics and New Media of the University of Siegen. Earlier, he was an active student assistant at the come_IN project and wrote, in the mainframe of this project, his major dissertation about the social platform come_NET and its use by children. His focus points are actually the research of collapse prevention in elder people (iStoppFalls), as well as the use of social media during the Arabien Spring.

  • Nina Boulus-Rødje Nina Boulus-Rødje  &

    Nina Boulus-Rødje

    Associate Professor at the Department of People and Technology, Roskilde University, and Assistant Professor at the Department of Computer Science (DIKU), University of Copenhagen. Throughout my career, I have studied the design, implementation and use of various technologies as well as collaborative practices across several sectors and countries.

  • Markus Rohde Markus Rohde

    Markus Rohde

    Markus Rohde, PD Dr., is working as a research associate at the Institute for Information Systems and New Media at the University of Siegen, since 2008 as research manager for Community Informatics. His main research interests are human-computer interaction, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), expertise management and blended learning, virtual organizations, non-governmental organizations and (new) social movements.

Articles (7 in this collection)