Migrant minorities make up a significant part of Qatar’s population, yet their media consumption and the media landscape targeting these minorities are underexplored in the literature. Guided by the Uses and Gratifications Approach, this study investigates the media consumption habits of migrant minorities in the State of Qatar. This study employs a quantitative approach, utilizing survey design as a primary data collection instrument. Drawing on a large sample size of migrant minorities residing in Qatar, across various educational, occupational and demographic backgrounds, this study explored the extent to which these migrant minorities depend on home-country and host-country media sources for information and entertainment purposes as well as the gratifications satisfied in this regard. Results suggest that a significant percentage of the migrant minorities primarily depended on home-country media as key sources of information, education and entertainment. A significant association was observed between social media gratification and the perceived importance of home-country social media platforms in strengthening national identity among minority groups. Dissatisfaction with the local media, perceptions of difficult integration, and feelings of the absence of programmes directed at the migrant minorities are likely to be associated with the inclination to adopt social media platforms. This is to compensate for the host society’s barriers. Furthermore, this study identified several factors that predict the perceived importance of home-country social media in strengthening national identity. These factors include Discussion with like-minded individuals, voluntary social withdrawal from the host society, dissatisfaction with the host-country media and the use of social media platforms.
This study on minority media employs a quantitative methodology encompassing a sample of migrant communities in Kuwait to explore their uses, consumption patterns, gratifications and the cultural spaces through which identities are mediated and potentially recreated. Fieldwork data was collected through a survey questionnaire between October 2024 and February 2025. The study capitalizes on the social identity theory (SIT), which posits that part of what constitutes people’s perceptions about themselves, and others results from the social groupings they belong to and interact with. SIT also helps explain how identities may be shaped and reinforced through selective media consumption patterns. The research considers the construction of cultural identity and ethnicity expressions and draws on the conception of ethnicity and ‘imagined communities’ from Stuart Hall and Benedict Anderson to explore ethnicity as a dynamic and negotiated process shaped through acculturation and migration. This study responds to the lack of research addressing this phenomenon as well as concerns about limited or negative portrayals of immigrants in the host societies. Findings indicate that the rise of digital platforms has enabled minority media in Kuwait to expand, and that platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube and satellite TV have become instrumental compensatory media spheres enabling communities to connect, communicate and preserve heritage otherwise absent in mainstream Kuwaiti media.
This article investigates how minority and expatriate communities in Kuwait engage with both traditional and digital media to construct their identity, negotiate belonging and claim visibility within a context shaped by demographic imbalance and state regulation. Guided by Stuart Hall’s theory of representation and Nancy Fraser’s concept of subaltern counterpublics, the study adopts a qualitative design integrating semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with media professionals, professors, students and domestic workers. Through a thematic analysis method, five interrelated clusters emerged, indicating intersecting processes of representation, media use, digital participation, belonging and institutional negotiation. The findings show that while mainstream media often marginalize minority voices, ethnic-language broadcasting and digital platforms provide parallel arenas for recognition, solidarity and mediated participation. These spaces enable minorities to reinterpret national narratives and articulate aspirations for inclusion and parity of participation within Kuwait’s evolving public sphere. The study contributes to global debates on media pluralism by extending theories of representation and counterpublics to the Gulf context, illustrating how marginalized communities mobilize media practices as tools of visibility, resilience and agency.
This research examined how Al-Jazeera English (AJE), CNN and Fox News framed pro-Palestine protests on US college campuses from 7 October 2023 to 7 October 2024. The study assesses whether coverage reproduced the protest paradigm by delegitimizing protests through reliance on official sources, negative frames and a predominantly negative tone, or challenged it. The quantitative content analysis of 170 news articles (AJE = 51; CNN = 56; Fox News = 63) coded ten framing categories, source types and overall tone. Findings show systematic, statistically significant divergence among outlets. Across the sample, negative frames were most prevalent while legitimizing frames were least common. CNN and Fox News converged in their reliance on officials and overwhelmingly negative portrayals, while AJE diverged by foregrounding protesters and contextualizing protest demands. AJE most frequently legitimized and humanized the protests, yielding a predominantly positive tone. Fox News consistently framed the movement as antisemitic and as a spectacle and relied almost exclusively on officials. It also portrayed protests negatively in nearly all cases. CNN offered limited balance but leaned negative overall, with comparatively sparse contextualization. The two US networks largely adhered to the protest paradigm, while AJE offered a counter-narrative that humanized protesters and supplied interpretive context. Overall, the study contributes evidence to comparative research on protest coverage and media framing of Israel–Palestine.
This study examines how Malay Muslim adolescents in Malaysia perceive, encounter and regulate exposure to online sexual content within a highly connected yet morally regulated media ecology. Drawing on four mixed-gender focus group discussions with fifteen participants aged 14–18, we use a framework-guided thematic analysis to trace the mechanisms of encounter and the sequences of response. First exposure was frequently inadvertent and platform-mediated, surfacing via autoplay, recommendations, pop-ups or peer forwards on personal smartphones. Adolescents reported rapid, layered responses marked by strong emotions (shock, embarrassment, guilt, anxiety, curiosity) and strategy bundles that combined technical (close/switch app, block/report, filtering), social (avoidance, selective disclosure, peer advice) and spiritual tactics (prayer, repentance, engagement with religious media). Gendered patterns still emerged within mixed groups. Boys more often narrated curiosity in peer context, whereas girls emphasized avoidance and reputational risk. With malu (‘shame’) operating as a double-edged regulator and protective of abstinence, it is also silencing disclosure. Group composition occasionally dampened personal disclosure, but scenario-based prompts and ground rules enabled mechanism-rich talk without self-incrimination. We advance Faith-Sensitive Porn Literacy (FSPL) as the study’s conceptual contribution. FSPL integrates (1) Digital Childhood and Policy (socio-technical affordances and Malaysian regulatory norms), (2) Porn Literacy and Moral Regulation (negotiated repertoires across technical, social and spiritual domains) and (3) Malay–Islamic moral emotions to explain how adolescents rebuild agency after exposure. The model reframes spiritual practices as legitimate literacy resources that co-occur with technical tactics. It positions parents and teachers as co-regulators when school–home messaging is neutral, harm-reduction oriented and respectful of belief. The article discusses the implications for policy, education and parental engagement. It also drafts the need for digital literacy initiatives that are both developmentally appropriate and culturally grounded to safeguard youth well-being in South East Asia and beyond.
This article examines how Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef negotiates hybrid identity and political belonging through satire in the Israel–Gaza war context. Youssef’s recent media appearances, especially his viral interviews and stand-up performances, reveal the tension of ‘speaking in tongues’ – shifting between Arab, western, diasporic and digital registers to address diverse audiences. Through a qualitative discourse analysis of televised interviews, online clips and audience reception, the study examines how Youssef employs irony, parody and double-voicing to challenge dominant narratives of the war while navigating the constraints of mainstream western platforms. Findings show that Youssef’s satire performs hybridity in three keyways: by rearticulating Arab diasporic identity through comedy, by transforming the aesthetics of political critique into a transnational spectacle and by exposing the ambivalence of Arab subjectivity in western media circuits. His performances simultaneously empower and constrain – amplifying marginalized voices while being refracted through orientalist frames that risk trivializing Palestinian suffering. This article contributes to scholarship on Arab and Muslim media by conceptualizing the hybrid influencer as a new agent of conflict communication whose identity performance embodies both resistance and compromise. It also extends debates on satire as a political intervention, showing how laughter becomes a contested means of resistance in a mediatized war.
Minority migration is an essential component in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, and Qatar is a particularly vivid case, where large segments of the population are non-nationals, mainly coming from South and South East Asia, Africa and the wider Arab World. This diverse demographic composition produces a multilingual and multicultural environment, where these migrants seek from the media to meet various needs. As such, this study explores how migrant minorities in Qatar engage with a blended media ecology that spans home- and host-country media consumption. The study also examines how media use shapes perceived cultural diversity and sense of belonging, as well as mitigates feelings of homesickness. Drawing on the notions of social identity theory, this study employed a qualitative approach, with focus group discussions as the data collection instrument. The findings of this study revealed that migrant minorities interviewed are exposed to traditional and digital media locally and transnationally and have used these outlets for instrumental (such as news, information-seeking and communication) and emotional (belonging, bonding and mood regulation) purposes. In particular, the respondents felt that these outlets shape perceptions of cultural diversity and social integration, and that they reinforced their sense of belonging, which, in turn, significantly contributed to mitigating feelings of homesickness. This study has contributed to the migration and media use in the GCC context.
This article discusses digital media practices of the non-Arab migrants in the United Arab Emirates using a survey questionnaire covering 323 responses. It describes their platform preferences, primary motivations and engagement in online groups, while testing theoretically driven hypotheses derived from the uses and gratifications approach, the technology appropriation framework and digital diaspora studies. Descriptively, home-country media are still important (TV, radio, press), but social media are widely used for communication with family and friends, following news from home-country, and entertainment. WhatsApp, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram are the most used, with Instagram reported as the most prominent platform among respondents. Inferentially, significant associations were observed between platform use and perceived importance of social media groups for identity, media purposes and home-country media consumption and differences in use across levels of education. Positive correlations were also found between information, education and entertainment uses. Overall, the findings contribute to UAE-specific scholarship and illustrate how migrants negotiate identity in a highly regulated media system.
This article discusses the development and meaning of local media initiated by the diaspora in the Gulf regions with reference to expatriate radio and media programmes meant to serve the communities in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Anchored in a context of marked demographic disproportion, in which expatriates are either the largest or a high percentage of the population, these states have experienced the slow emergence of minority-language media to represent the South Asian and south-east Asian migrant populations, among others. The article develops an analytical population–technology–policy framework explaining the reasons and timing of such media projects, as they develop and thrive. It claims that diaspora media can only be possible when three factors converge: that there is a large and stable population of expatriates that provides a demand; that it is facilitated by enabling communication technology especially FM broadcasting and digital platforms; and that it is permitted, licensed and regulated by the political boundaries of minority media. Relying on the theories of diaspora media, community media scholarship and hybridity, the article places the Gulf-based expatriate media in the wider context of discussion about transnational publics, cultural identity and belonging in the context of limited political participation. It is historically based on the empirical analysis of the history of expatriate radio in the UAE since the 1990s, the post-2017 community radio expansion in Qatar and the recent licensing of foreign-language stations in Saudi Arabia as part of reforms under the Vision 2030. Such media, as revealed by the analysis, have limited freedom in their operations due to censorship and self-control measures, but they contribute to cultural continuity, socialization and fulfilment of everyday and digital citizenship. The article concludes that the diaspora media in the gulf acts not so much as platforms of political contestation but as negotiated spaces of belonging, which negotiates identity, inclusion and visibility as tightly controlled media spaces.
Media literacy is a crucial prerequisite for citizens to realize their human rights and to access, comprehend, analyse and produce media content. It has advanced from being one-dimensional to becoming dynamic and interactive due to digital platforms and practices. Recently, this ecosystem has been further disrupted by artificial intelligence (AI) and related technologies such as big data, the cloud, the internet of things (IoT) and mobile connectivity. AI has become a major factor shaping many aspects of life, transforming the way people live and work. In this context, digital media literacy (DML) is increasingly essential in the workplace and beyond. AI functions as both an aid and a challenge, from personalized content recommendations to automated fact-checking. Thus, DML emerges as a critical thinking ability that helps individuals systematically examine AI-generated data and understand how media messages are constructed and intended. On the one hand, DML equips individuals with the skills to critically engage with AI-driven devices and content. On the other hand, the level of AI comprehension and adoption largely determines the success of DML initiatives. This study explores the interplay between DML and AI by focusing on how users perceive the importance of teaching DML in the AI era. It examines the impact of AI on DML practices and highlights students’ expectations for its integration into formal education, particularly higher education. Using a self-reported questionnaire administered to 378 Moroccan media and technology users, including university students, the study provides insight into current attitudes and needs. The findings reveal a strong positive attitude towards the importance of DML in the age of AI. As AI technologies gain prominence, participants emphasized the need for digital literacy to ensure rational, ethical and responsible use. A significant majority supported integrating DML into school and university curricula to better prepare learners for the challenges and opportunities posed by AI.
This study investigates how WhatsApp/WA-mediated da'wah shapes trust, religious authority and communal identity within Indonesia's urban hijrah movement, particularly among Salafi-influenced youth networks. Drawing on digital ethnography, and support by in-depth interview, of the Kopdar Masjid BDG Raya WA Group and guided by computer-mediated communication (CMC), media ecology and Islamic activism theory, the research reveals how online religious interaction is structured around peer-led trust, symbolic authority and affective participation. Findings show that WhatsApp functions not merely as a dissemination tool but as a symbolic environment where religious identity is continuously negotiated through daily messages, thematic da'wah and shared rituals. Authority is cultivated less through formal credentials than through interactive consistency, tawadhu' ('humility') and ikhlas ('sincerity'), a key marker of ethical credibility in Islamic communication ethics. Serialized da'wah content, ranging from voice notes to curated sermons, enables horizontal engagement, with moderators and members co-producing theological meaning. The study finds that Salafi doctrines are localized through youth-led leadership, where values like modesty, ritual precision and moral vigilance are reinforced in daily chat interactions. These peer-driven exchanges shape an alternative public sphere where young Muslims renegotiate orthodoxy, social piety and digital belonging. This article contributes to scholarship on Islamic authority, social media and digital religion by demonstrating how mobile platforms facilitate both theological transmission and grassroots activism. It underscores the roles of affective labour, participatory structure and cultural adaptation in sustaining digital religious communities.
This study explores the extent to which young people (aged 17-25) in the Arab world understand and use media critically. Using a mixed-methods approach, it analyses both quantitative survey data and qualitative focus group discussions. The survey, available in Arabic and English, was conducted across universities in the region, yielding 1255 valid responses. Additionally, ten focus groups were held in seven Arab countries, with more than 200 participants contributing their perspectives in Arabic and English. Findings indicate that the language of instruction and participants' first language significantly influence critical media literacy levels. Those educated primarily in Arabic language demonstrated different analytical approaches to media compared to those instructed in English, highlighting the impact of language on media literacy level. Participants also expressed varying levels of confidence in assessing misinformation, with notable differences based on educational background and media exposure. Results from this study may provide valuable insights for educators, policy-makers and media professionals seeking to promote and implement critical media literacy in the region. By understanding the linguistic and educational factors shaping media literacy, stakeholders should develop more effective curricula and training programmes to equip young people with the skills needed to critically engage with media in an increasingly mediatized world.
In 2023, Four Daughters, a docudrama centered on Olfa Hamrouni, a Tunisian mother whose two daughters were radicalized and joined the Islamic State, was widely praised in Western media for exposing the suffering of Arab Muslim women and offering them a platform to speak. However, this article argues that the film is far more complex than such celebratory narratives suggest. It may be more accurately understood as a pseudo-participatory production in which the director unintentionally assumes the role of savior for a subaltern woman and her daughters. Although Olfa and her daughters appear to narrate their own stories, they are further silenced through the film's layered mediation and representational strategies. The narrative relies heavily on graphic portrayals of violence, physical and sexual abuse, and repeated tropes of patriarchal oppression, devices that serve both dramatic and ideological functions. Drawing on subaltern and postcolonial theory, and informed by recent developments in documentary filmmaking, this analysis demonstrates how the director's interventions, along with the film's structural and thematic choices, contribute to the objectification of Olfa and her daughters. Ultimately, the article contends that Olfa's testimony is not a neutral or autonomous recounting of experience, but one deeply embedded in the film's linguistic, social, and political conditions of contemporary Tunisian culture. These dynamics complicate the film's claim to empowerment and reveal the ethical tensions involved in representing subaltern voices for global audiences.
The historiography or phrasing of history remains contentious in India, where the medieval past is seen as dubiously peppered with multiple foreign aggressors and usurpers. Increasingly, films have begun to play the role of palimpsest in rewriting history, often compromising historical facts by crediting myths, rumours, bazar gossips and motivated propaganda. While Hollywood films have used the rhetoric of terrorism to otherize Muslims post 9/11, Bollywood has equated invader–tyrant–terrorist with Mughals, Muslims or Pakistan in its narratives. Employing Gillian Rose’s visual research method (VRM) and Van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis on two select Bollywood films, Jodha Akbar (2008) and Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior (2020), as case studies, this article flags the anti-Muslim rhetoric as a mediatized ritual performed in recent Bollywood films. Unlike several past works focusing only on representation or thematic analysis, this article applies VRM on mise en scène , colour, lights, mannerism, gaze and salience of characters on select shots of these two films to situate the anti-Muslim rhetoric representation of Mughals as villainous in the contemporary Bollywood films. The article thus foregrounds these antagonistic representations as a mediatized ritual performed in recent Bollywood films. These rituals negotiate with the popular imaginations to align with the dominant political ideology of the state by continuously omitting, trivializing and condemning the Mughals and other Islamicate rulers. The systemic use of visual and cinematic Mughalo-Islamophobic and dehumanizing imageries in mobilizing the collective memory of hate discourse of insider/outsider, Indigenous/invader, benevolent/despot and tolerant/barbaric tropes in filmmaking has the potential to further cement the anti-Muslim hate among the majority community in India, culminating in hate crimes and mob lynchings.
This study examines the online public discourse of fear and safety, shifting the psycho-techno dimensions of the political discourse in Jammu and Kashmir. The persistent sense of fear in the region is deeply rooted in its ongoing political instability. Drawing on the discourse theory, it explores artists’ perceptions of fear and safety in the conflict-hit South Asian region. The case study method was employed to thoroughly examine how fear and safety influence public perception and artistic outcomes. Through interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), I investigated how digital discourses affect the perceptions of non-local artists regarding the Himalayan valley. Three significant themes emerged from the analysis: algorithmic sociopolitical assumptions, the dynamics of haalaat and the mediatized architecture of information, each contributing to a nuanced understanding of the underlying political structures and discourses. Additionally, I examined the Google keyword search algorithm for safety in Kashmir to understand the underlying factors influencing the psychological and technological dimensions of safety narratives and the subsequent perception of fear. I argue that online public discourse surrounding fear and safety in Kashmir reflects the region’s ongoing political instability, particularly as perceived and represented by non-local artists. Physical and digital experiences shape the artistic expressions of audiences, embedding nuanced interpretations of the valley’s sociopolitical discourses within their creative output. Mediatized information reflects and amplifies commonly searched queries, subtly shaping public perceptions and imaginaries associated with the region. These mediated perceptions, often detached from lived realities, influence individual decision-making processes and inform the creative practices of those engaging with Kashmir indirectly.
This research attempts to advance the discourse on the influence of digitization on democratic processes. The principal aim is to explore specific ways in which social media has contributed to the advancement of democracy in the Tunisian context. To address this objective, the study commences with a thorough examination of the Tunisian sociopolitical landscape, providing a comprehensive foundation for subsequent analyses. Utilizing an econometric model, the research investigates the intricate relationship between social media and democratic transitions during the period spanning from 2000 to 2020. This quantitative approach facilitates a systematic and robust exploration of the dynamics at play. The pivotal findings of the study underscore the substantial and pivotal role played by social media in fostering the success of the democratic movement in Tunisia. This work enriches the existing literature on digitization and democracy and offers a nuanced understanding of the mechanisms through which social media influences democratic transitions.
The pervasive integration of digital media into youth lives demands a nuanced understanding of engagement patterns and literacy, especially within distinct sociocultural contexts like the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This study examines how UAE adolescents navigate digital platforms, focusing on the interplay between structural access, motivational drivers and critical media-literacy competencies. Core research questions explore platform preferences, disparities in digital literacy and the influence of gender and age on media engagement and privacy attitudes. Using a convergent mixed-methods design, the study integrates quantitative data from a stratified sample of school students with qualitative insights from focus groups, interviews, netnographic observations and participatory workshops. The analysis is anchored in a theoretical framework combining Uses and Gratifications Theory (motivational drivers), Social Learning Theory (peer and familial influences) and an expanded Media Literacy Framework (critical skills). Findings highlight the dominance of video-centric social platforms over traditional media among UAE youth, shaped by peer dynamics and platform design. Yet a multifaceted digital divide persists, marked by gaps in access, uneven development of critical skills (notably algorithmic awareness and content attribution) and difficulty identifying manipulations like deepfakes. Gender-based differences are evident: males show higher interactivity, females show stronger privacy vigilance and older students show more advanced academic tool use. This study offers an empirically grounded perspective on digital inequalities in a non-western context and underscores the need for culturally responsive, age-appropriate media-literacy programmes. It calls for Arabic-language modules on algorithmic bias and peerled workshops on ethical content creation to foster critical, equitable digital citizenship.
The impact of religiosity on internet usage has been investigated in prior research. However, the relationship between Islamic religiosity based on the region and internet consumption has not been studied. To examine the relationship between Islamic religiosity and internet usage, we employ a number of Islamic schools, hajj applications, Islamic seminaries (pesantren), and mosques at the province level as indicators of religiosity. We do not use the number of Muslim people at the province level because it is a poor proxy for measuring the intensity of religiosity, as it is possible that some individuals who identify as Muslim nevertheless engage in behaviour that is inconsistent with Islamic teaching. We test our hypothesis in Indonesia, the country with the biggest Muslim population in the world, and find that provinces that are characterized by a higher level of Islamic religiosity have a lower level of internet usage. We argue that people who live in regions with a higher level of religiosity are more likely to believe that the internet holds values that might erode their religious values. Even after considering endogeneity problems, such as omitted variable bias and reverse-causality, our results remain consistent.
Does the use of political social networks require courage? Social networks empower political participation and activism by facilitating new forms of communication, collaboration, rapid sharing and remote access to information. Previous studies have addressed the negative effects of social network anonymity, such as cyberbullying, or its positive effects, such as its contribution to moral courage, but the relationship between courage and political use has been ignored. This study examines the relationship between courage and political use on social networks and the moderating role of anonymity based on profile photo privacy on Instagram. Moreover, unlike previous studies that measured the perception of anonymity as self-report, a new method based on the real profile photo anonymity of the Instagram user was used. The time spent on Instagram was obtained via the platform data. Data collection was conducted through an online survey with 306 undergraduate students in Turkey. Our findings show that courage on Instagram is strongly positively associated with political use and that anonymity is a significant moderator of this relationship. There was a stronger relationship between Instagram courage and political Instagram use for users who used their own photo as their profile photo, while it was weaker for users who used their photos of friends as their profile photo. However, this relationship was irrelevant for users who did not use any photo on their profile. Overall, the findings suggest that courage is important in the use of social networks for political purposes, users may still prefer anonymity to protect themselves from any kind of pressure and surveillance.
This article examines the evolving integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in Egyptian newsrooms, with a focus on its current use in journalistic workflows and the broader institutional, ethical and economic challenges shaping its adoption. While awareness of AI's potential is growing among Egyptian journalists, its implementation remains fragmented, largely experimental and unsupported by formal guidelines or training frameworks. The results highlight a media environment strained by limited financial investment, political pressures and shifting audience dynamics in the age of rising social media and citizen journalism. Yet, despite these constraints, AI presents a potential pathway for strengthening journalistic practice, at a time of increasing concerns over misinformation and declining public trust. The study also foregrounds pressing ethical issues that have emerged from unregulated AI and haphazard use in journalism. Using a qualitative methodology, including semi-structured interviews with senior media professionals and thematic analysis, the study contributes to a growing body of scholarship on AI and journalism in the Global South, offering insight into a field still in the early stages of transformation.
