Why Should Academics Study the Arab Region More Often
By Mona Elswah
July 2, 2018
Following the Arab Spring in 2011, the Arab region has experienced tremendous changes. Spontaneous uprisings erupted in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and Libya demanding social justice and freedom. Four dictators fell and gave hope to their long-suppressed countries to transform into democracies. Yet, Tunisia is the only country that has transited to democracy and become the sole success story of the Spring. The others are either torn by civil war or are still suffering under similar suppression. Social media has played a major role in this historical Arab geopolitical transformation. The 2011 uprisings are sometimes referred to as “the Facebook revolutions.”
Although the Arab Spring is the world’s major political transformation in the 21st century, academic scholarship has focused on examining the role of social media in mobilizing protests, but not how it is used to demobilize public movements. During the recent Milton Wolf Seminar that was held in Vienna, the discussion focused on western countries with a focus on the possible Russian intervention in the European and American politics. Yet, the understudied Arab region is experiencing similar intervention and manipulation especially following Qatar crisis and the Syrian civil war. Also, the focus of the seminar was on western-based media outlets such as RT and Sputnik. However, for the first time in the history of modern media, a channel is being formally accused by four countries of being a fake news source and of being biased. Although Al Jazeera is bringing much controversy to the Arab region, it has gained very little academic attention following the crisis.
The term “misinformation” or “fake news”, which is usually used to defame websites or media organizations, is used in the politically-complicated Arab region to detain and imprison journalists. Therefore, fake news is not a stigma; it’s an accusation used by governments against journalists who might be critical of the regime. In the following discussion, I will explain why the Arab region is potentially worth studying and would produce findings that would fulfill literature gaps. Moreover, I will also highlight how misinformation is playing a role in shaping the recent Qatar crisis in what we can refer to as “the New Arab Cold War”, and why we must study this now.
From Arab Spring to Arab Winter
Regime changes are the period between the fall of a regime and the installation of a new one. Regime changes are ambiguous and full of uncertainty. Although scholars have tried to define the predeterminants that would lead to the success or failure of a certain regime change, we still can’t clearly predict the outcomes. During this period, political parties contest to win the new regime and to take over the future. Propaganda has been a prominent agent within historical regime changes such as the Glorious, American, and the French revolutions. It was also prominent during the Arab regime changes, in most of the cases, especially in the digital form. Yet, there is a scarcity of studies, which examined the presence of manipulation in the current time in the region.
Terms such as “Bots” and “Fake News” have dominated the academic discussion in the past two years. However, by looking at the studies presented at communication and Internet conferences, there is hardly any examining the Arab region. Yet, you will probably find dozens examining these concepts in western context. Are western countries experiencing more important political transformation than the Arab region? The answer is definitely no; it is a matter of which we can study, and which is more influential in the academic discourse. When we think of our next academic paper to write, we hope it would get a high number of citations which would make our academic profile much stronger. Would a paper on bots in Yemen, for instance, gain the same number of citations as a paper on bots in a western-developed-leading country? The answer will probably be negative. Yet, the conflict in Yemen is more catastrophic and led to a humanitarian crisis that the whole world will feel its consequences.
The only country that has gained, at least recently, academic attention is Syria. Not because almost half a million have been killed, but because of a possible Russian intervention. Again, the Syrian civil war has led to a world refugee problem and developed the 21st century most disastrous crisis. I cannot say that there are no studies on the region, but I am confidently saying that the number of studies conducted are not enough and yet this part of the world is witnessing the world’s most significant political transformations.
Language is another barrier for academics. As an Arab researcher who can speak English and Arabic, studying the region is relatively easy and doable. Non-native Arab scholars claim that it is implausible to examine Arab countries due to their unfamiliarity of the language. However, there is a substantial number of studies by non-Arabic speaker scholars that were conducted following the Arab Spring. Their unfamiliarity of the language did not stop them from studying a historical moment of the world that would guarantee them high number of citations and academic recognition. Collaboration with Arabic-speaking scholars could also help them overcome this barrier.
Safety is another obstacle that academics put in mind before conducting research. Ethical approvals will not be easily guaranteed when researchers aim to conduct fieldwork in troubled countries fearing for the safety of the researcher and the respondents. This should be another motive for researchers to seek studying these areas. These countries are impossible to study by native local researchers who risk their lives if they did. It is much safer for non-natives to examine these topics and to publish about it. Due to the technological development, researchers can conduct interviews through Skype or just do a quantitative analysis of data. It should be a humanitarian mission for academics to uncover the corruption and manipulation, which native researchers cannot.
The New Arab Cold War
In some context, the Russian intervention in the politics of the west was referred to as “the new cold war” which made such a topic worth studying more than ever. The Arab world is experiencing its version of the cold war but with much less academic attention.
The Saudi-led blockade imposed economic and political sanctions on Qatar demanding it to end its alleged support of terrorism. Other demands included the shutdown of Al Jazeera network. Al Jazeera offices have been closed in several countries in the region after accusing it of being a source of misinformation and fake news. This is perhaps one of the major steps against a media giant such as Al Jazeera. Examining whether the claim against Al Jazeera is accurate or not has not been fully examined. Moreover, scholars who are aiming to study interventions can also take the Qatari case as a possible interesting case study. There are reports on UAE hacking the main Qatari News Agency to plant a story on Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad al Thani making friendly comments about Iran. The blockade is ongoing whereas both parties are dedicating their media to attack and denounce the other.
The media ecosystem in the region is shaped by censorship and state-control. The majority of media giants cannot broadcast views that would contradict their governments’. When we think of misinformation in the region where press freedom does not exist, we need to have different measures and perspectives from the ones we use to analyze misinformation in western societies. Special academic attention needs to be paid while examining this concept in conflict zones. In ten years from now, misinformation will be over-studied in western communities rather than in troubled and politically collapsing regions.
The region is going through historical changes that will not only have implications on Arabs but will have catastrophic consequences for the world. Dictators such as, Bashar Assad, who is allying with Russia and Iran to take control over his country and to resume his dictatorship by promulgating misinformation and propaganda. Countries are trying to destabilize each other using media and techniques similar to the ones used during the Cold War. It’s imperative for Academics to study this point in time, to tell the story from an objective eye, to uncover the manipulation taking place to impose hegemony over citizens and countries.