Media Transitions and Cultural Debates in Arab Societies: Transhistorical Perspectives on the Impact of Communication Technologies

In the last decades, the Arab world has witnessed the emergence and broad diffusion of ʻnewʼ media, most prominently the Internet. However, the adoption of digital technologies is not the first media transition to occur. It could be compared to the transition from oral to script culture, from manuscript to print culture, or the emergence of audio-visual media, such as radio, TV, photography and film.

Applying a transhistorical perspective (9^th-21^st century), the conference aimed at exploring how the emergence and diffusion of new communication technologies have affected the conditions of cultural production, distribution, and reception and how cultural debates are shaped by the use of different media.

The conference is a project of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities (AGYA).

Organizers:
Barbara Winckler (University of Münster)
Carola Richter (Freie Universität Berlin)
Teresa Pepe (University of Oslo)
Bilal Orfali (American University of Beirut)

• Conference Program
• Conference Report
• AGYA Website