Joe F. Khalil – författare

The digital has emerged as a driving force of change that is reshaping everyday life and affecting nearly every sphere of vital activity. Yet, its impact has been far from uniform. The multifaceted implications of these ongoing shifts differ markedly across the world, demanding a nuanced understanding of specific manifestations and local experiences of the digital.In The Digital Double Bind, Mohamed Zayani and Joe F. Khalil explore how the Middle East's digital turn intersects with complex political, economic, and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on local research and rich case studies, they show how the same forces that brought promises of change through digital transformation have also engendered tensions and contradictions. The authors contend that the ensuing disjunctures have ensnared the region in a double bind, which represents the salient feature of an unfolding digital turn. The same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit the region's drive to change. The Digital Double Bind reconsiders the question of technology and change, moving beyond binary formulations and familiar trajectories of the network society. It offers a path-breaking analysis of change and stasis in the Middle East and provides a roadmap for a critical engagement with digitality in the Global South.

The digital has emerged as a driving force of change that is reshaping everyday life and affecting nearly every sphere of vital activity. Yet, its impact has been far from uniform. The multifaceted implications of these ongoing shifts differ markedly across the world, demanding a nuanced understanding of specific manifestations and local experiences of the digital.In The Digital Double Bind, Mohamed Zayani and Joe F. Khalil explore how the Middle East's digital turn intersects with complex political, economic, and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on local research and rich case studies, they show how the same forces that brought promises of change through digital transformation have also engendered tensions and contradictions. The authors contend that the ensuing disjunctures have ensnared the region in a double bind, which represents the salient feature of an unfolding digital turn. The same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit the region's drive to change. The Digital Double Bind reconsiders the question of technology and change, moving beyond binary formulations and familiar trajectories of the network society. It offers a path-breaking analysis of change and stasis in the Middle East and provides a roadmap for a critical engagement with digitality in the Global South.This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.

The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to understand the profound and complex changes shaping the 21st century. With trans-regional contributions from established and emerging scholars, this ground-breaking volume offers conceptual essays and in-depth chapters that present rich analyses grounded in historical and geopolitical contexts, as well as key theory and empirical research. Rather than viewing the Middle East as a monolithic culture, this Handbook examines the diverse and multi-local characteristics of the region’s knowledge production, dynamic media, and rich cultures. It addresses a wide range of topics, including the evolving mainstream and alternative media, competing histories in the region, and pressing socio-economic and media debates. Additionally, the Handbook explores the impact of regional and international politics on Middle Eastern cultures and media. Designed to serve as a foundation for the next era of research in the field, The Handbook of Media and Culture in the Middle East is essential reading for all academics, scholars, and media practitioners. Its comprehensive scope makes it an excellent primary or supplementary textbook for undergraduate or graduate courses in global studies, media and communication, journalism, anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, and history.

In this revealing new study, Tarik Sabry and Joe Khalil preside over an original new exploration of Arab culture. They employ subjects as varied as anthropology, media studies, philosophy, political economy and cultural studies to illuminate the relationship between culture, time and publics in an Arab context, whilst also laying the foundations for a much more nuanced picture of Arab society. The diverse themes and locations explored include communities at borders, in rural and urban locations, Syrian drama audiences, Egyptian, Saudi and Tunisian artists and activists and historical and contemporary Arab intellectuals. This fresh empirical research and interdisciplinary analysis illuminate intricate experiences that transcend local, national and religious boundaries and expose how Arab publics combine the media and technology to create a rich experience that shapes their collective imagination and social structure. Providing a grounded orientation to key debates on time and what can be defined as public in modern Arab cultures, Sabry and Khalil address teachers, students and those concerned about the delicate structures that underpin the upheavals of the modern Arab world.