Values and Status Negotiation: media in the Middle East and North Africa

The 7th Annual MUBIT Doctoral Workshop in Late- and Post-Ottoman Studies in Basel, " Values and Status Negotiation: Media in the Middle East and North Africa" is a two-day intensive seminar organized by Dr. Ali Sonay at the Program for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Basel.

A Workshop with Dr. Roxane Farmanfarmaian (University of Cambridge)

In this workshop, students will engage with understandings of the media in the Middle East from the
perspective of the role media plays in society, and the position it commands in relation to power. This
reconceives the study of media as a political project on grounds that the media reflects the society that
produces it and operates as a socially symbolic resource. In contrast to universalist benchmarks for media
legitimacy based on ‘good’ journalism as institutionalized in Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights,
the media’s legitimacy, and position, is understood as contingent on how effectively it represents the values
of society itself. However, as the culturally specific canopy of social norms, beliefs, traditions and practices
is always unstable, and in the Middle East, frequently employed as political capital for ideological purpose,
the media must continuously negotiate in a process that depends on those in power to adjudge its status.
Values and Status Negotiation is therefore a framework for understanding the media from the inside, and in
terms of their own environments. In today’s increasingly polarized political atmosphere, scholarly
interrogation of the media’s rights and appropriate roles in social context is increasingly relevant, and we
seek applicants whose work sets out to discover how these are understood, rationalized, exercised,
negotiated and found appropriate and useful within different social milieux. Those interested in the
practices and power of media across platforms, within both the private and public spheres, who seek fresh
approaches to the media’s engagement with audience norms and historical experiences from perspectives
that arise from within the Middle East, are particularly encouraged to apply.

PhD and MA students who wish to attend the workshop are asked to write an email to Dr. Ali Sonay
(ali.sonay@unibas.ch), with a biographical abstract explaining their research interests and projects as well as
their academic background (max. 400 words, in 3rd person singular, in English) in addition to a Curriculum
Vitae. The deadline for the application is August 2, 2019. Applicants will receive an answer regarding their
participation by August 12.

Veranstaltung übernehmen als iCal