Announcing JadMag Issue 7.3 (Jadaliyya in Print)

Announcing JadMag Issue 7.3 (Jadaliyya in Print)

Announcing JadMag Issue 7.3 (Jadaliyya in Print)

By : Tadween Editors

In the essay "Beyond Paralyzing Terror: The 'Dark Decade' in the Algerian Hirak, Elizabeth Perego discusses allusions to the "archived past" of the 1990s during the mass mobilizations that began in the country in 2019 and have continued into this year. In this issue's second center-piece essay, Ebshoy Magdy examines narratives around poverty in Egypt in relation to the country's two cash support programs, Takaful and Karama. Additionally, this issue features a bundle of essays contextualizing the Lebanese and Iranian uprisings.

Since the autumn of 2018, Jadmag has been published as a seasonal subscription-based magazine in both hard-copy and electronic formats. The cultivation of a steady readership will enable the JadMag team to produce a wide-ranging and an even more intellectually stimulating publication. These magazines are being released twice a year, in addition to a third issue that will be specifically geared toward pedagogy on issues pertaining to the Middle East and North Africa. A fourth issue will be included in all subscriptions, and it can be any of our already published theme issues on JadMag.org. Each JadMag will feature diverse content and offer unique articles or interviews that will not be found on Jadaliyya at the time of publication. Coupling timely content with the addition of essential readings lists, reviews of new books and scholarly articles, and topical pieces from Jadaliyya’s celebrated archives allows the JadMag project more ambitiously to function as a knowledge producer, a near-comprehensive source of analysis on the region, and a pedagogical resource par excellence.

You can order the newest issue of JadMag or subscribe at www.tadweenpublishing.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS


FEATURED ARTICLES



Beyond Paralyzing Terror: The “Dark Decade” in the Algerian Hirak
Elizabeth Perego

The Eligible and Ineligible Poor: The Development of Social Spending Philosophy in Egypt
Ebshoy Magdy

ARTICLES


The Lebanese and Iranian Protests

The Lebanese Intifada: Observations and Reflections on Revolutionary Times
Jeffrey G. Karam and Sana Tannoury-Karam

The Magic of Mutual Coexistence in Lebanon
Maya Mikdashi

Beyond the Lebanese Constitution: A Primer
Maya Mikdashi

Between Solidarity and Absolution: An Interjection on the Western Left’s Response to the Recent Protests in Iran
Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi

Roundtable: Iran’s Domestic Politics and Political Economy
Arash Davari, Peyman Jafari, Ali Kadivar, Zep Kalb, Arang Keshavarzian, Azam Khatam, Saira Rafiee, and Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi 

The Systemic Problem of “Iran Expertise” in Washington
Negar Razavi

Other Articles

Racism and Syrians in Turkey: The Political Economy of Discrimination
Helen Mackreath

The 21st Century Problem of Anti-Muslim Racism
Nadine Naber and Junaid Rana

Repression or Development? Morocco after the Hirak
Riccardo Fabiani

Security Vans of Laâyoune
Mark Drury

Life Contained in Gaza
Francesco Sebregondi

ARABIC


«هؤلاء الشرقيّون»: منيف و«سباق المسافات الطويلة»
Yazen el-Haj

عن جيل «البوبجي» وأجيال أخرى لم يرحمها أحد
Shaker Alnasseri

الجنسية والإبعاد في الكويت: هل يعيد التاريخ نفسه؟
Abdulrahman Ibrahim

العراق مِن العِلْم إلى الحلم: في سيرة العالِم غسان كبّة
Wadood Hamad

السومريون «الجدد» في العراق
Sinan Antoon

REVIEWS


The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity (New Texts Out Now)
Darryl Li

Negotiating Conflict in Lebanon: Bordering Practices in a Divided Beirut (New Texts Out Now)
Mohamad Hafeda

Economics for People and the Planet: Inequality in the Era of Climate Change (New Texts Out Now)
James K. Boyce

“Citizenship as Domination: Settler Colonialism and the Making of Palestinian Citizenship in Israel” (New Texts Out Now)
Lana Tatour

Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, Future (New Texts Out Now)
Seyed Ali Alavi

PEDAGOGY


Essential Readings on Islam in the United States

Zareena Grewal

Essential Readings: Masculinity in the Middle East
Farha Ghannam

Essential Readings: The Iraqi Revolution of 1958
Sara Pursley

INTERVIEWS


Syrian Musalsalat During the Ongoing Conflict: An Interview with Christa Salamandra

Mira Nabulsi

FROM THE ARCHIVES


Is Gaza Still Occupied and Why Does It Matter?
Lisa Hajjar

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Education in the Time of Virality

Widespread access to the internet has facilitated means of acquiring news and information at rates unseen in earlier eras. As individuals, we have the ability to post and spread political information, social commentary, and other thoughts at will. This has caused an information overload for users of social networking sites. In a fight for views, reposts, and clicks, creators, both corporate and not, have been forced to develop new tactics to inform their audiences. This response to a new mode of information consumption also forces a reconsideration of how we understand knowledge production. Much of the information put forth into the world is absorbed passively, such as through characters’ storylines in books, films, and television - and this information accumulates over a lifetime. What, then, happens when knowledge is actively consumed (as is done when reading, watching, or listening to news stories), but the manner through which the information is presented still conforms to the brevity generally associated with more passive knowledge intake?

Pew Research estimates that over 70% of Americans use their phone to read the news. This is nearly a 25% increase since 2013. The constant barrage of advertisements in online articles does not make consuming news easy to do on a phone, thereby forcing media outlets and their competitors to change and adopt new tactics. Applications such as Flipboard have tried to mitigate these frustrations by simply providing the full article without the ads on their own platform, but many people still turn to sources like The Skimm. In attempting to distill a day’s worth of news coverage on domestic affairs, foreign affairs, pop culture, and sports into a few quips, undeniably both texture and nuance are lost. To compete with these services, CNN, the New York Times, and other mainstream news sources are doing the same and producing articles that give the, “Top 5 News Moments to Start Your Day,” or a, “Daily Brief.” Of course, looking at the language differences between the New York Times daily summary versus The Skimm’s, one can tell which is a more comprehensive news source. Even so, slashing the word count still takes a toll on clearly informing the public. The question then becomes, after quickly skimming through these summaries, are people doing more readings to cover what was lost? Or has “the brief” become the new standard for knowledge production and awareness?

It is more than likely that a significant portion of The Skimm’s subscribers do go on to read the full article linked in the email, but the growing popularity of similarly quick and fast news sources has had an impact on how much information viewers and readers actually understand. Between 2011 and 2014, The Skimm was founded, along with AJ+, Now This, Upworthy, and BuzzFeed News’ more serious journalism section. Undeniably, all of these sources produce and publish very important information, and make this information accessible to a larger audience. However, their production and marketing strategies hinge upon condensing very nuanced topics into videos that are, on average, only seven minutes long, as well as optimizing their materials for social media audiences. Now, it is ridiculous to expect highly textured and complicated issues to be thoroughly represented in these videos or posts. Even research based texts do not touch upon all of the complexities of a topic. The problems arise when looking at how viewers perceive themselves and their level of knowledge after actively searching out the products of, for example, AJ+ and Buzzfeed, for information. Carefully refining their materials to fit the shortened attention span of people scrolling through Facebook, social media news organizations have found their niche audience. Their products provide a simple way to deliver information to those who want gather knowledge on the “hot topics of today,” but do not what to do the leg work to be truly informed. These videos are spread throughout Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms in a manner that says, “Watch this, and you will know what is going on in the world.”

Understanding how information is being pushed out into the world is almost as important as the content of the information. None of these outlets claim to provide comprehensive knowledge, but in being popular sites for information, the question becomes: do they have a responsibility to encourage their viewers to continue to inform themselves about these issues? Having a well-informed society is phenomenal, but if in informing society we are also forever altering how we consume knowledge to favor brevity over nuance, what consequences could come with this change? We must ensure that the consumption of these videos does not become a license for people to see themselves as truly informed and thus appropriate for them to take the microphones at protests and speak over those who have a solid and textured understanding of the issues. Information content is incredibly important, as is spreading knowledge, and AJ+, Now This, and the like have become important role models in showing how issues should be accessible to everyone and not clouted in jargon. But we must simultaneously consider the unintended side effects that these styles of videos have on knowledge production. Ultimately, it is a mutual effort. Just as producers must be watchful of their content and method of dissemination, we as consumers must be mindful of how we digest and understand the news we take in.


[This article was published originally Tadween`s Al-Diwan blog by Diwan`s editor, Mekarem Eljamal.]