Knowledge and Change Spotlight: New Media in West Asia

Parallel Session: Perspectives on and Prospects for Civic Engagement through Internet

Tags: West Asia , Civil Society in West Asia

The ‘spotlight session’ provides a daily preview of key events of our upcoming Knowledge Dialogue. Today we highlight a workshop hosted by the Hivos/University of Amsterdam Knowledge Programme Civil Society in West Asia.

With the events surrounding the ‘Twitter revolution’ in Iran last year, attention has shifted towards the meaning of new media in activist networks in authoritarian settings. The Web has become a new space for analysis and researchers are starting to map issue networks of digital activism. In the Middle East and North Africa, broadband connections are growing faster than anywhere else in the world and this development is bringing challenges and opportunities to both governments and activists in the region. Judgments of these developments vary from ‘cyber optimists’ to ‘cyber realists’ and ‘cyber pessimists’. Contributions by Francesco Cavatorta (University of Dublin and University of Amsterdam), Salam Kawakibi (Arab Reform Initiative and University of Amsterdam) and Fieke Jansen (Hivos).

Date: 30 September. Time:14.00-15.45 hours. To participate in the Knowledge Dialogue, you can register here.