Wednesday 23 November 2016 – Lunchtime seminar with Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi (Journalism, University of Sheffield)

Speaker: Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi (Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield)
Title: Revolution, war, journalism: How Syrian media practitioners tell their stories

Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi is lecturer in journalism, politics and public communication at the Department of Journalism Studies, University of Sheffield. A former Fulbright scholar, his work examines journalism, media, and popular culture in the Middle East. Omar’s work has appeared in journals such as Communication Theory, Media, Culture & Society, the International Journal of Communication, and Popular Communication. At the University of Sheffield, he teaches postgraduate classes in global journalism and international political communication. He has also worked as a professional journalist at the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat and at the BBC.

This paper uses the case of Syria to explore how journalism operates in times of extreme conflict and violence. It is based on 20 interviews conducted with opposition Syrian media practitioners, whose media activities have been shaped by the March 2011 uprising in Syria and the ensuing bloody civil war and international military conflict. Answering questions about their role in mediating the conflict and the stories of their media practice, these media activists speak of their hybrid and diverse practices that were shaped and consumed by the changing events in Syria and in the global political and media environment. Accordingly, the paper argues that the theorization of media practice within conflict situations must be temporalized within a chronology of personal, political, and technological circumstances. It also suggests that the confusion emanating from the global mediation of Syria’s war is often a result of the normalization of violence in non-Western spaces in a way that fails to acknowledge the situated agency of media actors within contexts of prolonged turmoil. The paper concludes with questioning journalism as an appropriate frame for understanding the mediation of violent struggle.

1.00PM – 2.00PM
WEDNESDAY 23 NOVEMBER 2016
CANTOR 9129

See here for details of other seminars in the series.

All SHU staff and students are welcome to attend the C3RI Lunchtime Research Seminars. If you are from outside of the University and would like to attend a seminar, please email C3RI Administrator to arrange entry.