Gail Ramsay: Lebanese Blogs as Forms and Contents of Counter-Public Spheres

Prof. Gail Ramsay
Lebanese Blogs as Forms and Contents of Counter-Public Spheres
Maj 30, 2011, 15:15-17:00, Ekonomikum, rum F332 (Kyrkogårdsgatan 10, level 3=våning 1)
Föreläsning och diskussion

http://www.im.uu.se/digitalAssets/48/48921_Media_at_UU_Spring2011_update.pdf

Abstract

Do Lebanese blogs make up counter-public spheres where subjects omitted by mainstream media are discussed using unconventional linguistic forms? Subjects that traditionally are avoided by the mainstream media such as critique of aspects of religion, discussions on sexuality and women’s rights and support for underground movements are routinely displayed in Lebanese blogs. Web-based and computer-mediated communication has also given rise to new varieties in Arabic written expression. Lebanese bloggers make a point of either using English or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the written Arabic language of today. In comment sections of the posts, spoken Arabic varieties in Latin as well as Arabic script are used. These findings and interviews conducted with the bloggers strengthen our view of Lebanese Arabic language blogs as broadening the limits for freedom of expression on political, social, religious and cultural issues. While providing an alternative to the high-brow linguistic style of MSA, we also ask what the implications for traditional Arab nationalism Arabic blogging may have.

Gail Ramsay is Professor of Arabic at the Department of Linguistics and Philology at Uppsala University. She received her Ph.D. in Arabic from Stockholm University in 1996. She conducted research on Al-Jazeera at the Swedish Defence Research Agency (FOI) in 2003-2004. During 2009, she was responsible for the Middle East Program at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs (UI) and represented this institute at the EU-Mediterranean roundtable talks. Presently, she is researching the Arabic blogosphere in a joint research project with Stockholm University titled The Nature and Impact of the Arabic Blogosphere: What Kind of Publics?

Gail Ramsay’s primary field of research is modern Arabic literature and society. She contributed to the interdisciplinary series Literary History: Towards a Global Perspective (2006) with her study “Globalisation and Cross-Cultural Writing in the United Arab Emirates and the Sultanate of Oman” and has published extensively on the modern literature of the Gulf region. In several of her articles she has paid special attention to women’s literary creativity in the Persian Gulf and some of her articles are in Arabic. With her articles “Speaking up with Yahoo: An Arabic e-mail novel” (2007) and “Med bloggen som vapen” (2009) she began researching aspects of computer-mediated texts in Arabic.

Gail Ramsay has been travelling regularly to the Arab world for more than 20 years, interviewed many Arab authors, has given papers in Arabic and has translated Arabic fiction into Swedish.

Contact
Prof. Christian Fuchs
christian.fuchs@im.uu.se
Phone +46 018 471 1019