Mohamed Zayani
Biographic Data
| ID | 127246 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mohamed Zayani |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mohamed |
| FAMILY NAME | Zayani |
| SIGNATURE | ZAYANI M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Georgetown University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8294-7529 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 69 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Platform regulation and digital cultural industries: The state–society nexus in the Middle East
The rise of digital cultural industries and platform economies has created new opportunities in the Middle East. Yet this shift has also generated significant regulatory challenges, particularly for states seeking to reposition themselves within the digital economy. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy documents, regulatory initiatives, and industry developments in the Arab Gulf region, this article examines how digital transformation is res…
La diaspora tunisienne au Canada entre autoritarisme et démocratisation (1987-2023)
Cet article analyse les dynamiques de mobilisation de la diaspora tunisienne au Canada, en réponse aux événements politiques survenus en Tunisie entre les années 1987 et 2023. L’article démontre que sous le régime autoritaire de Ben Ali (1987-2011), la diaspora tunisienne au Canada était politiquement « atomisée ». Les dynamiques d’engagement des membres de la diaspora répondaient, durant cette période, à une logique de choix rationnel. La démocr…
Beyond Technology and Development: Reflections on the Digital Double Bind
In the Middle East, digital technologies have ushered in a new era of connectivity and global integration, promoting political, economic, and social opportunities. However, adopting these technologies presents a digital double bind for states, markets, and publics. States leverage digital technologies to drive economic growth and modernize their infrastructure, yet simultaneously seek to control and restrict their uses to preserve power and uphol…
Reckoning with the Legacy of the Digital: Toward a Renewed Quest for Modernity in the Middle East
Although the digital Middle East has received wide attention, there has been little engagement with the cultural roots of ongoing transformations. This article offers a critical analysis of the region’s technological journey over the past century, revealing how the pursuit of the digital aligns with a historical quest for modernity and aspirations for socioeconomic development. By examining the cultural origins and trajectory of the region’s enga…
De-territorialized digital capitalism and the predicament of the nation-state: Netflix in Arabia
In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Netflix were forced to confront the limits of freedom of speech online. The kingdom requested that the streaming giant remove a critical episode of the satirical show Patriot Act with Hassan Minhaj from its local service, and the latter complied at the risk of reputational damage. Focusing on the controversy surrounding this case, this article explores how both state and business adopt and adapt to changes in technology …
Digitality and Debordered Spaces in the Era of Streaming: A Global South Perspective
Emerging digital entertainment media in the Global South are anchored in nation-state configurations, benefit from supranational affordances, and aspire to global operations. Drawing on Sassen’s “third spaces,” the article focuses on the case of Shahid, a Middle East-based video streaming platform and a hybrid media venture that operates at the intersection of the local and the global. The article suggests digital media entertainment territoriali…
Digital Journalism, Social Media Platforms, and Audience Engagement: The Case of AJ
In 2014, Al Jazeera Network launched AJ+, a digital initiative intended to put it at the forefront of a changing journalistic field. Targeting an expanding mobile-centric generation of avid social media users and tech-savvy youth, Al Jazeera’s innovative media lab for digital storytelling engages audiences on a wide range of popular and emerging social media platforms. This qualitative and quantitative research study explores what AJ + reveals ab…
The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media
Digital Middle East: State and Society in the Information Age
In recent years, the Middle East’s information and communications landscape has changed dramatically. Increasingly, states, businesses, and citizens are capitalizing on the opportunities offered by new information technologies, the fast pace of digital transformations, and enhanced connectivity. These changes are far from turning Middle Eastern nations into network societies, but their impact is significant. The growing adoption of a wide variety…
Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings
"Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings takes a sobering and holistic look at the intersections between media and politics before, during, and in the reverberations of the Arab uprisings. The strength of this volume lies in its multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, with the research backed up by in-depth and rigorous case studies of the key countries of the Arab Spring. The uprisings were accompanied by pr…
Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia
How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? This book tells the compelling story of the concurrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet …
Al Jazeera’s Palestine Papers: Middle East media politics in the post-WikiLeaks era
Shortly after WikiLeaks published thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables, Al Jazeera released hundreds of classified documents pertaining to the Palestinian–Israeli negotiations. Known as the ‘Palestine Papers’, these documents are noteworthy not only because they provide insights into the stalled negotiations and rekindle the debate over the Middle East conflict, but also because they offer a glimpse into the complex interpenetration bet…
Transnational Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity
Saudi Arabia is a crucially important media player in the Middle East, commanding modern, sophisticated and far-reaching media systems. Driving the Saudi media hegemony is what may be loosely termed ‘a security imperative’ which is tightly connected to internal dynamics, geopolitical considerations and regional rivalries. Empowered with its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia pursued a dual media strategy, operating state-controlled and circumscribed domest…
Civil Society and Democratic Change in the Arab World: Promises and Impediments
The advent of civil society in the Arab world, the proliferation of nongovernmental advocacy organizations, and the expansion of civil society activism have been heralded as promising developments with significant implications on the region’s immutable political environment. While noting the vibrancy of civil society, Zayani’s article questions its ability to affect the existing political culture of the region. It argues that the proclivity of ci…
Media, Popular Culture and Contestatory Politics in the Contemporary Middle East
REALITY TELEVISION AND ARAB POLITICS: CONTENTION IN PUBLIC LIFE, MARWAN KRAIDY (2009) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 270 pp., ISBN: 9780521769198, $85.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780521749046, $24.99 (pbk) THE ETHICAL SOUNDSCAPE: CASSETTE SERMONS AND ISLAMIC COUNTERPUBLICS, CHARLES HIRSCHKIND (2006) New York: Columbia University Press, 288 pp., ISBN: 9780231138185, $80.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780231138192, $26.00 (pbk) DRAMAS OF NATIONHOOD: THE POLITICS OF…
Toward a Cultural Anthropology of Arab Media: Reflections on the Codification of Everyday Life
This paper explores the potential of cultural anthropology to reinvigorate the study of Arab media and to help deepen our understanding of the complexity of media practices in the changing Middle East region. Drawing on critical theory and recent ethnographic work, the paper is an attempt to refocus the study of Arab media within cultural anthropology. It argues that the study of the evolving Arab mediascape calls not so much for consolidating th…
The Challenges and Limits of Universalist Concepts: Problematizing Public Opinion and a Mediated Arab Public Sphere
Arab Satellite Television and Crisis Reporting: Covering the Fall of Baghdad
The question as to what dictates the choices of various media outlets and what guides the professional practices of journalists when reporting on international military crises is particularly pertinent when considering Arab media, who have been claiming a space in the global media scene by virtue of their intense and often controversial coverage of wars and crises in the postSeptember 11 era. This article is concerned with the coverage of the war…
The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media
Few phenomena in the Arab world are more controversial than Al Jazeera – the satellite television news channel that, despite its brief history, has made itself known throughout the world and changed the face of a formerly parochial Arab media.This timely collection of essays by Arab and Western scholars provides a better understanding of the network – and how it has affected the public and even foreign policies of Western governments – than any o…
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and the total system
This paper is concerned with an aspect of Deleuze and Guattari’s thought which has not been duly analyzed: systematicity. More specifically, it deals with their conception of the system in three co-authored major works: What is Philosophy?, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These works are of renewed interest because they tease out, each in its own way, a particular type of system. Regardless of whether it has a philosophical import, a botani…
Introduction to Rhythmanalysis
The Rhythmanalytical Project
Schizoanalysis
Schizoanalysis 1 Félix Guattari (bio) Translated by Mohamed Zayani (bio) For over a decade, I have been sifting through the remnants of psychoanalysis in search of what can be submitted to new theoretical elaborations which avoid, as much as possible, the reductiveness of Freudian and Lacanian formulations. It is worth noting at the outset that my project, loosely termed schizoanalysis, was never conceived as a self-enclosed field. Far from being…
The Rhythmanalytical Project
Digital Journalism, Social Media Platforms, and Audience Engagement: The Case of AJ
In 2014, Al Jazeera Network launched AJ+, a digital initiative intended to put it at the forefront of a changing journalistic field. Targeting an expanding mobile-centric generation of avid social media users and tech-savvy youth, Al Jazeera’s innovative media lab for digital storytelling engages audiences on a wide range of popular and emerging social media platforms. This qualitative and quantitative research study explores what AJ + reveals ab…
Arab Satellite Television and Crisis Reporting: Covering the Fall of Baghdad
The question as to what dictates the choices of various media outlets and what guides the professional practices of journalists when reporting on international military crises is particularly pertinent when considering Arab media, who have been claiming a space in the global media scene by virtue of their intense and often controversial coverage of wars and crises in the postSeptember 11 era. This article is concerned with the coverage of the war…
Digitality and Debordered Spaces in the Era of Streaming: A Global South Perspective
Emerging digital entertainment media in the Global South are anchored in nation-state configurations, benefit from supranational affordances, and aspire to global operations. Drawing on Sassen’s “third spaces,” the article focuses on the case of Shahid, a Middle East-based video streaming platform and a hybrid media venture that operates at the intersection of the local and the global. The article suggests digital media entertainment territoriali…
Toward a Cultural Anthropology of Arab Media: Reflections on the Codification of Everyday Life
This paper explores the potential of cultural anthropology to reinvigorate the study of Arab media and to help deepen our understanding of the complexity of media practices in the changing Middle East region. Drawing on critical theory and recent ethnographic work, the paper is an attempt to refocus the study of Arab media within cultural anthropology. It argues that the study of the evolving Arab mediascape calls not so much for consolidating th…
The Challenges and Limits of Universalist Concepts: Problematizing Public Opinion and a Mediated Arab Public Sphere
De-territorialized digital capitalism and the predicament of the nation-state: Netflix in Arabia
In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Netflix were forced to confront the limits of freedom of speech online. The kingdom requested that the streaming giant remove a critical episode of the satirical show Patriot Act with Hassan Minhaj from its local service, and the latter complied at the risk of reputational damage. Focusing on the controversy surrounding this case, this article explores how both state and business adopt and adapt to changes in technology …
Transnational Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity
Saudi Arabia is a crucially important media player in the Middle East, commanding modern, sophisticated and far-reaching media systems. Driving the Saudi media hegemony is what may be loosely termed ‘a security imperative’ which is tightly connected to internal dynamics, geopolitical considerations and regional rivalries. Empowered with its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia pursued a dual media strategy, operating state-controlled and circumscribed domest…
Al Jazeera’s Palestine Papers: Middle East media politics in the post-WikiLeaks era
Shortly after WikiLeaks published thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables, Al Jazeera released hundreds of classified documents pertaining to the Palestinian–Israeli negotiations. Known as the ‘Palestine Papers’, these documents are noteworthy not only because they provide insights into the stalled negotiations and rekindle the debate over the Middle East conflict, but also because they offer a glimpse into the complex interpenetration bet…
Civil Society and Democratic Change in the Arab World: Promises and Impediments
The advent of civil society in the Arab world, the proliferation of nongovernmental advocacy organizations, and the expansion of civil society activism have been heralded as promising developments with significant implications on the region’s immutable political environment. While noting the vibrancy of civil society, Zayani’s article questions its ability to affect the existing political culture of the region. It argues that the proclivity of ci…
Media, Popular Culture and Contestatory Politics in the Contemporary Middle East
REALITY TELEVISION AND ARAB POLITICS: CONTENTION IN PUBLIC LIFE, MARWAN KRAIDY (2009) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 270 pp., ISBN: 9780521769198, $85.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780521749046, $24.99 (pbk) THE ETHICAL SOUNDSCAPE: CASSETTE SERMONS AND ISLAMIC COUNTERPUBLICS, CHARLES HIRSCHKIND (2006) New York: Columbia University Press, 288 pp., ISBN: 9780231138185, $80.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780231138192, $26.00 (pbk) DRAMAS OF NATIONHOOD: THE POLITICS OF…
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and the total system
This paper is concerned with an aspect of Deleuze and Guattari’s thought which has not been duly analyzed: systematicity. More specifically, it deals with their conception of the system in three co-authored major works: What is Philosophy?, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These works are of renewed interest because they tease out, each in its own way, a particular type of system. Regardless of whether it has a philosophical import, a botani…
Schizoanalysis
Schizoanalysis 1 Félix Guattari (bio) Translated by Mohamed Zayani (bio) For over a decade, I have been sifting through the remnants of psychoanalysis in search of what can be submitted to new theoretical elaborations which avoid, as much as possible, the reductiveness of Freudian and Lacanian formulations. It is worth noting at the outset that my project, loosely termed schizoanalysis, was never conceived as a self-enclosed field. Far from being…
Introduction to Rhythmanalysis
The Rhythmanalytical Project
Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari and the total system
This paper is concerned with an aspect of Deleuze and Guattari’s thought which has not been duly analyzed: systematicity. More specifically, it deals with their conception of the system in three co-authored major works: What is Philosophy?, Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. These works are of renewed interest because they tease out, each in its own way, a particular type of system. Regardless of whether it has a philosophical import, a botani…
The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media
Few phenomena in the Arab world are more controversial than Al Jazeera – the satellite television news channel that, despite its brief history, has made itself known throughout the world and changed the face of a formerly parochial Arab media.This timely collection of essays by Arab and Western scholars provides a better understanding of the network – and how it has affected the public and even foreign policies of Western governments – than any o…
Arab Satellite Television and Crisis Reporting: Covering the Fall of Baghdad
The question as to what dictates the choices of various media outlets and what guides the professional practices of journalists when reporting on international military crises is particularly pertinent when considering Arab media, who have been claiming a space in the global media scene by virtue of their intense and often controversial coverage of wars and crises in the postSeptember 11 era. This article is concerned with the coverage of the war…
The Challenges and Limits of Universalist Concepts: Problematizing Public Opinion and a Mediated Arab Public Sphere
Media, Popular Culture and Contestatory Politics in the Contemporary Middle East
REALITY TELEVISION AND ARAB POLITICS: CONTENTION IN PUBLIC LIFE, MARWAN KRAIDY (2009) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 270 pp., ISBN: 9780521769198, $85.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780521749046, $24.99 (pbk) THE ETHICAL SOUNDSCAPE: CASSETTE SERMONS AND ISLAMIC COUNTERPUBLICS, CHARLES HIRSCHKIND (2006) New York: Columbia University Press, 288 pp., ISBN: 9780231138185, $80.00 (hbk), ISBN: 9780231138192, $26.00 (pbk) DRAMAS OF NATIONHOOD: THE POLITICS OF…
Toward a Cultural Anthropology of Arab Media: Reflections on the Codification of Everyday Life
This paper explores the potential of cultural anthropology to reinvigorate the study of Arab media and to help deepen our understanding of the complexity of media practices in the changing Middle East region. Drawing on critical theory and recent ethnographic work, the paper is an attempt to refocus the study of Arab media within cultural anthropology. It argues that the study of the evolving Arab mediascape calls not so much for consolidating th…
Transnational Media, Regional Politics and State Security: Saudi Arabia between Tradition and Modernity
Saudi Arabia is a crucially important media player in the Middle East, commanding modern, sophisticated and far-reaching media systems. Driving the Saudi media hegemony is what may be loosely termed ‘a security imperative’ which is tightly connected to internal dynamics, geopolitical considerations and regional rivalries. Empowered with its oil wealth, Saudi Arabia pursued a dual media strategy, operating state-controlled and circumscribed domest…
Civil Society and Democratic Change in the Arab World: Promises and Impediments
The advent of civil society in the Arab world, the proliferation of nongovernmental advocacy organizations, and the expansion of civil society activism have been heralded as promising developments with significant implications on the region’s immutable political environment. While noting the vibrancy of civil society, Zayani’s article questions its ability to affect the existing political culture of the region. It argues that the proclivity of ci…
Al Jazeera’s Palestine Papers: Middle East media politics in the post-WikiLeaks era
Shortly after WikiLeaks published thousands of confidential US diplomatic cables, Al Jazeera released hundreds of classified documents pertaining to the Palestinian–Israeli negotiations. Known as the ‘Palestine Papers’, these documents are noteworthy not only because they provide insights into the stalled negotiations and rekindle the debate over the Middle East conflict, but also because they offer a glimpse into the complex interpenetration bet…
Networked Publics and Digital Contention: The Politics of Everyday Life in Tunisia
How is the adoption of digital media in the Arab world affecting the relationship between the state and its subjects? What new forms of online engagement and strategies of resistance have emerged from the aspirations of digitally empowered citizens? This book tells the compelling story of the concurrent evolution of technology and society in the Middle East and North Africa region. It brings into focus the intricate relationship between Internet …
Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings
"Bullets and Bulletins: Media and Politics in the Wake of the Arab Uprisings takes a sobering and holistic look at the intersections between media and politics before, during, and in the reverberations of the Arab uprisings. The strength of this volume lies in its multi-disciplinary approach to the topic, with the research backed up by in-depth and rigorous case studies of the key countries of the Arab Spring. The uprisings were accompanied by pr…
Digital Middle East: State and Society in the Information Age
In recent years, the Middle East’s information and communications landscape has changed dramatically. Increasingly, states, businesses, and citizens are capitalizing on the opportunities offered by new information technologies, the fast pace of digital transformations, and enhanced connectivity. These changes are far from turning Middle Eastern nations into network societies, but their impact is significant. The growing adoption of a wide variety…
The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media
Digital Journalism, Social Media Platforms, and Audience Engagement: The Case of AJ
In 2014, Al Jazeera Network launched AJ+, a digital initiative intended to put it at the forefront of a changing journalistic field. Targeting an expanding mobile-centric generation of avid social media users and tech-savvy youth, Al Jazeera’s innovative media lab for digital storytelling engages audiences on a wide range of popular and emerging social media platforms. This qualitative and quantitative research study explores what AJ + reveals ab…
De-territorialized digital capitalism and the predicament of the nation-state: Netflix in Arabia
In 2018, Saudi Arabia and Netflix were forced to confront the limits of freedom of speech online. The kingdom requested that the streaming giant remove a critical episode of the satirical show Patriot Act with Hassan Minhaj from its local service, and the latter complied at the risk of reputational damage. Focusing on the controversy surrounding this case, this article explores how both state and business adopt and adapt to changes in technology …
Digitality and Debordered Spaces in the Era of Streaming: A Global South Perspective
Emerging digital entertainment media in the Global South are anchored in nation-state configurations, benefit from supranational affordances, and aspire to global operations. Drawing on Sassen’s “third spaces,” the article focuses on the case of Shahid, a Middle East-based video streaming platform and a hybrid media venture that operates at the intersection of the local and the global. The article suggests digital media entertainment territoriali…
Reckoning with the Legacy of the Digital: Toward a Renewed Quest for Modernity in the Middle East
Although the digital Middle East has received wide attention, there has been little engagement with the cultural roots of ongoing transformations. This article offers a critical analysis of the region’s technological journey over the past century, revealing how the pursuit of the digital aligns with a historical quest for modernity and aspirations for socioeconomic development. By examining the cultural origins and trajectory of the region’s enga…
La diaspora tunisienne au Canada entre autoritarisme et démocratisation (1987-2023)
Cet article analyse les dynamiques de mobilisation de la diaspora tunisienne au Canada, en réponse aux événements politiques survenus en Tunisie entre les années 1987 et 2023. L’article démontre que sous le régime autoritaire de Ben Ali (1987-2011), la diaspora tunisienne au Canada était politiquement « atomisée ». Les dynamiques d’engagement des membres de la diaspora répondaient, durant cette période, à une logique de choix rationnel. La démocr…
Beyond Technology and Development: Reflections on the Digital Double Bind
In the Middle East, digital technologies have ushered in a new era of connectivity and global integration, promoting political, economic, and social opportunities. However, adopting these technologies presents a digital double bind for states, markets, and publics. States leverage digital technologies to drive economic growth and modernize their infrastructure, yet simultaneously seek to control and restrict their uses to preserve power and uphol…
Platform regulation and digital cultural industries: The state–society nexus in the Middle East
The rise of digital cultural industries and platform economies has created new opportunities in the Middle East. Yet this shift has also generated significant regulatory challenges, particularly for states seeking to reposition themselves within the digital economy. Drawing on qualitative analysis of policy documents, regulatory initiatives, and industry developments in the Arab Gulf region, this article examines how digital transformation is res…
Sociology (19 works) · Political science (16 works) · Politics (12 works) · Media studies (11 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (8 works) · Socioeconomic Development in MENA (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works)