Description:

Social Media and Religious Authority in the Gulf Crisis

Ibrahim N. Abusharif is an associate professor in residence in the Journalism and Strategic Communication Program at Northwestern University Qatar (NU-Q). His academic interests include the study of the intersections of religion and media, particularly digital media disruptions and religious authority. Recently his chapter on “Researching Digital Media and Islam in Africa: Recommending a Framework” has been published in The Palgrave Handbook on Islam in Africa edited by Fallou Ngom, Mustapha H. Kurfi, and Toyin Falola (2021).

He also researches the origins, promulgation, and effects of key journalistic framing terminologies used in prominent Western print news sources for Middle East events and ongoing affairs. (As an example, you may access here Parsing “Arab Spring,” a study of the phrase “Arab Spring,” its implications, usages, spread, and origins.) Currently, he is examining the usages of “Salafism” and “Islamism” in popular media and in academia.

He has researched narrative non-fiction (or literary journalism) in (or related to) the Arab world. He has presented his findings on the prospects of literary journalism in the Arab world at conferences convened by the International Association for Literary Journalism Studies, of which he is a member.

Born and raised in Chicago, he received his master's from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and his doctorate in religious and Islamic studies from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Professionally, he has worked as a journalist, magazine editor, writer, publisher, translator, and academic. His journalistic articles and reviews have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Christian Science Monitor, Dallas Morning News, Religion Dispatches, The Millions, Beliefnet.com, and other print and online publications. His professional interests tend to focus on religion reporting.

He is also a published writer of short fiction. As a former publisher, he edited more than 30 books and translations. In the past, he has been involved in projects to translate—from Arabic into English—the Quran (the Muslim scripture), as well as classical texts of Islamic civilization. 

His recent publishing efforts may be accessed at:

https://northwestern.academia.edu/IbrahimAbusharif