Description:

Lunch will be served at this event.

In The Digital Double Bind, Mohamed Zayani and Joe F. Khalil explore how the Middle East's digital turn intersects with complex political, economic, and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on local research and rich case studies, they show how the same forces that brought promises of change through digital transformation have also engendered tensions and contradictions. The authors contend that the ensuing disjunctures have ensnared the region in a double bind, which represents the salient feature of an unfolding digital turn. The same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit the region's drive to change. 

Joe F. Khalil is an associate professor of global media in residence at Northwestern University Qatar. His research and teaching focus on understanding changes and continuities in the media, with a particular focus on Middle East youth.

He is committed to an interdisciplinary and transnational approach to understanding mainstream and alternative media. His research probes media industries, production studies, social movements, and digital cultures.