Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research - Current Issue

Translation notes, as employed in fansubbing, are remarks added to the subtitles without reference to the source text. The current study adopts quantitative and qualitative approaches to investigate the receptivity and classification of translation notes explicitly utilized in fan-subtitled English movies for Arab audiences. In the quantitative part, 90 participants were engaged to assess fan-subbed English films with embedded translation notes in Arabic and subsequently completed an eighteen-item questionnaire. The analysis revealed a favourable disposition towards translation notes, albeit with a caveat of requisite technical refinements in future products. Moreover, the findings indicated a predilection for incorporating such notes in specific film genres, such as comedy and romance, as opposed to horror or documentaries. In the qualitative part, the researchers conducted an exhaustive examination of 120 translation notes, subsequently categorizing them into ten thematic classifications. The investigation further showed that fansubbers might provide commentary on scenes laden with disbelief or blasphemy, distancing the viewers from the content while maintaining a comedic tone. Additionally, fansubbers may exercise discretion in abstaining from translating sequences deemed repetitive or ill-suited for the target audience. The results further posit that vernacular dialects demonstrate a heightened efficacy in conveying humour, as opposed to the utilization of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), given the former’s ubiquity in quotidian communication and the latter’s association with formal contexts. Finally, the study concludes that more streaming platforms are recommended to add a new feature where viewers can watch the AV material with translation notes.

How individuals live their religion has been one of the most frequently studied areas of social sciences in recent years. The starting point of this study is based on the observation that people who describe themselves as religious have different ways of using social media platforms in relation to their religious beliefs. Similar to the diversity observed in the definitions of religiosity over Christianity in the West, different interpretations of Islam and Islamic way of living have also become prevalent in Turkey. With the intensification of computer-mediated communication, the communication resources and forms of discourses (re)produced online of the religious people have also diversified. This study aims to examine how active users of social media in relation to their religious values and commitments evaluate the construction and byproducts of religion online. The results show that there are three main repertoires related to the use of social media and religiosity in Turkey: religiosity as religious duties, religiosity as interpreting Islam and religiosity for managing impressions. The results can be evaluated together with the secularization theory, that is, discourses about being religious ‘warn’ individuals about the negative consequences of social media use, while offering an alternative to the positive ones.

This article examines the extent to which mediatization, as a western-centric metatheory central to an understanding of how the media logic comes to influence the political logic, applies to the study of non-western case studies. Considering the case of the 2006 Palestinian internal conflict (the split), the article examines the role of pan-Arab transnational satellite TV (PTSTV) journalism in covering the conflict’s trajectories. Building on primary qualitative data, gathered via semi-structured interviews with prominent stakeholders/insiders in the two parties and relevant sectors of news media and politics, the article explores the interplay between regional and Palestinian politics, evident in PTSTV’s coverage, and shows how available western-centred theoretical paradigms that draw on mediatization – in examining mediatized conflicts – fell short in examining such interplay for contextual, structural and sociocultural challenges in PTSTV’s operating milieu. Alternatively, the study inductively explored this interplay, overcoming the aforesaid contextual challenges, and provided evidence on how, with the lack of democratic principles in PTSTV’s operational milieu, structural/internal characteristics in these channels interacted with peripheral/external dimensions in their milieu and adversely affected their cultural dimension (coverage). PTSTV produced escalatory journalism that disseminated inflammatory content within a politically fractured culture, exacerbating the conflict and expanding the gap between the two rivals. This inductive approach in tracing the interplay – and its concurrent bargaining process – revealed five pivotal characteristics in PTSTV performance that are unique to those postulated in mediatization. They stand in this article as an authentic theoretical contribution that facilitated the handling of analytical challenges in the case study.

This article focuses on the potential of memes as apparently innocuous communicative digital tools to spread gendered Islamophobia. Following Segev et al.’s (2015) theories of meme families, we studied a corpus of 100 memes retrieved from popular internet meme sites from 2017 to 2021. We applied the principles of multimodal discourse analysis to analyse Shifman’s three dimensions of memes (content, form and stance) and described a large sample of memes, categorizing them into three popular tropes of Muslim women found in literature and electronic media. Our findings revealed that most misogynistic Islamophobic memes characterize Muslim women as oppressed by their own community. A smaller degree of memes portrays Muslim women’s bodies as sexualized and assailable, and finally very few memes depict them as terrorists. We contend that internet memes can be a powerful and efficient means to disseminate vitriolic rhetoric in a subtle and camouflaged way leading to the trivialization and, eventually, acceptance of their hateful discourse.

This interdisciplinary study explores representations of journalists linking literary criticism with media cultural studies. The researcher examines works from the sixties by Nobel laureate writer and novelist Naguib Mahfouz. While the article concentrates on Mahfouz’s works dealing with journalism, it presents a qualitative analysis of three novellas of his from the sixties: The Thief and the Dogs, The Beggar and A Drift on the Nile. In these works, Mahfouz presents cogent and well-founded arguments on the image of the Egyptian journalists, which manifest itself until now. The article argues that the psychological and social aspects of journalism that Mahfouz delineates are recalled nowadays in the vast, ubiquitous mediascape Egypt inhabits as evidence of the self-perpetuated nature of the masterful Egyptian culture. In this work Norman Fairclough’s model of discourse analysis is employed to survey the roles and characteristics of journalists in a context of power and ideology during President Nasser’s regime and shows not only how they are similar to those of journalists nowadays but also the evolution of journalists under el-Sisi neo-authoritarianism. It also draws on the thoughts of theorists like Lucien Goldmann, mainly the concept of ‘world vision’ to inspect the problem of the identity of Egyptian journalism. The study concludes that these three novels show journalists’ negative image as traitors, subservient to political power, sellers of trivia or full of nihilism. Mahfouz’s representations reflect the outputs of Egyptian media milieu under authoritarian Nasser’s era. The article reflects upon contemporary authoritarian regime in Egypt, discussing the types of media practitioners currently exist who almost repeat the almost-closed cultural circle, only with a complete control of intelligence apparatus.

With convergence of broadband access, computing and telephony, smartphones have empowered listeners to break free from the constraints of schedules and take control of their listening experiences. As a result, podcasts have gained popularity globally and many new people are finally tuning in. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the podcast community thrives with stories ranging from tech, culture and music to Middle East affairs, hosted by a diverse group of expatriates and local Emiratis. This study investigates the burgeoning podcast landscape in UAE, examining content creators’ motivations, challenges and opportunities in this emerging media space. Through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including pioneers and newcomers in the UAE podcasting industry, the research explores factors driving podcasting’s rise in the region, such as the need for localized content, the changing media landscape and the significance of community-building and interactivity in podcast creation and distribution. Furthermore, the study delves into podcasting as a horizontal medium, offering insights into how content creators push the boundaries of democratized culture on the World Wide Web. The findings highlight growth and monetization potential within the UAE podcasting market and the challenges and opportunities presented by decentralized podcast distribution. Finally, the research touches upon regulation and standardization in podcasting, examining the freedom of expression afforded by this relatively unregulated medium compared to traditional media forms. Overall, this study provides valuable insights into the emerging podcasting landscape in the UAE and sets the stage for future research exploring the motivations and challenges faced by individual creators and podcast networks in the region.