Border guards of the Imagined Watan : Arab Journalists and the New Arab Consciousness

Document Type

Article

Department

Graduate School of Media and Communications

Abstract

Media plays a fundamental role in the formation of national identity, most fa mously detailed in Benedict Anderson's theory of the imagined community. In the Arab world, a media revolution is contributing to the emergence of a reawakened regional Arab consciousness. A comparison of data from the first major regional survey of Arab journalists and the results of various public opinion polls in the region indicate that Arab journalists stand on the borderlands of Arab identity, shaping an emerging "imagined" watan [nation] that, in some ways, transcends the traditional lines in the sand that define the nation-state.

Comments

This work was published before the author joined Aga Khan University.

Publication (Name of Journal)

The Middle East Journal

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS