"Arab Influencer Culture(s)"

Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 15 , 2022

YouTube influencers, especially from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), command a huge (young) audience and form part of a global pop cultural mainstream representative of the fast-growing digital content industry. These YouTubers are on one hand embedded in a highly professionalized network, consisting of multi-channel networks (MCN s), media companies, tv stations and advertising partners, all operating from Dubai. On the other hand, they feature Dubai’s cityscape and urban spaces in their posts and videos and contribute to urban branding. In this article, I want to evaluate the financially profitable relationship between influencers and Dubai by analyzing footage of the Saudi YouTuber and rapper Dyler (b. 2001). Taking into consideration the political economy of social media in the Gulf as well as the political economy of urban branding in Dubai, the article discusses the political consequences of this relationship on social media, youth culture and urban development in the region.

International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 2020

This qualitative study, set against the backdrop of Egypt, examines how social media influencers construct their online identity and build their online persona. Social media, which have been primarily developed in the West, have infiltrated the Egyptian society; they have opened doors to different forms of personae and content such as social media influencers. In Egypt their numbers have increased, and they have become an important part of the social media scene. They aim to build their audiences and fan bases with the ultimate objective of monetising their presence. This study focuses on nine Egyptian social media influencers, through employing in-depth interviews, and seeks to explore how they construct their online identity and how they build their distinct personae. The analysis revealed that they build a distinct online person for themselves to impress their audiences and fans. Moreover, they perform authentically; they seek to be perceived as authentic and to display this authenticity they undertake a number of processes.

Cultura Lenguaje Y Representacion Culture Language and Representation Revista De Estudios Culturales De La Universitat Jaume I Cultural Studies Journal of Universitat Jaume I, 2010

Journal of Marketing Management and Consumer Behavior, 2022

Advancements in digital technologies have transformed the way people access media and consume content leading to the emergence of new communication culture as a result of the emergence of a complex, multi-layered media landscape. In this new communications culture, the lines are blurred between traditional and new media, social and digital, formal and user generated. (Dewyer, 2010, Meikle and Young, 2012). In postmodern societies, most of the human activities happen online with social media becoming an integral part of modern-day consumers. Empowered by user generated content capabilities, social media is where consumers build online representation, gather information, review and interact directly with brands and other consumers. Today consumers seek recommendations from peers which makes them resistant towards traditional forms of advertising while playing an increasingly bigger role in the marketing process (Holt, 2003, Campbell and Farrel, 2020). To appeal to the empowered and creative consumers, marketers started to use stories as an effective brand building strategy. (Woods ide 2010, Hofman-Kohlmeyer, 2017). An effective storytelling strategy requires an effective storyteller in order to cut through the noise and build emotional connections with the customers. While storytelling is an ancient form of communication, with the rise of social media, influencer marketing has become an impactful method that helps brands find the sweet spot between their message and the consumer. The use of social media influencers as 3rd party brand endorsers is now a 15$ billion industry (Schomer, 2019). Influencer marketing has become a prominent marketing channel worldwide and in the GCC.

Journal of Middle East Media, 2012

There are moments while reading the book "Arab Media" that the reader will no doubt think of the authors and how they might be, at that very moment, making adjustments for a second edition to the physical work to take into consideration the many changes in the part of the world that they define in the first part of the book -Boundaries of the region as "the Arab-speaking countries in the Middle East" (p. 1); references to Qadhafi and Mubarak in the first section are no doubt high on the list of items in need of revision. This is just one of the pitfalls of a book of this nature -how to keep it timely when the medium in which it is presented is static. The other challenge in taking on such a massive subject as media in the Arab world is how to winnow the enormous amount of information down to fit inside the covers of one edition. Quite frankly each chapter in this book could be expanded to fill its own book. Nevertheless the authors clearly were setting out to create a one-stop resource for Arab media -and to a large extent they have succeeded in doing so. If the task of a reader is to gain an overview of Arab media, the book will allow them to accomplish this goal. As such, this book will be valuable for undergraduate courses that involve media globalization and looking at media in the Arab world.

Routedge Handbook on Arab Media, 2021

This handbook provides the first comprehensive reference book in English about the development of mass and social media in all Arab countries. Capturing the historical as well as current developments in the media scene, this collection maps the role of media in social and political movements.

2012

CIMA is pleased to release a new report, Digital Media in the Arab World One Year After the Revolutions, by Jeffrey Ghannam, a lawyer and writer in Washington, DC. The Arab region is experiencing a profound media shift. The year following the start of the Arab revolutions–in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and violent uprisings in Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain–was followed by continued repression and threats to the exercise of free expression online and offline. But the year also saw great strides in the numbers of Arabs across the region turning to social media platforms and the ascendancy of online engagement. This report describes and analyzes the enabling of tens of millions of individuals–as well as established news outlets–to attract wide global followings with Facebook and Twitter updates and YouTube videos about rapidly changing events. The widely diverse and pluralistic online communities in the Arab world are creating and sharing content, casting into question the future of the many state-owned or self-censored media that provide less in the way of engagement that Arab audiences have come to expect.

Media, identity, and online communities in a changing Arab world, 2019

Our Special Issue captures the interplay of media, politics, religion, and culture in shaping Arabs' search for more stable governing models at crossroads of global, regional, and national challenges through systematic and integrated analyses of evolving and contested Arab visual and performing arts, including media (traditional and alternative), in revolutionary and unstable public spheres. This special issue examines the role of new media in the construction of online communities in the Arab world. It contributes to the understanding of how user-generated content empowers these new publics and the novel communities established by user comments on social media and news websites. Specifically, it explores these online communities and their perceptions of the role of user-generated content to contribute to politics, and potentially engage other citizens in the public debate.

Journal of Communication & Media Research, 2021

This qualitative study examines what it means to be a fan of social media influencers in Egypt. Social media, which have been primarily developed in the West, have infiltrated the Egyptian society; they have opened doors to different forms of personae and content such as social media influencers. In Egypt their numbers have increased, and they have become an important part of the social media scene. Egyptian youth are the primary consumers of the content presented by social media influencers. This study focuses on nine social media influencers and eighteen of their fans, and seeks to explore what is a fan and how do fans behave towards social media influencers. The analysis revealed that fans carry out distinct behaviors and that they appropriate the content presented. Moreover, fans identify with and develop parasocial relations with social media influencers and undergo changes in their attitudes and behaviors as a result of becoming fans.