"This paper reflects critically on the concept of ‘communicative resilience’ and its application in the field of media development. It draws on the case study of a development programme implemented in Tunisia and Lebanon, which was intended to support community-owned media through the framework ... of communicative resilience. The article reports on the findings of 47 fieldwork interviews with local civil society actors and independent journalists, and argues that the agenda of resilience often fails to harness—and at times undermines—organic grass-roots communication practices. As an alternative, it proposes redefining communicative resilience as an organic process of communicative resistance." (Abstract) more

"This book offers a ten-year perspective on ongoing and evolving practices of digital activism across the Middle East and North Africa, drawing on interviews and ethnographic evidence collected between 2012 and 2022. It examines the shifting narrative around digital activism in the region, from the ... wake of the 2011 uprisings to the 2019 series of protests coined 'the second wave of the Arab Spring'. It considers how media activists navigate the transition from the emergent to the mainstream in a climate of contentious politics, following the civil mobilisations of the pro-revolutionary youths in Tunisia, Egypt, and Lebanon. It outlines the particularities of these three different political contexts and media environments, featuring case studies of the Tunisian blogosphere, online campaigning in the Egyptian elections and interviews with social media activists. In light of this empirical evidence, the book offers a critique of the increasing prevalence of a security perspective through which online activism has been viewed and its deleterious effect on digital political engagement in the region." (Publisher description) more