Centre for Global Media and Communications & Centre for Palestine Studies

Professor Dina Matar

Key information

Roles
Centre for Global Media and Communications Director, Centre for Global Media and Communication, School of Law Centre for Palestine Studies Chair
Qualifications
BSc (Jordan); MSc, PhD (London)
Building
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office
575
Email address
dm27@soas.ac.uk
Telephone number
+44 (0)207 898 4696
Thesis title
News, memory and Identity: The Palestinians in Britain (2005)
Support hours
Term 2: Mondays 13:00 - 15:30 (in person or online)

Biography

I am Professor of Political Communication and Arab Media at the Centre for Global Media and Communication at SOAS. I have an  MSc in Comparative Politics (LSE) and a PhD in Media and Communications (LSE). My PhD is from the London School of Economics. I have conducted research in the Arab World, particularly Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Before joining academia, I worked as a foreign correspondent covering the Middle East and then an editor working on the Middle East, Europe and Africa. My primary research interest is in the intersection of communication and politics with a focus on the marginal and the oppressed as well as the relationship between structure and power in the Middle East. My work and teaching are interdisciplinary, drawing on culture and media studies, politics, visual cultures, Islamist politics, oral history, area studies, diasporas, memory cultures and gendering communication. I have written two monographs, edited two books and written book chapters and articles in peer reviewed journals. The material from my first book “What it Means to be Palestinian” has been used as the basis for an animation movie which has received several awards. I am currently working on the sequel to that book focusing on the years from the Oslo agreement to the present. I have supervised 15 PhD students to completion. I am the chair of the Centre for Palestine Studies and the SOAS Academic Assembly. I am founding editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication. I am co-editor of the SOAS Palestine Studies book series and the new book series, Political Communication and Media Practices in the Middle East and North Africa.

Affiliations:

Academic Assembly: Chair

Senate: Member

Royal Society of Art: Fellow

 

 

Key publications

Research interests

Middle East, especially the Arab world; international political communication; Arab cultural politics; Arab cultural studies; memory studies and oral history; Islamist  movements; social movements and media; diasporas; ethnic minorities; transnational movements and communications.

PhD Supervision

Name Title
Aida Al Kaisy A comparative study of the production practices of the mass media of a country in conflict, Iraq.
Hebah Hasan O Albiti Social Change through Power of Imagination in Arabic Theatre: How the Raḥbānī Brothers’ Works Empowered their Audiences
Ebru Baser Turkish Diasporic Children and Digital Media
Laura Beaney Beyond Exile: Gender, Identity and Artistic Practices in Second-Generation Women Belonging to the Iranian Diaspora in the US.
Gabriel Huland The Syrian Conflict and American Foreign Policy in the News
Alexander Humphries The Christian formation of Iraq: A Study of the Chaldean Catholic Church’s role in the creation and development of the Iraqi nation
Azadeh Pourzand "Activism Beyond Impact: The Case of Iranian Women’s Quest for
Equality (working title)"

Publications

Contact Dina