Dalal -Me and Miodrag's research paper

Posted by Dalal Al-Thani at Sunday, April 3, 2011 11:45:37 AM EDT
Dear All,

Recently Waddah added me and Miodrag's presentation on "The impact of Global communications on traditional family values in Qatar". Attached is the paper, it's still very much a work in progress but I thought of attaching it because it could be helpful for the Qatar ethnography project.

Here's the abstract: (the paper is attached is you want to continue reading)



This project aims to study the impact of the sudden profusion of Internet media and other forms of global communications on family values in Qatar. Most mass communications and sociological research has focused on examining the media content and the audience of the media in the United States and Europe, yet documentation on the societal consequences of the dissemination of internet media and other forms of mass communication on Arab, and in particular Gulf countries such as Qatar, remains scarce. The particular placement of Qatar at the heart of the cross-currents of globalization affords a unique opportunity to examine this phenomenon. Until recently, Qatar was very isolated from the process of globalization and the IT revolution. Yet within the past decade, Qatar has witnessed an immense socio-economic development, which included a sudden and incisive technological transformation in the realm of electronic communication. Our research intends to weigh the repercussions of this sudden exposure to global communication networks and new technologies for the core ethical orientations underpinning family values and kinship ties in Qatar.

Multiple studies have documented the globalization of mass communications, including the formative technological, structural, and economic developments which have expanded the pace and density of cross-border information flows. While there is a mountain of theoretical speculation, far less is known about the consequences of this process. Taking the World Values Studies as its methodological inspiration, this proposal focuses on the ways that this process may potentially affect Qatari citizens through reshaping the web of family values.

The sudden and drastic change of Qatari citizens’ values and behavior in wake of the acceleration of new means of communication has been a frequent preoccupation of the media. Readily observable phenomena include a whole generation of youth incessantly connected to blackberries, instant messengers, and online social platforms. Such is the extent of the current controversy about the negative impact of “globalization” on family values that it can overshadow the potential benefits modern media and communications may yield for Qatari society. Over the past decades, frequent access to cell-phones and internet social networks has spread widely at a rapid pace amongst the generation of Qatari adolescents. Recent surveys indicate that young people in America spend more time engaged with these types of mass media than they typically spend either in school or interacting with their parents. This research project will aim to determine whether similar trends can be documented within the context of Qatar. Methodology, we will rely on interviews targeting three respective class segments and age clusters of Qataris.

Furthermore, we will evaluate the impact of the global communications revolution on the public discourse on family values, as well as on broader social dynamics within the Qatari nation-state. We selected family values as our topical focal point for two major reasons. First, the debate on the crisis of family values has surfaced in numerous Qatari fora, TV talk shows and newspaper articles and editorials. It has also been a top concern of the Qatari government and institutions such as the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, the Doha Institute for Family Affairs and the Social Development Center. Secondly, conceptually and analytically, we conceive of the family to be the pivotal intermediate link between the individual and the nation-state. As such, and given the particular importance of kinship in the Arab world as emphasized by sociologists such as Halim Barakat and Hisham Sharabi, the family can be said to be the principal arena for modernization as expressed in the tug of war between individual and collective frameworks of identity.

In addition to the surveys seeking to determine inter-generational differentials in the perception and practice of the global communication revolution in Qatar, our research will focus on information circulating in the public domain, including the leading Qatari newspapers and blogs published in both Arabic and English. We will also enroll in a public workshop entitled “The Transformation of Youth and Family” organized by the Gulf Times. Ultimately, the project will attempt to gauge to what degree global communications are driving individualism a modern sense of citizenship and national identity, and to what degree the weakening of family solidarities may have adverse consequences for communal identities and the fabric of households and the nation as a whole.


Dalal Al Thani.