Issues 42 & 43, Summer/Fall 2026 on “Media Transformation and the Public Sphere”

Arab media have long played a central role in shaping public life, political debate, cultural identity, and social imagination across the region. From the rise of the pan-Arab press and transnational broadcasting to satellite television, social media, streaming platforms, podcasts, messaging applications, and AI-assisted communication, Arab publics have continually been formed and re-formed through changing media technologies, institutions, and practices. Today, however, the relationship between media transformation and the public sphere is entering a new stage.

Public discussion in the Arab world is no longer anchored primarily in newspapers, television news, official statements, or elite political commentary. It increasingly unfolds across a networked public sphere: a dense and shifting ecology of platforms, creators, influencers, fan communities, sports commentators, entertainment formats, podcasts, livestreams, short videos, memes, private messaging groups, and algorithmically organized feeds. In this environment, public life is not only produced through journalism or formal political debate, but also through entertainment, sports, celebrity culture, satire, gaming, religious discourse, lifestyle content, branded communication, and everyday audience participation.

This special issue of Arab Media & Society invites submissions that examine how media transformation is reshaping the Arab public sphere. We are particularly interested in the changing forms, formats, and delivery systems through which communication now reaches Arab audiences. These include short-form video, streaming drama, sports broadcasting, fan media, podcasts, social media commentary, influencer-led discussion, private messaging platforms, AI-generated content, and platform-native political debate.

The issue starts from the premise that the Arab public sphere should not be understood only through formal politics or traditional journalism. Entertainment, sports, and popular culture have become major arenas of public communication. Television dramas, streaming series, comedy clips, football debates, sports mega-events, celebrity controversies, influencer campaigns, fan communities, and online talk shows now shape how publics discuss identity, morality, class, gender, nation, religion, conflict, and belonging. Political discussion itself has also changed form: it increasingly circulates through fragments, clips, hashtags, memes, reaction videos, anonymous accounts, livestreams, podcasts, and semi-private messaging networks.

These transformations raise important questions. Who speaks in the Arab public sphere today? What kinds of media formats now carry public debate? How do entertainment and sports become political without always being formally “political”? How do platforms, algorithms, AI tools, and audience metrics shape what becomes visible, credible, popular, controversial, or silenced? How are Arab publics formed across national, regional, diasporic, and transnational media spaces? And how do war, geopolitical instability, economic uncertainty, censorship, platform governance, and strategic communication reshape public communication?

While earlier scholarship on Arab media systems remains important, this issue places the main emphasis on changing communication forms and the reconfiguration of public life. Questions about media systems, state power, ownership, authoritarianism, developmental media, and comparative classification are welcome, but primarily as subthemes that help explain broader changes in communication, delivery, participation, and public sphere formation.

This special issue seeks theoretically informed and empirically grounded contributions that examine the transformation of Arab media and its implications for the public sphere in a rapidly changing communicative environment.

Suggested themes and topics

Submissions may address, but are not limited to:

1) Arab media and the networked public sphere

• The transformation of the Arab public sphere through digital, mobile, and platform-based communication
• Networked publics, connective action, and new forms of visibility, legitimacy, and authority
• The relationship between legacy media, social media, streaming platforms, and private messaging applications
• Public debate across open platforms and semi-private spaces such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and closed groups
• The changing boundaries between public, private, intimate, commercial, and political communication
• Fragmented, affective, polarized, humorous, and entertainment-driven forms of public discussion

2) Changing forms of communication and delivery

• Short-form video, livestreaming, podcasts, reels, stories, newsletters, explainers, and mobile-first formats
• The transformation of television, radio, and print in relation to platform-native media
• Streaming, on-demand viewing, and the changing meaning of broadcasting
• Hybrid formats that combine journalism, entertainment, commentary, advertising, activism, and personal storytelling
• Algorithmic recommendation, platform design, and the politics of reach and circulation
• New production cultures among creators, influencers, streamers, podcasters, and independent media producers

3) Entertainment as public sphere

• Entertainment as a space for public debate, social commentary, and cultural negotiation
• Streaming drama, television series, reality shows, comedy, satire, music, celebrity culture, and popular storytelling
• The role of entertainment in shaping debates about class, gender, youth, religion, migration, morality, and national identity
• Celebrity controversies, influencer cultures, and the politics of visibility
• Memes, fan edits, reaction videos, parody, humor, and participatory entertainment cultures
• Entertainment industries, platform economies, and the production of Arab cultural publics

4) Sports, publics, and political communication

• Sports media as a major arena of Arab public life
• Football talk, fan cultures, online sports publics, and affective forms of belonging
• Sports broadcasting, streaming, club media, athlete branding, and fan-generated content
• Sports podcasts, YouTube channels, livestreams, social media commentary, and platform-native sports journalism
• Sports diplomacy, mega-events, national image, soft power, and regional competition
• Gender, class, nationalism, masculinity, identity, and political expression in sports communication
• The commercialization of sports publics through sponsorship, advertising, influencers, and platform metrics

5) Political discussion in new media formats

• Political debate through clips, memes, podcasts, livestreams, reels, online talk shows, and influencer commentary
• The movement of political discussion from formal programming to fragmented and platform-native formats
• Humor, satire, parody, outrage, emotion, and affective publics in Arab political communication
• Hashtags, trending topics, anonymous accounts, digital campaigns, and coordinated political messaging
• Political discussion in private and semi-private communication spaces
• Online polarization, rumor, harassment, disinformation, and credibility contests
• Political speech under surveillance, censorship, content moderation, and legal risk

6) Creators, influencers, and new communicative authority

• The rise of creators, influencers, streamers, podcasters, fan commentators, and platform-native personalities
• The blurring of boundaries between journalist, entertainer, activist, marketer, political commentator, and public intellectual
• Creator economies, monetization, sponsorship, subscriptions, advertising, and platform revenue models
• Authenticity, intimacy, credibility, and trust in influencer-led communication
• Micro-celebrities, niche publics, and new forms of cultural and political authority
• The professionalization of creator work in Arab entertainment, sports, lifestyle, and political commentary

7) Audiences, fans, users, and participatory publics

• The transformation of audiences from readers and viewers into users, followers, fans, commenters, creators, and data subjects
• Youth publics, diasporic audiences, women’s digital communities, migrant communities, linguistic minorities, and marginalized publics
• Fan cultures around entertainment, sports, celebrities, political personalities, and online communities
• Audience participation through comments, sharing, remixing, reaction formats, live chats, and fan production
• Trust, authenticity, credibility, news avoidance, selective exposure, and emotional attachment
• Audience analytics, personalization, microtargeting, and the commercialization of attention

8) AI, automation, and synthetic public communication

• Generative AI in entertainment, sports media, journalism, political commentary, public relations, and content production
• AI-assisted editing, translation, dubbing, subtitling, voice generation, and Arabic-language localization
• Synthetic presenters, virtual influencers, deepfakes, AI-generated personalities, and credibility contests
• AI tools in recommendation, sports analytics, entertainment distribution, and audience targeting
• Automated moderation, Arabic dialects, linguistic inequality, and algorithmic visibility
• AI-assisted misinformation, manipulation, propaganda, verification, and fact-checking

9) Strategic communication, branding, and public visibility

• Public relations, public diplomacy, reputation management, and nation branding in the Arab public sphere
• Strategic communication through entertainment, sports, tourism, cultural festivals, and mega-events
• Branded content, influencer campaigns, sponsored media, native advertising, and promotional cultures
• Communication strategies by states, corporations, sports clubs, cultural institutions, NGOs, and political movements
• Soft power, cultural diplomacy, sports diplomacy, and regional image-making
• Crisis communication during war, disaster, economic instability, public health crises, diplomatic conflict, and reputational controversy

10) Geopolitical instability, crisis, and public communication

• How war, occupation, displacement, sanctions, regional rivalry, and humanitarian crisis reshape Arab public communication
• Entertainment, sports, and political discussion during moments of crisis
• Digital witnessing, visual evidence, verification, documentation, and the circulation of conflict-related content
• Platform governance, takedowns, moderation, demonetization, and visibility during regional conflicts
• Diasporic communication, transnational solidarity, and cross-border publics
• The ethical challenges of communicating crisis through fast-moving, visual, affective, and platform-native formats

11) Revisiting Arab media systems as a subtheme

• How changing forms of communication complicate older classifications of Arab media systems
• Revisiting Hallin and Mancini, William Rugh, and other comparative media-system frameworks in relation to new public sphere dynamics
• The limits of classifying Arab media primarily as authoritarian, developmental, loyalist, diverse, or transitional
• The role of ownership, state power, private capital, platform companies, creator economies, and transnational media flows in reshaping communication
• The relationship between national media systems and transnational entertainment, sports, and political discussion
• How legacy media institutions adapt to platform-native publics and new delivery infrastructures

12) Language, dialect, humor, and cultural form

• Arabic dialects, multilingual communication, translation, subtitling, dubbing, and localization
• Humor, irony, parody, slang, memes, and vernacular expression in entertainment, sports, and political debate
• Dialect, intimacy, authenticity, and audience belonging
• Language politics in pan-Arab, national, local, diasporic, and minority media spaces
• Cultural specificity in algorithmic recommendation, search, moderation, and platform circulation

13) Methods and research designs

• Digital ethnography, audience research, creator diaries, interviews, production studies, and newsroom research
• Platform/interface analysis, discourse analysis, visual analysis, multimodal analysis, and political economy approaches
• Comparative studies of entertainment, sports, and political discussion across platforms and countries
• Computational approaches to networks, engagement, visibility, recommendation, and circulation, with attention to their limitations
• Research ethics in studying closed groups, fan communities, minors, influencers, conflict content, and AI-generated media
• Methodological challenges in studying ephemeral, deleted, personalized, encrypted, or algorithmically ranked communication

The above list is a non-exhaustive set of suggested areas of research. We welcome contributions that explore other dimensions related to media transformation and the public sphere in the Arab world, especially work that examines new forms of delivery, entertainment, sports communication, political discussion, audience participation, platform cultures, AI, strategic communication, and the changing relationship between media and public life.

Submission guidelines

All submissions must be in Microsoft Word format (.doc or .docx), adhere to the Chicago Manual of Style 17^th edition (author-date system), and have a maximum length of 10,000 words, including footnotes and references.

Please include the author’s name as it should be published, their position and affiliation, ORCID ID, and a brief abstract of no more than 150 words.

Deadline for full papers

October 5, 2026 for all submissions.

Please email all submissions to: ams.editor@aucegypt.edu. For further information regarding publishing policies, kindly visit: www.arabmediasociety.com/publishing-policies/

For any inquiries regarding the call for papers, please contact: ams.editor@aucegypt.edu.

Thank you for your interest and support of Arab Media & Society. We look forward to your contributions to this timely and important issue.