[Air-l] Special Issue of JCMC online

[Charles Ess]

Colleagues:

I'd like to call your attention to a special issue of the Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication, on the topic of "Technologies of Despair
and Hope: Liberatory Potentials and Practices of CMC in the Middle East",
co-edited and introduced with my colleague Fay Sudweeks:
<http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol8/issue2/>.

To cite the opening page:
   The simplistic view of a monolithic Islamic world pitted against an
equally monolithic West disappears quickly into much more complex local
histories and politics that provide as many counter-examples to, as examples
of, these broad categories. Articles in this special issue provide us with a
careful, detailed, and nuanced look at the diffusion and impacts of CMC
technologies in the Middle East, with reports on Afghanistan, Israel,
Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.

Somewhat more carefully, two of the articles will be of value for folks
interested in gender and religion in the Islamic context, as these are
affected - from a Western perspective - in liberatory ways (United Arab
Emirates and Afghanistan); the third examines how CMC technologies in Israel
largely replicate the inequalities of power, rather than help "liberate" or
"democratize," as proponents of these technologies often promise.

I hope these articles might be of use to some of you and your students.

Cheers,

Charles Ess
Distinguished Research Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies
Drury University
900 N. Benton Ave.                          Voice: 417-873-7230
Springfield, MO  65802  USA            FAX: 417-873-7435
Home page:  http://www.drury.edu/ess/ess.html
Co-chair, CATaC 2002: http://www.it.murdoch.edu.au/~sudweeks/catac02/

Exemplary persons seek harmony, not sameness. -- Analects 13.23