New Communication Technologies among Arabs: Elites, Contexts, and Systems

The Center for Arab Unity Studies has published the book New Communication Technologies among Arabs: Elites, Contexts, and Systems by Dr. Ali Ghwaydia.

The Arab world is gradually becoming involved in a technology-obsessed perspective, amidst the surge of the “artificial intelligence” phenomenon in particular. The intellectually critical elite duty requires intelligence and brilliance, along with sufficient maturity and strategic vision, to think about and study this emerging and controversial technology objectively and with a critical sense to prevent getting involved in free, hasty, or paid-for “celebration” or “contempt” in complicity with manufacturing technology companies, and with the unjust neoliberal trend obsessed with controlling human minds.

This book- with responsibility, humility, and intellectual courage- works to elucidate the cognitive patterns, methodological trends, and theoretical frameworks inherent in Arab new communication technologies research during a “unique” decade in contemporary Arab history (2010-2020); which was marked by the rise of “grand narratives” or “grand endings” in a post- context (postmodern, post-media, etc.); and the book adopted it as a reference era to monitor Arab societal, geopolitical and epistemological transformations, and to understand and predict the future and to be wary of its technological prophecies in particular.

Communication technology has been a pivotal element in the game of nations, and in the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular; it has been the means by which a clear advantage has been achieved in the last war in the region, especially in the role of that technology in the violation of information and thus in the information penetration and security exposure of the resistance in a way that allowed the assassination of its leaders and fighters in an immediate and amazing collective manner. To absorb this bitter lesson, it is necessary to understand and master this technology. This is what this book engages in, according to a scientific approach, revealing to us how the Arabs of the previous generation understood technology, alerting us to the pitfalls and obstacles, and how elite “cunning” can outwit it, coexist with it, criticize it, regain its glory, or thrive on its platforms.