The Digital Double Bind

Essential reading not only for those specializing in the Middle East, but for anyone concerned with the impact of the digital revolution more generally. Never before in history has cutting-edge technology gone straight to all sectors of the world and en masse to the less-privileged as well as the affluent. The consequences in a sub-continent in which tradition and engrained structures of power remain strong are complex indeed, but brilliantly traced out by the authors. * Anthony Giddens, Life Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and Member of the House of Lords in the UK * Zayani and Khalil offer a welcome and significant contribution to our critiques of discourses that simplify and essentialize 'digital' and 'Middle East.' This volume deftly moves beyond binaries, creatively proposing a double bind framework that invokes fluid movements of people and technologies. It is a critical reminder that communication needs to be understood in historical and social contexts, as well as global political and economic structures. * Karin Wilkins, author of Prisms of Prejudice * In this skillfully written and thought-provoking book, Zayani and Khalil take readers to a Middle East few Westerners know. Complex, conflicted, and creative, the region, as this important work describes, is accelerating into the information age with big plans and even bigger uncertainties. * Vincent Mosco, author of The Smart City in a Digital World * Zayani and Khalil's comprehensive and conceptually ambitious review of media in the Middle East makes an important and much-needed contribution to debates on technology and regionalization generally. This is a landmark study in the de-westernization of media research. We have needed a book like this for a long time! * Nick Couldry, London School of Economics and Political Science *