Book Review

Book Review: Zayani, Mohammed, and Joe F. Khalil. 2024. The Digital Double Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press

20 Dec 2024

Book Review: Zayani, Mohammed, and Joe F. Khalil. 2024. The Digital Double Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press
Jon W. Anderson Book Review Summarizing the past twenty-plus years of internet media studies on the Middle East, this study pulls together thinking and findings about digital citizenship, frames, and sites of contention, “new” voices and “virtual” lives online, e-commerce and “knowledge” economies, “connected” culture and digital identities in the region. Its overall methodology is to assess how large, generic models apply to regional experience. The authors, who work and…

Book Review

Book Review: Heidi A. Campbell. 2020. Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority. Routledge.

31 Oct 2024

Book Review: Heidi A. Campbell. 2020. Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority. Routledge.
Helena LipkovĂĄ Book Review The book Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority makes a valuable contribution to the study of how religious authority is evolving in the digital age. The author synthesizes previous research and introduces a new framework for categorizing types of religious authority in digital spaces. Building upon Anderson’s earlier typology, Campbell significantly advances this framework through her original empirical research, which is based on…

Book Review

Liz Przybylski. 2020. Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and In Between. SAGE Publications, Inc.

22 Dec 2023

Liz Przybylski. 2020. Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and In Between. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Anders Ackfeldt Book Review As social media proliferates globally, affecting over half the world’s population, ethnographic research must adapt to evolving modes of communication and representation. Liz Przybylski’s book Hybrid Ethnography: Online, Offline, and In Between offers an accessible, practical guide to hybrid ethnography spanning both digital and physical spaces. Covering project formulation, research ethics, site selection, data collection, analysis, and writing, the book draws on the author’s experience…

Book Review

Mukherjee, Souvik. 2022. Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations. Bloomsbury

22 Dec 2023

Mukherjee, Souvik. 2022. Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations. Bloomsbury
Xenia Zeiler Book Review The book Videogames in the Indian Subcontinent. Development, Culture(s) and Representations is the first ever comprehensive presentation and discussion of material spanning over all nations of South Asia, including Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Discussed by the leading expert on the theme, it offers both an overview of as well as numerous detailed examples of both, historical and contemporary developments.…

Book Review

Review: Brunton, Finn. 2019. Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Princeton University Press

15 Dec 2022

Review: Brunton, Finn. 2019. Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency. Princeton University Press
Michaela Slussareff Book Review The book Digital Cash: The Unknown History of the Anarchists, Utopians, and Technologists Who Created Cryptocurrency is a very important piece of work in the field of digital currencies development. The author applies the media archaeology method of research and points out the most important ideas, projects, but as well barriers and beliefs that influenced the way of thinking about digital currencies and their development.…

Book Review

Review: Stein, Rebecca L. 2021. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine. Stanford University Press.

22 Sep 2022

Review: Stein, Rebecca L. 2021. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine. Stanford University Press.
Omneya Ibrahim Book Review Screen Shots takes an ethnographic approach to explore the visual history of the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories and the different roles photography played within the decades-long conflict. Choosing to forgo the usual route of exploring the impact of photos on social activism, the author focused instead on how easily images can be utilized as tools of colonialism supporting the occupation; a unique viewpoint…

Book Review

Review: O’Neil, Cathy. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy

22 Sep 2022

Review: O’Neil, Cathy. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy
Michaela Slussareff Book Review The book Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy provides a very important point of view on the mathematical models and algorithms used for decision-making in our society. As the title suggests the author sees the possible dangerous influences of algorithms used for the specific groups in the society as huge and disastrous. The book describes the mechanism and functioning…

Book Review

Review: Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World ; Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts, Observatories and Nationalism in the Middle East

20 Dec 2021

Review: Islam, Science Fiction and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World ; Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts, Observatories and Nationalism in the Middle East
Leif Stenberg Book Review This review discusses two books by Jörg Mathias Determann. The books explore space science in the Arab world and Islam, science fiction and extraterrestrial life in the Muslim world. Both are detailed accounts, and they place their respective subjects in a historical context. The books also present and analyse topics such as science, science fiction, and astrobiology, which are rarely the focus of scholars of…

Book Review

Review: Representing Islam: Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation

20 Dec 2021

Review: Representing Islam: Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation
Anders Ackfeldt Book Review The book Representing Islam: Hip-Hop of the September 11 Generation (2020) by Kamaludeen Mohmed Nasir explores the entangled relationship between Islam and hip-hop. The book centers around Muslim hip-hop artists affected by the war on terror and the long-term consequences of the 9/11 attacks; increased surveillance, a securitization of Islam, and an amplified islamophobia, not only in the United States but around the world. The…

Book Review

Review: Cyber Sufis: Virtual Expressions of the American Muslim Experience (Islam in the Twenty-First Century)

15 Dec 2020

Review: Cyber Sufis: Virtual Expressions of the American Muslim Experience (Islam in the Twenty-First Century)
Wael Hegazy Book Review If you have made up your mind that the embodied rituals are the main dominant phenomenon in modern Sufism and the cyberspace can only contribute to the marginalization of religious experience, this book is out to persuade you otherwise. This is an ethnographic study that investigates the virtualization of Sufi rituals, religious education, spiritual practices, and public outreach adopted by the Inyati Sufi order. It…

Book Review

Review: The Media World of ISIS

15 Dec 2020

Review: The Media World of ISIS
Orwa Ajjoub Book Review The Islamic State group (IS) has grabbed the world’s attention as one of the most dangerous and gruesome terrorist organizations in history. The group has been studied from different disciplines such as political science, history, and theology. Michael Krona and Rosemary Pennington’s edited volume, The Media World of ISIS, is an attempt by media studies scholars to explore different aspects and dimensions of the IS…

Book Review

Review: Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion

15 Dec 2020

Review: Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion
Anders Ackfeldt Book Review The edited volume Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion (2017) by VĂ­t Ć isler, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, and Xenia Zeiler takes the study of religion and video games seriously and recognizes the widespread usage of religious themes in the world of games. The book can be read as an exposĂ© of the state of research in the field of Game Studies with the specific focus on…

Book Review

Review: Technology and National Identity in Turkey. Mobile Communications and the Evolution of a Post-Ottoman Nation

10 Nov 2014

Review: Technology and National Identity in Turkey. Mobile Communications and the Evolution of a Post-Ottoman Nation
Petr Kučera Book Review Technology and National Identity in Turkey is a social study of technology or, more precisely, of the cultural, historical, social, psychological and individual contexts, attitudes, and practices connected to and resulting from the use of mobile phones in Turkey. It also looks into the ways this technology has been 'domesticated' or 'nationalized' and links it to the shaping of national identity.

Book Review

Review: Religion and Hip Hop

10 Nov 2013

Review: Religion and Hip Hop
Kalle Berggren Book Review The book under review brings together the category of religion, Hip Hop cultural modalities and the demographic of youth. Bringing postmodern theory and critical approaches in the study of religion to bear on Hip Hop cultural practices, the book examines how scholars in religious and theological studies have deployed and approached religion when analyzing Hip Hop data.

Book Review

Review: Turkish Metal – Music, Meaning and Morality in a Muslim Society

10 Nov 2013

Review: Turkish Metal – Music, Meaning and Morality in a Muslim Society
Johan Cato Book Review The book is divided into seven chapters that deal with a variety of topics related to heavy metal, Turkey and Islam. The topics include questions concerning gender, nationalism, media coverage and satanic panic. The book is based on a broad range of materials, which include in-depth interviews with musicians and metalheads active on the scene, interviews with journalists and documentary analysis in the form of…

Book Review

Review: Arabités numériques. Le printemps du Web arabe

10 May 2013

Review: Arabités numériques. Le printemps du Web arabe
LuboĆĄ Kropáček Book Review The book under review examines the phenomenon of the Arab Spring in greater depth, which step by step takes into consideration all relevant political, social, cultural and technical aspects of the complex nature of the Arab e-revolutions. They were revolutions (the term is favoured by the Arabs) without leaders, their role being played by modern media. The ideas of anti-establishment protest were conceived and discussed…

Book Review

Review: Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age. The 2009 Presidential Election Uprising in Iran

10 May 2013

Review: Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age. The 2009 Presidential Election Uprising in Iran
Zuzana Krihova Book Review In the light of the recent presidential elections in Iran, a collection of academic essays - Media, Power, and Politics in the Digital Age - edited by Professor Yahya Kamalipour provides us with a unique retrospection. It allows us to follow the dramatic and controversial 2009 elections in Iran, while exploring some more universal topics such as the interplay of media, power and politics, or…

Book Review

Review: iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks

10 May 2013

Review: iMuslims: Rewiring the House of Islam. Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks
Vit Sisler Book Review The book has an overwhelming scope, ranging from methodological and theoretical issues related to the research of Islam in cyberspace to detailed analysis of particular and diverse segments of the cyber Islamic environments such as the Islamic blogosphere or the use of the Internet by jihadi movements. The author clearly demonstrates his command of the subject by the vast number of examples, mainly websites, blogs…

Book Review

Review: Von Chatraum bis Cyberjihad: Muslimische Internetnutzung in lokaler und globaler Perspektive

10 Nov 2012

Review: Von Chatraum bis Cyberjihad: Muslimische Internetnutzung in lokaler und globaler Perspektive
Göran Larsson Book Review The book titled Von Chatraum bis Cyberjihad: Muslimische Internetnutzung in lokaler und globaler Perspektive, edited by Matthias BrĂŒckner and Johanna Pink, focuses on different aspects of the Islamic and Muslim presence on the Internet. It is divided into three subsections. The first focuses on Internet use in the Islamic world, the second on trans-locality and the Internet, and the third on global Islam.

Book Review

Review: Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran

10 Nov 2012

Review: Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran
Zuzana Krihova Book Review Sreberny and Khiabany's book Blogistan deals with various paradoxes and contradictions of Iranian policy towards the information and communication technologies (ICTs). Placing the Iranian blogosphere within the rapidly modernized telecommunication sector and looking at the democratic potentials of the Internet being suppressed by Iranian state policies, Blogistan reveals how the contradictions between the development of ICTs and its state's control as well as tension between…

Book Review

Review: The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam

10 May 2012

Review: The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam
Jon W. Anderson Book Review Howard's book The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy focuses on the relation between ITCs and civil society and democracy in the Muslim world. It assembled a database of indicators (for Internet availability, access, policy, ownership, structures and uses) cross-referenced to common standard measures of democratization and development for 75 countries with substantial Muslim populations.

Book Review

Review: The Arab Revolution: The Lessons from the Democratic Uprising

10 May 2012

Review: The Arab Revolution: The Lessons from the Democratic Uprising
Marek Cejka Book Review Filiu's book The Arab Revolution: The Lessons from the Democratic Uprising provides an overview of the context of the indirect circumstances of the Arab Spring and also takes into account the related sociological and psychological factors, which makes the book more interdisciplinary. It focuses on events in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya but also covers other parts of the MENA region.

Book Review

Review: Die Fotografie im Osmanischen Reich

10 Nov 2011

Review: Die Fotografie im Osmanischen Reich
Göran Larsson Book Review Besides its value as an excellent introduction to the early history of photography in the Ottoman Empire, Nimet Șeker’s book Die Fotografie im Osmanischen Reich provides the reader with valuable insights into Muslim debates about images and Islamic theology and the transformation of the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Book Review

Review: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace

10 May 2011

Review: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace
Vit Sisler Book Review With growing Internet penetration rates and the proliferation of new media outlets in the Muslim world there is a simultaneously growing academic interest in possible social and political changes endorsed by these media. A recent contribution to this rapidly expanding body of research has been provided by Mohammed El-Nawawy and Sahar Khamis. They have co-authored a book called Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in…

Book Review