Vol. 7, Iss. 1, 2013

Complete issue as PDF

Online and Offline Continuities, Community and Agency on the Internet

10 May 2013

Online and Offline Continuities, Community and Agency on the Internet
Jon W. Anderson Article How the Internet spawns community and gets its features into offline life is a recurring problem met in searches for “impacts” of its successive iterations in the Middle East and arises particularly in assessing equivocal findings most recently about social media in the Arab Spring uprisings. But the problem is more methodological than ontological: it lies in viewing the Internet through a media lens on…

Article

The Earth Is Your Mosque (and Everyone Else’s Too): Online Muslim Environmentalism and Interfaith Collaboration in UK and Singapore

10 May 2013

The Earth Is Your Mosque (and Everyone Else’s Too): Online Muslim Environmentalism and Interfaith Collaboration in UK and Singapore
Lisa Siobhan Irving Article The environmentalist group Wisdom in Nature (WIN) and the online network Project ME: Muslims and the Environment have been chosen for analysis, from the UK and Singapore respectively, to illustrate examples of Muslim environmentalists who use the Internet, as a complement to community-based activism, to raise awareness of environmental concerns among both Muslims and non-Muslims. I will explore how WIN and Project ME seek to…

Article

Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations of Islam on WikiIslam.net

10 May 2013

Telling the Truth about Islam? Apostasy Narratives and Representations of Islam on WikiIslam.net
Daniel Enstedt, Göran Larsson Article This article analyses six apostasy narratives published on WikiIslam.net and examines how Islam is represented and understood in them. The narratives contain self-referential and autobiographical components, and the truth-claims made in them are often based on the narrator’s own experiences as a former Muslim. From the six testimonies it is clear that Islam is presented in a negative and biased way, as summed up in…

Article

Digital Images and Visions of Jihad: Virtual Orientalism and the Distorted Lens of Technology

10 May 2013

Digital Images and Visions of Jihad: Virtual Orientalism and the Distorted Lens of Technology
Raymond Pun Comment Since the aftermath of September 11, Western media have repeatedly lampooned and echoed the term "jihad" as a principle of the Islamic faith, arguing that this term inspires Muslims to wage wars against the west and modernity. The studies of jihad as a core belief of radical Islamic groups are numerous; the term is not a new phenomenon; it is mentioned in the Quran at…

Comment

Review: Arabités numériques. Le printemps du Web arabe

10 May 2013

Review: Arabités numériques. Le printemps du Web arabe
Luboš 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