Doha, January 22 (QNA) - The Carnegie Corporation of New York has awarded Northwestern University in Qatar a USD 350,000 grant to expand the field of Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) over the next two years.
Directed by Marwan M. Kraidy, dean and CEO of Northwestern Qatar, the Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project will expand the field of critical media and information studies in the Arab region and transform it into a more interdisciplinary, multilingual, collaborative, research-oriented, and policy-relevant field through the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar.
The AIMS project will connect Arabophone, Anglophone, and Francophone Arab media scholarly communities through networking, translation of scholarly works, publications, and multilingual events. The project will also integrate the study of media and information in the Arab world into transnational networks of ideas and knowledge based in the Global South.
The grant will also support a collaborative research initiative between AIMS and the Security in Context network titled Global South Insecurity in an era of Great Power Competition. Researchers from around the world will join scholars at Northwestern Qatar to examine the contours of the emerging world order on the Arab world and other regions of the Global South. This research initiative will be led by Sami Hermez, who serves as coordinator of the Qatar hub of the Critical Security Studies network.
In highlighting the impact of AIMS, Kraidy said it will increase research capacity in information and media studies in the Arab region, deepening bonds between regional universities and research institutes while broadening their global connections.
"Across the numerous academic departments of journalism and media in the Arab world, the field of information and media studies is ripe for development," noted Kraidy.
"Our project has a triple distinction: it is hosted at Northwestern, a global leader in communication, journalism, the social sciences, and the humanities; it is located in the Arab region; and it is explicitly trilingual, reflecting the rich pan-Arab diversity of research languages and tradition. These qualities will help us catalyze a qualitative leap in regional knowledge production on Arab media and information, and connect regional research to global networks."
The Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project is one of many scholarly initiatives aimed to support knowledge production in the region by the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar, which produces and promotes evidence-based storytelling focused on the histories, cultures, societies, and media of the Global South.
(QNA)