Dear Friends of AUSACE:
I am writing to express the gratitude of the entire AUSACE community to Zayed University, host of our 12th annual meeting at the Dubai campus, October 27-30, 2007.
For many years the administration and faculty of Zayed University's College of Communication and Media Sciences have been active in our organization. They have been gracious enough to host this, our second, meeting in Dubai.
Please examine the Call for Papers and consider a submission in either Arabic or English. Our annual meetings attract some of the best communication and journalism research regarding the Middle East. We want you to be part of the paper sessions and other activities Zayed University will host. We look forward to seeing you this October in Dubai.
Douglas A. Boyd
President, AUSACE |
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The Eighth International Conference of the Arab-US Association for Communication Educators
By Naila Hamdy
The 2003 annual conference of the Arab-US Association for Communication Educators (AUSACE), held for the first time in Dubai, was once again a great success. More than forty AUSACE members - both scholars and media professionals from the Middle East and the US - presented original academic papers and/or provided critical commentary on seventeen thematic panels.
Hosted by Zayed University at the Rotana Bustan Hotel in Dubai's city center, this year's gathering brought together a diverse number of participants and attendees from a variety of disciplines, colleges, universities, and media institutions.
Dr. Hanif Hassan Al Qassimi, vice president, Zayed University, and Dr. Janet Hill Keefer, dean of the College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed University, inaugurated the conference.
The keynote address for the conference was given by Jamil Mroue, editor-in-chief of Lebanon's Daily Star at the opening ceremony focusing on "Their Freedom and Ours: Freedom of Expression in the East and in the West." Mroue commented that AUSACE must embed Arab students in US media institutions and US students in the Arab institutions in order to better understand each other and AUSACE founding member Leonard Teel was happy to announce that this year AUSACE has received a grant that will help do just that. Thirty students from seven Arab countries will be going to the US to be placed in internships. Plans for US students to fulfill internships in the Middle East are also imminent.
Key Issues
The theme of this year's conference was New Media and New Horizons. Nevertheless, it quickly became evident that the main topic of concern and debate for this particular year was media and the war on Iraq with Al Jazeera emerging as the star of the conference. Scholars presented multiple perspectives on the coverage of the war, ranging from critiques to comparisons. Indeed, the very first panel session was entitled "The Al Jazeera Phenomenon" and brought together many scholars who have studied this particular channel. Mohamed Ayish of the American University in Sharjah chose to focus on Al Jazeera's much discussed "Opposite Direction" program, whilst Mohamed Zayani of the same university compared Al Jazeera's coverage of the war to that of Al Arabiya and Abu Dhabi TV. Meanwhile Ali Al Hail took the approach of analyzing Al Jazeera as a responsible business in a global economy.
Feedback from session participants indicated a continuing consensus that the Dubai conference, like past AUSACE conferences, reinforced what has become one of the leading intellectual networks for the study of media, culture, technology, and society in the Arab region.
Furthermore, in recognition of the efforts of AUSACE members and Zayed University members, His Excellency Sheikh Nahyan Bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, UAE Minister for Higher Education and Scientific Research, met with participants at his palace in Abu Dhabi where he reiterated the importance of media and media studies in this new era.
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