Revisiting hypermedia space in the era of the Islamic State

摘要

; Hypermedia space-the notion that discrete media technologies connect to create a communicative space with multiple access points and socio-political uptakes-has now become a commonplace to the extent that it is a naturalized, hence unproblematic assumption, in research on the social and political impact of digital media. Inspired by the work of the Canadian international relations theorist Ronald Deibert on hypermedia (1997), I initially developed the notion of "hypermedia space" (Kraidy, 2006; Braman & Mallaby, 2006) before the advent of social media, to analyze the expanded space and flow of communication between various media-blogs, mobile telephony, digital cameras, online videos, electronic newspapers, and satellite television. That networked communicative environment I defined as hypermedia space, was used to theorize hypermedia events (Kraidy, 2010), and recently advocated incorporating "old media," including the human body, in hypermedia space, to get a comprehensive vista of contemporary mediation (Kraidy, 2016). In this article, I take stock of what the notion of hypermedia space might mean in light of key developments in the Middle East in the last decade-namely the Arab uprisings and the rise of Islamic State. I then offer some thoughts on emerging areas where hypermedia space could be applied.