Dr. Nahed Eltantawy, associate professor of communication at High Point University, is the editor of a new book published recently by Routledge, titled “Women and Media in the Middle East: From Veil to Blogging.”
The book is a collection of scholarly articles on the diverse and complex relationships women in the Middle East have with various media platforms. Articles discuss media portrayals of the veil, women in film and television, women’s involvement as activists in the Arab Spring and women’s use of social media. The book provides insight into women’s use of traditional and new media as well as how the media portrays them.
“Traditionally, Middle Eastern women have been portrayed in Western media as oppressed by men and religion, and veiling intensifies this image of supposed powerlessness and imprisonment,” says Eltantawy, who originally edited the work as a special issue of Feminist Media Studies before turning it into a book. “The Arab Spring uprisings introduced the West to women who don’t conform to this stereotype and showed the media that Middle Eastern women cannot be categorized together as one oppressed group.”
Eltantawy teaches a variety of convergent journalism courses at HPU as well as women and gender studies. Her research involves the media’s representation of women, the role of media in the Middle East, social media and cyber activism, and critical and cultural studies. Her work has been published in scholarly publications such as Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, International Journal of Communication, Feminist Media Studies and the Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research.