Research
Media, technology & conflict
My research examines how communication, discourse, and technological infrastructures shape political power, conflict, legitimacy, and mobilization in contemporary societies.
Overview
What I study
My research examines how communication, discourse, and technological infrastructures shape political power, conflict, legitimacy, and mobilization in contemporary societies.
Situated at the intersection of media studies, political communication, critical discourse analysis (CDA), and digital technology studies, my work investigates how states, non-state actors, platforms, and emerging technologies influence the production, circulation, and visibility of political narratives. Across different empirical contexts—particularly war, conflict, and political transformation—I explore how communication practices are embedded within broader technological, institutional, and ideological systems. By combining rigorous textual analysis with empirical investigations of platform architectures, I seek to decode how modern conflicts unfold across digital ecosystems.
Research Agenda
Three guiding questions
At its core, my research seeks to understand the evolving relationship between communication, technology, and power, driven by three overarching questions:
1. How are political realities constructed through communication?
I examine how discourse, narratives, and media representations shape public understandings of conflict, legitimacy, identity, and political action.
2. How do digital and algorithmic infrastructures influence communication?
My work investigates the role of platforms, algorithms, and emerging AI systems in determining visibility, engagement, and the circulation of political information.
3. How do political and non-state actors strategically communicate in conflict environments?
I analyze how governments, movements, and armed non-state actors utilize communication technologies to mobilize support, govern visibility, construct legitimacy, and compete in information environments.
Grounded in both academic rigor and extensive hands-on experience as a media analyst and researcher across the Middle East, Europe, and the UK, my ongoing agenda bridges empirical digital investigations with cutting-edge theoretical frameworks in AI-mediated communication, platform governance, and international media analysis.
Research Philosophy
Discourse & infrastructure
I view communication not merely as the transmission of information but as a contested field in which power, legitimacy, identity, and authority are continuously negotiated.
Contemporary political communication can no longer be understood exclusively through texts, narratives, or institutions. It must also account for the technological systems that shape visibility, circulation, engagement, and influence. My research therefore combines discourse-centered analysis with critical examinations of platform infrastructures, algorithms, and emerging AI systems. This perspective informs my ongoing development of Techno-Discursive Critical Analysis (TDCA) as a framework for understanding communication in technologically mediated environments.
Intellectual Trajectory
Five phases of inquiry
Phase I · 2008 – 2015
War Reporting & Media Representation
Analyzing international news frameworks, structural biases, and the discursive construction of crises (e.g., Gaza conflicts, regional sieges).
Phase II · 2015 – 2018
Digital Discourse & Political Communication
Expanding into networked public spheres, online political dynamics, and digital mobilization strategies.
Phase III · 2018 – 2021
Social Media & Non-State Actors
Investigating how political movements and armed non-state actors (such as Hamas and Islamist movements) utilize digital platforms for strategic communication and identity building.
Phase IV · 2021 – 2023
AI, Platforms & Algorithmic Communication
Studying the governance of platform infrastructures, automated moderation systems, and the impact of artificial intelligence on public discourse.
Phase V · 2023 – present
Scholasticide, TDCA & Hypermedia Warfare
Developing pioneering frameworks that merge critical discourse studies, platform governance, security studies, and institutional recovery models—including the study of higher education destruction in conflict zones—to map complex digital and structural conflicts.
Core Research Themes
Six lines of research
Hypermedia Warfare & Conflict Communication
How contemporary conflicts increasingly unfold through interconnected ecosystems of media platforms, algorithmic systems, digital infrastructures and AI-driven communication — the merging of physical warfare with digital information battles.
AI-Mediated Communication
The growing influence of artificial intelligence on communication processes, information production, political discourse, algorithmic bias and public engagement within modern digital public spheres.
Platform Governance & Algorithmic Visibility
How platform architectures, automated moderation systems, recommendation algorithms and governance frameworks dictate political visibility, attention and the circulation of information.
Islamist & Non-State Actor Communication
The digital transformation, media systems and strategic communication of political movements and armed non-state actors (including Hamas and ISIS) — how ideological actors construct legitimacy, manage radicalization narratives and mobilize support.
Digital Political Communication & Radicalisation
The transformation of political communication in networked environments — online polarization, digital right-wing populism, Islamophobia and online identity construction.
Higher Education in Conflict Zones (Scholasticide)
Institutional resilience, reconstruction and the systemic, deliberate destruction of higher-education ecosystems and academic infrastructure during armed conflict.
Regional Focus
Middle East & Palestine
Middle East Wars & Politics
The dynamics of regional politics, international news coverage, transitional information environments, and the role of communication technologies in shaping political power and conflict across Arab and Middle Eastern societies.
Palestine & Israel
Deep-dive empirical investigations into the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, local and international media framing, and the communication strategies deployed during successive military engagements — the foundation of much of my work on war reporting, state and non-state discourses, and post-conflict institutional recovery.
Flagship Initiatives
Programmes & frameworks
The HYPERWAR Programme
A research programme investigating hypermedia warfare — the entanglement of discourse, AI, algorithms and platform infrastructures in contemporary conflict.
Techno-Discursive Critical Analysis (TDCA)
An original analytical framework integrating critical discourse analysis with the study of AI, algorithms and platforms.
Rebuilding Higher Education in Post-War Gaza
A principal-investigator initiative (Institut Convergences Migration) on reconstructing academic institutions and scholarly life.
Research Projects
Selected projects
Methodological Rigour & Tools
How the work is done
Discursive Analysis
- Critical Discourse Analysis
- Systemic Functional Linguistics
- Socio-Semantic Analysis
Digital Methods
- Online Ethnography
- Social Network Analysis
- Multimodal Analysis
Research Tools
- NVivo
- Gephi
- NodeXL
- 4CAT
- Voyant Tools
- Python