Dr Wesam Amer
Research

Who can speak, be seen and know under conflict

My research examines how conflict, technology and political power shape the production, circulation and loss of knowledge. It follows two connected agendas, each with its own framework: Techno-Discursive Critical Analysis (TDCA) and de-scholasticide.

De-scholasticide is the study of how education is restored after scholasticide, its systematic destruction.

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Agenda A
Communication, technology and political power
I  Political communication, media and conflict
TDCA
II  AI, digital technologies and algorithmic power
Agenda B
Conflict and knowledge production
III  Higher education, scholasticide and reconstruction
De-scholasticide
Who can speak, be seen and know under conflict
Three pillars

Research pillars and questions

I

Political Communication, Media and Conflict

How political actors, movements and media institutions construct narratives and shape public understanding in conflict. One strand studies mainstream media coverage of war; the other studies social media and digital communication by movements such as Hamas.

Guiding questions
  • How do media representations shape understandings of conflict, legitimacy and power?
  • How do Islamist movements use digital communication for political mobilisation and strategic communication?
  • How are terrorism, extremism and security framed in political and media discourse?
Examples
II

Artificial Intelligence, Digital Technologies and Algorithmic Power

How AI, digital platforms and algorithmic systems transform communication, political influence and the visibility of information, and what manipulated and multimodal media mean for conflict and security.

Guiding questions
  • How does AI transform political communication and the production of media content?
  • How do platform infrastructures and algorithms shape the visibility and circulation of political information?
  • What role do AI-generated, manipulated and multimodal media play in contemporary conflict and information warfare?
Examples
III

Higher Education, Scholasticide and Reconstruction

The destruction and disruption of higher education in conflict-affected societies, with particular attention to Palestine, and what reconstruction requires beyond rebuilt infrastructure.

Guiding questions
  • How does the destruction of educational institutions affect academic communities and knowledge production?
  • How can universities maintain academic continuity under war and occupation?
  • What does de-scholasticide require beyond the physical reconstruction of educational infrastructure?
Examples
Frameworks

Conceptual contributions

My research engages established theoretical traditions while developing analytical approaches to emerging questions at the intersection of communication, technology, conflict and knowledge production.

Developing framework

Techno-Discursive Critical Analysis (TDCA)

Integrates Critical Discourse Studies, Critical Algorithm Studies and Critical Security Studies. It examines how narratives, platform architectures and algorithmic ranking together shape what becomes visible and legitimate in conflict. TDCA links Pillars I and II and is applied in HYPERWAR.

HYPERWAR: AI-Mediated Hypermedia Warfare
Developing conceptual approach

De-scholasticide

Where scholasticide names the destruction, de-scholasticide asks what recovery requires: academic continuity, governance, institutional resilience and the rebuilding of the human and organisational capacity of universities. It belongs to Pillar III and is applied to Gaza.

Beyond Scholasticide
Approach

Theoretical foundations and methods

Interdisciplinary traditions and qualitative, interpretive, computational and comparative methods, chosen according to the research question and the empirical material.

Theoretical foundations
Critical Discourse Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics
Language, representation, ideology and the construction of social actors
Political Communication and Media Studies
Framing, propaganda, political narratives and media power
Critical Algorithm Studies and Platform Governance
Algorithmic mediation, platform infrastructures and information visibility
Critical Security and Conflict Studies
Security narratives, political violence, terrorism, extremism and conflict communication
Higher Education and Institutional Studies
Institutional governance, academic resilience, knowledge production and organisational reconstruction
Methods and applications
Discourse and communication analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis, discourse-historical analysis, Systemic Functional Linguistics, framing and narrative analysis
Digital and computational research
Social media analysis, digital trace analysis, corpus analysis, metadata analysis, digital ethnography
Multimodal research
Textual, visual, audiovisual and AI-mediated content
Network analysis
Social network analysis, digital mapping and visualisation
Institutional and comparative research
Case studies, document analysis, institutional assessment, comparative analysis
Research tools
NVivo 4CAT Gephi NodeXL Voyant Python
Work in practice

Selected research projects

01 In progress

HYPERWAR

AI-Mediated Hypermedia Warfare in Contemporary Conflict

Examines how political communication, AI-mediated content, platform infrastructures and algorithmic visibility interact in contemporary conflict, focusing on Hamas and Hezbollah across Telegram and TikTok. A cross-platform study applying TDCA.

Explore HYPERWAR project
03 In progress

Beyond Scholasticide

De-scholasticide and the reconstruction of higher education in Gaza, examining academic continuity, institutional recovery and the restoration of knowledge production.

Explore research and conceptual framework