[Commlist] Call for papers: Disinformation in the Middle East

Call for papers: Disinformation in the Middle East

De Gruyter’s Open Information Science journal has a call for papers for 
a special issue on disinformation in the Middle East.

Similar to other regions around the world, the Middle East has witnessed 
the widespread of misinformation in relation to different issues like 
politics, health, and armed conflicts. This is, indeed, not a recent 
phenomenon as the region has been plagued by infodemics for many dec- 
ades. For example, disinformation campaigns were used by the US and 
other countries to as- sist in the wars on Iraq in 1990 and 2003. Also, 
the Syrian conflict provides ample evidence on the use of disinformation 
around attacks targeting innocent civilians to further the strategic 
interests of the Russian and Syrian governments. Recent reports and data 
releases by Face- book and Twitter show that there are several 
systematic and coordinated activities that occur in the Middle East in 
order to support regional players like Saudi Arabia and the UAE in 
enhanc- ing their political influence in the region.

There is a need to study infodemics in some specific geographical 
contexts like the Middle East due to the evolving nature of this 
phenomenon, and this special issue is focused on the examination of 
recent case studies involving the spread of misinformation and 
disinformation. We welcome studies that are focused on the empirical 
investigation of infodemics targeting the Middle East and/or originating 
from the region.

Special topics of interests include but are not limited to the following:

• The social media use of political trolls by Middle Eastern 
governments, political parties or
their affiliates. The trolling Twitter campaign faced by Jamal Khashoggi 
before his gruesome killing is one example.
• The politicization of fact checking practices in the Middle East as 
the majority are run by governments. Also, the tremendous challenges 
independent fact checkers face in curbing the spread and threat of 
misinformation.
• The use of political bots and deep fakes to spread misinformation 
about political opponents.
• Media literacy efforts to inform and educate Middle Eastern audiences 
about misinfor- mation.
• Mobile apps’ use in spreading disinformation in the region like 
Telegram, WhatsApp, and Viber.

The topics above are not exhaustive, so we welcome other studies that 
are related to this special issue. We also welcome all research 
approaches including qualitative and quantitative methods. If 
interested, please send no later than September 15, 2020 an abstract of 
500 words and a short biography of the author(s) to the following email 
address: (aalrawi /at/ sfu.ca) <mailto:(aalrawi /at/ sfu.ca)>. If the abstract is 
accepted, we will invite you to submit your full paper for peer-review. 
The abstract acceptance does not guarantee that the full paper will be 
published in the special issue as all studies will un- dergo a thorough 
peer-review process.

SUBMISSION DEADLINES:

Abstract – September 15, 2020
Full paper – December 1, 2020

The special issue is expected to appear in May 2021! The Open 
Information Science journal is an open access and blind peer-reviewed 
publication and no fees are required from authors upon submission or 
publication of their studies. More information on the journal can be 
found in the fol- lowing link: 
https://www.degruyter.com/view/journals/opis/opis-overview.xml.
The special issue is guest edited by Ahmed Al-Rawi, an assistant 
professor at the School of Communication of Simon Fraser University.
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