‘COVID Casablanca’: A case of Dubai’s British social media influencers and postdigital intermedia geographies
Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
New Media & Society
Publication Date
5-17-2022
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, British social media influencers posted pictures and stories from Dubai. As a result, the emirate faced an intense backlash from the British media. This study considers the British media’s motivations for constituting Dubai as Orientalist ‘other’ while uncovering earlier imagined geographies of the Orient. The study develops the novel concept of ‘intermedia geographies’ to trace intertextual links, tales, texts, content, audiences and discourses, as dynamic constellations of the postdigital condition. Unique methods of postdigital critical discourse analysis are developed to map a corpus of 20 British magazine, tabloid and broadsheet newspaper articles, which are the jumping-off point to intertextual references to television, film and earlier Oriental narratives. Theorizing levels up from description to nuanced analysis to illustrate that the themes of content, stance and social actors’ positioning within the corpus are indicative of Britain’s siloed mainstream audiences and postdigital reinforcements of colonial discourse.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
SAGE Publications
First Page
146144482210983
Last Page
146144482210983
Disciplines
Communication
Keywords
Dubai, Intermedia geographies, Orientalism, Postdigital critical discourse analysis, Social media influencers
Scopus ID
Recommended Citation
Hurley, Zoe, "‘COVID Casablanca’: A case of Dubai’s British social media influencers and postdigital intermedia geographies" (2022). All Works. 5135.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/5135
Indexed in Scopus
yes
Open Access
no