From July 3^rd until July 8^th the SummerSchool “Understanding Arab Media – More than Facebook and Al-Jazeera” took place at Freie Universität Berlin. 20 participants from 9 Arab countries, including Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Tunisia and Yemen were invited. Together with students of the FU-Master programs “Media and Political Communication” and “Global Communication & International Journalism”, the participants worked together in intercultural teams in order to create digital learning material about Arab Media.

The SummerSchool was preceded by a regular university course “Comparing Arab Media Systems” at Freie Universität Berlin during summer term 2017. During this course German students intensively examined the role of media in Arab countries. They jointly developed research questions on the peculiarities of Arab media systems in virtual sessions with their partners from the involved Arab countries who joined in the subsequent SummerSchool.

Focus of the course was a comparative perspective on different Arab Media systems, as well as a better understanding for the transnational and global dynamics that emanate from this region of the world.

The SummerSchool in July enabled both students of the FU and of the Arab partner universities to work jointly together on the project. In the near future, the produced short educational videos will be uploaded onto our learning platform “International Media Systems”.

screenshot of the eLearning platform

Behind the innovative eLearing platform “International Media Systems” stands the university network “AREACORE – The Arab-European Association for Media and Communication Researchers”. The platform provides audio-visual material about the various media systems of the Arab world, gives an comprehensive overview over each country and enables a comparative view on Arab media systems. Learning material on 9 countries is found on the permanently updated platform, created with the expert knowledge of our Arab partners.

The SummerSchool was supported within the framework of the Arab-German Young Academy of Sciences and Humanities' Transformation Working Group and was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 

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Program

Download the program as pdf

Tuesday, 4.7.17	Wednesday, 5.7.17	Thursday, 6.7.17	Friday, 7.7.17
10:00-11:00 Campus-Tour of Freie University	9:00-11:00 Filmproduction Workshop I	9:30 - 10:30 Excursion: MICT "Cooperating with  Arab Journalists"	10:00-16:00 Film Production Workshop II
11:00-12:00 Welcome and Introduction
		11:00-13:00  Excursion: DW-Deutsche Welle "Media production for the Arab world"
12:00-14:00 Presentations: "Current Issues of Arab Media"
	13:00–14:00 Excursion: Press Conference of the German Government  "Journalism and Politics in Germany"
15:30-16:30 Excursion: Amal Berlin "Syrian journalists in Germany"	16:00-17:00 Excursion: Die Medienanstalten "Regulation of Private Broadcasting in Germany"