Sabrina Zahren (1990, Munich, Germany) works on the interface between Arabic Studies and Critical Media Studies. Her research interests are the cultural production on digital platforms in the MENA region as well as Influencer/Creator Culture in the Gulf region with a focus on Saudi Arabia. She is part of the research group “Arab Mass Media and (trans) regional Net-cultures” at the Institute of Near and Middle Eastern Studies at LMU Munich.

Dissertation: Saudi Influencers on YouTube. The global, regional and national dimension of audio-visual content in digital capitalism

Beginning from 2015 until today, the Arabic-speaking YouTube sphere is dominated by influencers from the Arabian Peninsula, especially from Saudi Arabia. They are fully adapted to global standards that I call the “global consensus.” Those highly professionalized actors are embedded in a regional media ecosystem, that connects them to advertising, marketing and, on a local scale, to nation-branding. Those key aspect of Social Media, as part of digital capitalism, didn’t get much intention in Arab Media Studies, due to methodological and theoretical reasons. I therefore intend to implement a hybrid perspective to the field, focusing on the Political Economy of Social Media in the Gulf, as well as on influencers and Influencer Culture. My method consists of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 396 videos from seven commercially successful Saudi YouTube channels, spanning a timeframe between 2014 and 2022, and covering genres like “Beauty & Fashion,” “Family” and “Travelling.” The findings will then be examined through a global, regional and local/national lense to identify recurring patterns, aesthetics and narratives.

2024: Sabrina Zahren, Saudische Influencer*innen auf YouTube. Eine kritische Untersuchung der globalen, regionalen und nationalen Dimension audiovisueller Inhalte im digitalen Kapitalismus, Springer VS, Wiesbaden.

2022: Sabrina Zahren, Saudi YouTube Influencers, Their Relationship to Dubai and the Role of Social Media in Dubai’s Urban Branding Strategy, Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 15 (2022), 259-278.

2021: Sabrina Zahren, Saudische YouTube-Influencer und globaler Konsens, in Konerding et al. (eds): Approaches to Arabic Popular Culture, Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press, 2021, 185-228.