Rami's Wall: The design ofe-thesis on e-journalism in the Arab world_ Jordan as a case study

The design of my e-thesis on e-journalism in the Middle East
Could it be a breakthrough? perhaps... After a few long discussions with my Professor and Supervisor Roland Stanbridge, one of the most famous academics in scandanavia in online journalism, I have developed and basically designed my thesis idea. As you read along, you will see that this is a PUBLIC thesis, which means that comments and ideas about developing the thesis itself are welcomed.

Main Research Question:

In the Middle East, who is using the internet as an alternative (FREE) journalism medium? why? and how?

Main methods of research:

1 - Observation and analysis of the level of debate on blogs, as apposed to the level of debate on mainstream media websites (Case study: Amman bombings) - this includes studying all the trackbacks, comments, and links.

2 - Surveying a number of Arab bloggers about how free do they feel writing about "red-lines" that mainstream media do not tackle, and how do they do it. Also, studying the level of self-censorship in blogs, and link it to personal blogging experience about reactions when I write about my ideas, thoughts, and how people correspond to the idea of this thesis.

3 - Visions: In Jordan, King Abdullah introduced his vision of turning Jordan into "the ict hub of the middle-east," internet and computers are introduced at a very early stage in Jordan, which gives people, on the long run, more space for freedom of expression. I plan on studying the relationship between the cause and effect.

4 - Conducting extensive, in-depth and open interviews with pioneers in "online-journalism" in JOrdan, how their websites reported on the case study of Amman bombings, and why so far they only copy, edit, and paste material from other content providers instead of hiring "online" journalists.

5 - The level of government control, and monitoring of the internet in the Middle East with reference to a report by Human Rights Watch on this topic.

6 - Draw examples and theories from other experiences, through a wealth of international literature discussing this topic from an international perspective.

7 - Backround: Arab Advisors Group's surveys on internet penetration and on internet use patterns in the Arab world, and provide a chronological explanation of internet development in studied countries.

8 - Create a blog, where I will keep a diary of this research and update it as soon as I have any new information, to study the reactions of commentors. At the end, the thesis will be provided in an electronic format which could possibly include all comments, links, trackbacks...etc, and the blog will be turned into a free website about online-journalism in the Arab world.

Ideas, comments, are already welcomed, annonymity is not a problem. This information, and all further information on this topic that I will post on this blog are copyrighted to me.