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ARA4505 - Arabic Cyberspace

Course content

In the Arab world as elsewhere, the internet is an increasingly important medium for negotiating and influencing politics, social relations, cultural expressions, and the economy. This course surveys major Arabic-language internet sites in regard to both majority use (“what is most popular?”) and to specific research interests (such as democratization, political Islam, individual expression, private life, cultural production, economic development, e-government, etc.). Internet use is contexualized and historicized, and after introducing tools to analyze the background of sites, the course will investigate both the features Arabic cyberspace shares with other regions of the world and the specifics of Arabic internet use (relatively greater prominence of discussion forums and of religion).

Learning outcomes

• Students will be able to interact on the internet in Arabic (incl. read and write access).
• They will have improved their reading and listening proficiency in both Modern Standard Arabic and written as well as oral forms of colloquial Arabic.
• They will be acquainted with using basic tools for analyzing web traffic and web site history.
• They will be familiar with some of the most popular and influential sites in Arabic cyberspace.
• Based on current research accessible through secondary literature, they will be able to assess the use and impact of the internet in the Arab world.
• They will have trained their ability to critically read and discuss the work of others.
• They will have learned to formulate their own research interests, develop hypotheses, select a specific case for closer study to investigate these hypotheses, decide on a method to investigate this case, and present results of their analysis in oral and written form in an academic style.

Admission

Admission as a Master student to the Program for Asian and African Studies.

Students at UiO must apply for courses in StudentWeb.

International applicants, if you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.

The examination in this course is not available for external candidates. Only students admitted to the course may sit for the examination.

Prerequisites

Formal prerequisites

ARA2110 - Arabisk språk 3+4 or equivalent.

Recommended prior knowledge

Participants need to be able to read modern Arabic newspaper texts at a reasonable speed, and have general computer and internet literacy. Most secondary sources are in English, but reading ability in French, German and Scandinavian languages may be advantageous, depending on students’ specific research interests.

Teaching

10 weekly 2-hour seminars with introductory presentations (by teacher and students) and reading of Arabic texts taken from relevant Internet sites. Selection of primary reading material will reflect the breadth of sites analyzed, but also take into account participants' particular topical interests. In addition to reading ca. 30 pp. of secondary literature per week, students must be ready to spend ca. 5 hours per week exploring relevant Internet sites. Every student will adopt one Arab country to follow in closer detail throughout the semester, and compose weekly written assignments (ca. 1 p., posted on Fronter) reflecting on specific phenomena according to the topic of the week.

Teaching takes place throughout the semester.

Exam information

Term paper (semesteroppgave) (8-10 pp. à 2300 characters) on a topic to be agreed upon. Before the final version can be submitted, it must be presented and discussed orally in class, accompanied by a 1-p. pointed “thesis paper” handout. This presentation and the weekly Fronter assignments must be approved in order for the term paper to be considered.

Assessment and grading

Course grades are awarded on a descending scale using alphabetic grades from A to E for passes and F for fail. Read more about the grading system .

An external auditor regularly evaluates the academic quality of the course, including the form of exam used on the course.

Explanations and appeals

Students can request an explanation of their grades, and can also appeal against their grades or make a complaint about formal examination errors. Read more about explanations and appeals

Withdrawing from exams and limits on re-takes

A student can sit for this exam up to 3 times. If a student wishes to withdraw from the exam, s/he must do this in StudentWeb at least two weeks prior to the first day of the exam. Failure to do so will be counted as one of the three opportunities to sit for the exam.

Evaluation of this course

Feedback from our students is essential to us in our efforts to ensure and further improve the high quality of our programmes and courses. As a student at the University of Oslo you will therefore be asked to participate in various types of evaluation of our courses, facilities and services. All courses are subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students on a particular course to participate in a more comprehensive, in-depth evaluation of this course, a so called "periodic evaluation".

Mid-term evaluation

Periodic evaluation Autumn 08

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