Mifdal Mohamed | Chouaib Doukkali University (original) (raw)
Videos by Mifdal Mohamed
a cultural show, sada alibsaa, that hosted me to talk about humor and fear during the Covid-19 pa... more a cultural show, sada alibsaa, that hosted me to talk about humor and fear during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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قرأنا لكم "السخرية في الثقافة الرقمية" لمحمد مفضال
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Books by Mifdal Mohamed
Book: La satire entre dialectique et déconstruction
""RESUME Ce livre s’interroge sur la possibilité de la satire dans les romans postmodernistes de... more ""RESUME
Ce livre s’interroge sur la possibilité de la satire dans les romans postmodernistes de William Gaddis. Portée par une intention éthique, la satire gaddisienne accentue le désordre social de manière systématique pour faire apparaître les failles du système social. Elle milite contre l’absolutisme discursif et dénonce fraude, bêtise et manipulation. La dérision que pratique la satire contre ses cibles de choix implique une transparence référentielle qui a fait système. Cependant, la pratique de l’auto-dérision fissure ce système de l’intérieur. Notre travail consiste à montrer comment la satire travaille sous la tension de ce paradoxe postmoderne et comment l’auto-dérision permet à la satire de maintenir un équilibre paradoxal entre critique et autocritique et souscrit avec force aux principes de doute, de différence et de contingence. La satire s’inscrit ainsi dans une rhétorique de l’ironie, fondée sur l’ambiguïté et le paradoxe, et amorce, par sa critique généralisée de tous les discours, une interrogation de grande ampleur sur la culture américaine. Le rapport entre la jérémiade, le carnavalesque et la satire ménippée avec la satire gaddisienne s’affirme dans les formes apocalyptiques, démesurées et discontinues des romans de cet auteur. La satire n’est possible dans le contexte postmoderne que si elle affiche ses propres codes en tant que discours et offre un espace de passage paradoxal où les différences sont mesurées selon la valeur absolue de la contingence et « l’infaillible ponctualité du hasard ».
Titre en Anglais : The Possibility of Satire in the Novels of William Gaddis : The Recognitions, JR, A Carpenter’s Gothic and A Frolic of His Own.
ABSTRACT
This book questions the possibility of satire in the postmodernist novels of William Gaddis. Carried by an ethical commitment, the Gaddisian satire intensifies the social disorder in a systematic way to reveal the flaws of the social system, challenging any totalising compulsion and denouncing fraud, stupidity and manipulation. The mockery that satire uses to disparage its privileged objects of attack endows it with a transparency that has systematic value. Nevertheless, the practice of self-mockery opens up cracks in the satirical system itself, thus laying it open to the criticism of the logic it attacks. Our work aims to show how satire works under the tension of this postmodern paradox and how self-mockery enables satire to maintain a balance between criticism and self-criticism while promoting doubt, difference and contingency. Satire fits in with a rhetoric of irony, based on ambiguity and paradox, and initiates, by its generalized criticism of discourses, a large-scale questioning of the American culture. The link between the jeremiad, the carnivalesque and the menippean satire with the Gaddisian satire is made obvious in the apocalyptic, disproportionate and discontinuous forms of the novels of this author. Satire is possible in the postmodern context only if it displays its own codes as discourse and offers a paradoxical transitory space where differences are assessed in terms of the absolute value of contingency and “the unswerving punctuality of chance”.
Mots clés : satire, dérision, auto-dérision, système, fissures, contingence, carnavalesque, jérémiade, satire ménippée, paradoxe, postmodernisme.
Key words : satire, mockery, self-mockery, system, cracks, contingency, carnivalesque, jeremiad, menippean satire, paradox, postmodernism
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Book Chapter: Cultural Flow: Intermedial Satire in Moroccan and Tunisian Rap-Music Videos
The Power of Satire. Amsterdam: Benjamins (forthcoming 2015)
The chapter offers an historical overview of satire in terms of its relation to power and cultu... more The chapter offers an historical overview of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, and then moves on to examine the impact of the Arab Spring on the workings of satire in rap music videos in Morocco and Tunisia. The study of a large number of rap videos produced during and after the 2011 uprising has shown that substantial change in the rap text and its visual support has occurred, making satire more transgressive, more topical, and more critical of the political and social order. Intermedial Satire has been energized and shifted to a position of dominance giving voice to the hopes and the fears of all the community, casting, at times, a shadow over the accomplished change.
The apocalypse in fiction is often used to criticize political, social and cultural practices in ... more The apocalypse in fiction is often used to criticize political, social and cultural practices in the Arab world, and focuses mainly on the culture of fear and its negative political effects. I would like to show how apocalyptic fiction can produce elaborate shock effects that paradoxically question the ability of apocalyptic messianic thinking to cope with the political and moral chaos, and that provoke the reader to redefine his/her fear and re-invest his/her apocalyptic desire for punishment in a conscious impulse for change. I will be analyzing this topic through a critical reading of a novel written by an Algerian novelist a scant six years before the outbreak of the Arab spring demonstrations in most Arab countries. The prophetic dimension of the novel is stunning and calls attention to how literature is central to the human culture insofar as it has spawned continuous attempts at representing the unthinkable and the untold, paving thus the way to the great cataclysmic changes in the history of humanity.
Starting with a re-examination of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, this chap... more Starting with a re-examination of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, this chapter then examines the impact of the Arab Spring on the workings of satire in rap music videos in Morocco and Tunisia. The study of a large number of rap videos produced during and after the 2011 uprising has shown that substantial change in the rap text and its visual support has occurred, making satire more transgressive, more topical, and more critical of the political and social order. These forms of intermedial satire have been energized and shifted to a position of dominance, giving voice to the hopes of all the community -and to its fears as well, casting, at times, a shadow over the accomplished change.
دار شهريار, 2021
قراءة هذا الكتاب متعة حقيقية لأنه استكشاف لمفهوم الكتابة لدى أبرز المفكرين في العالم و لآرائهم و ... more قراءة هذا الكتاب متعة حقيقية لأنه استكشاف لمفهوم الكتابة لدى أبرز المفكرين في العالم و لآرائهم و مقارباتهم المختلفة في مكان واحد يجمعهم على اختلاف توجهاتهم النظرية و المعرفية. القراءة هي مقدمة للترجمة وعتبة للفهم الصحيح للنص المترجم. لن أقدم أي تفاصيل عن صعوبات الترجمة ومشاكلها اللغوية والمعرفية لأن لذلك مجال آخر يمكن أن يستوعبه، بل سأتكلم عن هذا الكتاب كقارئ استثمر كل وقته و معرفته اللغوية و الثقافية لفهم نص أعجب بمضمونه و بالأفكار و المفاهيم التي تمت مناقشتها من طرف مفكرين كنا نقرأ لهم مؤلفات صعبة للغاية كجاك دريردا و هومي بابا و سلوفوي جيجيك و لم نكن نعرف حقا أي شيء عن طريقة ممارستهم للكتابة و تصورهم لها.
سأكتب عن بعض الأفكار التي أعجبت بها و بطريقة مناقشتها من طرف هؤلاء المفكرين الذين يُلح مؤلفا الكتاب على نعتهم بالنقديين لأن كتابتهم تقوم فعلا بنقد و تقويض كل المؤسسات و الخطابات التي تبرر الظلم و الاستغلال و عدم المساواة [انظر مقدمة الكتاب]. ما أثار اهتمامي و حفزني على عرض بعض الأفكار عن مقاربات الكتابة المقدمة في هذا الكتاب هو راهنيتها و كونها تعبر عن قضايا أساسية في عملية الكتابة كالهوية و فعل القراءة و التلقي و نوعية البلاغة المستعملة في الكتابة و الاقناع من خلال استعمال البلاغة و التفكيك و الكتابة كمقاومة للسلطة بالمعنى الذي أسس له ميشيل فوكو.
تبقى المقاربة التي يتبناها كل مفكر خاضعة لمنهجه العام في التفكير و التحليل و النقد. فمفكر كهومي بابا المعروف بمؤلفاته حول العلاقة بين الثقافة الاستعمارية و ثقافة المُستعَمر لا يمكنه إلا أن يرى في الكتابة شكلا من أشكال المقاومة. فحسب هذا المفكر النيوكولونيالي فإن مقاومة السلطة تتم عبر الكتابة من خلال العبث باللغة و قواعدها كما أن الكتابة بالنسبة إليه نشاط سياسي بامتياز. يشارك رأي هومي بابا النسويات كجوديت بتلر التي ترى في اللغة العادية و النحو المتداول تقييدا لطريقة تفكيرنا و لذلك يجب حسب رأيها أن يتم العبث بهما و تغييرهما باستمرار، و بيل هوكس التي تهتم أكثر بالكتابة كتبادل و انفتاح على الآخر لتحقيق أثر للكتابة في حياة الناس.
يقدم ستيوارت هول وجهة نظر مختلفة عن الكتابة كهوية و ذلك من منظور الدراسات الثقافية مؤكدا على أنه لا يوجد موقع هوية أو ذات مكتمل و نهائي يتم انتاجه بكل وضوح عن طريق الكتابة، بل إن الهوية تتشكل بشكل جزئي من خلال الكتابة لأنها متأثرة بالفعل باللغة التي تستعملها و تتفاوض معها. الكتابة بالنسبة لهول هي انتاج لنسخة من الذات. غير أن مفكرين آخرين أهتموا أكثر بمسألة الكتابة من خلال مسألة التلقي كستانلي فيش الذي أكد على قصد القارئ و دوره في انتاج معنى النص. لكن ما أثار اهتمامي أكثر هي مقاربة بيل هوكس التي صرحت بأنها تجد صعوبة في التفكير في نفسها ككاتبة عندما تشعر بأنها تكتب منعزلة عن الجمهور القارئ. تؤكد بيل هوكس على أهمية الجمهور بالنسبة للكتابة و خصوصا عندما يستعمل الكاتب التجارب الشخصية ليتواصل مع القراء لأن هذا ما يجذب الناس في نظرها، و هذا ما يجعل النظرية تبدو تطبيقا عمليا. على نفس المنوال و بنفس المقاربة، تدعو جوديث بتلر إلى أن يكون الكاتب قادرا على تغيير مستويات الخطاب و الهدف هو أن يحقق الكاتب أثرا في العلم الاجتماعي. فقد لاحظت بتلر ان ما يُكتب في الوقت الحاضر كنقد ادبي تفكيكي هو كتابة منطوية على ذاتها و لا يصل معناها إلى القارئ غير المتخصص و المطلع على كتابات من نفس المستوى.
اهتم مفكرون آخرون بمسألة البلاغة في الكتابة حيث ذهب تشومسكي مثلا إلى مساءلة مفهوم الاقناع في حد ذاته. فحسب تشومسكي لا يجب أن نحاول اقناع الآخرين بل بالأحرى يجب أن نهيئ الأرضية على أحسن ما يكون حتى يتمكن الناس الآخرون من استعمال قدراتهم العقلية الخاصة ليكتشفوا لأنفسهم ما يعتقدون أنه صحيح أو خطأ. كانت مساءلة مفهوم الإقناع فكرة أساسية كذلك لدى إرنستو لاكلو الذي حاول أن يعمق منطق الاقناع و يكشف عما إذا كان يتضمن عنصر القوة و الإكراه، بمعنى أن الاقناع بهذا المعنى يتم بأقل من برهان عقلاني، كإثارة التعاطف أو التخويف.
كان لديريدا مقاربة أخرى للكتابة كتفكيك أو كوسيلة لممارسة التفكيك الذي يعرفه كمساءلة لطبيعة التركيب والأطروحة و الموقع و الانشاء ليس فقط من حيث البلاغة و لكن من حيث طبيعة الموقع و طبيعة التثبيت. إذا كان التفكيك قد حول عملية الكتابة إلى مشروع ضخم للمساءلة و التحليل النقدي، فإن هذا النوع من الكتابة لم يكن ليرضي مفكرا مشاغبا كسلوفوي جيجيك الذي يرى أن جزءا من كتابة ديريدا هو عبارة عن استغلال قاس للذات. يصرح جيجيك بأنه لا يقرأ الثلث الأول من مؤلفات ديريدا لأنه يكرسها لممارسة استغلال خالص وقاسي للذات. و قد عبر جيجيك عن ذلك بطريقة ساخرة، حيث أن مايقوله ديريدا حسب جيجيك في بداية مقالاته هو قول على هذه الشاكلة: "هل اكتب هذا المقال أم هذا المقال يكتبني".
عبر هؤلاء المفكرون النقديون عن تصورهم للكتابة من وجهات نظر متعددة و بخلفيات مختلفة. فالذي كان همه سياسيا محضا اعتبر الكتابة شكل من أشكال مقاومة أي سلطة متحكمة تبرر عدم المساواة و الاستغلال و الظلم. أما من هو مشغول بتبليغ الفكرة فقد اهتم أكثر ببلاغة الكتابة و بتلقي الكتابة و بأثرها في واقع الناس. و من كان همه الهوية فقد ركز أكثر على الكتابة كمجال لتكوين مستمر للذات في علاقتها باللغة و بالثقافة.
يقدم هذا الكتاب من خلال مقابلات مع سبعة عشر مفكرا منتدى فكريا فريدا يتداول فيه هؤلاء المفكرون حول موضوع واحد و هو الكتابة.
قراءة ممتعة.
محمد مفضل [آزمور- المغرب]
14 يناير 2021
يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار ... more يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار شروط ثقافية جديدة تتميز باستعمال تقنيات رقمية وما بين وسائطية، و ظروف سياسية محفزة وسّعت مجال النقد و التشريح و المقاومة خصوصا خلال و بعد الربيع العربي. أظهرت ممارسة السخرية في فضاء افتراضي مواز في وجوده للواقع الفعلي القيم الفعلية التي يحيا بها المغاربة، من حيث تقبلهم للتوزيع غير المتكافئ للسلطة في الاسرة و العلاقات الاجتماعية و السياسة، وإيمانهم بالقيم الفردية كحقوق الانسان و المساواة و استعدادهم لقبول التغيير و التعامل ببراغماتية مع الغموض و التقلبات السياسية و الاجتماعية، وغير ذلك من القيم الثقافية. كما اهتمت الدراسة باستخراج معطيات و تحليلها انطلاقا من اسئلة محورية تهم أهداف السخرية وحدود ممارستها و القيم التي تُمارَس باسمها و أثر السخرية الرقمية على الواقع الفعلي، وطبيعة النقد الساخر من حيث علاقته بالذات والآخر من جهة، ومن حيث كونه مقاومة للهيمنة و التضليل من جهة أخرى.
أبانت دراسة السخرية كتفاعل يومي بين شرائح اجتماعية وتيارات ايديولوجية مختلفة طبيعة الحوارية السائدة و مدى وجود ثقافة تشاركية في إنتاج القيم، كما أفرز تحليل المنشورات الساخرة نموذجا ثقافيا مغربيا تتفاعل داخله قيم التقليد و المادية مع قيم التحديث والتعبير عن الذات.
تعتبر قراءة كتاب يبحث في الذات الثقافية المغربية في مسار وعيها بذاتها و بالعالم تجربة فريدة من حيث قدرتها على تفعيل التفكير في هذه الذات التي تسْكننا و تشكل هويتنا و تتحكم في سلوكنا و تصيغ، بحضورنا أو في غفلة منا، حدود وعينا بذاتنا و بالعالم الذي ننتمي إليه.
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يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار ... more يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار شروط ثقافية جديدة تتميز باستعمال تقنيات رقمية وما بين وسائطية، و ظروف سياسية محفزة وسّعت مجال النقد و التشريح و المقاومة خصوصا خلال و بعد الربيع العربي. أظهرت ممارسة السخرية في فضاء افتراضي مواز في وجوده للواقع الفعلي القيم الفعلية التي يحيا بها المغاربة، من حيث تقبلهم للتوزيع غير المتكافئ للسلطة في الاسرة و العلاقات الاجتماعية و السياسة، وإيمانهم بالقيم الفردية كحقوق الانسان و المساواة و استعدادهم لقبول التغيير و التعامل ببراغماتية مع الغموض و التقلبات السياسية و الاجتماعية، وغير ذلك من القيم الثقافية. كما اهتمت الدراسة باستخراج معطيات و تحليلها انطلاقا من اسئلة محورية تهم أهداف السخرية وحدود ممارستها و القيم التي تُمارَس باسمها و أثر السخرية الرقمية على الواقع الفعلي، وطبيعة النقد الساخر من حيث علاقته بالذات والآخر من جهة، ومن حيث كونه مقاومة للهيمنة و التضليل من جهة أخرى.
أبانت دراسة السخرية كتفاعل يومي بين شرائح اجتماعية وتيارات ايديولوجية مختلفة طبيعة الحوارية السائدة و مدى وجود ثقافة تشاركية في إنتاج القيم، كما أفرز تحليل المنشورات الساخرة نموذجا ثقافيا مغربيا تتفاعل داخله قيم التقليد و المادية مع قيم التحديث والتعبير عن الذات.
تعتبر قراءة كتاب يبحث في الذات الثقافية المغربية في مسار وعيها بذاتها و بالعالم تجربة فريدة من حيث قدرتها على تفعيل التفكير في هذه الذات التي تسْكننا و تشكل هويتنا و تتحكم في سلوكنا و تصيغ، بحضورنا أو في غفلة منا، حدود وعينا بذاتنا و بالعالم الذي ننتمي إليه.
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Papers by Mifdal Mohamed
The popularity of traditional healing practices on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic chal... more The popularity of traditional healing practices on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the discourse diffused by the Ministry of Health in Morocco. This created a struggle in the public sphere between a scientific discourse on health care constructed by the Ministry of Health and a culturally conservative discourse propagated by practitioners of traditional healing. This paper explores how both discourses were competing to shape public opinion about the best health-care practices to end the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco. The data was collected from Facebook and YouTube based on criteria of social-media functionalities. The data was analysed using multimodal critical discourse analysis followed by a process of coding and category development. The results of the study reveal that shaping public opinion about ways to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco was characterized by the success of traditional health-care discourse in a counter-hegemonic struggle with the discourse of the Ministry of Health. This discourse was conservative, as it cherished an online Muslim identity of social-media users by relying on ideologically constructed argumentation and discursive strategies in representing prophetic medicine as the best health-care practice to end the pandemic.
In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise th... more In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise their feminine subjectivity and realize the values of self-enhancement, ambition and leadership by managing the perceptions of others and projecting a desired social image. Many of the digital platforms host a plethora of social relations across various cultural, racial and gendered variables. With the ascent of social influencers on Facebook, tik-toc and Instagram, new modes of gender representations and leadership dynamics have come to the surface. Thus, female influencers on social media have managed to garner a larger pool of followers through impression management and positive self-presentation. This paper tries to investigate the textual and visual narratives of four Moroccan female influencers and analyze the content of their posts to unfold the strategies of impression management and self-presentation that control the way followers perceive them. The analysis of their content shows that these influencers use different modes (reels, multimodal texts, selfies…) and genres (micronarratives about everyday routines, didactic parables, quotes, poem recitations, endorsed advertisements), and interact with the media affordances at play on Instagram (like reduced anonymity, persistence and visibility), being heedful of the other generated content (likes, shares, comments) and context collapse (networked public). The analysis indicates the consistent use of strategies of impression management in five related factors, namely, self-concept, desired identity, role constraints, target value, and current or potential social image. The study aims to unfold the strategies used by these micro-influencers to project a desired social image and explain how these influencers manage the way they want their audience to perceive them (as leaders) and follow them.
In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise th... more In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise their feminine subjectivity and realize the values of self-enhancement, ambition and leadership by managing the perceptions of others and projecting a desired social image. Many of the digital platforms host a plethora of social relations across various cultural, racial and gendered variables. With the ascent of social influencers on Facebook, tik-toc and Instagram, new modes of gender representations and leadership dynamics have come to the surface. Thus, female influencers on social media have managed to garner a larger pool of followers through impression management and positive self-presentation. This paper tries to investigate the textual and visual narratives of four Moroccan female influencers and analyze the content of their posts to unfold the strategies of impression management and self-presentation that control the way followers perceive them. The analysis of their content shows that these influencers use different modes (reels, multimodal texts, selfies…) and genres (micronarratives about everyday routines, didactic parables, quotes, poem recitations, endorsed advertisements), and interact with the media affordances at play on Instagram (like reduced anonymity, persistence and visibility), being heedful of the other generated content (likes, shares, comments) and context collapse (networked public). The analysis indicates the consistent use of strategies of impression management in five related factors, namely, self-concept, desired identity, role constraints, target value, and current or potential social image. The study aims to unfold the strategies used by these micro-influencers to project a desired social image and explain how these influencers manage the way they want their audience to perceive them (as leaders) and follow them.
Polarized framing of scientific uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco
Atlantic journal of communication, Jun 21, 2024
Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this p... more Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this paper investigated how legacy and social media's framing of scientific uncertainty contributed to shaping public opinion regarding public decision-making orientations. For this aim, Al Ouala TV and 2 M TV were selected among traditional media channels for their wide viewership and governmental stance. Additionally, various social media platforms were selected based on their active role in COVID-19 discourse. Using a purposive sampling method, a qualitative analysis was conducted on media coverage of COVID-19, focusing on the framing of uncertainties surrounding virus transmission, face mask usage, and vaccination between March 1, 2020 and July 30, 2022. Drawing on framing theory-based content analysis, the study found that the media framing did not allow for resolving the complexities involved in communicating scientific uncertainty and corresponding public decisions. The active use of social media has actually fostered affective polarization in the related context of fear, worry, and distrust, increasing resistance to public decision-making orientations and negatively impacting perceptions and motivations to respond to COVID-19 measures. Implications for public health communication and policy are discussed.
This paper analyses the narrative language, style and textual configurations in Cormac Mc Carthy'... more This paper analyses the narrative language, style and textual configurations in Cormac Mc Carthy's The Road in light of its satirical stance and dystopian perspective. It seeks to evince the strong correlation between the linguistic and textual configurations and the moral, aesthetic and philosophical underpinnings in the novel. Mc Carthy's style in this novel bears the seeds of a deep philosophical questioning of the postmodern way of life and its effects on our relation to the real and to the values of altruistic love (agape), sacrifice and freedom. The choice of dystopian satire as a generic frame gives echo to the pessimistic sensibility of the people in post 9/11 America. The analysis of some of the novel's linguistic and stylistic devices shows this strong correlation between the critical perspective of the novel and the language as it displays itself in defamiliarizing arrangements on its narrative fabric.
Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this p... more Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this paper investigated how legacy and social media's framing of scientific uncertainty contributed to shaping public opinion regarding public decision-making orientations. For this aim, Al Ouala TV and 2 M TV were selected among traditional media channels for their wide viewership and governmental stance. Additionally, various social media platforms were selected based on their active role in COVID-19 discourse. Using a purposive sampling method, a qualitative analysis was conducted on media coverage of COVID-19, focusing on the framing of uncertainties surrounding virus transmission, face mask usage, and vaccination between March 1, 2020 and July 30, 2022. Drawing on framing theory-based content analysis, the study found that the media framing did not allow for resolving the complexities involved in communicating scientific uncertainty and corresponding public decisions. The active use of social media has actually fostered affective polarization in the related context of fear, worry, and distrust, increasing resistance to public decision-making orientations and negatively impacting perceptions and motivations to respond to COVID-19 measures. Implications for public health communication and policy are discussed.
Post-truth, conspiracy, and fake news in the uncertain times of COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco
Social Science Information
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and we... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and were the object of a heated debate, nationally and globally. Because of the novelty of that experience, convergent truths emerged in Morocco, exacerbating the uncertainty that was already prevailing. This article examines these convergent truths, their epistemological bases, claims, and resources. This analysis shows the existence of different powers and strategies to which different truths are linked. The creative truth upheld by the existing dominant power, drawing, for legitimacy, on empirical scientific knowledge and claiming control over the situation. The esoteric truth based on conspiracy theories, political conflict, or the religious doctrine of fatalism and popular culture was supported and diffused through social media and gained traction among the public, already distrustful of the dominant narrative and of the scientific expertise. While other forms of truths existed in this po...
Social movements in Morocco: rethinking political opportunities in terms of claims and outcomes
The Journal of North African Studies, Apr 4, 2023
The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade shows that contentious p... more The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade shows that contentious politics changed dramatically from overt high-risk acts of indignation and public defiance in the streets during the Arab Spring to low-risk, tactical boycott campaigns on Facebook and single-issue movements during the last four years. The purpose of this paper is to suggest how we might read, interpret and understand the politics of contention in Morocco in terms of political opportunities. This article argues that political opportunities can be best apprehended using some contextdependent variables and showing the causal correlation between claims as an independent variable and outcomes represented by three dependent variables, namely recognition, policy change and repression. The aim is to map the field and study the political opportunities available to social movements through their contingent antagonistic interactions with the state. The study of variables revealed how structural features of the state and its conjunctural aspects shape political opportunities in Morocco. Though tactical variations were at play, the article delineated relatively constant mechanisms in these interactions. The article analysed data collected from social media and state television using a mixed method approach (netnography, grounded theory and critical discourse analysis). The results show that the Moroccan regime has been reluctant to respond positively to the social movements’ claims and to implement any qualitative changes in policy, and reacted in most cases by smear campaigns, discrediting counternarratives before using coercive means. The Moroccan state is more preoccupied with promoting its image internationally, though.
a cultural show, sada alibsaa, that hosted me to talk about humor and fear during the Covid-19 pa... more a cultural show, sada alibsaa, that hosted me to talk about humor and fear during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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قرأنا لكم "السخرية في الثقافة الرقمية" لمحمد مفضال
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Book: La satire entre dialectique et déconstruction
""RESUME Ce livre s’interroge sur la possibilité de la satire dans les romans postmodernistes de... more ""RESUME
Ce livre s’interroge sur la possibilité de la satire dans les romans postmodernistes de William Gaddis. Portée par une intention éthique, la satire gaddisienne accentue le désordre social de manière systématique pour faire apparaître les failles du système social. Elle milite contre l’absolutisme discursif et dénonce fraude, bêtise et manipulation. La dérision que pratique la satire contre ses cibles de choix implique une transparence référentielle qui a fait système. Cependant, la pratique de l’auto-dérision fissure ce système de l’intérieur. Notre travail consiste à montrer comment la satire travaille sous la tension de ce paradoxe postmoderne et comment l’auto-dérision permet à la satire de maintenir un équilibre paradoxal entre critique et autocritique et souscrit avec force aux principes de doute, de différence et de contingence. La satire s’inscrit ainsi dans une rhétorique de l’ironie, fondée sur l’ambiguïté et le paradoxe, et amorce, par sa critique généralisée de tous les discours, une interrogation de grande ampleur sur la culture américaine. Le rapport entre la jérémiade, le carnavalesque et la satire ménippée avec la satire gaddisienne s’affirme dans les formes apocalyptiques, démesurées et discontinues des romans de cet auteur. La satire n’est possible dans le contexte postmoderne que si elle affiche ses propres codes en tant que discours et offre un espace de passage paradoxal où les différences sont mesurées selon la valeur absolue de la contingence et « l’infaillible ponctualité du hasard ».
Titre en Anglais : The Possibility of Satire in the Novels of William Gaddis : The Recognitions, JR, A Carpenter’s Gothic and A Frolic of His Own.
ABSTRACT
This book questions the possibility of satire in the postmodernist novels of William Gaddis. Carried by an ethical commitment, the Gaddisian satire intensifies the social disorder in a systematic way to reveal the flaws of the social system, challenging any totalising compulsion and denouncing fraud, stupidity and manipulation. The mockery that satire uses to disparage its privileged objects of attack endows it with a transparency that has systematic value. Nevertheless, the practice of self-mockery opens up cracks in the satirical system itself, thus laying it open to the criticism of the logic it attacks. Our work aims to show how satire works under the tension of this postmodern paradox and how self-mockery enables satire to maintain a balance between criticism and self-criticism while promoting doubt, difference and contingency. Satire fits in with a rhetoric of irony, based on ambiguity and paradox, and initiates, by its generalized criticism of discourses, a large-scale questioning of the American culture. The link between the jeremiad, the carnivalesque and the menippean satire with the Gaddisian satire is made obvious in the apocalyptic, disproportionate and discontinuous forms of the novels of this author. Satire is possible in the postmodern context only if it displays its own codes as discourse and offers a paradoxical transitory space where differences are assessed in terms of the absolute value of contingency and “the unswerving punctuality of chance”.
Mots clés : satire, dérision, auto-dérision, système, fissures, contingence, carnavalesque, jérémiade, satire ménippée, paradoxe, postmodernisme.
Key words : satire, mockery, self-mockery, system, cracks, contingency, carnivalesque, jeremiad, menippean satire, paradox, postmodernism
""
Book Chapter: Cultural Flow: Intermedial Satire in Moroccan and Tunisian Rap-Music Videos
The Power of Satire. Amsterdam: Benjamins (forthcoming 2015)
The chapter offers an historical overview of satire in terms of its relation to power and cultu... more The chapter offers an historical overview of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, and then moves on to examine the impact of the Arab Spring on the workings of satire in rap music videos in Morocco and Tunisia. The study of a large number of rap videos produced during and after the 2011 uprising has shown that substantial change in the rap text and its visual support has occurred, making satire more transgressive, more topical, and more critical of the political and social order. Intermedial Satire has been energized and shifted to a position of dominance giving voice to the hopes and the fears of all the community, casting, at times, a shadow over the accomplished change.
The apocalypse in fiction is often used to criticize political, social and cultural practices in ... more The apocalypse in fiction is often used to criticize political, social and cultural practices in the Arab world, and focuses mainly on the culture of fear and its negative political effects. I would like to show how apocalyptic fiction can produce elaborate shock effects that paradoxically question the ability of apocalyptic messianic thinking to cope with the political and moral chaos, and that provoke the reader to redefine his/her fear and re-invest his/her apocalyptic desire for punishment in a conscious impulse for change. I will be analyzing this topic through a critical reading of a novel written by an Algerian novelist a scant six years before the outbreak of the Arab spring demonstrations in most Arab countries. The prophetic dimension of the novel is stunning and calls attention to how literature is central to the human culture insofar as it has spawned continuous attempts at representing the unthinkable and the untold, paving thus the way to the great cataclysmic changes in the history of humanity.
Starting with a re-examination of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, this chap... more Starting with a re-examination of satire in terms of its relation to power and culture, this chapter then examines the impact of the Arab Spring on the workings of satire in rap music videos in Morocco and Tunisia. The study of a large number of rap videos produced during and after the 2011 uprising has shown that substantial change in the rap text and its visual support has occurred, making satire more transgressive, more topical, and more critical of the political and social order. These forms of intermedial satire have been energized and shifted to a position of dominance, giving voice to the hopes of all the community -and to its fears as well, casting, at times, a shadow over the accomplished change.
دار شهريار, 2021
قراءة هذا الكتاب متعة حقيقية لأنه استكشاف لمفهوم الكتابة لدى أبرز المفكرين في العالم و لآرائهم و ... more قراءة هذا الكتاب متعة حقيقية لأنه استكشاف لمفهوم الكتابة لدى أبرز المفكرين في العالم و لآرائهم و مقارباتهم المختلفة في مكان واحد يجمعهم على اختلاف توجهاتهم النظرية و المعرفية. القراءة هي مقدمة للترجمة وعتبة للفهم الصحيح للنص المترجم. لن أقدم أي تفاصيل عن صعوبات الترجمة ومشاكلها اللغوية والمعرفية لأن لذلك مجال آخر يمكن أن يستوعبه، بل سأتكلم عن هذا الكتاب كقارئ استثمر كل وقته و معرفته اللغوية و الثقافية لفهم نص أعجب بمضمونه و بالأفكار و المفاهيم التي تمت مناقشتها من طرف مفكرين كنا نقرأ لهم مؤلفات صعبة للغاية كجاك دريردا و هومي بابا و سلوفوي جيجيك و لم نكن نعرف حقا أي شيء عن طريقة ممارستهم للكتابة و تصورهم لها.
سأكتب عن بعض الأفكار التي أعجبت بها و بطريقة مناقشتها من طرف هؤلاء المفكرين الذين يُلح مؤلفا الكتاب على نعتهم بالنقديين لأن كتابتهم تقوم فعلا بنقد و تقويض كل المؤسسات و الخطابات التي تبرر الظلم و الاستغلال و عدم المساواة [انظر مقدمة الكتاب]. ما أثار اهتمامي و حفزني على عرض بعض الأفكار عن مقاربات الكتابة المقدمة في هذا الكتاب هو راهنيتها و كونها تعبر عن قضايا أساسية في عملية الكتابة كالهوية و فعل القراءة و التلقي و نوعية البلاغة المستعملة في الكتابة و الاقناع من خلال استعمال البلاغة و التفكيك و الكتابة كمقاومة للسلطة بالمعنى الذي أسس له ميشيل فوكو.
تبقى المقاربة التي يتبناها كل مفكر خاضعة لمنهجه العام في التفكير و التحليل و النقد. فمفكر كهومي بابا المعروف بمؤلفاته حول العلاقة بين الثقافة الاستعمارية و ثقافة المُستعَمر لا يمكنه إلا أن يرى في الكتابة شكلا من أشكال المقاومة. فحسب هذا المفكر النيوكولونيالي فإن مقاومة السلطة تتم عبر الكتابة من خلال العبث باللغة و قواعدها كما أن الكتابة بالنسبة إليه نشاط سياسي بامتياز. يشارك رأي هومي بابا النسويات كجوديت بتلر التي ترى في اللغة العادية و النحو المتداول تقييدا لطريقة تفكيرنا و لذلك يجب حسب رأيها أن يتم العبث بهما و تغييرهما باستمرار، و بيل هوكس التي تهتم أكثر بالكتابة كتبادل و انفتاح على الآخر لتحقيق أثر للكتابة في حياة الناس.
يقدم ستيوارت هول وجهة نظر مختلفة عن الكتابة كهوية و ذلك من منظور الدراسات الثقافية مؤكدا على أنه لا يوجد موقع هوية أو ذات مكتمل و نهائي يتم انتاجه بكل وضوح عن طريق الكتابة، بل إن الهوية تتشكل بشكل جزئي من خلال الكتابة لأنها متأثرة بالفعل باللغة التي تستعملها و تتفاوض معها. الكتابة بالنسبة لهول هي انتاج لنسخة من الذات. غير أن مفكرين آخرين أهتموا أكثر بمسألة الكتابة من خلال مسألة التلقي كستانلي فيش الذي أكد على قصد القارئ و دوره في انتاج معنى النص. لكن ما أثار اهتمامي أكثر هي مقاربة بيل هوكس التي صرحت بأنها تجد صعوبة في التفكير في نفسها ككاتبة عندما تشعر بأنها تكتب منعزلة عن الجمهور القارئ. تؤكد بيل هوكس على أهمية الجمهور بالنسبة للكتابة و خصوصا عندما يستعمل الكاتب التجارب الشخصية ليتواصل مع القراء لأن هذا ما يجذب الناس في نظرها، و هذا ما يجعل النظرية تبدو تطبيقا عمليا. على نفس المنوال و بنفس المقاربة، تدعو جوديث بتلر إلى أن يكون الكاتب قادرا على تغيير مستويات الخطاب و الهدف هو أن يحقق الكاتب أثرا في العلم الاجتماعي. فقد لاحظت بتلر ان ما يُكتب في الوقت الحاضر كنقد ادبي تفكيكي هو كتابة منطوية على ذاتها و لا يصل معناها إلى القارئ غير المتخصص و المطلع على كتابات من نفس المستوى.
اهتم مفكرون آخرون بمسألة البلاغة في الكتابة حيث ذهب تشومسكي مثلا إلى مساءلة مفهوم الاقناع في حد ذاته. فحسب تشومسكي لا يجب أن نحاول اقناع الآخرين بل بالأحرى يجب أن نهيئ الأرضية على أحسن ما يكون حتى يتمكن الناس الآخرون من استعمال قدراتهم العقلية الخاصة ليكتشفوا لأنفسهم ما يعتقدون أنه صحيح أو خطأ. كانت مساءلة مفهوم الإقناع فكرة أساسية كذلك لدى إرنستو لاكلو الذي حاول أن يعمق منطق الاقناع و يكشف عما إذا كان يتضمن عنصر القوة و الإكراه، بمعنى أن الاقناع بهذا المعنى يتم بأقل من برهان عقلاني، كإثارة التعاطف أو التخويف.
كان لديريدا مقاربة أخرى للكتابة كتفكيك أو كوسيلة لممارسة التفكيك الذي يعرفه كمساءلة لطبيعة التركيب والأطروحة و الموقع و الانشاء ليس فقط من حيث البلاغة و لكن من حيث طبيعة الموقع و طبيعة التثبيت. إذا كان التفكيك قد حول عملية الكتابة إلى مشروع ضخم للمساءلة و التحليل النقدي، فإن هذا النوع من الكتابة لم يكن ليرضي مفكرا مشاغبا كسلوفوي جيجيك الذي يرى أن جزءا من كتابة ديريدا هو عبارة عن استغلال قاس للذات. يصرح جيجيك بأنه لا يقرأ الثلث الأول من مؤلفات ديريدا لأنه يكرسها لممارسة استغلال خالص وقاسي للذات. و قد عبر جيجيك عن ذلك بطريقة ساخرة، حيث أن مايقوله ديريدا حسب جيجيك في بداية مقالاته هو قول على هذه الشاكلة: "هل اكتب هذا المقال أم هذا المقال يكتبني".
عبر هؤلاء المفكرون النقديون عن تصورهم للكتابة من وجهات نظر متعددة و بخلفيات مختلفة. فالذي كان همه سياسيا محضا اعتبر الكتابة شكل من أشكال مقاومة أي سلطة متحكمة تبرر عدم المساواة و الاستغلال و الظلم. أما من هو مشغول بتبليغ الفكرة فقد اهتم أكثر ببلاغة الكتابة و بتلقي الكتابة و بأثرها في واقع الناس. و من كان همه الهوية فقد ركز أكثر على الكتابة كمجال لتكوين مستمر للذات في علاقتها باللغة و بالثقافة.
يقدم هذا الكتاب من خلال مقابلات مع سبعة عشر مفكرا منتدى فكريا فريدا يتداول فيه هؤلاء المفكرون حول موضوع واحد و هو الكتابة.
قراءة ممتعة.
محمد مفضل [آزمور- المغرب]
14 يناير 2021
يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار ... more يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار شروط ثقافية جديدة تتميز باستعمال تقنيات رقمية وما بين وسائطية، و ظروف سياسية محفزة وسّعت مجال النقد و التشريح و المقاومة خصوصا خلال و بعد الربيع العربي. أظهرت ممارسة السخرية في فضاء افتراضي مواز في وجوده للواقع الفعلي القيم الفعلية التي يحيا بها المغاربة، من حيث تقبلهم للتوزيع غير المتكافئ للسلطة في الاسرة و العلاقات الاجتماعية و السياسة، وإيمانهم بالقيم الفردية كحقوق الانسان و المساواة و استعدادهم لقبول التغيير و التعامل ببراغماتية مع الغموض و التقلبات السياسية و الاجتماعية، وغير ذلك من القيم الثقافية. كما اهتمت الدراسة باستخراج معطيات و تحليلها انطلاقا من اسئلة محورية تهم أهداف السخرية وحدود ممارستها و القيم التي تُمارَس باسمها و أثر السخرية الرقمية على الواقع الفعلي، وطبيعة النقد الساخر من حيث علاقته بالذات والآخر من جهة، ومن حيث كونه مقاومة للهيمنة و التضليل من جهة أخرى.
أبانت دراسة السخرية كتفاعل يومي بين شرائح اجتماعية وتيارات ايديولوجية مختلفة طبيعة الحوارية السائدة و مدى وجود ثقافة تشاركية في إنتاج القيم، كما أفرز تحليل المنشورات الساخرة نموذجا ثقافيا مغربيا تتفاعل داخله قيم التقليد و المادية مع قيم التحديث والتعبير عن الذات.
تعتبر قراءة كتاب يبحث في الذات الثقافية المغربية في مسار وعيها بذاتها و بالعالم تجربة فريدة من حيث قدرتها على تفعيل التفكير في هذه الذات التي تسْكننا و تشكل هويتنا و تتحكم في سلوكنا و تصيغ، بحضورنا أو في غفلة منا، حدود وعينا بذاتنا و بالعالم الذي ننتمي إليه.
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يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار ... more يقدم هذا الكتاب دراسة للسخرية اليومية التي يمارسها المغاربة في العالم الافتراضي للفيسبوك في إطار شروط ثقافية جديدة تتميز باستعمال تقنيات رقمية وما بين وسائطية، و ظروف سياسية محفزة وسّعت مجال النقد و التشريح و المقاومة خصوصا خلال و بعد الربيع العربي. أظهرت ممارسة السخرية في فضاء افتراضي مواز في وجوده للواقع الفعلي القيم الفعلية التي يحيا بها المغاربة، من حيث تقبلهم للتوزيع غير المتكافئ للسلطة في الاسرة و العلاقات الاجتماعية و السياسة، وإيمانهم بالقيم الفردية كحقوق الانسان و المساواة و استعدادهم لقبول التغيير و التعامل ببراغماتية مع الغموض و التقلبات السياسية و الاجتماعية، وغير ذلك من القيم الثقافية. كما اهتمت الدراسة باستخراج معطيات و تحليلها انطلاقا من اسئلة محورية تهم أهداف السخرية وحدود ممارستها و القيم التي تُمارَس باسمها و أثر السخرية الرقمية على الواقع الفعلي، وطبيعة النقد الساخر من حيث علاقته بالذات والآخر من جهة، ومن حيث كونه مقاومة للهيمنة و التضليل من جهة أخرى.
أبانت دراسة السخرية كتفاعل يومي بين شرائح اجتماعية وتيارات ايديولوجية مختلفة طبيعة الحوارية السائدة و مدى وجود ثقافة تشاركية في إنتاج القيم، كما أفرز تحليل المنشورات الساخرة نموذجا ثقافيا مغربيا تتفاعل داخله قيم التقليد و المادية مع قيم التحديث والتعبير عن الذات.
تعتبر قراءة كتاب يبحث في الذات الثقافية المغربية في مسار وعيها بذاتها و بالعالم تجربة فريدة من حيث قدرتها على تفعيل التفكير في هذه الذات التي تسْكننا و تشكل هويتنا و تتحكم في سلوكنا و تصيغ، بحضورنا أو في غفلة منا، حدود وعينا بذاتنا و بالعالم الذي ننتمي إليه.
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The popularity of traditional healing practices on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic chal... more The popularity of traditional healing practices on social media during the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the discourse diffused by the Ministry of Health in Morocco. This created a struggle in the public sphere between a scientific discourse on health care constructed by the Ministry of Health and a culturally conservative discourse propagated by practitioners of traditional healing. This paper explores how both discourses were competing to shape public opinion about the best health-care practices to end the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco. The data was collected from Facebook and YouTube based on criteria of social-media functionalities. The data was analysed using multimodal critical discourse analysis followed by a process of coding and category development. The results of the study reveal that shaping public opinion about ways to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco was characterized by the success of traditional health-care discourse in a counter-hegemonic struggle with the discourse of the Ministry of Health. This discourse was conservative, as it cherished an online Muslim identity of social-media users by relying on ideologically constructed argumentation and discursive strategies in representing prophetic medicine as the best health-care practice to end the pandemic.
In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise th... more In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise their feminine subjectivity and realize the values of self-enhancement, ambition and leadership by managing the perceptions of others and projecting a desired social image. Many of the digital platforms host a plethora of social relations across various cultural, racial and gendered variables. With the ascent of social influencers on Facebook, tik-toc and Instagram, new modes of gender representations and leadership dynamics have come to the surface. Thus, female influencers on social media have managed to garner a larger pool of followers through impression management and positive self-presentation. This paper tries to investigate the textual and visual narratives of four Moroccan female influencers and analyze the content of their posts to unfold the strategies of impression management and self-presentation that control the way followers perceive them. The analysis of their content shows that these influencers use different modes (reels, multimodal texts, selfies…) and genres (micronarratives about everyday routines, didactic parables, quotes, poem recitations, endorsed advertisements), and interact with the media affordances at play on Instagram (like reduced anonymity, persistence and visibility), being heedful of the other generated content (likes, shares, comments) and context collapse (networked public). The analysis indicates the consistent use of strategies of impression management in five related factors, namely, self-concept, desired identity, role constraints, target value, and current or potential social image. The study aims to unfold the strategies used by these micro-influencers to project a desired social image and explain how these influencers manage the way they want their audience to perceive them (as leaders) and follow them.
In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise th... more In recent years, social media have presented a significant virtual space for women to exercise their feminine subjectivity and realize the values of self-enhancement, ambition and leadership by managing the perceptions of others and projecting a desired social image. Many of the digital platforms host a plethora of social relations across various cultural, racial and gendered variables. With the ascent of social influencers on Facebook, tik-toc and Instagram, new modes of gender representations and leadership dynamics have come to the surface. Thus, female influencers on social media have managed to garner a larger pool of followers through impression management and positive self-presentation. This paper tries to investigate the textual and visual narratives of four Moroccan female influencers and analyze the content of their posts to unfold the strategies of impression management and self-presentation that control the way followers perceive them. The analysis of their content shows that these influencers use different modes (reels, multimodal texts, selfies…) and genres (micronarratives about everyday routines, didactic parables, quotes, poem recitations, endorsed advertisements), and interact with the media affordances at play on Instagram (like reduced anonymity, persistence and visibility), being heedful of the other generated content (likes, shares, comments) and context collapse (networked public). The analysis indicates the consistent use of strategies of impression management in five related factors, namely, self-concept, desired identity, role constraints, target value, and current or potential social image. The study aims to unfold the strategies used by these micro-influencers to project a desired social image and explain how these influencers manage the way they want their audience to perceive them (as leaders) and follow them.
Polarized framing of scientific uncertainty during COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco
Atlantic journal of communication, Jun 21, 2024
Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this p... more Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this paper investigated how legacy and social media's framing of scientific uncertainty contributed to shaping public opinion regarding public decision-making orientations. For this aim, Al Ouala TV and 2 M TV were selected among traditional media channels for their wide viewership and governmental stance. Additionally, various social media platforms were selected based on their active role in COVID-19 discourse. Using a purposive sampling method, a qualitative analysis was conducted on media coverage of COVID-19, focusing on the framing of uncertainties surrounding virus transmission, face mask usage, and vaccination between March 1, 2020 and July 30, 2022. Drawing on framing theory-based content analysis, the study found that the media framing did not allow for resolving the complexities involved in communicating scientific uncertainty and corresponding public decisions. The active use of social media has actually fostered affective polarization in the related context of fear, worry, and distrust, increasing resistance to public decision-making orientations and negatively impacting perceptions and motivations to respond to COVID-19 measures. Implications for public health communication and policy are discussed.
This paper analyses the narrative language, style and textual configurations in Cormac Mc Carthy'... more This paper analyses the narrative language, style and textual configurations in Cormac Mc Carthy's The Road in light of its satirical stance and dystopian perspective. It seeks to evince the strong correlation between the linguistic and textual configurations and the moral, aesthetic and philosophical underpinnings in the novel. Mc Carthy's style in this novel bears the seeds of a deep philosophical questioning of the postmodern way of life and its effects on our relation to the real and to the values of altruistic love (agape), sacrifice and freedom. The choice of dystopian satire as a generic frame gives echo to the pessimistic sensibility of the people in post 9/11 America. The analysis of some of the novel's linguistic and stylistic devices shows this strong correlation between the critical perspective of the novel and the language as it displays itself in defamiliarizing arrangements on its narrative fabric.
Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this p... more Examining the representation of COVID-19-related scientific uncertainty in Moroccan media, this paper investigated how legacy and social media's framing of scientific uncertainty contributed to shaping public opinion regarding public decision-making orientations. For this aim, Al Ouala TV and 2 M TV were selected among traditional media channels for their wide viewership and governmental stance. Additionally, various social media platforms were selected based on their active role in COVID-19 discourse. Using a purposive sampling method, a qualitative analysis was conducted on media coverage of COVID-19, focusing on the framing of uncertainties surrounding virus transmission, face mask usage, and vaccination between March 1, 2020 and July 30, 2022. Drawing on framing theory-based content analysis, the study found that the media framing did not allow for resolving the complexities involved in communicating scientific uncertainty and corresponding public decisions. The active use of social media has actually fostered affective polarization in the related context of fear, worry, and distrust, increasing resistance to public decision-making orientations and negatively impacting perceptions and motivations to respond to COVID-19 measures. Implications for public health communication and policy are discussed.
Post-truth, conspiracy, and fake news in the uncertain times of COVID-19 pandemic in Morocco
Social Science Information
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and we... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and were the object of a heated debate, nationally and globally. Because of the novelty of that experience, convergent truths emerged in Morocco, exacerbating the uncertainty that was already prevailing. This article examines these convergent truths, their epistemological bases, claims, and resources. This analysis shows the existence of different powers and strategies to which different truths are linked. The creative truth upheld by the existing dominant power, drawing, for legitimacy, on empirical scientific knowledge and claiming control over the situation. The esoteric truth based on conspiracy theories, political conflict, or the religious doctrine of fatalism and popular culture was supported and diffused through social media and gained traction among the public, already distrustful of the dominant narrative and of the scientific expertise. While other forms of truths existed in this po...
Social movements in Morocco: rethinking political opportunities in terms of claims and outcomes
The Journal of North African Studies, Apr 4, 2023
The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade shows that contentious p... more The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade shows that contentious politics changed dramatically from overt high-risk acts of indignation and public defiance in the streets during the Arab Spring to low-risk, tactical boycott campaigns on Facebook and single-issue movements during the last four years. The purpose of this paper is to suggest how we might read, interpret and understand the politics of contention in Morocco in terms of political opportunities. This article argues that political opportunities can be best apprehended using some contextdependent variables and showing the causal correlation between claims as an independent variable and outcomes represented by three dependent variables, namely recognition, policy change and repression. The aim is to map the field and study the political opportunities available to social movements through their contingent antagonistic interactions with the state. The study of variables revealed how structural features of the state and its conjunctural aspects shape political opportunities in Morocco. Though tactical variations were at play, the article delineated relatively constant mechanisms in these interactions. The article analysed data collected from social media and state television using a mixed method approach (netnography, grounded theory and critical discourse analysis). The results show that the Moroccan regime has been reluctant to respond positively to the social movements’ claims and to implement any qualitative changes in policy, and reacted in most cases by smear campaigns, discrediting counternarratives before using coercive means. The Moroccan state is more preoccupied with promoting its image internationally, though.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and we... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, the truth about the virus and its implications were at issue and were the object of a heated debate, nationally and globally. Because of the novelty of that experience, convergent truths emerged in Morocco, exacerbating the uncertainty that was already prevailing. This article examines these convergent truths, their epistemological bases, claims, and resources. This analysis shows the existence of different powers and strategies to which different truths are linked. The creative truth upheld by the existing dominant power, drawing, for legitimacy, on empirical scientific knowledge and claiming control over the situation. The esoteric truth based on conspiracy theories, political conflict, or the religious doctrine of fatalism and popular culture was supported and diffused through social media and gained traction among the public, already distrustful of the dominant narrative and of the scientific expertise. While other forms of truths existed in this post-truth era, this article focuses on these two kinds of truth, and examines how both were constitutive of two antagonistic discourses that used different kinds of propaganda including even fake news or alternative facts to provide (false or emotional) grounds for their claims. The scrutiny of the interactions between these discourses through media texts showed that while the government used propagandistic (pseudo)scientific messages to control the population and reinforce its authority, with little regard for people's doubts, worries, and fears, the social media users formed different clusters of like-minded people and resisted the dominant narrative taking advantage of the growing distrust of the government among the population and the communication blunders of some public policy officials.
Revisiting the use of hedges and boosters in scientific research articles in Morocco: Caution that does not exclude conviction
Cultures of Science
The ways in which researchers present the results of their research and make claims about them ar... more The ways in which researchers present the results of their research and make claims about them are determined by the conventions of academic writing held by the scientific community. This article examines the use of hedges and boosters in the published articles of PhD students in a Moroccan university, and to what extent these students are conscious of their semantic and pragmatic meanings and use them adequately following established conventions. Textual analysis was implemented to study the use of these discourse markers in the published articles. We additionally carried out qualitative and quantitative research in the form of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to gain a better understanding of hedge and booster use. While the students may use hedges in contexts in which the results are deemed uncertain and unsatisfactory, expressing conviction through boosters is a common practice. These results indicate a lack of appropriate adherence to academic conventions and that ...
Social movements in Morocco: rethinking political opportunities in terms of claims and outcomes
THE JOURNAL OF NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES, 2023
The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade shows that contentious p... more The close scrutiny of social movements in Morocco during the last decade
shows that contentious politics changed dramatically from overt high-risk
acts of indignation and public defiance in the streets during the Arab Spring
to low-risk, tactical boycott campaigns on Facebook and single-issue
movements during the last four years. The purpose of this paper is to
suggest how we might read, interpret and understand the politics of
contention in Morocco in terms of political opportunities. This article argues
that political opportunities can be best apprehended using some contextdependent
variables and showing the causal correlation between claims as
an independent variable and outcomes represented by three dependent
variables, namely recognition, policy change and repression. The aim is to
map the field and study the political opportunities available to social
movements through their contingent antagonistic interactions with the state.
The study of variables revealed how structural features of the state and its
conjunctural aspects shape political opportunities in Morocco. Though
tactical variations were at play, the article delineated relatively constant
mechanisms in these interactions. The article analysed data collected from
social media and state television using a mixed method approach
(netnography, grounded theory and critical discourse analysis). The results
show that the Moroccan regime has been reluctant to respond positively to
the social movements’ claims and to implement any qualitative changes in
policy, and reacted in most cases by smear campaigns, discrediting counternarratives
before using coercive means. The Moroccan state is more
preoccupied with promoting its image internationally, though.
cultures of science, 2023
The ways in which researchers present the results of their research and make claims about them ar... more The ways in which researchers present the results of their research and make claims about them are determined by the conventions of academic writing held by the scientific community. This article examines the use of hedges and boosters in the published articles of PhD students in a Moroccan university, and to what extent these students are conscious of their semantic and pragmatic meanings and use them adequately following established conventions. Textual analysis was implemented to study the use of these discourse markers in the published articles. We additionally carried out qualitative and quantitative research in the form of questionnaires and semi-structured interviews to gain a better understanding of hedge and booster use. While the students may use hedges in contexts in which the results are deemed uncertain and unsatisfactory, expressing conviction through boosters is a common practice. These results indicate a lack of appropriate adherence to academic conventions and that cultural influences and other contextual variables are in play. Thus, revising textbooks and methodologies in Moroccan universities based on scientific data and conventions is required.
The perspective of the plastic artist Abdelkarim Elazhar is what informs his vision, and regulate... more The perspective of the plastic artist Abdelkarim Elazhar is what informs his vision, and regulates the nature of rhythm, colors, shapes and possible spaces for artistic work. In his artistic experience, which extends to more than thirty years, he moved forward without making an absolute break with his past, or what could be considered past, in terms of time only. Yet he always leaves a visible link between the former and the later, either in his working tools, or in specific elements, or in the nature of the vision itself, Which, for example, used to approach time in its chronological sense, through the different clocks that measure time, that is, with the meaning of time in terms of rhythm, in its reflection on the human nature, on the pace of work, and the concept of becoming, which is made evident in this experience with time from which Al-Azhar will move to another without making any radical breaks. I am concerned here with his last experience that he devoted to faces, because, in essence, they do not conceptually differ from clocks, although the working tools, in the experience of faces, consist of dyes, spaces and shapes, which are different from what we find in the previous experience, despite the existence of a link between them that resembles a fine spider silk.
The European Journal of Humour Research 10 (3) 189–210, 2022
The analysis of memes posted on Moroccan Facebook pages during the first wave of Covid-19 pandemi... more The analysis of memes posted on Moroccan Facebook pages during the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic shows that the use of humour by Moroccans is not only motivated by achieving mirth but it also vehicles critical views about issues of common concern debated in the digital public sphere. Some of these memes were used to cope with fear and uncertainty. However, most memes harboured mixed feelings about the situation and were used for social control and the expression of conflict and resistance, addressing issues of behaviour, governance and communication. This article uses a social semiotic approach to analyse the collected memes (460 from personal and communal pages) as a multimodal discourse in terms of context, culture, and media affordances. This article contends that the study of these memes can be a key to understanding how Moroccans used humour to cope with danger and radical uncertainty, build identification and strengthen social cohesion. It also highlights the polyvocality of humour in times of the pandemic and the gradual shift from inclusive, conformist and sympathetic humour to disparaging, exclusive and challenging humour as the pandemic lingered, consensus began to crack, social control was challenged and injunctive norms were replaced by survival values. The results show how these memes are indicative of the way humour changes mechanisms and functions in terms of contingent motivations.
The European Journal of Humour Research, 2016
When the Arab Spring began, a growing number of Moroccan Facebookers flaunted their dissent in th... more When the Arab Spring began, a growing number of Moroccan Facebookers flaunted their dissent in the face of the regime and used subversive satire to question its legitimacy or push for more freedoms. However, this expression in the form of satire waned after the situation became settled and the satirists had to adjust their satire to the new political reality. This article explores the adaptive strategies of satire in a repressive context during settled and unsettled periods. By scrutinizing satiric posts on Facebook for over four years, I argue that satire, as critique and resistance, adjusts itself to the context, either by taking advantage of increased political space and freedoms or by resorting to indirection, self-censorship or tactical play with power. In both instances, the satiric performance is bound to stay within consensual cultural and political norms even when it is most subversive as these norms profoundly shape its creation and public reception.
Powerholders use vague disastrous premonitions (terrorism, political instability, chaos) to insti... more Powerholders use vague disastrous premonitions (terrorism, political instability, chaos) to instill a sense of fear in the public and engender vulnerability, thus encouraging an unquestioning acceptance of authoritarian rule. While this irrational fear induces servility and acceptance of authoritarianism, it is also internalized by the public and transformed into an apocalyptic discourse that takes the form of a hidden transcript and that takes place “offstage”, beyond direct observation by powerholders. Yet this discourse may then also provide a countercultural and political code for dissent that can, under certain historical conditions, break out from secrecy into public defiance, generating a strong shock effect for the rulers and the ruled alike. The Algerian novelist, Taher wattar (1936-2010), draws on this mythic hidden discourse of apocalypse to mount a satiric attack against the rulers and, indirectly, against the wishful thinking people waiting for a change to happen with t...
The European Journal of Humour Research, 2019
This paper reviews how humor is made in terms of three theoretical models. First, it draws on the... more This paper reviews how humor is made in terms of three theoretical models. First, it draws on the contribution of the structural semantics to the understanding of the text of the joke, especially the related notion of isotopy and the linear organization of the text of the joke. Second, this paper discusses humor in light of the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH), and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). Third, this paper draws also on two pragmatic and discursive approaches, namely Grice’s cooperative principle, and Simpson’s model of satire as a discourse. This paper argues that semantic incongruities and their resolutions, as well as the violations of the cooperation principle can be best apprehended in light of the frames theory as developed in social sciences by Erving Goffman and frameshifting theory as it has been developed by Seana Coulson. The aim of this paper is to reveal the mechanism used toproduce humorand laughter in one of the most popular satirical shows in...
Contemporary voices, 2022
This paper examines the discourse of the Islamic State (IS) as a terrorist group claiming Islamic... more This paper examines the discourse of the Islamic State (IS) as a terrorist group claiming Islamic authenticity and the right to establish khilafa. The analysis of multimodal texts produced and posted online by this group shows how their discourse uses intertextuality and recontextualisation to authenticate their political practice in religious terms, and how they employ strategies of horizontal and vertical propaganda to maintain control and hegemony, and instil fear and terror in the lives of civilians and belligerents alike. The analysis shows that in order to survive, their discourse shifts positions in response to needs, desires and antagonistic social realities. The discussion of these shifting positions reveals the political foundation of their alleged religious discourse and shows how this will change in the course of history.
يقدم هذا المقال قراءة نقدية لمؤلف الكاتب و الناقد المغربي نور الدين صدوق، اكتمال الدائرة: دراسة ف... more يقدم هذا المقال قراءة نقدية لمؤلف الكاتب و الناقد المغربي نور الدين صدوق، اكتمال الدائرة: دراسة في ثلاثية صنع الله إبراهيم(67/برلين 69/1970)، الذي أضاء فيه جانبا من تجربة الروائي المصري صنع الله إبراهيم من خلال ثلاث روايات و راهن فيه على تداخل الذاتي و الواقعي كإطار للتحليل النقدي، دون التركيز على موضوعة معينة مادام الهدف كما يقول المؤلف:"قول الحقيقة: حقيقة الواقع و حقيقية الأدب" (ص 5). يأتي هذا المؤلف كامتداد من حيث الشكل لثلاثية نقدية سابقة أصدرها الناقد محمود أمين العالم حول ثلاث روايات أخرى: تلك الرائحة (1966)، نجمة أغسطس (1974) و اللجنة (1982).
جماليات السخرية في رواية اللجنة لصنع الله ابراهيم : استطراد استكشاف و استفزاز
المجلة المغربية للابحاث السينميائية, 2022
https://kafapress.ma/index.php?ida=42773, 2016
احتل الخطاب حول فيروس كوفيد - 19 الفضاء العمومي عبر وسائل اإلعالم التقليدية والوسائل الجديدة. وان... more احتل الخطاب حول فيروس كوفيد - 19 الفضاء العمومي عبر وسائل اإلعالم التقليدية والوسائل
الجديدة. وانتشر بالموازاة خطاب ساخر كإطار لتناول كل المواضيع المتعلقة بالمرض وبانتشار الفيروس،
الثقافية واالجتماعية منها والسياسية. تؤكد دراسات السخرية في زمن األزمات أن الناس يميلون لالستهزاء
والسخرية من وضعيتهم المتأزمة للتنفيس عن التوتر ولمقاومة الخوف والتضامن. غير أنه في هذا السياق
الرقمي الجديد، نقوم بمقاربة الخطاب الساخر وفق المنهج السيميائي االجتماعي إلدراك طبيعة هذه
السخرية، وموضوعها، ووظائفها المختلفة في زمن الوباء، والقيم االجتماعية والنسق الثقافي الذي تشتغل
بداخله. تم تجميع المعطيات الخاصة بهذا البحث من صفحات فيسبوكية شخصية وجماعية مغربية وفق
المنهج اإلثنوغرافي الخاص باإلنترنت وتصنيفها تصنيفا أوليا، ثم تحليلها تحليال سيميائيا. كشف تحليل
الخطاب الساخر عن وظائفه المختلفة، كتمثل يمتح مادته من المخزون الثقافي لفهم الواقع والتعامل
معه، أو كتفاعل اجتماعي يزيل التوتر والخوف ويقوي التماسك، أو كفعل سياسي للتحكم االجتماعي أو
لمقاومة الهيمنة والتالعب.
Abstract For the last twenty years, the use of humor on television has increased dramatically ... more Abstract
For the last twenty years, the use of humor on television has increased dramatically especially in Europe and USA; satire has carved a place for itself on television and sit-coms have become the dominant format for humor. My paper examines this boom in TV humor and offers an overview of the development of satire and comedy on Moroccan Television. Then it proceeds to analyze how satirical and comedic programs (sketches/ fake news/sit-coms…) are framed to serve political ends, respond to the audiences’ cultural and social expectations and meet the economic needs of an advertising-dependent television.
Drawing on Kenneth Burke’s concepts of acceptance and rejection frames, I will analyze the different forms of humor and classify them into two major categories: the comic frame of acceptance and the satiric frame of rejection. In the first category, comedic programs are designed to entertain, reinforce group solidarity and reduce conflict; conversely, in the second category, satiric programs, which are a very dangerous programming choice and not tolerated by the political elite in Morocco, speak truth to power and offer a more critical interrogation of politicians and the social order, which may cause resentment or other unfavorable reactions. My analysis will bring to light the framing mechanism (issue-specific and generic frames/ internal and external factors of frame-building) and how this latter shapes the audiences’ interpretation of reality and alters their attitudes toward history. My aim is to show how the relation of these humorous programs to power affects their generic properties, effects and survival.
The linguitic turn: The structural approach to language: focus on linguistic patterns and for... more The linguitic turn: The structural approach to language: focus on linguistic patterns and formal linguistic aspects of language + the underlying rules. The functional approach to language: Referential /emotive (Jakobson 1960) Ideational/ interpersonal (Halliday 1970) Descriptive/ social expressive (lyons 1977) 1960's and 70's the communicative turn: decline of structuralism-emergence of new approaches to language (lg in context/lg as representation/ lg as communication/ lg as discourse…) THE COMMUNICATIVE APPROACH IN TEACHING (Canale and Swain, 1980, 1983) (influential model) Presented a theoretical framework consisting of 4 main competencies: Grammatical: knowledge of language code. Sociolinguistic: …sociological rules of use in a particular context. Strategic: How to use verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to handle breakdowns in communication. Discourse: achieving coherence and cohesion in a spoken or verbal text.
Literature review A-Definition: "A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the membe... more Literature review A-Definition: "A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes … [which] are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community…. ". Swales' (1990:58) PhD students: community members who are responsible for publishing the results of their research internationally.
