Social Media, Religious Authority, and the Arab Gulf Crisis
By (Author) Ibrahim N. Abusharif
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
22nd January 2026
United States
General
Non Fiction
Hardback
1
This book examines how the Arab Gulf "blockade" launched a robust social media reaction that seemingly - and perhaps perpetually - pushed the utility of religious maxims in social media spaces in a glocalized manner and the ways in which religious authority has changed in the digital age. Ibrahim N. Abusharif approaches this as a study in public mediation, as tied to a crisis, with case studies and a purposive selection of media texts by religious scholars generated in the wake of the Arab Gulf crisis. Abusharif posits that one important and noticeable evocation of power during this major regional crisis has been the content production of texts that rely on the regular usages of religious language and nodes of religious power, which point to religious authority to justify what is ultimately a nation-state conflagration.
Ibrahim N. Abusharif is Associate Professor in residence in the Journalism & Strategic Communication Program at Northwestern University in Qatar.