Gholam Khiabany - Resume and Abstract

Name	Gholam Khiabany
Title	Assistant professor at Department of Applied Social Science, London Metropolitan University, UK
Brief Introduction	Among scholars who have an Islamic background, Khiabany is the cynosure. His research interest is mainly on media and social change, as well as in the relation of Islamic communication, the development, and democracy.
Recent Publications	Books Khiabany, G. (2008). Blogestan:The Internet and Politics in Iran . London : I.B.Tauris. (With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2008). Iranian Media and the Paradox of Modernity: Media, Religion and State since 1979. New York : Routledge. Joint-edited Anthologies and Journals Khiabany, G. (2007). Guest editor with Annabelle Sreberny, ‘Mediated Politics in the Middle East’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East , Vol. 27(3). Articles Khiabany, G. (2008/in press). Internet in Iran : The Battle over an Emerging Public Sphere, in M.Mclelland and G. Goggin (eds) Internationalising Internet Studies: Beyond Anglophone Paradigms. New York : Routldege. (With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2007). ‘Is there an Islamic Communication? The persistence of tradition and the lure of modernity’, Critical Arts. Vol. 21(2). Khiabany, G. (2007). Religion, State and the Media in Iran : Beyond Islamic Exceptionalism, in R. Maluf and R. Berenger (eds) Religion, Media and the Middle East . Cambridge : Cambridge Scholars Press. (in press) Khiabany, G. (2007). ‘Becoming Intellectual: The blogestan and public political space in the Islamic Republic’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 34 (2).(With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2007). ‘Introduction: Mediated Politics in the Middle East’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East , Vol. 27(3).(With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2007). ‘The Politics of/in Blogging in Iran ’ Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East , Vol. 27(3).(With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2007). ‘Iranian Media: The Paradox of Modernity’, Social Semiotics,Vol. 17(4). Khiabany, G. (2007). Modernity and the many faces of ‘digital divides’: Digital Dynamics in Iran , in P. Golding and G. Murdock (eds) Unpacking Digital Dynamics: Participation, Control, and Exclusion. New York : Hampton Press. Khiabany, G. (2007). The Politics of Broadcasting in Iran : Continuity and Change, Expansion and Control, In D. Ward (ed) Television and Public Policy: Change and Continuity in an Era of Liberalization. New Jersey : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Khiabany, G. (2007). The Iranian Press, State and Civil Society, In M. Semati (ed) Uncovering Iran : Media, Culture, and Society. New York : Routledge. Khiabany, G. (2006). ‘Religion and Media in Iran : Imperative of the market and the straightjacket of Islamism’, WestminsterPapers in Communication and Culture. Vol. 3(2). Khiabany, G. (2005). ‘Faultlines in the agendas of global media debates’, Global Media and Communication, Vol. 1(2). Khiabany, G. (2004). The Women’s Press in Contemporary Iran: Engendering the Public Sphere, in N. Sakr (ed) Women and Media in the Middle East . London : I.B.Tauris. (With Annabelle Sreberny) Khiabany, G. (2003). ‘Globalization and the Internet: Myths and Realities’, Trends in Communication, Vol. 11(2). Khiabany, G. (2003). ‘De-Westernising Media Theory or Reverse Orientalism: Islamic Communication as Theorized by Hamid Mowlana’, Media, Culture and Society, Vol. 25(3).

Paper:

Whither Eurocentrism?
Media, culture and nativism in our time

Gholam Khiabany
London Metropolitan University

Abstract:

In seeking to decentralise the West and de-Westernise development and media studies, many analysts offer a form of epistemological nativism. This reproduces the very same false binaries enshrined in much of the literature of the modernisation school, and the culturalist assumptions which have entrapped much of the analysis of the West's ‘others’. Narratives of the reception of capitalist modernity both by native and non-native commentators are dominated by essentialism. While claiming to challenge Eurocentrism and ‘colonialism’, the new nativist approaches focus on culture and identity as the starting point, on the one hand suppressing the internal diversities of ‘identities’ (Islamic, Asian, African, etc.), and on the other hand shifting the focus from the critique of political economy and of the nation-state to that of the critique of culture and of nation.

This paper examines alternative cultural claims to media and modernity and the search for an elusive authentic ‘self’, with particular reference to the ‘Islamic World’. By bringing back history and historicising ‘culture’, this paper suggests that i) a focus on ‘differences’ in terms of geographical and cultural locations works to conceal the real and more pressing ‘differences’ which need our urgent attention, and that ii) the revival of ‘traditions’ and ‘cultures’ that are perceived to have existed in defiance of history are providing a non-western alibi to legitimate modernisation and capitalism.

Running head: THE ROLE OF ASIACENTRICITY