November 23rd, 2016: Dr. Mohamed Ben Moussa, Dean of the School of Communication and Media Studies, has been discussing the impact of rap music upon young people in the Arab world, at a recent international communications conference.
Dr. Ben Moussa presented his paper, ‘Rap it, Share it: Arab Youth Culture and Identity in the Digital Age’ at the Asian Conference on Media and Mass Communication, hosted recently in Kobe, Japan.
Discussing the growing popularity of rap music in the region, Dr. Ben Moussa revealed how the versatile art form has come to reflect complex tendencies and trends in youth culture, from mimetic ‘westernization’ and hybrid cultural expression, to radical political discourse and activism.
Dr. Ben Moussa highlighted the role of social media in helping this unique genre of music spread around the region and discussed its implications for youth culture and movement, as well as for social and cultural transformations in the Arab world.
Drawing upon computer mediated discourse analysis (CMDA), and sociolinguistics, Dr. Ben Moussa went on to explore the semantic and discursive narratives and practices communicated in the lyrics, video clips, and users’ comments of rap songs, in particular, those disseminated and shared via YouTube.
Dr. Ben Moussa concluded that “Through sharing and consuming rap music online, young people are producing speech communities and resistance identities that are questioning dominant discourses, social taboos and cultural representations, and challenging power relations dominant in these countries.”
The Asian Conference on Media and Mass Communication is an international academic forum held in affiliation with some of the world’s leading universities and NGOs.
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