About

I am a student hoping to one day become an educator.

 

I came all the way from Kuwait to the United States to pursue an education in journalism.  During the first year of my master’s program at the University of Florida, I was privileged with an opportunity of a life time. In an effort to enhance academia at the local level, Kuwait University, the largest public university in my home country, offers annual scholarships to Kuwaitis whose dreams are to one day become university professors.  The scholarship recipients will have to earn their master’s and Ph.D. degrees from an accredited university in the United States, and as a reward to their achievements, they will then be employed as assistant professors at Kuwait University. Oh yeah, did I mention that during their studies abroad, the scholarship program covers all tuition and living expenses? Well to make the long story short, I applied for that scholarship about a year ago, and thankfully, I got accepted.  I am currently a first year Ph.D. student at the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications, and as soon as I finish with my studies, I will be teaching new media at Kuwait University.

 

Before I got accepted for this scholarship, my focus was primarily journalism.  Coming from Arabic and Islamic backgrounds, I was very much interested in coverage of Arabs and the religion of Islam after the September 11^th attacks.  I wanted to focus on media bias and news framing of events surrounding the Middle East.  But Kuwait University wanted me to follow a different path.  They wanted me to pursue a career in online media, the newest and most fast paced field in journalism.  I wasn’t happy at first, mainly because I didn’t have any theoretical or practical experiences within this field, but after a few classes here and there, I started to enjoy the field. Today, I am more than happy. In fact,  I am excited that I will be teaching our future generations about the future of journalism.

 

I recently submitted my master’s thesis which was one of the first studies to ever look at online practices in the Arab world.  It was a content analysis of political discussions in online forums from four Arab countries: Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.  Because of recent controversies, the Arab world is talked about in the media on a daily basis, and in most occurrences, coverage is surrounded by factual errors and stereotypes.  One of the main focuses of this study was to see whether or not the Western media presents an accurate picture of the Arab region.  The Internet is an open medium for everyone, and the Arabs are certainly one of the first groups of people who have used this medium to express their political views, a practice that has not been experienced before due to limits on free speech imposed by the authoritarian governments of the region.  The main idea behind this study was to make sense of the Arab world and explore the diversity within the region by identifying the political interests of Arab online users and their perceptions of the West and democracy.  I came up with great results that I will hopefully share with you guys in the near future via this blog.

 

Outside the academic arena, I am interested in a sport that you probably have never heard of: water polo.  I have been playing water polo for more than 10 years.  I played at the college level for Fresno State during my undergraduate studies and for the University of Florida while I was doing my master’s.  But what I am most proud of was when I used to play for my National Team before coming to the United States.  I played in a number of international events, and some of my biggest accomplishments was qualifying for and playing in the World Championships in 2001, and getting a bronze medal in the under-20 Asian Cup.  Water polo is one of my biggest passions, and I don’t think that I will be giving up that sport any time soon.