Examining Validity Claims for Internet Filtering in Islamic Middle Eastern Countries: A Critical Discourse Analysis

ICTs represent a source for emancipation among the citizens of repressive regimes as evidenced by the growth of websites, blogging, social networking and text messaging in countries such as Iran and Saudi Arabia. However, these ICTs are heavily filtered in both countries. We examine the justifications offered by authorities for this censorship. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we demonstrate that the claims fail Habermas’s four part validity test and are better understood as ideology. We argue that ICT filtering is implemented to serve the political agendas of small but powerful Islamic elites in order to undermine citizens’ capacities to pursue their democratic goals

Individual ethics and knowledge management: Arising conflicts

Knowledge management engages a strong personal dimension that enables a possible success or not regarding an organizational knowledge management project. Plus, it engages unforeseen ethical and moral dilemmas at an individual level. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to link philosophical systems and the knowledge management process allowing a comparison between Eastern and Western, regarding the ethical and moral dilemmas that arise at an individual level concerning knowledge workers. Moreover, we will demonstrate that such challenges are similar, and that Floridi’s information theory may provide important answers to that personal dimension of knowledge management

The Political Communications of Iranian Green Resistance Movement of 2009: A Critical Discourse Analysis

In 2009 Iran witnessed the Green Movement, a popular uprising that challenged the status quo of the socio-political structures of the Islamic Republic. In this research, I attempt to develop an understanding of the conditions that contributed to the demise of the movement. This study takes a Critical Theory approach, and the theoretical foundations of this work are the Theory of Structuration of Giddens and the Theory of Communicative Action of Habermas. The data is drawn from YouTube videos and analyzed through Critical Discourse Analysis. This research identifies the key stakeholders of the movement and investigates weather their aspirations regarding the uprising were aligned or stood in contrast. My investigation uncovers evidence of systematic communication distortion in the public discourse of the leaders of the movement which greatly impacted demobilization and led to its failure. The results of my study also disprove the viability of the Reform philosophy as a pragmatic political path to democracy

The impact of ICT expansion on promoting democracy and economic freedom in the Middle East (1995-2005)

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.The PhD study has found that ICT expansion has positively influenced democratic freedom, information sharing and dissemination and provides a public sphere for discourse among citizens of the eleven Middle Eastern countries. This thesis also found that ICT expansion positively influences economic freedom in the eleven Middle Eastern countries. However, differences between countries such as the educational attainment of their citizens and institutional resistance to ICT utilization both enhanced and restricted the relationship between ICT and economic freedom in the regio