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Visiting scholar Dr. Ayman Nada. |
University of Cairo Media Scholar Begins Research Visit to Cox Center
Egyptian scholar and communications expert Dr. Ayman Nada joined the James M. Cox Jr. Center for International Mass Communication Training and Research at the University of Georgia in late January for a six month research program as a visiting scholar.
Dr. Nada will join Cox Center Director Dr. Lee B. Becker and Assistant Director Dr. Tudor Vlad in a collaborated research effort aimed at creating a better understanding of Arab and American media and their relations to public opinion.
“I hope to make contact with American professors so we may reach a better understanding of each other,” said Dr. Nada, an associate professor of international communication and public opinion at the University of Cairo and a writer of books on mass communication and public opinion. He said contacts were a great priority, as making contacts with others is more important now than ever before.
The Cox Center, a unit of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, will host Dr. Nada’s stay, which is partially funded by the Egyptian government.
Dr. Nada said his research at the Cox Center will focus on American and Arab perceptions of one another through cultural portrayals provided by the media. He said news currently provided by media in both cultures conveys overly negative images of each culture towards the other.
“How can we repair these images?” Dr. Nada asked, and he said he hopes to find answers to that question through his research here and further analysis of media research he has collected in Egypt and brought with him.
One problem Dr. Nada said he sees in American media is an attempt by American journalists to understand Arabs from an American point of view.
“Everyone has his terms, and everyone has to respect everyone else’s terms,” Dr. Nada said, referring to a need for journalists to better understand a culture in order to accurately report on it.
Dr. Becker said he invited Dr. Nada to join the Center after being told that Dr. Nada is one of the “rising mass communications scholars in Egypt.”
Dr. Becker said he is enthusiastic about working with Dr. Nada and forming a dialogue with him about research topics of value both to Egypt and the United States.
