📣 It’s finally here! 📕
Sydney friends, & those who may be around that day, please join me & my fab panelists at the launch of my 1st book
@UTSEngage
on 21 Feb. I am nervous, and can use all the support I can gather in one room. Register free via:
🚨 Publication: Stoked to be published in my dream journal - Media, War and Conflict (
@SAGEJournals
). In this
#OnlineFirst
article, I studied three years of media coverage of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and their forced repatriation through frames and discourse analysis. (1/5)
(1/2) As I finalise my book proofs, I am both excited & saddened. Excited as it’s my 1st book, & saddened to see Afghan refugees undergoing another unlawful crackdown by the Pakistani state and their dehumanisation by media. I hope my book will start the much-needed conversation.
I launched my inaugural book
@UTSEngage
yesterday, surrounded by mentors, CMT colleagues, former students, friends & my lovely family. Thank you all, esp my stellar panel
@sukhmani_sees
@SabaBebawi
@TanjaDreher
@rimohib
for their insightful and uplifting response to the book. 🙏
Exactly one year after I submitted my PhD, I am extremely happy to share the news that I have signed my first ever book contract with
@routledgebooks
(Taylor and Francis Group). Working title: ‘Refugees, Media and the State: The Missing Peace’
#PeaceJournalism
That tingly nostalgic feeling every time I step inside the building of a newspaper or a news broadcaster. Thank you,
@rfidler
for a wonderful conversation.
Me almost sleep talking to
#Afghanistan
International
@afintlpa
, discussing the Taliban's targeted discrimination against women, which perpetuates socio-political and economic imbalances by rendering women invisible in society.
#3amMediaEngagement
Another successful year of
@JERAAus
conference comes to an end, & I am very excited to share that I’ve joined the Association as a co-secretary. Can’t wait to work with the amazing team & organise/host the JERAA 2023 conference
@UTSEngage
in Dec. Thank you
@WakeinFright
!
@cmt_UTS
I spoke to Afghanistan International
@AFIntlBrk
earlier today about what the top US generals' testimonies in Congress regarding their chaotic withdrawal from
#Afghanistan
in 2021 mean for girls' education and the ongoing repression of women journalists in the country.
#clip
I think she's trying to say… don't be sad I love you too - just a little less though
😂❤️
#CatsOfTwitter
زه فکر کوم چې ووايي 'مه خفه کېږه، زه هم درسره مینه لرم. مګر څه لږ'.

Honoured to be invited to speak at the 'future proofing the public sphere' workshop at
@qutdmrc
. I presented on public spheres & journalism from exile, using the case study of startups by Afghan women journalists & how they’re reconfiguring ‘symbolic & digital borders’.
@cmt_UTS
I spoke to
@abcconvos
abt my journey from a remote village in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to a journalist in Afghanistan & Pakistan & now an early career academic in Sydney. From personal to political & some things in between. Thank u
@rfidler
for the conversation.
یہ پاکستانیوں کو اچانک سے تمیز، لحاظ، تہذیب، بات کرنے کا طریقہ، احترام، اخلاق، نجی زندگی کے اخفا اور ماں بیٹی کی عزت سب ایک ساتھ کہاں سے یاد آ گئے؟
#BajwaInFrance

📣 Stoked to find out that I’ve been selected as the first IAMCR Peace Fellow (2024-2025). I will be working on an amazing project with my co-investigator
@shasain2
for the next two years on cross-border collaborative journalism in conflict zones.
@IAMCRtweets
@cmt_UTS
@UTSEngage
‘Ladies from Kabul’, photographed in Bannu, Afghanistan 1958 (c).
Taken by: Dr Stella Underhill when she was based at the Church Mission Society hospital at Bannu, Afghanistan.
These women are most likely from a Kuchi tribe- Pashtun culture is not covering your face.
@HabibKhanT
That’s because the entire USA is not under attack.
#StopAfghanGenocide
does not discredit the attacks on Hazara community. Instead, it seeks to raise voice for all Afghans. When the whole country is burning, focusing on a certain ethnicity only calls for divisions & ethnic war.
I wrote for
@GuardianAus
on the deafening silence in international media, which seems to have become bored with the plight of the Afghan people, especially women.
*career update*
I am very happy to share the news that starting Feb '22, I'll be joining the Centre for Media Transition
@cmt_UTS
as a
@UTSFass
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. I will be working with the extraordinary
@AttardMon
and
@derekwilding
, and I just cannot wait to start!
(1/2) I’ll miss you
@UOW
. I’ll miss ur labyrinthine Arts building, ur lush green lawns, ur duck ponds, those Jasmine flowers carpeting the stairs behind building 20, ur most delicious & affordable Thai food in building 67, the free bus stand I have waited at for hours, and…
📢New (online 1st) article w/
@shasain2
now published in Journalism
@SAGE_Publishing
: What news you get depends on where you are in the world! We test the Indexing Theory by examining press of 7 countries for their coverage of Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in Aug 2021. (1/4)
@MajeedQarar
Shoaib Akhtar is 1 of the most controversial & non-serious Pakistani cricketers. This man was suspended by the ICC over ball tampering charges, has been caught with drugs, been centre of sex scandals & made comments about capturing Kashmir & invading India. And now a racist too.
Buried in the loud noise of fireworks at the Eiffel Tower tonight is a deafening silence of the media & the public on the French govt’s treatment of recently-arrived Afghan refugees, who are left to sleep rough, hungry & penniless, receiving only 6.80€ per day.
#BastilleDay2023
Kicking off the 2-day workshop on ‘future proofing the public sphere’ with
@snurb_dot_info
and Professor John Dryzek setting the scene for how to define and study public sphere(s).
@qutdmrc
@DelDemUCan
In evolving discussions on public spheres, which are predominantly centred around democracy and democratic publics,
@UniMelb
’s Sofya Glazunova asks, how do authoritarian systems and publics fit into the debate?
@DelDemUCan
@qutdmrc
Had a wonderful chat with
@chouliaraki_l
about her latest book, ‘Wronged: The Weaponization of Victimhood’. We talked about the flexible use of language in media such as interchanging the places & roles of a perpetrator & a victim, & platformisation of pain in the digital sphere.
When voice is given a specific status in the media, and indeed in public conversation, norms of recognition are created, in that the value ascribed to human suffering is based on hierarchies of power and place. E.g. billionaires dying at sea vs. vulnerable refugees dying at sea.
“The Taliban have destroyed 20 years of progress on women’s equality and escalated sexual violence, Dr. Jehangir added. The regime has withdrawn a major advance in women’s rights introduced in 2009, known as the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women.”
Excited to share my podcast with Professor Lilie Chouliaraki about her new book 'Wronged: The Weaponization of Victimhood'. It was an honour - thank you for your time and insights
@chouliaraki_l
.
#victimhood
#MediaMarrative
#power
🚨 I will be presenting two of my papers at the 2023
#IAMCR
Conference (Lyon, 9-13 July)
@IAMCRtweets
(yay!). One is a theoretical paper in which I discuss the cosmopolitan potential of Peace Journalism. This paper is based on...(1/4)
My new article on forced repatriation of Afghan refugees & Pakistani media’s & public’s muted response.
“The way Pakistani media strategically portrays Afghan refugees develops a frame through which the Pakistani public understands and responds to their forced repatriation.”
New article spotlight: Afghan refugees suffer from hate and prejudice in Pakistan and beyond
@zubaan_daraz
writes for Peace News about the challenges facing
#Afghan
#refugees
in
#Pakistan
amid the Pakistani government's ongoing deportation effort.
#Pakistan
is an agglomeration of ethnicities with little in common among them. International borders, such as the Durand Line, are unnatural divisions marked to forcibly keep people apart. Below - a visual representation of the tragedy of
#Pashtuns
, who otherwise belong together.
It’s finally official. I and my co-investigator Professor Shabir Hussain
@shasain2
have been selected as the inaugural Peace Fellows of the IAMCR Peace Fellowship (2024-2026).
@IAMCRtweets
@cmt_UTS
@UTSEngage
More details below:
Excited to be on a panel in a 6-wk webinar series by The Media & Peacebuilding Project
@MediaPeaceSMPA
George Washington University
@SMPAGWU
. I'll be talking about 'blind spots' of peace journalism & how to address them. Wed 28 Feb (10am Washington). Link:
A diverse council of Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan should be planning the next government.
The Taliban-Haqqani terrorists will fall.
Women should be the majority of the council.
@SE_AfghanWGH
@US4AfghanPeace
@EUAmbAFG
should help them form, and meet with them, not TBHQN
@FawadKhan___
Have you even tried looking at the entire list? It also has Ayatollah Khamenei on
#2
, Saudi prince MBS on
#8
, Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, the leader of the Taliban, on
#19
. What a shame!
CMT postdoctoral fellow
@zubaan_daraz
speaks with founder of
@ZanTimes
Zahra Nader on Double Take about the challenges of practicing journalism in exile and the safety concerns faced by women journalists in Afghanistan.
Listen on Apple Podcasts here:
I don’t use X for personal posts but this is an exceptional situation. I need a few dresses from Afghanistan. Can someone with access to local markets please help? Will take the conversation to DMs and share more details. Manana, tashakur in advance. 🙏
It’s finally here! First in the series of our three reports by
@cmt_UTS
over 2022-2024. Cheers to my brilliant team
@AttardMon
,
@gzy_d
and
@trav_is_rad
. Can’t wait to explore deeper and wider in year 2. More on this
@JERAAus
2022 conference. See you there!
NEW! Our Regional News Media research report is here!
We examine the conditions challenging rural and regional media and how much regional news makes it to metro audiences. No spoilers. Read the report! 👇
#StopAfghanGenocide
Last week’s Kaj attacks in Kabul are highly condemnable & no person with the least humanity left in them will think otherwise. My heart goes out for each victim. It’s extremely important not to forget that all Afghans have the same common enemies, (1/4)
Brilliant presentation by
@SachaMolitorisz
of
@UTSEngage
@cmt_UTS
. He proposes three ethical approaches to media and journalism practice: 1. global media ethics (pluralism), 2. relational ethics, and 3. virtue ethics (finding the ‘golden mean’).
@JERAAus
#mediaethics
TRIGGER WARNING: Shooting on site/murder. In the video, a Talib goon asks an Afghan whether he’s with the Taliban or against them, for Sharia Law or not. The man says he’s with whoever brings Sharia & b4 he finishes, the Talib shoots him.
@hrw
@amnesty
@SR_Afghanistan
@ICRC_af
Q: What the hell is TTA & when did it come into being? Answer: There is no such thing as TTA. In fact, this is an epic example of how governments securitise political discourse to create & disperse new terminology to shape realities for the public.
#Taliban
#Pakistan
#Afghanistan
1/2. One of the early findings of my WIP research on
#DigitalActivism
by conflict-displaced Afghans suggests that
#Pashtuns
(an ethnicity) are predominantly presented akin to
#Taliban
(a militant/terrorist organisation)…
“The Taliban routinely detains and tortures journalists it deems insufficiently loyal or cooperative. “Journalists with ties to U.S. or Western media organizations are accused of being spies and could be arrested on false charges at any time.
#Afghanistan
In the article, I discuss how and why Pakistan's pro-Afghan policy during the 1980s and 1990s took a 90-degree shift in/after 2001 by explaining Pakistan's and its media's relationship with praetorianism and how it influences state policies and public opinion. (2/5)
Today, an
#Uyghur
told me that the word is pronounced as 'oye-ghur' and not ‘wee-gar'. ‘Gh’ as in the French sound ‘gh’ or the Arabic غ (e.g: Baghdad). She also said if the sound 'gh' in 'ghur' is hard to make, “oye gur' (with a bit longer ‘oo’ sound) is also acceptable.
(3) the blame frame, which focuses on Afghanistan as the 'bad' neighbor, causing a standoff between the two countries over the peace process; and (4) the ethno-nationalist frame that emphasizes the link between terrorism and the refugees’ ethnic background. (5/5)
I found that coverage was highly politicized; the voice of Afghan refugees was significantly missing from coverage, while Pak govt & military elite were predominantly used as news sources; there was a subtle but significant re-casting of Afghan refugee identity; and... (3/5)
I write, "For many, social media has become a safe haven, fostering a connection between the personal and political. In these online 'public spheres,' Afghans – young and old – are building their own ‘networked societies’ that are self-representative, deliberative, and engaging."
CMT's
@zubaan_daraz
takes a look at the state of media in Afghanistan after a year in which the Taliban has diminished the ability of local reporters to work without fear.
In her constructive 📚review of 'Middle Eastern Diasporas and Political Communication: New Approaches'
@zubaan_daraz
outlines how the volume effectively provides "a nuanced understanding of how political communication within the diaspora evolve".
As children, whn my Aussie colleagues were spending their afternoons learning to play musical instruments, I was hiding under the couch, running away frm culturally-mandated Quran lessons by our molvi who loved hitting kids wid his rubber wand. What precious years gone to waste.
Excited to be on a panel in a 6-wk webinar series by The Media & Peacebuilding Project
@MediaPeaceSMPA
George Washington University
@SMPAGWU
. I'll be talking about 'blind spots' of peace journalism & how to address them. Wed 28 Feb (10am Washington). Link:
#happeningnow
Research workshop with some very interesting presentations on digital authoritarianism, digital activism, & domestic & transnational digital influence operations (including disinformation & conspiracy theories) in the
#GlobalSouth
.
#digitalplatforms
#socialmedia
@worqas
So you want him to b left alone on a vacation, while he orchestrated hell for millions of Afghans who were living peacefully in their homes. The guy didn’t say anything bad; just asked him the reason behind his hypocrisy of wanting France for himself and sharia system for Afghans
If you have 21 minutes to spare, then please watch
@GulistanMirzaei
and Elizabeth Mirzaei's brilliant tear-jerking short film, 'Three Songs for Benazir', based on the struggles of a young displaced Afghan, struggling to balance his dreams and family life.
I distilled four dominant news frames: (1) the 'terrorist' frame, which characterizes Afghan refugees as terrorists or facilitating terrorism indirectly; (2) the 'enemy' frame that describes the perceived threat Afghan refugees cause to Pakistan’s national security...(4/5)
If a person, receiving/filtering/disseminating information, adheres to a Code, they may qualify as a journalist.
@PeterGreste
explaining one of the most important issues in contemporary media ecosystem, and offering a much needed broad redefinition of the term
@JERAAus
.
An effective strategy for conflict prevention through
#PeaceJournalism
is challenging power, especially that imposed through essentialist masculinity. In addition to focusing on victims of violence, this type of journalism calls for also highlighting perpetrators of violence.
Human rights in Afghanistan were never perfect but at least there was a Commission. Now, that’s gone too because human rights don’t exist for or matter to Taliban.
#Afghanistan
Roughly 60% of Pakistan is currently under water due to flash flooding, in which almost 1,000 people have lost their lives and 33 million others have been affected.
#ClimateEmergency
#GlobalWarming
. (Map by
@PakiSwift
)
Stoked to chair a
@JERAAus
panel on 'Journalism in a troubled year' w/
@ivorytowerjourn
@ProfJakeLynch
&
@AmanthaP
. Among other issues, we discussed ethics of conflict reporting in context of Israel-Gaza, peace journalism, cross-border collabs & tech-facilitated trauma.
@UTSEngage
My 7-yr-old & I started the day with acknowledgment of Country, watching a mini documentary on Invasion Day & answering his questions about why Australia Day is Invasion Day. He put his thoughts on paper and now he can play for the rest of the day - informed & in
#solidarity
.
If you're in Sydney on the 10th & have time, pls join us at 'UTS, Let's Talk Festival', where I'll be speaking about the romanticisation of human suffering through the appropriation and re-articulation of peace journalism. Register via:
@UTSFass
@UTSEngage
"As academics, it is our responsibility to ask: why are we privileging the Ukraine-Russian war only?"
@NicoCarpentier3
speaking at the plenary session on ‘The contribution of academies to peace-building: Critique, creativity and activism’
@IAMCRtweets
#IAMCR2023
The seminal work of Prof.
@chouliaraki_l
on the spectatorship of suffering is phenomenal and strongly recommended, as is her other work on suffering, which has informed so much of my own writing on Afghan refugees in my forthcoming book: The Missing Peace (2023, Routledge).
Mobile Internet & SMS services cut for 27 million amid search for Sikh separatist
#AmritpalSingh
in the Indian Punjab. Officials say Internet shutdown was for public safety & to avoid spread of rumours and disinformation which could spark street violence.
#DigitalAuthoritarianism
Pakistan has blocked
#Wikipedia
over what it has labelled “sacrilegious content”. In other words, over any content criticising the military establishment for their corruption and interference in the country’s and regional politics.
#AuthoritarianStyleDemocracy
No one, absolutely no one, can beat Pakistani men in the ways they attack women for calling out male celebrities over alleged sexual harassment.
#metoo
Very excited to be presenting our research
@JERAAus
Annual conference 2021 alongside the wonderful
@media_republik
. Our work maps online hate against female journalists in Asia-Pacific - conducted as part of a
@UNESCO
project. Conf. details here: