Dima Dabbous

Who Is She

Dima Dabbous
Organisations: 
Educational Institution
Professions: 
Lecturer
Researcher
Areas of expertise: 
Arab World
Woman and Koran
Women's Rights
Gender
Media

Personal information

Researcher, Expert, Consultant, University Lecturer
Dima Dabbous

Contact information / Work

Lebanese American University
Communication Arts
Beirut
Lebanon
Phone: 
786456 1 961
dima.dabbous@lau.edu.lb

Education

Education: 
  • Doctorate Degree, Broadcast Regulation, Sheffield Hallam University, Great Britain.
  • Master's Degree, Media Studies, Concordia University, Canada.
  • Bachelor's Degree, Communication Arts, Beirut University College, Lebanon.

Areas of expertise

Expertise: 
  • Media Laws & Regulation in the Arab World
  • Policy Analysis
  • Media Content Analysis (qualitative & quantitative)
  • Women and Qur'an
  • Women and Family Law in the Middle East
  • Gender Studies in the MENA Region
Languages: 
  • Arabic
  • English
  • French
  • Italian
  • Spanish
  • German

Work history

Jobs: 
  • Senior Consultant on Arab Media Laws and Regulations, July 2014-present, UNESCO.
  • Assistant Professor, 2013-present, Lebanese American University.
  • Editor-in-Chief, 2007-present, Al-Raida peer-reviewed journal (published by the Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World at the Lebanese American University).
  • Director, 2005-2013, Institute for Women's Studies in the Arab World, Lebanese American University, Beirut.

Honorary office and memberships

  • Peer-reviewer for the Journal of Middle Eastern Women's Studies (JMEWS), 2013-present.
  • Member of the Association for Middle East Women's Studies (AMEWS), 2012-present.
  • Member of the editorial committee of Communications and Societies at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, 2012-present.
  • Peer-reviewer for the European Journal of Women's Studies, the journal of the Gender Institute at the London School of Economics, 2010-present.
  • Member of the international advisory board and peer-reviewer for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication (MEJCC), published by Brill, a leading publisher on Middle Eastern history, art and culture in the UK, 2008-present.
  • Board member at the European Project for Inter-religious Learning (EPIL), 2010-2012.

Productions

Publications highlights: 
  • Dabbous-Sensenig, D. (2012). Arab public broadcasting: Regional synthesis and comparative analysis. In Public service broadcasting in the MENA region: Potential for reform (pp. 37-197). Paris: Open University of Barcelona and the Institut Panos Paris.
  • Dabbous-Sensenig, D. (2010). Speaking in His name? gender, language and religion in the Arab media. In J. S. Nielsen & L. Christofferson (Eds.), Shari'a as a discourse: legal traditions and the encounter with Europe (pp. 179-198). Aldershot: Ashgate.
  • Dabbous-Sensenig, D. (2006). Ahead of the bandwagon: Lebanon's free media market. In S. Harvey (Ed.), Trading culture: exploring the 'indigenous' and the 'exportable' in film and television culture (pp. 61-75). London: John Libbey.
  • Dabbous-Sensenig, D. (2005, October - November 31-3). Incorporating an Arab-Muslim perspective in the re-assessment of the implementation of the Beijing platform for action. Paper presented at the UN Division for the Advancement of Women (DAW): Priorities in follow-up to the ten-year review and appraisal of implementation of the Beijing declaration platform for action, New York City, http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/meetings/consult/10-review/EP9.pdf.
Major achievements: 
  • Played a major role in designing and developing the newly established Master’s program in Women & Gender Studies at the Lebanese American University.
  • Changed Al-Raida from a magazine into an international refereed women & gender studies journal.
  • Organized the setting up, at the Lebanese American University, of the experimental Global Modules classroom teaching in one of the Women Studies courses (Representation of Women in the Arts & the Media) whereby a network of universities in the US and the Middle East and Africa is created in order to foster direct interaction among students from different parts of the world and help them know directly about other cultures, instead of reading or talking about them. (http://www.globalmodules.net).
Exhibitions, lectures & performances: 

CONFERENCE PAPERS/ PRESENTATIONS HIGHLIGHTS

  • Speaker, "Strengthening Public Service Broadcasting in the MENA region: Stakes, methodology, and assessment", paper presented at the conference titled "Arab Public Broadcasters in a Time of Change" organized by the Mediterranean Observatory of Communication (OMEC) at the Open University of Barcelona and the Institut Panos Paris, Amman, December 9-10, 2011.
  • Speaker, "The challenge of introducing reform in media legislation and practice in Lebanon", session on: "Promoting Media Freedoms Worldwide: Case Studies"organized by the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Paris, July 22-25, 2007.
  • Speaker, "Religious discourse and women in al-Jazeera talk shows", session on: "Television in a Global Context: Gender, Religion, Family and Sex" organized by the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Paris, July 22-25, 2007.
  • Speaker, "Speaking in His name? Gender, language, and religion in the Arab media" presented during the conference titled "Between Renewal and Tradition: Shari'a as Discourse", organized by the Research Priority Area Religion in the 21st Century (University of Copenhagen) and the Danish Institute (Damascus), Copenhagen, March, 20-22, 2007.

INVITED LECTURES/INTERNATIONAL

  • Invited lecture, titled “Lebanese Women and Qur’anic Exegesis in the 1920s: the case of Nazira Zeinedine”, College of Arts & Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, November 16, 2012.
  • Panel discussion, “Women Moderating Extremism”, part of the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum series, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Boston, January 13, 2010.
  • Panel discussion, “Moderating Extremism: Lebanese Leaders’ Perspective”, The Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars, Washington D.C., January 21, 2010.
  • Invited lecture titled “Al-Jazeera: Religious Moderation or Extremism?”, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Institute for Inclusive Security, Harvard University, Boston, January 11, 2010.
  • Panel discussion, “Knowledge, Empowerment, Politics: Gender Research and Activism”, part of a conference titled “Gender research and women’s grassroots activism”, Danish-Arab Research Conference, Aalborg University, Denmark, May 13-15, 2009.
  • Invited lecture,“Gender, Language, Media and Religion”, Department of Political Science, Carl von Ossietzky Universitat Oldenburg, Germany. The lecture was organised by the Politics and Gender-Transnational Research and Teaching Network, as part of the German-Arab University Dialogue, November 21, 2006.

Awards and Distinctions

Distinctions: 
  • Dr. Dima Dabbous was selected by Ambassador Swanee Hunt (director of the Institute for Inclusive Security at Harvard) along with 20 other women from post-conflict countries, including MPs and ministers from Ruwanda and Pakistan, to attend the Executive Program for Women Leaders at Harvard University, January 2010.