Digitalization In New Media: Dating In Doha

Abstract

This project reviews how digitalization has changed the social lives of young adults in the Arab Gulf, specifically in Doha, Qatar. Technologies including Bluetooth, television channels allowing for flirting via text message, and Blackberry messenger services have allowed unprecedented contact between the sexes in a mostly traditional society. By placing this phenomenon in the larger category of “Western,” some traditionalists have signalled that Qatari culture is fundamentally challenged by the encroachment of these “Western” behaviors. Simultaneously, Turkish soap operas such as “Noor” are also held up as examples of “Western” infiltration of Qatari society. However, this project seeks to identify the unique ways in which young adults in the Gulf adapt seemingly “Western” technologies, digitalizations, and media formats and use them in ways that are distinctly Gulfi.