Blockchain as a Technological Imaginary in the Arab World

The post-lunch session on this last day of IAMCR 2019 starts with Ibrahim Subeh, whose interest is in how Blockchain technologies are being framed in the Arabic Press (specifically Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE).

Blockchain is not a very intuitive technology, but it is also not necessary to understand everything about it. Much of the present research focusses on its financial applications or on the technical aspects, but the social implications of this technology should also be understood more closely. The technology is socially disruptive, and some suggest that it could eventually decentralise and replace the World Wide Web.

Blockchain is still relative new, and most people only know of it from sometimes very shallow media coverage. This study examines the coverage of the technology in some 21 Arabic newspapers, and assesses Arab perceptions of and attitudes towards it – which turn out to be predominantly positive, but also vary across countries. Much of the interest was sparked also by the spike in the exchange rate for Bitcoin, and governments such as those of the UAE and Saudi Arabia have also explored the development of national strategies for Blockchain applications.

Conventional research largely focusses on the Bitcoin system and other technical and financial applications. But cryptocurrencies are not the only applications of the Blockchain technology: Blockchain can also be used to track supply chains, for instance, and its inherent qualities are disintermediation, immutability, decentralisation, encryption, distribution, and transparency. It is also able to merge with other emerging technologies: it has been used to support peer-to-peer file storage, connectivity solutions, and Internet technologies.