In countries with strict media censorship, how do media changes impact politics? Looking at Saudi Arabia, this talk focuses on how the spread of Internet use affected the balance of power among elites. While expanding Internet use gave historically marginalized liberal elites unprecedented media access, it disadvantaged conservative elites by displacing the long-influential cassette tape. This changing media access affected elites’ potential to influence policy outcomes.
Safa Al-Saeedi is an assistant professor of political science at Marist College. Previously, she was a postdoctoral associate at MIT and a predoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Northwestern University.
Part of our winter 2024 lecture series, "Authoritarianism and Its Discontents."