#IAS_NUQ hosts global scholars for spring 2026 Winter School on media policy and governance
The Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University in Qatar (#IAS_NUQ) hosted its 2026 Theory & Method Winter School, convening emerging and established scholars for an intensive program focused on Media Policy and Governance.
The Winter School brought together graduate students and early career researchers from around the world for advanced methodological and theoretical training, featuring masterclasses taught by leading scholars Christopher Ali, Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications and professor of telecommunications in the Bellisario College at Penn State University, Sami Atallah, founding director of The Policy Initiative, and Carola Richter, professor for international communication at Freie Universität Berlin. Participants examined how media systems are regulated, governed, and contested across diverse political, cultural, and technological contexts.
The Theory & Method Winter Schools at the Institute are supported by Carnegie Corporation of New York and directed by Marwan M. Kraidy, dean and CEO of Northwestern University in Qatar, under the Institute’s Arab Information and Media Studies (AIMS) project, which aims to make the field of Arab media studies more public facing and policy relevant. On this front, the Winter School included a master class on translating academic research into policy briefs. Participants will be submitting policy briefs for publication by #IAS_NUQ_Press.
The program is designed for early-career scholars in the social sciences and humanities whose research engages with media, communication, or information studies. Participants are selected from a highly competitive field of applicants, and as part of their participation, they receive feedback on their works in progress from instructors and peers.
Building on the Winter School, #IAS_NUQ will host the "2026 Southern Digitalities Summer School: Transformations, Cultures, Heritage, and Possibilities across Asia” in Hanoi, which will focus on digital transformations across West, South, Central, East, and Southeast Asia. The program centers on the concept of Southern digitalities, encouraging scholars to rethink digital life by foregrounding experiences, cultures, and technologies emerging from the Global South as a nexus made up of diverse and interconnected digital encounters, practices, and frictions, rather than a neatly defined geography.
