الإنتاج البحثي لأعضاء هيئة التدريس بالكلية V.8 - Flipbook - Page 185
benefits, but also it offers the world a window onto Qatar's identity, culture and heritage. Culture
has been one of the pillars of Qatar positioning strategy and visibility in the international map.
Qatar, since winning the bid to host the FIFA 2022 World Cup, has been at the receiving end of
much criticism about its culture, tradition, laws, and even geography, which were depicted as noncompatible with western and football cultures. Hosting the FIFA 2022 world Cup in Qatar has
expectedly raised a number of controversies. Qatar hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup will provide
the country with the perfect opportunity to showcase its culture and heritage.
(8) Kamal Hamidou and Mahfoud Amara Communication and Sport. Edited by: Michael L.
Butterworth Volume 28 in the series Handbooks of Communication Science. De Gruyter Mouton
2021 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110660883
This chapter examines the sporting context in the MENA region, and the role of media coverage in
mobilizing narratives around sport performance, in the construction of collective imagination
framed around national unity, and as a tool of political legitimization. Furthermore, the chapter
focuses on recent trends in the MENA region, and particularly in the Arabian Gulf states, in
investing in sport TV broadcasting as a means for nation and city-state branding. Last and not least,
the chapter highlights the role of social media as an emerging and alternative space to challenge
state’s ownership (and control) of communication around sport.
(9) John McManus & Mahfoud Amara 2021. Sport at Home, Sport in the World: Evaluating
Qatar’s Sports Strategy from Above and Below. In Contemporary Qatar Examining State and
Society Mahjoob Zweiri, Farah Al Qawasmi, Springer
This piece is an overview of actors and policies concerning sport in the nation of Qatar. In recent
years, sports have been given high priority in government attempts to raise exposure of the nation
internationally. Many authors have assessed the rationale of sports policy from an international
relations perspective, speaking in terms of soft power or nation branding. Actors beyond the nation
state, however, are equally involved in the shaping of ‘Qatar sport’—from businessmen and statebacked companies to individuals at the grassroots level. To redress the focus, the first section
explores the establishment of the external view of Qatar as an emerging sports hub through the
hosting of high-profile international sporting events and the creation of facilities for training and
rehabilitating top-level athletes. The way these activities are organised is shown to be an elite-level,
top-down approach. The second section shifts focus to explore informal sports participation at the
grassroots level in Qatar. A bottom-up view onto involvement in sports in Qatar reveals a plurality
of sporting participation that state and commercial-driven narratives sometimes fail to consider.
Such multi-directional and actor-driven approaches are needed to arrive at a better understanding
of how sport is viewed—and used—in Qatar.
(10) Mahfoud Amra (2021) Place and Space of Global Sport in the Gulf Region: Promotion,
Development and Identity Narratives
The reorganization (or regeneration) of the urban space around the sport theme in cities such as
Doha, Dubai and Manama, aims to offer citizens and residents a “spectacular” sporting experience.
Furthermore, it offers business people a pleasurable place to do business, and tourists a place of
paradox and contrast between an authentic Arabic atmosphere and a sophisticated lifestyle,
featuring an assortment of hyper-real experiences (such as skiing in Dubai). This is epitomised
today by the glossy architecture of Souq Wakif, built “in time for Doha’s hosting of the 2006 Asian
Games, and with Qatar’s aim of presenting and preserving its heritage in the midst of prevailing
globalization and modernization” (Alaraouf in Open House Int 37(02):77, 2012). Since then new
185
ﻣﻛﺗب اﻟﻌﻣﯾد اﻟﻣﺳﺎﻋد ﻟﺷؤون اﻟﺑﺣث واﻟدراﺳﺎت اﻟﻌﻠﯾﺎ ﺑﻛﻠﯾﺔ اﻟﺗرﺑﯾﺔ
