Dr Noha Atef is a Lecturer in Journalism (Global Media) at the University of Galway and a media scholar specialising in digital cultures in the Arab world and the Global South. Her research examines how professional, political, and cultural communities use social media and digital platforms to communicate, organise, challenge dominant narratives, and negotiate visibility and authority across unequal media systems.

Her work spans journalists, citizen journalists, activists, human rights defenders, physicians, influencers, artists, and political actors. She is particularly interested in how these groups claim voice, expertise, and legitimacy in shifting digital environments. Dr Atef’s research is grounded in qualitative inquiry, including interviews, digital ethnography, media analysis, and reflexive methods, with close attention to the social and political conditions shaping digital practices.

She holds a PhD in Media and an MA in Social Media from Birmingham City University. Her doctoral research analysed the interaction between citizen media and mainstream media organisations in Egypt during 2011–2013. Before joining the University of Galway, she held academic and research roles in Egypt, the UK, and Canada, including a Research Fellowship at the Scholarly Communication Lab at Simon Fraser University, where she led the SSHRC‑funded Doctors Who Vlog project on Egyptian physician influencers and health communication.

Dr Atef has led and contributed to applied research with international organisations such as Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, the International Centre for Migration Policy Development, and the Centre for Information Resilience, working on misinformation, migration, gendered narratives, and digital public communication. Her academic publications appear in the International Journal of Communication, Medical Education, Routledge, IGI Global, Egypt/Monde Arabe, Communication & Methods, Health & New Media, and the Journal of Social Media in Society. She is the author of The Media of People, an Arabic‑language book on citizen journalism widely held in Arab university libraries.

Alongside her academic work, Dr Atef maintains a strong public scholarship profile. Her writing has appeared in Scientific American Arabic, Global Souths Hub, The Recipes Project, Revista de la Universidad de México, Al‑Masry Al‑Youm, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Al‑Insani Blog. She has presented at Oxford Internet Institute, MIT’s Centre for Civic Media, re:publica Berlin, the Arab Forum for Media and Sciences Communication, the Arab Council for the Social Sciences, and other international venues.

She has delivered training and capacity‑building workshops for journalists, researchers, activists, and human rights defenders across Egypt, Mexico, Armenia, Kyrgyzstan, India, Lebanon, and beyond, focusing on digital advocacy, media literacy, hate speech, human rights communication, and postgraduate study pathways. Across her research, teaching, and public engagement, Dr Atef brings together digital media studies, qualitative research, Arab media, health communication, and knowledge access to examine how communities use digital platforms to speak, organise, and build influence.

Social Media, Digital Cultures, Citizen Journalism, Health Communication on Social Media, Political Economy of Communication

Political-Economy of Communication

Culture Studies

Digital Cultures

Research Methods