HomeLanguages, Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean and the Orients: Devices, Practices and Ideologies

Languages, Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean and the Orients: Devices, Practices and Ideologies

Langues, cultures et médias en Méditerranée et en Orients : dispositifs, pratiques et idéologies

البحر الأبيض المتوسط ودول الشرق آليات و ممارسات و إيديولوجيات

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Published on Thursday, April 09, 2026

Abstract

A space of ancient circulation, intense linguistic contacts and profound cultural reconfigurations, the Mediterranean and the Orient constitute an important site for observing how languages, cultures and media intertwine. In this region marked by plurality — plurality of languages (Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Berber, Greek, French, English, Chinese...), religious traditions, colonial legacies and migratory dynamics — media play a central role in the production, dissemination and transformation of representations.

Announcement

Argument

For its 8th edition, the international congress Languages, Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean and the Orient takes as its research theme devices, practices and ideologies. As a reminder, the five previous editions (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018) focused on forms, meanings, uses, representations and their developments in language, discourse, texts and media. Building on these themes, the sixth and seventh editions (2022 & 2024) examined the notions of violence and non-violence in the Mediterranean and the Orient.

This edition of the international congress “Languages, Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean and the Orient”, as a trans- and interdisciplinary event, has as its primary objective to study and analyze the relationship between practices, devices and ideologies shaping discourses (linguistic, literary, cultural, religious, political, institutional, media-related, philosophical, etc.), texts (ancient, modern, contemporary, oral, written, etc.) and media (conventional, non-conventional, digital, etc.) in both the Mediterranean and the Orient, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world. This situates the theme within the fields of the humanities (linguistics, language/culture/media education, discourse analysis, literature, gender studies, etc.) and social sciences (sociology, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, social psychology, history, political science, information and communication sciences, etc.).

A space of ancient circulation, intense linguistic contacts and profound cultural reconfigurations, the Mediterranean and the Orient constitute an important site for observing how languages, cultures and media intertwine. In this region marked by plurality — plurality of languages (Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew, Berber, Greek, French, English, Chinese...), religious traditions, colonial legacies and migratory dynamics — media play a central role in the production, dissemination and transformation of representations. Whether through major transnational channels, globalized digital platforms or the vernacular practices of users, media devices shape linguistic uses as much as they reflect cultural and political ideologies. Yet these devices do not entirely determine practices : social actors appropriate, subvert and reinvent languages and media codes, revealing identities in motion and tensions between standardization and diversity.

How, then, do socio-pedagogical approaches, media devices, language practices and cultural ideologies interact to redefine languages and cultures in the Mediterranean and the Orient ? And in what ways do these interactions help us understand the contemporary recompositions of a space that is simultaneously vast, diverse, fragmented and profoundly connected ? Answering these questions must begin from the defining characteristics of the space in question :

1. A multilingual and multicultural space structured by ancient circulation

The Mediterranean and the Orient constitute a space where, for centuries, languages (Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Chinese, Hebrew, Amazigh, Greek, French, Italian, Spanish...), religions, beliefs and intellectual traditions have intersected. These circulations have produced linguistic contacts, forms of cultural hybridization and shared imaginaries. Media are part of this dynamic by extending these circulations and accelerating the spread of languages and representations, making this zone a dynamic space where languages and cultures are constantly reconfiguring.

2. Media as devices of mediation and power

While language teaching and learning rely primarily on pedagogical devices responding to familiar or emerging socio-pedagogical approaches, media (press, television, digital platforms, social networks) also function as devices in the Foucauldian sense : they organize visibility, structure discourse and produce linguistic and cultural norms. The use of a language or register constitutes in itself a communication strategy aimed at capturing the receiver’s attention and influencing their behavior, at least at the linguistic level.

For example, Arabic-language transnational channels (Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Al-Hadath, etc.) attempt to impose a form of standardization of media Arabic in a sociolinguistic landscape known for its diversity. Despite this, the Arabic-speaking viewer often encounters a koiné combining standard Arabic and dialects to meet their informational needs and curiosity. Meanwhile, digital platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) encourage vernacular, dialectal usages and even language mixing (spoken Arabic + French, spoken Arabic + English, Turkish + English, etc.). French-language media in the Mediterranean (France 24, TV5 Monde) also participate in the circulation of a plural francophonie. Thus, media do not merely reflect the status of languages and cultures, but actively contribute to their transformation and future trajectory.

3. Language practices : between appropriation, resistance and creativity

Mediterranean and Oriental societies, marked by their ethnosociolinguistic diversity, cross-border openness and the dynamics of their commercial exchanges — involving not only the circulation of goods but also of ideas — have always known how to adapt to this dynamism. Their users have developed and continue to develop practices that subvert, reinterpret or reinvent linguistic and media norms. These dynamics take the following forms :

  • Codeswitching and code alternation in linguistic and digital productions (vlogs, podcasts, songs, rap, humor, literatures). The expressiveness of users, both oral and written, confronts diglossia, polyglossia and multilingualism, involving processes of linguistic borrowing and cultural transfer.
  • Language contact, “glottophagy” and attempts to replace one language with another or others : colonization, decolonization and post-colonization.
  • Identity reappropriation : use of oral or minority languages as cultural affirmation (Arabic dialectal standards, Amazigh, Hassaniya, Kabyle, Kurdish, Judeo-Arabic, Mandarin, etc.).
  • Digital creativity : memes, remixes, amateur subtitling, fansubbing and the creation of translingual and transnational micro-communities promoting a more equitable linguistic and cultural ecology.

These practices show how media usages reveal identities in motion, often more fluid than those defended or imposed by political or institutional powers.

4. Linguistic, cultural and media ideologies : legacies and contemporary tensions

Languages, cultures and media in the Mediterranean and the Orients are always caught in nationalist ideologies (Arabization, Turkification, Persianization, Sinicization...), colonial and postcolonial ideologies (the status of French in the Maghreb, English in the MENA region, the Middle, Near and Far East, Chinese in the West and the East, etc.), religious ideologies (sacred language, language of tradition, of development and non-development, etc.) and global ideologies (English as the language of modernity, globalization, creativity and intelligence in the digital age).

Media play a central role in the dissemination, concentration, affirmation, confirmation and contestation of these ideologies. This manifests explicitly or implicitly through discourses on linguistic and cultural “purity”, debates on the place of languages and their speakers, or stereotyped or valorizing representations of individuals and groups. Media thus become a terrain where symbolic power relations between languages, cultures, identities and territories are negotiated. They constitute a space where technical devices, social practices and linguistic ideologies intersect, producing unprecedented forms of cultural circulation, tension and creativity.

5. Languages, cultures and media : contemporary challenges

The Mediterranean and the Orients constitute a privileged terrain for understanding how languages and cultures transform in the digital age, the age of artificial intelligence and connected media. Far from being a fixed space, this region reveals itself as a place of permanent negotiation between heritage and modernity, between standardization and plurality, between political constraints and social creativity. In this sense, analyzing devices, practices and ideologies makes it possible not only to grasp the ongoing linguistic, cultural and media recompositions, but also to reflect on the future of a space where diversity and variation remain both resources and stakes. These stakes can be observed as follows :

  • The rise of global or globalized platforms and the risks of linguistic homogenization, implying the choice of a single language for all and the trivialization of the role and weight of other languages.
  • The reaffirmation of local, regional and national identities through languages of power or through minority and marginalized languages.
  • New media narratives that redraw Mediterranean and Oriental imaginaries.
  • Political challenges : censorship, information control, territorial sovereignty, geopolitics and digital sovereignty.

The study of languages, cultures and media in the Mediterranean and the Orient reveals a space where complex dynamics intersect, clash and renew themselves. Proposed papers should address the relationship between languages, cultures, media, ideologies and socio-pedagogical and politico-linguistic devices, as well as their influence on local pedagogical practices. They should also show how media devices — whether institutional or digital — do not merely disseminate content but structure power relations, impose linguistic and cultural norms, and shape popular imaginaries. Finally, individual and collective discursive practices in the public and digital space bear witness to constant inventiveness made of appropriations, subversions and reinventions, redrawing the boundaries between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” languages and identities, while being traversed by ideologies (homeland, nation, religion, beliefs, colonialism, postcolonialism, globalization) themselves reconfigured by the circulation of ideas and information through media or mediated channels.

Submission guidelines

This edition of the congress will give priority to papers that directly address the central points of the theme under study.

Paper proposals (written in the congress languages : Arabic, English or French), accompanied by an abstract of 350–500 words and a one-page condensed CV, should be sent before June, 15, 2026 to : lachkarabdenbi@gmail.com

In-person registration fee : 90 euros

The Scientific Committee will review these proposals and communicate its decisions before July, 25, 2026.

A publication is planned, as in previous editions, in journals and collective volumes.

Coordination

  • Abdenbi Lachkar (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Rahma Barbara (Université Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah-Fès, Morocco)
  • Brahim Chakrani (Michigan State University, USA)
  • Hayssam Kotob (Lebanese University, Beirut, Lebanon)
  • Internal Organizing Committee اللجنة التنظيمية محليا  comité d’organisation (interne)
  • Sakina Amourak, Yacine Boulaghmen, Carine Kotob, Saad Al-Gahtani, Sofiane Taherbouchet, Sarah Alenezi (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry-RESO)

Scientific committee

  • Driss Ablali (University of Lorraine, France)
  • Mohammed Bendahan (Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco)
  • Rima Barake (Lebanese University, Lebanon)
  • Rahma Barbara (Université Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah, Fès, Morocco)
  • Nadia Chafai (Université Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdellah, Fès, Morocco)
  • Solange Cruveille (Université Paul Valéry-Montpellier 3, France)
  • Brahim Chakrani (Michigan State University, USA)
  • Isabelle Felici (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Mariarosaria Gianninoto (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Ahmed Idrissi Alami (Purdue University, USA)
  • Boris James (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Hayssam Kotob (Lebanese University, Lebanon)
  • Abdenbi Lachkar (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Rima Labban (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)
  • Marie-France Merger (University of Pisa, Italy)
  • Randa Naboulsi (Lebanese University, Lebanon)
  • Shakeri Ahmad (IHCS, Tehran, Iran)
  • Driss Soulaimani (San Diego University, USA)
  • Younasse Tarbouni (Washington University in St. Louis, MO, USA)
  • Mihaela Tudor (Université Montpellier Paul Valéry, France)

Places

  • SITE SAINT CHARLES, MONTPELLIER
    Montpellier, France (34)

Event attendance modalities

Hybrid event (on site and online)


Date(s)

  • Monday, June 15, 2026

Keywords

  • langues cultures medias dispositifs ideologies mediterranee orients

Contact(s)

  • ABDENBI LACHKAR
    courriel : lachkarabdenbi [at] gmail [dot] com

Information source

  • ABDENBI LACHKAR
    courriel : lachkarabdenbi [at] gmail [dot] com

License

CC0-1.0 This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

To cite this announcement

« Languages, Cultures and Media in the Mediterranean and the Orients: Devices, Practices and Ideologies », Conference, symposium, Calenda, Published on Thursday, April 09, 2026, https://doi.org/10.58079/161kz

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