Social media has become an important space through which young people across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) encounter and make sense of knowledge about politics, society, economics, and everyday life. Across the region, content creators have developed large and engaged audiences by producing accessible content on issues that are often complex, controversial, or difficult to discuss within conventional educational spaces. Although this growing form of knowledge-sharing has clear potential to influence how young people understand the world around them, the educational dimension of content creation remains relatively underexplored.
My doctoral research, Exploring the Potential of Content Creators as Informal Public Educators in MENA, examines whether and how social media content creators can contribute to open public informal education. I am particularly interested in how university students engage with creators’ content, what they perceive themselves to learn from it, and how this learning compares or connects with their experiences of formal education. The research focuses on social science students in Jordan, Tunisia, and the UAE and considers both the educational value of creators’ content and the factors that make it meaningful and appealing to young audiences.
Drawing on critical intercultural pedagogy, the study will explore how digital and multilingual forms of knowledge-sharing may create opportunities for critical learning beyond traditional educational institutions. Through interviews with students and analysis of content produced by creators, the research aims to develop a better understanding of the role that content creators can play in informal education and of how their work might contribute to student engagement, critical thinking, and learning about societal and global issues across the MENA region.
