From Newsrooms to News Feeds: How Arab Women Journalists Use Social Media to Shape Their Professional Identities

Since the start of the October 2023 conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza, Palestinian and Lebanese women journalists have been stepping up and reporting on the war on social media platforms like Instagram. My thesis aims to study how five women journalists, three from Palestine (Bisan Owda, Hind Khoudary, and Plestia Alaqad) and two from Lebanon (Fatima Ftouni and Diana Moukalled) are using social media to shape their professional identities during conflict. The research uses a multimodal qualitative content analysis of fifteen Instagram posts, three from each journalist, posted from September 2023 to September 2024, focusing on textual and visual elements. The key themes explored include journalistic integrity, emotional tone, gender, empowerment, collaboration, networking, advocacy, mentorship and the challenge of stereotypes. It’s important to mention that all the women chosen for the study are independent, freelance or citizen journalists who don’t belong in traditional media organizations. I found that these journalists often blend professional journalism with storytelling techniques, advocacy, and emotional expression, engaging their followers in ways that traditional media often cannot. At times of crisis, being active on social media platforms such as Instagram helps these journalists gain credibility, build trust, and reframe their professional identities. Additionally, it provided them with a strong platform for networking and collaboration, allowing them to make connections with other journalists, activists, and global organizations and advance their careers in the process. This research is important because it adds to the expanding body of research on digital journalism, gender, and conflict, highlighting how women journalists in Palestine and Lebanon are using social media to reinvent news communication, build professional networks, and support women's empowerment during times of crisis.