Political science, international studies, and anthropology students and faculty came together on March 28 for a presentation by a visiting professor on politics in Saudi Arabia.
The University of Idaho hosted Dr. Safa Al-Saeedi, an assistant professor of political science at Marist College, as part of the university’s annual Idaho Society of Fellows Speaker Series. Her lecture was titled “Monarchy, Media, and the Politics of Reform in Saudi Arabia” and was hosted in the IRIC atrium.
Al-Saeedi shared her research with a keen audience of students, staff, and members of the public. She spoke about how Saudi Arabia has recently introduced social and economic reforms and cited three common explanations: international pressure, leadership change, and political economy.
However, Al-Saeedi preferred a different explanation.
“International pressure alone does not change that,” she said.
She shared how she answers it: change has come in response to a shift in the balance of power among elites, partly due to changes in the ideological sphere facilitated by the internet.
Media access is an important political resource; by having a channel not controlled by the state, reformist voices were allowed more room.
“The Internet redistributed and disrupted the existing media access in Saudi Arabia,” Al-Saeedi said. “It enhanced the relative media leverage of liberals and undermined the media leverage of conservatives.”
State reforms are made to appeal to the most dominant ideological voices. The shift in representation over time led to changes in policy. However, these changes were social and economic in nature, not political— “areas with less direct political impact on the state.”
After her presentation, Al-Saeedi fielded questions from audience members, providing further detail into her research, an overview of Saudi government structure and practices, and what she believes the future will look like. Her research included interviews, media analysis, and archival work, largely centering around the use of cassette tapes, audiovisual media, and the internet.
When asked about the potential effects of artificial intelligence on media, Al-Saeedi said that it could go either way. AI has potential applications as a tool for media leverage on either side, allowing for increased access and literacy as well as manipulation and falsification.
“One worries what the state can do with that,” she said.
The Idaho Society of Fellows, housed in the College of Letters, Arts, and Social Sciences, seeks to encourage interdisciplinary research and collaboration in the humanities and social sciences. More events like this can be found here.
Dakota Steffen can be reached at [email protected].