Branch-Campus Initiatives to Train Media-Makers and Journalists: Northwestern University’s Branch Campus in Doha, Qatar

Abstract

In recent years, several prestigious American and European universities have opened campuses in the Persian Gulf region with the aim of transferring to it knowledge, educational systems, and a whole way of seeing and making the world. This was part of the “internationalization” of American and European higher education, which also included the recruitment and enrollment of large numbers of foreign students at American and European universities. These initiatives were also part of the rigorous efforts of the governments in the Persian Gulf region to import higher education, culture, and media industries in order to develop cultural and other forms of capital and to diversify their economies away from extractive industries such as oil and gas. While these efforts at internationalization and globalization are commendable and productive in many ways, there are certain liabilities associated with them as well. After laying out the terrain, this chapter will deal with a new effort by Northwestern University to create a third campus in Doha, Qatar (the other two campuses are in Evanston and downtown Chicago). The campus in question here offers undergraduate degree programs in two areas—communication and journalism—both of which integrate histories, theories, and practices of film, television, new media, and journalism. The aim is to examine some of the advantages and liabilities of such transfers of media and culture industries, and of educational systems, from the global north to the global south.