Religion, resistance and new horizons of nationhood : a study of Hizbullah's promotional communication (2006-2018)

Abstract

This thesis draws on the conceptual tools of communication theory, and on studies of promotion and branding, to examine Hizbullah’s communication strategy and the way the Party has promoted its identity, values and nationalist discourses in the period between 2006 and 2018. To do so, it examines five different sites including buildings and leisure sites in Dahiya, ʿAshura rituals and their mediation on al-Manar, ʿAshura posters, and children’s magazines and television programming. By paying particular attention to Hizbullah’s religious channels and activities such as ʿAshura rituals and posters, and treating them as part and parcel of the Party’s political communication strategies, the thesis emphasises an aspect of the Party’s communication practices that has so far remained largely overlooked. It understands the Party’s communication channels as educational and socialising agencies that seek to create and maintain Hizbullah’s religio-politico nation and to ensure the Party’s survival within an increasingly tense regional political environment. The thesis’s focus on the specific time period from the 2006 war with Israel until the present day shows that Hizbullah is expanding its resistance and nationalist discourses as it attempts to appeal to a wider local, Muslim, Arab and regional audience. The thesis argues that the Party does this as a tactical and pre-emptive calculation to gain support for a regional war yet to come with Israel. It draws on the modernist and ethno-symbolist schools of nationalism and argues that both are necessary in order to understand the Party’s multiple nationalisms. However, the thesis argues that core to Hizbullah’s nationalism is one centred around its religio-politico nation that adopts the Karbala battle for resistance activities against whatever Yazid that is declared. Hence, resistance and religion are intertwined within the Party’s discourse.