Decolonizing Palestine in the Digital Public Sphere : Narrative Sovereignty and Representation Online (Soas Palestine Studies)

How do Palestinians and their global allies use online platforms to reshape narratives about Palestinian self-determination amid systemic erasure and contested representation? This book examines how Palestinian voices navigate the digital public sphere across websites and social media platforms including Facebook, X, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, tracing the long arc of Palestinian media practice from pre-digital forms shaped by censorship and external gatekeeping to contemporary counter-narratives, networked witnessing, and transnational solidarity. It analyses the effects of algorithmic moderation, shadow banning, and content takedowns on Palestinian visibility, while documenting the ingenuity through which Palestinians assert cultural identity online through digital archives, language, and everyday practice. Situating these dynamics through the lenses of Orientalism, hegemony, the politics of representation, narrative sovereignty, and digital decolonization, the book contributes to wider debates on platform governance, algorithmic justice, and decolonial futures, arguing that Palestinian digital resistance is a globally significant case for understanding representation in an AI-mediated world.