Dissenting Counter-Publics in Pakistani Social Media and Café Culture

This book analyses the ways anti-state/counter publics have emerged across mediated and physical spaces to respond to state-led narrative on Pakistani identity. It aims to locate the rise of the counter public spheres/anti-establishment discourses across different spaces:

Twitter, You Tube and local coffee houses. These spaces (on their own and together) enable unprecedented affordances that push the boundaries of traditionally immutable subjects, such as the use of blasphemy as a political tool, nationalism, and national identity in Muslim contexts. As such, these counter public spheres have allowed spaces for episodic deliberation of national identity and religion and how both shape individual and collective identity of Pakistani nation. 

Munira Cheema is Lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries in the School of Culture, Media and Creative Industries at the King’s College London. Her research interests are at the intersection of cultural studies, politics and media.