Dina is Director of the Centre for Global Media and Communications at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She works on the relationship between culture, communication and politics in the Middle East, with a special focus on Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. She is particularly interested in activism; cultural politics, diasporas and globalisation; the state and the media; Islamist politics, memory and identity and digital politics. Prior to joining academia, Matar worked as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in the Middle East and as editor/analyst with a number of news agencies in Hong Kong, Europe and the US. Matar is co-founder and co-editor of the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication.