Will Youmans

Topics of Interest: Global News, Journalism, Media Law, and Social Movements

Countries/Regions of Interest: US-Arab Relations

Twitter​: @WYoumans

List of Publications

Selected Publications:
An Unwilling Client: how Hosni Mubarak's Egypt Defied the Bush Administration's ‘Freedom Agenda’
Cambridge Review of International Affairs (2015).

Remote Negotiations: International Broadcasting as Bargaining in the Information Age. Co-authored with Shawn Powers.  International Journal of Communication (2012), 2149–2172.

Intermedia Framing and Intercultural Communication: How Other Media Affect American Antipathy Toward Al Jazeera English. Co-authored with Katie Brown. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research (2012), 41(2), 173-191.

A New Purpose for International Broadcasting: Subsidizing Deliberative Technologies in Non-transitioning States. Co-authored with Shawn Powers. Journal of Public Deliberation (2012), 8(1), Article 13.

Social Media and the Activist Toolkit: User Agreements, Corporate Interests, and the Information Infrastructure of Modern Social Movements. Co-authored with Jillian York. Journal of Communication (2012), (62) 2, 315-329.

The Debate over Al Jazeera, English in Burlington, VT. Arab Media & Society (2011), Issue 13, Summer.

William Lafi Youmans is an Assistant Professor at George Washington University's School of Media and Public Affairs.  Broadly interested in questions of transnationalism, power and news media, his primary research interests include global news, journalism, media law, and social movements.  Other areas of interest include terrorism, contemporary American public diplomacy and international broadcasting, and Arab-American studies.

Youmans obtained his PhD from the University of Michigan and holds a JD from the University of California, Berkeley. He wrote his dissertation on Al Jazeera English’s audience-building efforts in the United States before and after the "Arab Spring." He is currently working on a book manuscript about Al Jazeera in America.

Also, he is researching the development of Arab media governance with an emphasis on news organizations and journalists.

Youmans has presented at numerous conferences, including the annual gatherings of the Middle East Studies Association, the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, the International Studies Association, and the American Sociological Association.

His paper on CIA recruitment in Arab Detroit won the 2013 Best Paper award in the International Communication Section of the International Studies Association.

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