Beyond the Headlines: The Middle East and the United States
War, diplomacy, oil, protest, and revolution frequently dominate news coverage of the Middle East, yet these stories often appear as fragments, stripped of historical context and shaped by powerful media narratives. How do these headlines come to define what we think we know about the region and the role of the United States within it? This course offers a focused introduction to understanding the Middle East beyond the headlines by pairing historical perspective with critical media analysis.
Students will participate in a daily combination of short lectures, guided media analysis, group discussion, and hands-on workshops. Each day includes the review of news clips, social media posts, and short documentary segments from both the Middle East and the United States. Working in small groups, students will compare narratives, practice media literacy skills, and build components of their final project. Remote students will join through live video and shared documents.
Through this course, students will become familiar with the history of the Middle East, its major events, and the role of the United States in the region. In doing so, they will develop media literacy skills, including the analysis of bias and framing. Students will practice research skills, teamwork, and clear communication in preparation for their final multimedia presentation.
Field Trips & Guest Speakers:
- Visiting the UMass Amherst library archives
- Visiting local Middle Eastern restaurants
This course is offered at the UMass Amherst campus as a residential program. Local students may apply to attend as a commuter.
- Daily lectures
- Viewing media from the U.S. & Middle East (news clips, social media posts, short documentary segments)
- Group discussion and reflection
- Daily projects include short media analysis exercises
Final Project: Midway through the program, students will form teams and select a specific media event or narrative that appears in both United States and Middle Eastern media. The final project will be a ten minute multimedia presentation in which each team compares the two portrayals, explains how the narrative influenced or reflected United States policy, and presents their conclusions to the class.
Pre-Requisites
There are no pre-requisites for this program.
Materials
Students will need a laptop, headphones for reviewing media clips, and a notebook for daily notes. All other materials will be provided digitally through the course platform. Students will use basic tools for online media analysis, including news databases and streaming archives.
By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- Understand the basic history of the Middle East and the role of the United States in the region.
- Analyse how media in the Middle East and the United States present major events and shape public opinion.
- Develop stronger media literacy skills and will learn to recognize bias, framing, and perspective in news and digital content.
Class time is Monday-Friday from 9 am - 4 pm.
|
Time |
Activity |
|
9:00–10:00 AM |
Morning briefing Guided media review |
|
10:00–10:15 AM |
Morning Break |
| 10:15 AM–12:00 PM |
Workshop session: daily media analysis activity Research skills practice |
|
12:00–1:00 PM |
Lunch Break |
|
1:00–2:00 PM |
Historical lecture and guided discussion |
| 2:00–3:00 PM |
Collaborative project and workshop time |
|
3:00-4:00 PM |
Classwide reflection |
In the evenings and on weekends resident counselors will run a series of social activities. Students are encouraged to join in, relax and have fun with new friends! With social events on campus and in the surrounding Amherst area, and access to the UMass Recreation & Wellness Center, there's something for everyone to enjoy.
Learn more about student life at UMass Amherst Summer Pre-College
Meet the Faculty
Dr. Mohammad Ataie, Lecturer, Department of History
Mohammad Ataie is a Lecturer in History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research explores the intersection of revolutions, transnationalism, and Muslim clerical networks, with a focus on the global impact of the 1978-79 revolution in Iran. He is interested in how the revolution built an alternative Islamic solidarity and shifted the revolutionary power from the left to an emerging Islamic resistance.
He is currently completing his book manuscript titled Clerics in Revolt: Exporting the Iranian Revolution and the Transnationalization of the Revolutionary Guards. The book brings together oral history interviews and extensive research in public and private archives in Iran and Lebanon. It investigates how Iranian revolutionaries sought to spread the revolution through clerical activism and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to establish an Islamist international in the 1980s.
Ataie earned his BA in Journalism from Tehran University, his first Masters degree in Sociology from Allameh Tabataba’i University, and a second Masters degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University of Beirut. He received his PhD in History from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and afterward joined the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow.
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