How Social Media Shapes Culture and Identity Among Youth: Empirical Insights from the Gulf Region

Zainab Abdul-Nabi is an Associate Professor in the School of Creative Media at Bahrain Polytechnic. She previously chaired the Department of Mass Communication and Public Relations at Ahlia University and taught media studies at leading universities in Australia, including the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Her research appears in highly ranked journals and publishers such as Palgrave Macmillan, Springer, International Journal of Communication, and New Media & Society, earning awards and research grants from institutions in Australia, Taiwan, and the UAE.

Mohamed Alawainati earned a PhD in Communication and Media Sciences with first-class honors from Ain Shams University, Egypt, specializing in digital and educational media, and a Master's in Mass Communication and Public Relations with Distinction from Ahlia University. He has taught radio, TV production, digital journalism, and public relations courses at Ahlia University. His research on digital journalism, AI, educational media, and communication theory has been presented in international conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.