Dima Issa is a Senior Lecturer of Mass Media and Communication at the University of Balamand in Lebanon She holds a PhD from the University of Westminster in London, an MSc from the London School of Economics in Global Media and Communications and an MA from the University of Southern California in Global Communications Her research has primarily focused on Arab diaspora and media consumption, looking at ways in which identity is constructed and reconstructed through space and time In addition, her interests include gender and representation, popular culture and audience studies, new media and technologies and social networking Before academia, Dima worked in the corporate sector in media relations, publications and website management as well as in broadcast journalism