Arab satirical digital activists target English speakers; Bassem Youssef with Piers Morgan

Abstract

This study evaluates Arab satirical digital activism targeting English-speaking audiences. It assesses the performance of Arab satirical activist Bassem Youssef in his interview with British journalist Piers Morgan on his YouTube show, where they discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The study focuses on the most widely circulated clips from this interview on Twitter/X and uses discourse analysis methodology to contextualise and analyse Bassem Youssef's satirical discourse. The findings suggest that Arab satirical discourse has been successful in engaging with English-speaking audiences, although there is still a need for further improvement to make it more effective.