Kathy Ahfid London
Home / Book as Speaker / Rethinking Influence
Keynote & Workshop · Politics & Information Strategy · MENA

Rethinking Influence in a
Post-Broadcast Middle East

For 70 years, controlling the broadcast signal meant controlling the story in the Middle East. Governments knew it. The West built entire strategies around it. Then the rules changed. And the West didn't. What happens when your playbook is stuck in the past, but the audience has already moved on?

What the talk moves through
  • 01
    How It Used To Work
    State broadcasters, counter-narrative funding, and the model that held for sixty years.
  • 02
    Moments That Made the New World
    Al Jazeera to the Arab Spring, ISIS to Sheikh Jarrah — the events that broke the broadcast model one by one.
  • 03
    The Adversary Playbook
    What Iran, Hezbollah, ISIS and the Houthis actually built, and why it works better than most analysts admit.
  • 04
    So What Do We Know Now?
    What a strategy built for today's information environment, not 2003's, would actually require.
From the talk
"82% of Saudi internet users rely on social media for news. The street organises after the screen does. We are still monitoring the street."

The talk draws on primary research, documented information operations, and years of work inside the region, including first-hand observations of how political content moves through private networks in Arabic.

Who this is for

Anyone building counter-narrative strategy, communications policy, or behavioural change programmes for or about the Arab world, and anyone who wants to understand why the current approach keeps producing the same result.

Government communications teams Policy institutes Media organisations Strategic communications agencies Academic audiences International development organisations
Format & length
50-minute keynote — standalone presentation with slides, Q&A.
90-minute workshop — includes structured audience exercises and case work. Suitable for teams and professional development settings.
Half-day intensive — for organisations that want to apply the framework to their specific operating environment.
Book this talk

Available as a keynote, workshop, or half-day intensive. If you're building something and want to talk through whether this is the right fit, reach out directly.

Book a talk ↗ Commission a lecture ↗ Consulting enquiries ↗