Marc Owen Jones is an Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at Hamad bin Khalifa University, where he lectures and researches on political repression and informational control strategies. His recent work has focused on the way social media has been used to spread disinformation and fake news in the Middle East. In March 2019, he published ‘The Gulf Information War| Propaganda, Fake News, and Fake Trends: The Weaponization of Twitter Bots in the Gulf Crisis’, in the International Journal of Communication. His upcoming book on Disinformation and Deception in the Middle East will be published by Hurst Books and Oxford University Press in February 2022. His previous work has focused on political repression. His recent monograph, Political Repression in Bahrain, was published in July 2020 by Cambridge University, Press. Jones has won multiple awards for his work. Jones’s PhD thesis in Government and International Affairs from Durham University won the 2016 best thesis award from the Association for Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Studies. In 2021 he won the UK alumni professional achievement award from the British Council in Qatar. Through the course of his career he has won several awards for teaching both at Exeter University and HBKU. He is the editor of numerous books on Bahrain and the Gulf, including Bahrain’s Uprising: Resistance and Repression in the Gulf, and Gulfization of the Arab World, published in 2018 by Gerlach Press. In addition to his academic publications, Jones has written for numerous international media outlets, including the Washington Post, CNN, the Independent and the New Statesman. His work features frequently in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian. He also makes regular appearances on BBC, Al Jazeera, LBC, CBC News, and many others. Jones grew up in Bahrain and Saudi, and has worked and studied in Sudan, Syria, Germany and the United Kingdom.