Arab Television & Reality TV Shows

A neat article by Marwen Kraidy, an assistant professor at American University’s School of International Service and currently a Wilson Center fellow about reality TV shows in arabic TV channels and how those entertainment programs have sparked heated political debates on Arab-Western relations, political reform, personal freedom, women’s rights, and sexuality.

One reality TV show causing a stir is Star Academy, featuring young men and women living together under one roof, all involved in a singing competition. The show, which airs on satellite television on the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) channel, touches sometimes provocatively upon sensitive social issues from personal freedom, relations between men and women, to singing and dancing in public.

“They’re using local language and heritage but combining two worldviews,” Kraidy said, an example of what he calls “cultural hybridity” where, in this case, Western and Arab cultures have collided.