Reality Television and Arab Politics Contention in Public Life [Hardcover]

This book analyzes how reality television fuelled heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Middle East.Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fueling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic Arab Street and offers an original perspective on Arab media.Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fueling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic Arab Street and offers an original perspective on Arab media.What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fueling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic Arab Street and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al39