Stop being scared of satellite TV and get involved

Muhammad Ayish

• Last Updated: November 09. 2008 11:16PM UAE / November 9. 2008 7:16PM GMT

In 1994, during my work at the UAE University, I was involved in organising an international conference on television in the GCC countries. At the time, satellite broadcasting was still in its infancy, with no more than 10 trans-border channels ruling the region’s airwaves.

It was quite alarming at that time to see a surge of public sentiment building up against the potential effects of transnational television on one of the region’s expanding age groups: youth. Back in 1994, it was being argued that the younger generation was being targeted by the “evil” forces of globalisation, and that satellite television was the most harmful influence of them all.

Ever since, the potential impact of satellite television on the youth of the Gulf region has been a topic of heated debates in hundreds of conferences, academic forums, and policy meetings, as well as in the media. The latest of these discussions I recently attended has been in Doha, Qatar with the participation of more than 300 media scholars, Muslim clerics, broadcasters, lawmakers, and civil society representatives.

Almost 15 years after the UAE University conference, I was amazed to hear the same discourse being floated: that our young men and women are at risk of losing their cultural and national identity due to their exposure to foreign and pan-Arab satellite television content.

While GCC governments and NGOs are commended for raising public awareness of the potentially negative impact of satellite television on the young, I believe it is high time to go the extra mile and bring this awareness to bear directly on the region’s policymaking process.

While state regulation has always been touted as the panacea for correcting any problems with “subversive” television content, I believe we need to look for additional methods of empowering the region’s young people – to enable them to harness creatively their cultural heritage and evolve their own visions in the age of globalisation.

It is clear that public concerns over how satellite television affects young men and women in the region are absolutely legitimate. The demographics of this region are distinctively marked by the large numbers of the young: more than 40 per cent of the population is aged between 12-22.

Successive reports released by the World Bank and numerous UN agencies suggest that a relatively high birth rate is likely to continue thanks to the region’s economic boom and its political stability.

Unfortunately, governments are fighting uphill battles to secure more jobs and foster an enduring sense of national identity to match the rise in population levels. Because young men and women in the GCC region share many of the same handicaps as their peers in other Arab communities, they are experiencing the three deficits impeding human development in the region (as outlined in the United Nations Development Programme-published Arab Human Development Reports): freedom, knowledge and women’s empowerment.

The recent feature series run by The National on the youth in the region was quite revealing, especially about how the young perceive themselves in the midst of political, economic and cultural uncertainties.

Although there are many claims made about how satellite television shapes our children’s lives, we seem rather apathetic in putting those claims to test. To my knowledge, there are no credible polling operations in the Arab world capable of generating convincing evidence of the nature of such effects. All we have are no more than academic exposure studies that document youth communication habits and perceptions of different channels and shows, something that can never amount to effects investigations.

I am raising this point here because I believe future discussions of the effects of satellite television on our youth will continue to be little more than hollow rhetoric unless they can be substantiated by solid evidence.

Satellite television is undoubtedly a source of concern for the region’s communities and each time a new channel is launched, we seem to brace for yet another evil addition in the skies. I was impressed by a proposal at the Doha Forum to establish a satellite television observatory to monitor different types of content aired to GCC audiences and publish periodical reports on the successes and disappointments in the region’s public sphere.

Another proposal that struck me as extremely worthwhile was the suggestion that the region’s youth should be involved in the production of the very television genres that are causing all the uproar, particularly “reality” shows, Arabic-dubbed soap operas and music videos. If these programmes could be given an indigenous character, I believe many of the criticisms levelled at them would disappear.

I think the Doha Forum and its likes in the region truly reflect sincere commitments on the part of governments and NGOs to safeguard their communities. However, it is high time to get down to action and constructively engage with satellite television – and what better way than by opening up new windows of opportunity for the young and incorporating the region’s historical and cultural heritage in the programmes produced?

Muhammad Ayish is a Professor of Communications at the University of Sharjah