History and Anthropology,Vol. 18, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 367–377

ISSN 0275–7206 print/ISSN 1477–2612 online/07/030367–11 © 2007 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02757200701389121

Satellite Television in the Maghreb: Plural Reception and Interference of IdentitiesLarbi ChouikhaTaylor and Francis LtdGHAN_A_238800.sgm10.1080/02757200701389121History and Anthropology0275-7206 (print)/1477-2612 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis182000000June 2007LarbiChouikhasalma.larbi@planet.tn

The mass proliferation of satellite TV in the Arab language has led to a de facto culturalcommunity, an umma by satellite. Based on a study of middle class “modern” families inTunis, as well as more general soundings throughout the Arab world, this article examinesthe emergence of Arab satellite TV and its social, political, and cultural effects. The expo-sure of these Maghrebi TV viewers to “national,” “Arab,” or “French,” televisions is rela-tive and fluctuating. The article explores the varied reasons for following foreigntransmissions: curiosity, disenchantment with local (often government controlled) TVstations. The latter mainly, but not exclusively, still serve to draw individuals together espe-cially at Ramadan into new forms of sociability. Widening enthusiasm for Arab satellitechannels (which many Governments tried unsuccessfully to curtail) is due to increaseddemands for greater penetration of the events which are shaking the Maghreb, the Araband Muslim world. The Al-Jazira phenomenon is given particular attention. Its growingsuccess in the Arab world comes from its criticism of the powers that be. Indeed, viewersdiscover for the first time exiled or locally silenced opposition personalities through expo-sure to satellite TV. This feeds distrust of official power but at the same time can actuallyenhance feelings of powerlessness. Another reason for its success is that American andEuropean satellite channels are perceived as hostile to the Arabs and the Muslims, oftenonly developing the point of view of their governments. The article concludes by suggestingthat we must situate the relation of individuals to televised images in a framework of iden-titarian references: people adapt, construct, and navigate their identities through thecomplex interplay of their own demands and the varied offerings on satellite and terrestrialchannels. The author suggests that in the Maghreb, withdrawal into the myriad offeringsof satellite televisions and the Web is a means for individuals to satisfy their multiple and

Larbi Chouikha teaches Media Studies and Journalism at the University of Tunis. Correspondence to: Universitéde Tunis, 17, Avenue de la République, 2060 La Goulette, Tunis, Tunisia. Email: salma.larbi@planet.tn

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varied needs, and to manifest their vague desire to free themselves from the oppressiveguardianship of their State and society.

Keywords: The Satellite Umma; Al-Jazira; Media in the Arab World; Politics and Disenchantment; Media Identity

Observation of the populations of the Maghreb, in the era of the proliferation of satel-lite television channels offers us rich material for an examination of their methods ofoperation in televisual reception. The exposure of these Maghrebi TV viewers to“national”, “Arab” and “French” television reveals that their perception of global andlocal, but also of near and far, is relative and fluctuating. It shows us the meaning thatthese populations give to values such as modernity and tradition, Arab, Muslim, andwestern, in their daily lives.

Several events, like those of September 11, 2001, or the war in Iraq in 2003, as livedby the populations of the Maghreb through the channels they look at, well illustrate theimbrications of meanings and references produced by the display of televised images.These latter emerge in a context sometimes marked by strong tension with multiple,often contradictory, dimensions.

Consequent to events like those of September 11, 2001, and, more recently, thecoverage of the situation in Iraq, in the Palestinian territories, as well as in their owncountries, and in making use of participatory observation and in-depth interviews, wehave spoken to some fifty persons and made in-depth inquiries of fifteen families resi-dent in Tunis. Our objective, using this qualitative analysis, was on each occasion toobserve their attitudes and behaviours, as well as their different ways of facing televisualreception. The choice of our interviews was concentrated on the “profiles” of thepersons and the “categories” of the families, all of them living in Tunis and whom wemay describe as “modern”,1 with respect to their social and cultural way of style, oftenwell supplied with western references. Their level of education is superior to thenational average. The husbands are teachers, doctors, bank employees; their averageage is forty-five; and they are raising adolescents who rarely number more three in thehome.

These families own one or two television sets, connected to satellite dishes. Theydevote, on average, two and a half hours per day looking at non-Tunisian television,especially in the evening.

Two complementary reasons explain the predilection of these persons for foreigntransmissions. It is a matter of satisfying “a sharp curiosity for all the questions of currentnational and international events” (40/55), but also to satisfy a desire for opening up tothe outer world and to discover “something different with respect to my social, culturaland political reality” (55/55). Similarly, their rapport with Tunisian television is veryweak, and their reasons for this alienation are explained by their “disappointment” withthe programmes offered them, which they see as characterized by “monotony, absenceof imagination, official cant, and platitudes”. However, these reservationss with regardto the output of Tunisian television do not constitute a total and irreversible break with

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it. In fact, from time to time these families can renew their attachment to it, especiallyduring the month of Ramadan: this is an occasion for renewing old family bonds byincorporating them into the new forms of sociability, which are in large part absorbedby Tunisian television (Chouika 1999 and 2000).

We have observed from the start, in Tunisia as well as the Maghreb region as a whole,that the events of September 11, 2001, strengthened a tendency already perceptibleafter the Gulf War of 1991: the media of their countries—and increasingly French tele-vision as well—cannot satisfy the expectations of Maghrebi TV viewers by sharplypenetrating into the events which are shaking the Maghreb, the Arab and Muslimworld. And this is what explains the increasing enthusiasm for Arab satellite channels,which are perceived as being “close” to them. However, this interest in Arab televisiondoes not rest on an identity withdrawal or a break with the West in its entirety. In otherwords, the relationship with Arab television is not frozen and univocal. According tothe events lived by these populations and the context of reception which indergirdsthem, the need to “browse”, with the assistance of the remote control, among thechannels—be they Arab, French, national—is crystallized and sharpened at preciselythese moments.

The Irruption of Satellite Dishes

The number of satellite dishes in the Maghreb does not cease to grow in parallel withthe dissatisfaction of the public with the national television channels,2 and rare are thepublic authorities who have taken the risk of a general interdiction of satellite TVreception equipment—even if some judicial steps may be taken to limit their diffusion,as was the case in Tunisia, with the requirement of administrative authorization and anannual tax (24 July 1995 law). However, the importance of parallel markets and thevariety of hi’yâl [tricks] to which individuals had recourse to acquire and install a dishmade enforcement impossible. So the Tunisian authorities finally gave up the effort toput these mechanisms in effect.

At first, thanks to the satellite dishes, Tunisian TV viewers tuned in to the Frenchchannels, transmitted by satellite, to satisfy their thirst for news and entertainment. Butafter the Gulf War (1991), several Arab channels—both private and state-controlled—appeared via satellite. There are now more than a hundred broadcasting in Arabic,most of them financed with Saudi or Gulf-state money.

The preference of the Maghrebi public is for Al-Jazira, the news channel created bythe Kingdom of Qatar (a Gulf state), which has been broadcasting since November1996 (Lamloun 2004). Beyond the fact that it diffuses a variety of information, follow-ing western standards, and political problems of an often violent tone, the growingsuccess of Al-Jazira in the Arab world comes equally from its criticism of the powersthat be. The attraction it wins in all social categories feeds the distrust of these powers,which find themselves however deprived of the power to stop it. Their only defence ispress campaigns against this channel regularly orchestrated by the national newspa-pers, and a formal prohibition of opening offices in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia andAlgeria.3 Among the staff of Al-Jazira journalists can be found leading journalists of the

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Maghreb, who, unable to exercise their profession in the national media, have goneinto exile and by so doing made themselves famous in their own countries.4

The success of Al-Jazira among the Arab populations goes back to the year 1999, withthe launching of the new Intifada and the images of fighting between Israeli soldiersand young Palestinians, which it broadcast live. And its audience increased dramati-cally with the American intervention in Afghanistan. An early example of its success inthe Maghreb: one week after the events of September 11, 2001, was Al-Jazira’s decisionto switch to digital transmission. As a result, all those—and they were in the majority—who had analogue reception could no longer receive it. The interest aroused by thecoverage of the events in Afghanistan5 thus incited TV viewers to rush out to buy newreceiver sets: at the end of a few days, digital demodulators could no longer be foundon the market—or, if so, at an outrageous price.

In Tunisia especially, at the time of the presidential and legislative elections of 1999,the “political” event par excellence which mobilized the Tunisians occurred two daysafter the closing of the polling-booths, with Al-Jazira’s organization of a debatebetween Rached Ghannouchi, the Islamist director of En-Nadhdha in exile in London,and the director of the Arab journal El Moustaquilla, Hechmi Hadi, a former Islamistwho had gone over to the official side.

The success of this channel is to be explained for three reasons closely related to oneanother. The first, which we have previously emphasized, is the dissatisfaction of thepublic with their national television, which remains—in very many cases—an instru-ment of official power and propaganda, as the Maghrebi leaders had conceived it at thedawn of independence. Then, the distancing vis-à-vis the western channels after theend of the Gulf War in 1991 constituted a new factor. The American channel CNN andthe European channels were increasingly perceived as hostile to the Arabs and theMuslims, often developing only the point of view of their governments. And thisdistancing would be still further widened by the war in Afghanistan and the conflict inIraq. Finally, the generalization of the policy of Arabization conducted in the Maghrebfor the last twenty years, but also the search, by the same populations, for themes ofproximity in the choice of news subjects, participate equally in the success of Al-Jazira.“The use of the Arab language leads to a de facto cultural community, an umma bysatellite.”6

For all these reasons, more than 40 million TV viewers find in this chain a source ofcredible information, presented according to modern journalistic methods, andadditionally, in Arabic.

We must here note that, besides Al-Jazira, other Arab and Arabophone channels—generalized or specialized—arouse increasing interest in the Maghrebi public. Exam-ples include the general news chain El Arabiya, created in February 2003 with Saudiand Emirate funds to curb the influence of Al-Jazira; the Abu Dhabi TV channel; butalso El Hurrah (the Free), launched by the American Congress on 14 February 2004with the aim of refurbishing the image of the Americans in Arab public opinion7; aswell as Al-Alam, an Iranian channel of continuous news in the Arabic language. It isalso the case of specialized channels, like the “Islamic” Saudi channel Iqra, or thechannel of Lebanese Hizb’Allah, El Manar TV, which for the last two years has been

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broadcasting a brief daily bulletin in French. There exists also a group of generalistchannels, like LBC (the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation) which fascinates theMaghrebin public because they transmit serials, reality shows and other varieties inabundance.

In addition, opposition leaders in exile use these channels to directly address thepopulations of their countries and defy the powers that be. This was the case ofthe three Tunisian opposition channels, El Moutaquilla [The Independent], El Hiwar[The Debate] and Ez zitouna [The Olive Tree] which broadcast every week, fromEurope, for about two hours each, for the benefit of the Tunisians.8 It is also the case ofthe Algerian opposition leaders, like those of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) whowere obliged to resort to foreign television—especially Al-Jazira—to make their voicesheard during the electoral campaign for the presidential election in April 2004.9

The multiplication of these technologies of communication in households, and theenthusiasm which these channels aroused in the population, including members of theruling élite, thus inaugurate new spaces which the authoritarian Arab regimes observewith much apprehension. Indeed, through the news broadcasts and the American-styletalk shows often diffused by Arab television broadcasters like Al-Jazira,10 the TVviewers discover for the first time personalities of the opposition, living in exile orreduced to silence by the authorities of their country.11

Arab Television: Pluralistic Practice in a Universe of Multiple Meanings

For the last decade we have been seeing, then, in the Maghreb, the appearance of newpractices of reception, inaugurated by the appearance of a multitude of Arab satellitechannels, all of them varied, as much in form as in content.

Some of these revive identity markers which had been hidden or suppressed by theruling authorities; this is the case with several channels having a “religious” orientation,such as El Majd [The Honour]. El Anwar [The Lights], and above all the Saudi channelIqra [Bed], which has made famous even in the West the name of Amr Khalid, the mostpopular young preacher in the Arabo/Muslim world. The success of Amr Khalidderives form the fact that he has known how to keep himself apart from the rivalrybetween political Islam and official Islam, by offering a religious product in line withthe modern expectations of the urban middle classes, to wit: “a worldly faith puttingthe accent on internal peace and spiritual equilibrium, a refusal of religious practices inwhich respect for the rite is sufficient unto itself, a rejection of the idea of a punishingGod” (Haeeni and Tammam 2003). He is the first to have reproduced the model of theAmerican televangelists, and to have imported the principle of the religious talk showinto the Arab world. His programmes on the Iqra channel—and increasingly on otherchannels in Lebanon and the Gulf states—arouse the enthusiasm of Maghrebi TVviewers of all ages in all the socio-political milieus. In Tunisia, the “return of the veil”is ascribed to the effects of his preaching on women.12

However, anecdotes circulate on the subject of his television sermons and, in Tuni-sian “secular” circles, this bit of gossip is passing around: in the course of one of hispublic appearances devoted to replying—live—to the questions of TV viewers, one

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Tunisian woman, torn between her husband and her lover, is said to have called him tosolicit a fatwa concerning her unhappy love life. And Amr Khalid, apparently shocked,is said to have shouted to the switchboard operator, “I have told you many times notto send me any more calls from Tunisian women!”

Other channels, more numerous, give TV viewers new possibilities of receivinginformation which contradicts that which is offered by the national and westernchannels. This is the case—as we have already explained—of the Arab news channels,principally Al-Jazira, since the beginning of the war in Iraq, and today El-Arabiya, incovering the situation in that country. As an illustration, one week after the outbreakof hostilities in Iraq, Al-Jazira announced that its audience had grown by 10%, that isto say, some four million supplementary spectators in addition to the more thanforty million who watch it regularly throughout the world.13 An example of the cred-ibility which it enjoys in Arab and Maghrebi opinion: the news of the death, in April2003 of its correspondent in Baghdad, Taraq Ayùb, following the explosion of anAmerican missile against his office, let loose an avalanche of criticism from Arabjournalists, including those of the Maghreb. Several of these were then persuadedthat this American attack was intentional and aimed at silencing this voice ofBaghdad.

Similarly, the coverage by Al-Jazira of public meetings and demonstrations againstthe war in Iraq—in the West as well as in the Arab cities—did not fail to have an effecton the populations of other Arab countries. A striking example of its impact: theslogans chanted in Cairo, or Amman, and broadcast on the channel, are immediatelypicked up by demonstrators in Tunis or Casablanca.

Alongside the continuous-news channels, there exists a group of thematic channelswhich widely broadcast programmes such as variety shows, serials and sportsprogrammes. They are financed essentially by capital from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.They are very popular with the Maghrebi public and often serve to animate certaincentres of conviviality in the Maghreb, like beauty shops, cafés and waiting rooms.

But there exist other generalist channels which have enjoyed considerable success in“Arabizing” the concept of TV-reality borrowed from western television. Such is thecase of the Lebanese channel LBC (The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation), whichwas the first to make an Arabic adaptation of “Star Academy”. Sixteen boys and girlsfrom eight Arab countries—including Tunisians and Moroccans—selected amongthousands of candidates, lived together under the same roof for more than threemonths at a stretch (from December 2003 to March 2004): a first in Arab televisionwhere the mixing of the sexes is not generally acceptable. The tens of thousands ofemails and votes by cell phone, coming from different Arab countries, testified to thepopularity of the show, especially in the Maghreb: almost 70 million (overtaxed) callscoming from twenty-two Arab counties were received by the Lebanese channel.14 Thisled one Egyptian woman to observe that “reality TV might realize what the Arab leadershave unanimously failed to achieve: an Arab union, where the citizens learn to knowone another.”15 Unknown to Tunisian TV viewers before December 2003, the LBCaudience has ever since been on the heels of that of the national channel, reaching arecord at the beginning of March 2004, essentially among young Tunisians between the

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ages of fifteen to twenty-five. The performance of the Tunisian candidates explains ingood part the success of the channel.16

This clear example demonstrates the growing influence of LBC in the Arab world,despite the violent hostility of the Islamic groups which had called for a boycott of thechannel.17 The concept has been taken over today in various forms by several Arabtelevisions in the Maghreb.18

Identity and Relations with Foreign Media: A Reality in Motion

We have observed during our inquiry that the choice and the interest brought to theArab satellite channels by our TV viewers tends to underline the affirmation of thespecial singularities which characterize them.

Indeed for subjects which have an immediate proximity (events which shake up theMiddle East, Iraq, but also those which concern the Maghreb and their own countryparticularly—or simply particular interests like entertainment or religious needs),these populations find “refuge” in the Arab satellite channels and, additionally, in thespecialized channels directed by political opponents abroad. The public responds tothese events perceived as close or relevant to them, either collectively or individually,in answer to their needs and expectations. But they also tune in to these channels inresponse to events which take place and their response to the events varies according tothe affective context of the moment.19

However, this relationship with Arab television is not the sign of an irreversiblebreak with western media, since these same members of the public can sometimes beled back to the latter, according to their profile, current events and their own situa-tions.20 This was the case, for example, with the curiosity aroused among the public ofthe Maghreb, after September 11, by the programme of the French subscriptionchannel Canal Plus, “The Puppet Show of the News”, and particularly the way in whichthe American president George W. Bush was presented and made fun of.21 This sameinterest was shown in the French channels at the time of the presidential and legislativeelections in France (in May and June 2002) and in America (November 2004), andtheir debates, for example, of the football World Cup in 1998, of “Loft Story”,22 or ofthe debate over the wearing of the veil (Chouika 2005).

Similarly, neither was there a total break with the national channels. Following theexample of what we remarked previously (Chouika 1999 and 2000), during everyRamadan month, Tunisian television supplants the satellite channels by adopting anew presentation in daily family life. It turns itself into a centre of sociability, revivingold forms of animation and entertainment which prevailed in these families duringRamadan before the irruption of the little screen. This phenomenon is not confined toTunisia, nor to the countries of the Maghreb, since one can make the same observa-tions in other Arab countries during the same period.23

Thus, the “identity” of our TV viewers—from the present when it is a matter of eventswhich concern Arab and Muslim opinions and as it appears in connection with theseevents—does not bear a single meaning and does not assume an antagonistic and defi-ant aspect with regard to other cultures and civilizations. It spreads out and remodels

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itself in many styles of belonging, in which are mixed both Islam and the Arabo-Islamicculture and the West and its collective and individual values. For example, we haveobserved that a part of the public—faithful to the preaching to Amr Khalid—is alsoeager to watch “political” or “entertainment” programmes diffused by Arab and Frenchtelevision, and that the young people who compose this public assiduously follow the“Star Academy” series on LBC. This is particularly the case because the classificatorygrid of categories—“religious”, “political”, “entertainment”—is diversely appreciatedand decoded according to the nature of the public and the profile of the individuals. Asan illustration, we have observed that several TV viewers who regularly watch thesermons of Amr Khalid are more attracted by his physiognomy, his gestures, hismimicry, the intonation of his voice, than by the content of the message he is delivering.And this same observation can be verified in contact with other transmissions orprogrammes, independently of the category they are placed in.24 We have equallyobserved in a previous research study that televised images can be received, appreciatedand interpreted differently, depending on the context of reception marked sometimesby the mingling of two spatio-temporal matrices: Ramadan and (Christian) New Year’sEve.25 Studies of television reception in an Arab and Muslim environment show thatthe Arab TV viewer exercises discretion in moving and manoeuvring among these“categories” while developing their own singularities, interpretative schemas and gridsfor reading the events which surround and concern them (Madani 2002). At first glanceall these categories may seem contradictory to an observer who is outside the group, andadditionally, outside the dominant culture of the country, but they essentially bringcoherence to the meanings known to and shared by the members of this group.

In short, we must situate the relation of individuals to televised images in a formworkof identitarian references, starting with the idea that identity is “a reality in motion”, a“bundle of territorial and mental adherences”, which are conjugated “according todiverse alchemies, the local, the regional, the national, the international” (Mattelart1992: 298). Social customs and personal experiences are also grafted onto this reality inmotion.

Consequently, it is only in this relationship between the global and the local, betweenthe particular and the general, between the close and the distant, between the intimateand the alien, that one can understand the meaning that these families and these indi-viduals give to values like modernity or tradition, Tunisian, Arab, Muslim or French.These latter are inserted in their lives to receive different interpretations, according toa code of significations which only the members of the group know and employ in theirinteractions.

Observations of the relationships between our population with the technologies ofcommunication and its ways of receiving transmissions from foreign channels (Arabor French) demonstrate the capacity of individuals to integrate the so-called foreigntransmissions into their own universe, according to the meaning and significance givento proximity, that is, perceptions of closeness.26 However the use that they make oftechnologies like the internet and their resort to satellite dishes reflect above all the stateof their needs, of their expectations and of their frustrations, in a public sphere wherethe areas of free expression are practically non-existent, where the national media are

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in the service of the political powers. Proceeding from this fact, their withdrawal intosatellite television and the web is a binding agreement and a means for them to satisfytheir multiple and varied needs, and to manifest their vague desire to free themselvesfrom the oppressive guardianship of their State and society.

Translated by Olivier Renault and Paul Sant Cassia

Notes1 [1] We have remarked that the “modernity” which characterizes these families and their

members is not expressed by an opposition to traditional customs, but rather by the incorpo-ration into their modern life of practices and values through which familial sociabilityestablishes itself. This manifestation is all the more lively when the presence of childrenbecomes the central pivot of family life.

2 [2] In the three countries of the Maghreb, it is estimated that 40 to 60% of households possess atleast one parabola [satellite dish receiver]: the Algerians are the best equipped. In Tunisia thenumber of satellite dishes increased from 50,000 in 1994 to more than 500,000 six years later,according to an estimate given by the Tunisian film-maker Nouri Bouzid in the Cahiers duCinéma (no. 557, May 2001). The interruption by the Tunisian authorities of programmesbroadcast on Hertzian waves by France 2 in October 1999 is said to explain the rush of theTunisians to buy satellite dishes. According to the census of 2004, 90% of Tunisian householdpossess at least one television receiver.

3 [3] “Retrospective des atteintes subies par la chaîne en 2004”, Communiqué de Reporters sansFrontières (RSF: www.rsf.org), Paris, 27 Jan. 2005.

4 [4] A score of journalists of the Maghreb figure among the 450 of fifteen different nationalitieswho work for this channel. We may cite the case of the Tunisian journalist M’hamed Krichen.He had to go into exile after the suppression of his radiophonic international newsprogramme on the waves of Radio Tunis, in 1994.

5 [5] Al-Jazira was the only television broadcaster in the world to have had a permanent correspon-dent in Kabul before the events of September 11.

6 [6] Gilles Paris, “Al-Jazira, the télé which is waking up the Arab world”, Le Monde, 25 Oct. 2001.7 [7] We have observed that Tunisian TV viewers look at it (from time to time), in spite of their

open hostility to the Americans in Iraq, because the channel gives large coverage of violationsof human rights in the Arab world and the activities of these rights in these countries. On thequestion of the sources of the financing this channel, see Le Monde 11 Mar. 2004.

8 [8] Their transmission ceased in January 2003, but other projects are said to be in the course ofdevelopment.

9 [9] Le Monde, 8 Apr. 2004.10[10] The best-known weekly political programme of Al-Jazira, “Al-adage al-moua’kis” [Opposite

Opinion] is a televised political duel during which, for an hour and half, and live, two guestswith diametrically opposed points of view face each other and reply to faxes, emails and tele-phoned questions from TV viewers. The programme is hosted by the Syrian journalist, FaysalAl-Qassim who often adopts a provocative style. The debates deal in turn with the corruptionand authoritarianism of Arab political regimes, with the consequences of the war in Iraq, withthe normalization of relations with Israel, followed by a vote of the TV viewers.

11[11] During the electoral campaign of 2004, the Tunisian government intervened with thedirectors of the channel to make sure that they postponed the transmission of the “Al-Ittijahal-moura.kis” programme, to which the opposition leader Néjib Chehdi was to have beeninvited; the programme in question was never broadcast.

12[12] www.aljazeera.net, 26 Mar. 2003.

376 L. Chouikha13[13] Ibid.14[14] AFP despatch at http://www.libanvision.com/starac-liban.htm.15[15] “Le succès de la télé-réalité dans les pays arabes provoque la colère des islamistes”, Le Monde,

12 Mar. 2004.16[16] According to an audience survey made by a private Tunisian company, Sigma Conseil, 26

April 2004. An example of the popularity of the programme in Tunisia: the Tunis correspon-dent of the Arab newspaper El Hay, published in London, describes his arrival at Tunis airporton a flight from Beirut, where he was warmly welcomed by a large group of the programme’sTunisian participants (El Hay, 17 Mar. 2004).

17[17] Le Monde, 11 Mar. 2004.18[18] One version of TV-reality entered the national Tunisian channel’s televisual programming for

the month of Ramadan. “Tariq El noujoum” [The Road of the Stars] had several dozen youngpeople of both sexes, who were aiming for careers as singers, spending the daytime together.Every evening, after their turn to sing, several of them were successively eliminated, by thevote of the TV viewers.

19[19] In the Maghreb, during the war in Afghanistan, the televised tapes of Osama bin Ladin on Al-Jazira were very closely followed.

20[20] According to the latest studies, 21 million Maghrebins, including 14.8 million Algerians,representing a penetration rate of 29%, watch the French television channels every day. Thepenetration rate of the French channels is particularly high in Algeria (46%). Next comesTunisia (penetration rate 17%) where French television faces the competition of the orientalchannels and where the satellite dishes are aimed rather toward Arabsat or Nilesat (Arabchannels). In Morocco the penetration rate is 10%. AFP dispatch, 29 June 2004, citing aprivate company study.

21[21] The pirating of the French satellite packages TPS and Canalsat is very common in the coun-tries of the Maghreb. Cards are sold for about 100 francs on the informal (black) market.

22[22] Programme broadcast by the French channel M6 which was a big success among the adoles-cents of the Maghreb countries, especially those living in urban areas. Cf. Younès Alami, “LoftStory” seen from Casablanca, in Le Monde diplomatique, June 2002.

23[23] Example of a very successful Saudi programme, “Tash ma tash”, which can be translated as“Fail or Pass”, broadcast every evening of Ramadan for the last eleven years and whichtouches on themes and film scenes which often arouse the wrath of conservative elements inSaudi society (Menoret 2004).

24[24] We have observed that a transmission described as entertainment, diffused by a French chan-nel, can be regarded by our TV viewers as “political”, for the mere reason that political figuresappear in it.

25[25] Every thirty-three years Ramadan and New Years Eve coincide at least once, as a result of thecoincidence of the Hegirian and Gregorian calendars. And during this time, Tunisian televi-sion throughout Ramadan, and the French television channels on New Year’s Eve, are viewedand have more or less important significance in households according to the degree they havetaken root in the family structure (Choika 2003, pp. 167–183).

26[26] Proximity envisaged as a kind of “oscillatory dynamic”, defined by Caroline Hymen as“spatial, affective or temporal dynamic which suggests a movement intermediary betweenfluctuation and aimless wandering, however small it may be, between opposite terms (familiarversus foreign, imminent versus far-off)” (Hymen 1997: 184).

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History and Anthropology 377

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