Paper short abstract:

The circulation of popular media content on socio-political imaginary of the Arab world is not fully clear, thus the focus of the paper is on examining the influence of popular transnational television drama series from Maghreb and Mashrek on the formation of Pan-Arab imagined community in Morocco.

Paper long abstract:

The paper will reflect on the social and political consequences of circulation of popular television drama series in the Arab world. Mass media accelerate the colonization of cultural and ideological sphere, as they ensure the images, representations and ideas, around which social reality is constructed. This coincides with the idea of an imagined community, where mass media are responsible for the spread of information about common origin and where they are central in articulation about national and transnational processes with the local. Regionalisation and transnational nature of the Arab satellite media enabled television drama series to become the most popular television genre within the Arab world. Since most media studies predominately focus on investigating the phenomena of Al-Jazeera (Kraidy 2010), there is a severe lack in understanding how popular television content that is transcending borders is shaping identities and community belonging. The main focus of the paper will be on the influence of popular television drama series from Maghreb and Mashrek on the construction of Pan-Arab imagined community amongst Moroccan women. Based on extensive empirical ethnographic evidence from Morocco, collected in 2011-2013, the main focus will be on how transnational television drama series influence the construction of transnational Arab identity and whether or not the circulation of popular television series represents an effective tool in the process of forming a nation. The paper will thus provide important reflection of the influence of circulation of media content on socio-political imaginary and social relationships in the Moroccan context.