Changing channels: how satellite TV altered the view of citizenship

As Arabic-language satellite TV transcends national borders, what impact does this have on the cultural and political identities of Arabs living in European countries? Professor Christina Slade, Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at City University London and Professor of Media Theory at the University of Utrecht has recently completed a project to examine the transformation – one that perhaps says as much about European attitudes towards Arabs as it does about Arab views of their own identity..

“When I first came to work in Utrecht in the Netherlands in 2004, I found myself, as an Australian, standing in immigration queues with several Moroccans,” says Professor Slade of her experience of moving to the EU. “I began to realise that the process non-EU citizens, and particularly Arabic speakers, had to go through to gain citizenship of their adopted country, was extremely onerous. Over the years since then, the Government of the Netherlands has put in place strict tests for those who wish to take up Dutch citizenship. Prospective migrants must show not only that they can speak Dutch but also that they understand the Netherlands, its customs and even its Royal family.

The experience led her, ultimately, to the three-year research project she and her EU project partners have just completed into the impact of the media on conceptions of national and EU citizenship in six cosmopolitan European capitals – Amsterdam, Madrid, Paris, London, Berlin and Stockholm. The research focused on two key issues in modern European society: what impact has the reach of Arab-language satellite TV had on Arabs in European countries? And how, if at all, has that changed notions of citizenship in those countries?

The only major ‘media mapping’ study of this kind previously was led by the late Roger Silverstone at the London School of Economics. He and Myria Georgiou mapped diasporic media across Europe. Myria joined the Media and Citizenship project, bringing with her Leonor Camauër of Örebro University in Sweden from the earlier project. At one level the research aimed to discover whether satellite television had changed the ‘public sphere’ in Europe – the mediated space of debate about issues of public import. Other partners were Dr Ingrid Volkmer of Bielefeld University in Germany – a noted expert on the transnational public sphere, and Professor Najab and Dr Chamia Ghanjaoui of Sorbonne, Paris-3, experts on the Arabic language and migration.

“If you go to any of the six cities in the project, you will see a mass of satellite dishes in the Arab speaking communities,” says Professor Slade. “These keep residents in touch with political events and popular culture from an Arab perspective and provide, in varying ways, a sense of identity and cultural belonging, alongside any identity they may feel as part of a European country.”

The perspective, however, can be quite different from the host government’s viewpoint. “In Amsterdam, for example, these satellite dishes are seen as a threat, a constant reminder to the authorities of the failure of such people to assimilate, a symbol of a community retreating into its own cultural media world and evidence that traditional notions of citizenship – the relationship between an individual and a single nation state – are outdated,” says Professor Slade. “Incidents such as the murder of [outspoken filmmaker] Theo Van Gogh by [Dutch-Moroccan] Mohammed Bouyeri in 2004 has only fuelled that mistrust.”

What is it about the nature of satellite TV that causes European governments to be so concerned? “Arabic-language satellite channels, from Al-Jazeera to Al Manar, are transnational – they can broadcast news and political commentary simultaneously across Arab and European nations,” says Professor Slade.

“There is no censorship or time delay –Arab communities in Europe can view the same TV, at the same time, as those in Arab states. European governments cannot control content.”

While anecdotes about Arabic language television in Europe abound, before this project there had been no systematic study of Arabic speaking audiences in Europe. Did those audiences also use local European channels? How does television viewing contribute understanding of their sense of belonging in Europe and to their country of origin? The project began with 2000 questionnaires completed by Arabic speaking residents in the six capital cities, reporting on what they watched and channels they watched it on. Respondents were also asked their education, employment and other media use. In the next stage, 100 people in each country to kept a week-long diary of what they watched on TV. The quantitative results were questioned and given depth in six focus group discussions, conducted by specially trained Arabic speakers in the six cities already mentioned and Nicosia in Cyprus.

The findings were presented to the European Commission on 24 March and, says Professor Slade, provide rich empirical data. “Just as there are different Arab nations, with different Arab languages, so different Arab groups in each European capital have differing notions of their political and cultural identity,” she says.

In terms of these identities, the study found evidence of three broad Arabic groups:

*Bi-cultural – those who look to their particular country of origin in the Maghreb (Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria) as well as their adopted European country for a sense of identity and belonging. Migrants from the Maghreb are most numerous in Paris, Amsterdam and Morocco in our sample. Many continued to speak Arabic even as third generation Europeans, and to visit their Maghreb families once a year. Many are descendents or families of the first groups of post-war guest workers to come to Europe after the Second World War. They are slightly less well educated and more likely to be unemployed than the overall sample; although many of the second and third generation Arabic speakers were very well integrated.

*Transnational – This group is overwhelmingly of Middle Eastern origin and is better educated, than the overall sample. The transnational Arabic speakers take a broader view of citizenship, seeing themselves as connected to a pan-Arab culture or region as a whole, as well as their adopted European country. This group included Egyptians, Iraqis. Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians and dominated the samples in Stockholm, Berlin and London with Stockholm having a particularly high number of recent Iraqi refugees.

*‘Mediterranean’ – The sample in Nicosia reminded us that Arabic is a home language of the Mediterranean. Those Arabic speakers living in Cyprus, whether Palestinians without passports or Lebanese fleeing the war, are at home in a culture that is very similar to that of the country of origin.

All three groups shared the feature which are the headline results of the study. First TV is a major source of news for Arabs across the EU – more so than websites or social media. Secondly, there is no retreat into ethnic media among Arabic speakers in the EU. Arabic language television is used alongside European TV to gain a broader view of the world. The research also showed that the transnational Al-Jazeera is the most important channel, except in bi-cultural Paris. As regards popular entertainment, preferences divide along age lines, with the older generation watching Arab soaps and the younger favouring European shows. But some entertainment can bring families together – for example typically Arabic soap operas are watched by families to celebrate the end of Ramadan. “Above all, our research shows that fears of the satellite are unfounded – satellite TV is not a threat,’ says Professor Slade. “It merely gives Arab groups in the EU what Roger Silverstone called ‘ontological security’ – a sense of place in the world.”

And what of traditional notions of citizenship? “I think we’ve shown the old single state concept of citizenship is an anachronism,” she says. “We’re all at least dual citizens of a country and the EU in any case. “Yet citizenship tests are still based on antiquated ideas of ‘us and them’ and to be accepted you have to become one of ‘us’ – so we get curious questions in the tests about Royal families, sport and foodstuffs!”

In stark contrast, our research has demonstrated a shift towards bi-cultural and transnational citizenship – showing we really need to move to a more nuanced view of what citizenship is in today’s world – and satellite TV is at the heart of that.”

Published: Thursday, 29th September 2011