A quick glance at the top 40 most requested songs on the Web site for the popular Arabic music video channel Melody Hits TV reveals the latest and greatest from stars such as Lebanon’s Nancy Ajram—infamous for her sexually suggestive videos—as well as others like America’s rapper Eminem and Egypt’s crooner Tamer …

In the wake of controversy triggered by Super Star and Star Academy, some observers have hailed reality television as a harbinger of democracy in the Arab world. Marwan Kraidy looks at the political implications of a new and popular genre hitting Arab satellite television.

Nearly everybody agrees that reality television in the Arab world has changed the way we, as viewers, relate to television. This programming genre has been the center of much debate ever since the first group of reality participants was locked up in a villa. These views can be divided in …

In this article, Nicholas Cull reviews the performance of the United States Information Agency (USIA) during the Gulf Crisis and War of 1990-91. He concludes by contrasting the effective US use of public diplomacy during this period with the problems encountered following 9/11.

In contemporary Syria, the TV industry’s centrality renders it a particularly revealing site of ethnographic endeavor. It provides a valuable point of access to a complex and rapidly changing society, argues Christa Salamandra.

Introduction  The purpose of this study is to look at Greek adolescents' television viewing and how it relates to their attitudes toward the family and traditional relationships between parents and adolescent children. The approach used here is the cultivation hypothesis. The cultivation hypothesis states that the more television people watch, …

The increasing interconnectedness of the world's economic, political, and social systems have made individuals' perceptions of other national and cultural groups increasingly consequential. More and more of the decisions that individuals and societies make have international ramifications. Although international travel is increasing, many individuals' knowledge of people of other societies is …

Introduction: Cultural imperialism--The nascent stages  Critical theorists have coined various phrases in reference to notions of "cultural imperialism." An examination of the international communication literature will reveal several different terms such as "media imperialism" (Boyd-Barrett, 1977); "structural imperialism" (Galtung, 1979); "cultural dependency and domination" (Link, 1984; Mohammadi, 1995); "cultural synchronization" …