The American network TLCs’ 90 Day Fiancé’s casting and storylines have provided its audience with years of entertainment, mostly at the foreign partner’s expense. The reality television industry has grown exponentially throughout the years, thriving on the drama between characters to gain viewership. However, reality television channels, such as Bravo …

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 …

“Any work that I do depends on the will of the audience.” (Ibrahim Nasr, Akhbar al-Nuguum, 433, 1/20/2001) Introduction Over the past few years, a growing trend in television is the seeming willingness to push the envelope of so-called “good taste.” While this is not a new phenomenon, we are …

Islamists have been some of the most ardent foes of reality programs on Arab television, forcing MBC’s Al Ra’is (Big Brother) off the air and staging protests or boycotts against LBC’s Star Academy and Al Wadi (The Farm). But now it seems at least some Islamists have decided to adopt a different approach: If you can’t …

The neo-conservative Weekly Standard has called it “the best hope of little Americas developing in the Middle East.”(1) New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman enthused that it was the closest thing to democracy the Arab world has ever seen.(2) Sheikh Abd al-Rahman al-Suadais, imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, has denounced them as …

BEIRUT -- A visual orgy. A human tsunami. A numbers game. Observers ran out of labels to describe Lebanon's made-for-TV intifada against a three-decade Syrian presence and attempts to counter it by Damascus' allies.  In a bid to sway public opinion for or against the government and its Syrian patron, …

It is a perfect summer evening in Damascus; a cool wind sweeps in from the desert, soothing scorched pavements and carrying the smells of strong coffee and cured meat from roadside stalls up into the clotheslines and concrete hulks of the Syrian skyline. Normally the city's streets would be packed …