Sakr, N. 2025. How universalised language misconstrues audiences in the ‘Middle East’. in: Hill, A. and Lunt, P. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Media Audiences Abingdon and New York Routledge. pp. 61-73
| Chapter title | How universalised language misconstrues audiences in the ‘Middle East’ |
|---|---|
| Authors | Sakr, N. |
| Editors | Hill, A. and Lunt, P. |
| Abstract | Audiences in Arab countries and Iran are characterised in different ways by various interest groups. Scholars, global media corporations, regional advertising agencies, local content producers and distributors, pollsters, governments and state media operators all deploy their own terminology to discuss audience measurement, opinion research and media–audience relations. Yet the authoritarian political systems prevailing in this region have for decades impeded credible audience studies, both academic and commercial, by obstructing access through censorship, intimidation and pro-government monopolies. This chapter unpacks obstacles inherent in the research process and media–audience interactions in such settings and compares them with assumptions embedded in the universalised language generally used by commentators outside the region or those with a vested interest in the status quo. The analysis draws on John B.Thompson’s 1990 theory that “displacement”, involving the transfer of positive terms to negative situations or vice versa, glosses over realities and helps to maintain relations of domination. It cites work that questions “Eurocentric” anxieties about the agency of social media users, demonstrates the inapplicability of notions of media accountability in autocratic settings, draws attention to damaging implications of the term “emerging markets” and exposes distortions that invalidate basic media market models. It shows how opinion polling, despite being undermined by constraints that prompt distrust even among pollsters, adopts concepts that have been normalised in societies unaffected by those constraints. Narratives about audiences presented in familiar language help to mask a lack of knowledge, which serves the interests of ruling regimes. |
| Keywords | accountability |
| emerging markets | |
| advertising | |
| public opinion | |
| polls | |
| Book title | The Routledge Companion to Media Audiences |
| Page range | 61-73 |
| Year | 2025 |
| Publisher | Routledge |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 27 Sep 2024 |
| Published in print | 2025 |
| Place of publication | Abingdon and New York |
| ISBN | 9781032214665 |
| 9781003268543 | |
| Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003268543-7 |
| File | File Access Level Open (open metadata and files) |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003268543-7/universalised-language-misconstrues-audiences-middle-east-naomi-sakr |
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Pan-Arab TV Drama: State Controls and National Memory
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Purposes and practices of MENA television: Components of an ever-evolving medium
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Media Governance as Diagnostic Lens to Probe Hidden Dimensions of Authoritarian Decision-Making in the Arab Middle East
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Children’s documentaries: distance and ethics in European storytelling about the wider world
Sakr, N. and Steemers, J. 2022. Children’s documentaries: distance and ethics in European storytelling about the wider world. Journal of Children and Media. 16 (2), pp. 288-302. https://doi.org/10.1080/17482798.2021.1974502
IAMCR and the Middle East and North Africa: Questions of place, people and paradigms
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Curation as methodological enhancement in researching production cultures behind screen content about displaced children in Europe
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Whither “Integration”? Children’s Television, Immigration, and Arab Diasporas in Germany
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Divergent Trajectories of Creativity and Coercion - An Introduction to the Media and Popular Culture Section
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Children's television in an era of digital distribution: European and Arab responses
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Representing Childhood and Forced Migration: Narratives of Borders and Belonging in European Screen Content for Children
Singer, C., Steemers, J. and Sakr, N. 2019. Representing Childhood and Forced Migration: Narratives of Borders and Belonging in European Screen Content for Children. Jeunesse: Young People, Texts, Cultures. 11 (2), pp. 202-224.
Screen Media for Arab and European Children: Policy and Production Encounters in the Multiplatform Era
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Facilitating Arab-European Dialogue: Consolidated Report on an AHRC Project for Impact and Engagement
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Project Report to Stakeholders: Invisible Children - Children's Media, Diversity and Forced Migration
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Children's Screen Content in an Era of Forced Migration: Munich Workshop Briefing
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Children's Screen Content in an Era of Forced Migration: Copenhagen Workshop Briefing
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Children's Screen Content in an Era of Forced Migration: Manchester Workshop Briefing
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‘Smarter, stronger, kinder’: Interests at stake in the remake of Iftah ya Simsim for Gulf children
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Provision, protection or participation? Approaches to regulating children’s television in Arab countries
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Managing for sustainable journalism under authoritarianism: innovative business models aimed at good practice
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Transformations in Egyptian journalism
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Social media, television talk shows, and political change in Egypt
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Arab television today
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