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theses

“Local Roots and Global Wings: Television Drama and Hybridity in Moroccan Cultural Identities” provides a snapshot of the Moroccan film and television industry in 2009 and 2010, on the eve of the Arab Uprisings. The dissertation examines how Moroccan state media elites and filmmakers struggle to instill seeds of democratic change within media structures and local media texts. It also shows how the influx of television dramas from Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and the U.S. provides an opportunity for ‘hybrid’ identities to emerge and allows viewers to interrogate the meaning of ‘modernity’ and ‘democracy’ at home and in various cultural contexts. I examine how the process of cultural hybridization occurs through mass media. Specifically, I examine how television series coming from various locations redefine cultural boundaries in Morocco and allow individuals to form hybrid identities. Through a textual analysis of the most popular local and foreign television series shown in Morocco, as well as ethnographic fieldwork focusing on state elites, filmmakers and audiences, my dissertation reveals how local and foreign influences pervade the collective Moroccan imagination through state, production, and audience choices. This multiperspectival approach, which looks at production, texts, and reception, allows for the examination of three phenomena: 1) How hybridity is constructed through both media production and exposure. 2) How different individuals construct their own distinctive ‘hybridities’, as state elites, filmmakers, and audiences have different patterns of socialization and interests in different cultures. 3) How the process of cultural hybridization and television viewing is not only cultural, but also deeply political, as a close look at state elites, producers, and audiences sheds light on the political tensions that emerge between these groups around questions of democracy, media censorship, and social change. As a whole, the dissertation shows how media elites use local media to disseminate dominant ideologies informed by the lingering influence of the former French colonial power and the authoritative Moroccan regime. Moreover, it highlights that many viewers watch and connect with ‘distant others’ on television as a form of passive political resistance to both local media content and policies. After an introduction (Chapter One) and a methodology chapter (chapter Two), each chapter of the dissertation focuses on one particular aspect of the production-reception chain through the eyes of its players: states elites working at media institutions (Chapter Three), filmmakers and the local media texts they produce (Chapter Four), the influx of foreign dramas (Chapter Five), and audiences (Chapter Six). Each chapter also analyzes how culturally ‘hybrid’ identities get formed at these different stages– and for the different individuals participating– in the process of media production and reception.

ETD_5208

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Jill G. Campaiola

doi:10.7282/T33T9FBK

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.