Abstract
Abstract: Saudi Arabia has in recent years acquired a unique culture of video entertainment made specifically for YouTube. Early assessments of this phenomenon have tended to see it as evidence of the emergence a lively and oppositional online public sphere. This chapter calls that interpretation into question. While the ‘New Saudi Media’ was in its early years more explicitly political and critical than it has since become, it understood itself from the outset primarily as commercial entertainment, and has continued to develop as such. Rather than representing a vehicle for criticism of the establishment, the New Saudi Media has largely helped to promote the reformist end of the agenda of the present Saudi government. It is largely in its role in popularising this agenda, and the possible future implications of this, that the significance of the phenomenon is to be located.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Political Islam and Global Media |
| Subtitle of host publication | The Boundaries of Religious Identity |
| Editors | Noha Mellor , Khalil Rinnawi |
| Place of Publication | London and New York |
| Publisher | Routledge Taylor & Francis Group |
| Pages | 187-202 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 978-1-315-63712-9 |
| ISBN (Print) | 978-1-138-63953-9, 978-1-138-63957-9 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 9 Jun 2016 |