Satellite Arcades: Three-Dimensional Puppets and the Coin-Operated Interface

Abstract

This article explores the intersections between satellite television and mobile phone culture in the Arab world. The option of interactive television, offered by lotteries, quizzes and chat channels which demand that viewers call in or send messages to participate, effectively transforms the medium into a coin operated interface which bears resemblance with peep shows and live wrestling. Programs such as the 2009 three-dimensional (3-D) animated Al-Mofatish Korombo (Detective Korombo), female hosted quiz channels as well as television chat channels in which text dominates the screen, are marked by anxieties about the place of the body within the context of these new technologies and the prosthetic nature of the medium. By drawing on a tradition of puppetry and the video arcade, these convergences have reconceptualized the media body, switched television into an interface, and have dramatically altered the configuration of audience interaction with the screen. The resulting television aesthetic is one which copes with these anxieties by reverting to text as the primary medium through which viewers communicate within (and perhaps across) the parameters of profit driven channels.

Notes

1. The commercial also references Al-Leila Al-Kabira (The Big Night) — considered the most famous puppet show in modern Egyptian history.

2. The specialization of channels or of ‘niche channels’ such as music television for specific audiences, for example, was largely conceived as a prolonged advertisement for recording artists (Ketchum 2005, p. 218).

3. Fawazeer refers to a specific and very popular component of Ramadan television in which, each day of the month, viewers are prompted to solve a ‘riddle’ (by identifying, for example, a specific country, a particular invention or the profession of a suitor).

4. Along with the show’s marked success, there have also been a number of parodies, with one replacing the suspects with the three contenders to head the Zamalek football club. The show became popular in a political environment where the choice of candidates during presidential elections was also a superficial one, and where the winner was also ‘obvious’.

5. Television commercials are uploaded onto the Internet by the phone companies themselves, and Korombo is available on YouTube and sold on video compact disc.

6. ‘According to Kraidty (2006), “The main difference between the Saudi social space and hypermedia space is that the latter enables women’s agency, which the former is designed to curtail. That women have a wider margin of maneuver and are more active social agents in hypermedia space can be observed at a basic level in the fact that two-thirds of Saudi Internet users are estimated to be women. This suggests that women are active participants in hypermedia space because they are not allowed participation in social space.

7. The analogy is illustrated in the animated feature Ratatouille (2007), in which the rat protagonist, Remy, literally moves the hapless kitchen dishwasher, Linguini, by pulling on his hair under his chef hat as though it were strings, so that Remy is able to control Linguini’s movements: lifting pans, chopping onions and cooking.

8. In the aftermath of the revolution, citizens received text message updates and reassurances from ‘the Armed Forces’. This mode of mass messaging was already in use by companies such as banks and retailers, advertising the opening of stores in upscale shopping malls, for example.

9. On a Saudi based program Al–Shari’a Wal Hayat (Islamic Law and Life), “callers e–mail, text message, fax or call the sheikh seeking and getting advice in more immediate and interactive way than on the Web site. The limitation is that a command of Arabic is necessary to participate in the program, while English is enough for using the Web site. In this example, the blurring of boundaries in the hypermedia environment remains within the acceptable hudud because it uses technical language, because of the visual presentation and attire of guest and host, and most importantly because the program is under the supervision of al-Qaradawi, a powerful and reputable religious scholar.” (Kraidy, 2006).