Mediating Poverty on Arab Television

Abstract

The recent interest in depicting poverty on Arab television has increased through a new genre of reality television shows focused on charity. This article focuses on one such show on Iraqi television. Through a multimodal analysis of selected recent episodes, the article asks how poverty is being mediated, what the overarching narrative is and its underpinning values and norms. The analysis is anchored on the concept of divine economy, which emphasizes personal faith and optimism, placing blame on individuals experiencing poverty. The thrust of the argument is that poverty is mediated as a performance and a social activity, while being distributed as an aesthetic product to Arab audiences inside and outside Iraq. This form of mediation enforces the neoliberal idea of hard work in return for aid, promoting the belief that personal wealth is attainable through individual effort, faith, and positive thinking. In so doing, the focus is shifted away from debating the distribution of wealth and opportunities within society.

Keywords:

• Charity
• divine economy
• Iraqi media
• neoliberalism
• poverty
• reality TV

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.