An analytical study of television and society in three Arab states: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain

Three aspects of TV policy were examined in this study: programming policy, introduction of commercial advertising, and foreign ownership of TV stations. These facets of TV policy have been associated with controversial issues such as media/cultural imperialism, New International Information Order, and technology transfer. The objective was to see how TV policy reflects the internal dynamics of the society within which TV operates. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain provided good cases to assess the impact of the sociopolitical order on TV policy while controlling for the impact of another important variable, the political and economic dependency on the world capitalist system. The three countries are similar in terms of their dependency on the international capitalist system. On the other hand, they differ in terms of the internal dynamics which have shaped their sociopolitical orders.; The findings of this study indicated that TV policy of each country manifests the orientation of the dominant element in the country's political elite. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, where the religious leaders have a great deal of sociopolitical weight, television has adopted a conservative policy that is revealed in the types and sources of its programs. Also, the introduction of TV advertising reflects the reality of the sociopolitical order of each country and not the political and economic dependency on the international capitalist system. The early beginnings of TV advertising in Kuwait and Bahrain were traced to the mercantile outlook which dominated the sociopolitical orders in these two countries. On the other hand the relatively late decision for TV advertising in Saudi Arabia was attributed to the new economic reality which the country has experienced since the recent growth in the private sector of the country's economy, and the sharp decline in oil prices since 1983. Also, the study suggested that political economic dependency on the capitalist world does not always result in foreign ownership of and/or investment in broadcast media. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were the only two countries in the region which experienced foreign ownership of TV stations. However, these two countries' experiences should be examined within their sociopolitical reality.