Television and the Afghan culture wars : brought to you by foreigners, warlords, and activists / Wazhmah Osman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Osman, Wazhmah, 1974- author.

Series:

Geopolitics of information

The geopolitics of information

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Television broadcasting--Social aspects--Afghanistan.

Television broadcasting.

Television and politics--Afghanistan.

Television and politics.

Television programs--Afghanistan--History--21st century.

Television programs.

Social conditions.

Press coverage.

History.

Television broadcasting--Social aspects.

Afghanistan--Social conditions--21st century--Press coverage.

Afghanistan.

Social history--Press coverage.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 272 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Portrayed in Western discourse as tribal and traditional, Afghans have in fact intensely debated women's rights, democracy, modernity, and Islam as part of their nation building in the post-9/11 era. Wazhmah Osman places television at the heart of these public and politically charged clashes while revealing how the medium also provides war-weary Afghans with a semblance of open discussion and healing. After four decades of gender and sectarian violence, she argues, the internationally funded media sector has the potential to bring about justice, national integration, and peace. Fieldwork from across Afghanistan allowed Osman to record the voices of many Afghan media producers and people. Afghans offer their own seldom-heard views on the country's cultural progress and belief systems, their understandings of themselves, and the role of international interventions. Osman analyzes the impact of transnational media and foreign funding while keeping the focus on local cultural contestations, productions, and social movements. As a result, she redirects the global dialogue about Afghanistan to Afghans and challenges top-down narratives of humanitarian development"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Saving "Afghan Women": Gender and the Global World Order

Beyond Critique: Constituting Subjectivity and Locating Agency

Race, Ethnicity, and Tribe within the Framework of the Nation-State

Why TV? Media Forms in a Cross-Regional Context

Method

Synopsis of Chapters

ch. 1 Legitimizing Modernization: Indigenous Modernities, Foreign Incursions, and Their Backlashes

Social Movements, Indigenous Modernities, and Transcultural Hybridity

Early Culture Wars: Key Historical Moments

Amanullah and Soraya, the Modernizers

The Public Works Programs of the 1960s and 1970s

The Soviet Invasion and Occupation of the 1980s

In the Wake of the Soviet-Afghan War and the Cold War

Conclusion

ch. 2 Imperialism, Globalization, and Development: Overlaps and Disjuncfures

Imperial Ambitions: Foreign Projects, Occupations, and Invasions

Media and Global Flows: From Dallas to Development TV

From Cultural Imperialism to Globalization and Back Again

International Development Projects: The Good, the Bad, and the Imperialist

ch. 3 Afghan Television Production: A Distinctive Political Economy

Introduction

The Contradictions and Obfuscations of Foreign Aid

Ethnography in the Televisual Village: Television Stations, Owners, Sectarian Politics, and Funding

Genres and Their Discontents

The PSA/PIC, Political Satire and Talk Shows, and News

Reality TV

Dramatic Serials

ch. 4 Producers and Production: The Development Gaze and the Imperial Gaze

Television: The Ideology Machine

Decolonizing Television Studies: Managing Incendiary Relations

Non-Western TV Case Studies: Managing Minorities and the Disenfranchised

Motivations of Afghan TV Producers: The Development Gaze and the Imperial Gaze

Refraining Violence: The PIC, Political Satire, and News

Dramatizing Democracy and Diversity

ch. 5 Reaching Vulnerable and Dangerous Populations: Women and the Pashtuns

The Language of Ethno-national Subjects: The Taliban, Terrorism, and Pashtuns

The Rhetoric of Saving Afghan Women

"Our Women": Gender and Sexuality

The Cover Story: The Honor Killings Narrative and the Costs of Going Public

The Right to Dance and Sing: State Sponsorship of Artists and Culture

Gender Violence: Why Now?

Women as Projects: The Deadly Intersection of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class

The Possibilities of a Counter-Hegemonic Public Sphere

ch. 6 Reception and Audiences: The Demands and Desires of Afghan People

How Audiences Are Imagined

Audience Feedback, Technologies of Measurement, and the Ratings Industry

Afghan Audiences Demand Justice

Retribution for Warlords on TV

Support for the News and Journalists: The Peoples Heroes

Stirring the Ghosts of the Past: New Afghan Genres

Afghan versus Foreign Programming: The Contradictions in Tastes and Identification

"Trashy Tastes" and Permeable Borders

Love Them or Hate Them: The Alternative Lives of Soap Operas

Far from Mere Entertainment: Will Television Save or Destroy Afghanistan?

Endogenous Cultural Imperialism

Performances of Non-performativity and Practices of Unlooking

Liberatory or Regressive? Weak Heroines and Strong Villainesses

What Afghan Women Want

Turkish and Iranian Secular Muslim Productions: A Realm of Redemption and Peace

Media Diversity versus Media Imperialism

The Future of Afghan Media, the Future of Afghanistan.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Osman, Wazhmah, 1974- Television and the Afghan culture wars

ISBN:

9780252043550

0252043553

9780252085451

0252085450

OCLC:

1196822841