Pan-Arabism through Television: Arab TV Series between National Identity and Transnational Media

The article outlines the genre’s historical features, focusing on its typical landmarks and its distinctive formats, themes and connections with national and transnational identities. It falls into two parts. First, I seek to place Arab fiction in the context of the explosion of commercial media that weakened traditional state-owned media models. Then, I point out the main themes that characterized TV series – such as secularism, sex and terrorism – and their relationship with political and religious power, focusing on three cases: Egypt, Syria and Turkey.