Arabs have a media problem, apparently.
The usual course of action for someone with a media problem, of course, would be to hire a slick PR firm to help manage the communications flow, massage a few journalists and generally start creating some positive spin.
That’s not really a practical option for the 325 million or so people that make up the highly diverse and varied Arabic population. Besides which, the Arabic media problem is not one of negative coverage so much as misrepresentation.
Perhaps Communicate should set its stall out early: we’ve never been fans of lumping groups of people together (unless its some kind of world record, people in a phone box-style contest). For that reason Arabianeye’s recent debate, “Viewing Arabia: representation of life in the Emirates in Commercial Media,” started off with a few handicaps.
Firstly, “life in the Emirates” is a pretty narrow representation of Arabia. Secondly, though narrow in terms of all Arabia, life in the Emirates itself is a hugely variable concept – every single experience is different. And finally, and somewhat less obviously, the commercial media is not a single entity. The Communicate editorial team does not sit down at the end of the month with the Gulf News sports desk and chat about how many women with henna tattoos we each managed to feature. Just for starters, there is a huge difference between the Arabic speaking media and the English speaking media, for instance.
These are all important points, and at one point or another they were made by some of those involved in the “Viewing Arabia” debate. The event, held at Dubai’s ultra-trendy Shelter creative space, featured a panel of five speakers who were each allowed eight minutes in which to lend their opinions on the topic. After the speeches was a Q and A session with the audience – essentially a floor debate.
The panel’s big hitter from a marketing perspective was Kamal Dimachkie. The managing director of Leo Burnett UAE would be forgiven for being a little underwhelmed at his early introduction (“Kamal Dimachkie, who is big in advertising,” said a hesitating Eithne Treanor, CNBC special correspondent and the evening’s moderator), but his later, full intro and speech were both suitably impressive.
Dimachkie was all about self-depreciation. It’s the key, apparently, to winning people over, whether a love interest or an audience. He held up the TV show Freej as an example of “how right you get it when you are the ‘self.’”
“Middle East countries are getting good at this,” he said. “But the interesting thing is that this has not yet transferred to the ad industry.” The implication being that, until more Emeratis are involved with advertising, there can be no effective self-depreciation. He pointed out that this lack of involvement all too often leads to cliché ridden ads, or generic ads that could be used anywhere in the world, because there is no real insight.
Dimachkie was joined on the panel by Dr. Nezar Andary, professor at Zayed University of Abu Dhabi; photographer Alia Al Shamsi; founder of the Traffic design gallery Rami Farook; and James Langton, Deputy Editor of The National on Saturday.
The speakers all offered a unique perspective, and took the debate in new directions. Dr. Andary was particularly illuminating, and his eight minutes was a bright, brief glimpse into the depth of the argument. In that time he asked more questions than he answered, and his constant apologies for running over were wholly unnecessary; the questions of collective identity, imposed identity, self-image and self-hate that he posed deserved much more time. Two questions that stuck with Communicate were whether we really want to represent the problem as being between locals and non-locals, and whether it is possible to find a solution if it is a forced process.
Meanwhile Treanor’s introduction for photographer Shamsi – an intended compliment – was, unfortunately, yet another symptom of the Arabian representation problem. “She has transcended both her gender and her nationality,” said Treanor, in the manner of a teacher praising a pupil. Good for her, I thought, because generally women can’t be photographers, and we all know Emiratis cant use cameras.
Clearly, the media does have a problem representing Arabs. But then, you only have to count the number of cliché ridden campaigns to know that: men on golden sands, women with henna tattoos, falcons and so on.
Arabianeye’s event struggled to home in on exactly how we’ve reached the status quo, or to come up with any definitive conclusions about how we can break out of it. Perhaps that’s because the subject matter was, in the end, far too broad for one evening’s debate and a few eight-minute speeches. But at least it contributed to the conversation with intelligence and insight, from both the panel and the audience. The lively, thought provoking evening left those in attendance much to contemplate.
For Communicate, the questions over Arab representation in media need far greater definition. But the answers, we believe, will ultimately come with time, patience, and engagement – and events like this will surely have a positive effect.