Syrian Television Drama: A National Industry in a Pan-Arab Mediascape

The 2000s in Syria has coincided with the presidency of Bashar al-Assad, who intensified the economic liberalization process begun by his father, Hafez al-Assad, a decade earlier. With its newly formed private production companies feeding numerous pan-Arab satellite stations, Syria has developed the Arab world’s foremost fictional television industry. Its key product, the miniseries, or musalsal, dominates popular culture in the Arab world. As the nation’s largest and most prominent media industry, television drama serves as a useful vantage point from which to examine the Syrian government’s enduring role in private media production. While the broadcast scale has expanded beyond the nation, the state continues to control the conditions of operation. This complex production context involves a paradoxical mix of complicity and critique.