What does it mean to be modern outside the West? Based on a wealth of primary data collected over five years, Reality Television and Arab Politics analyzes how reality television stirred an explosive mix of religion, politics, and sexuality, fuelling heated polemics over cultural authenticity, gender relations, and political participation in the Arab world. The controversies, Kraidy argues, are best understood as a social laboratory in which actors experiment with various forms of modernity, continuing a long-standing Arab preoccupation with specifying terms of engagement with Western modernity. Women and youth take center stage in this process. Against the backdrop of dramatic upheaval in the Middle East, this book challenges the notion of a monolithic ‘Arab Street’ and offers an original perspective on Arab media, shifting attention away from a narrow focus on al-Jazeera, toward a vibrant media sphere that compels broad popular engagement and contentious political performance.

The Syrian video game company Afkar Media, already discussed on Digital Islam, has been covered by an interesting TV documentary "Gamer Revolution". This critical acclaimed two-hour special looks how the culture of video games is changing the world. It was created for CBS Television and Discovery Times and distributed internationally by IMG. A video sample, including interview with Radwan Kasmiya (CEO of Afkar Media) and Syrian gamers, is available for free download.

The article examines political videogames produced by the Syrian company Afkar Media in Damascus, mainly their recent game Tahta al-Hisar (Under the Siege) and puts them in a broader context of persuasive and serious games. It deals with the representation of the Other and Foreign in videogames, construction of the Arab and Islamic heroes and ongoing digital emancipation of the Middle East.