'There is an assumption that American TV imports do have an impact whenever and wherever they are shown, but actual investigation of this seldom occurs. Much of the evidence offered is merely anecdotal or circumstantial' (Lealand 1984).

This interview was conducted in December 1996 with three female teacher trainees studying in the desert town of Ibri in the Sultanate of Oman. Oman is a Muslim state which has, until recently, maintained a relatively successful policy of preserving its country's national and religious traditions. When at the women's teacher training college, the students wear a headscarf, usually black, pinned around their head, and a long black cloak over their more colourful clothes. When they leave the college premises, under escort, many wear a thin veil over their heads to protect themselves from male eyes. They reveal themselves, in conversation and in their general demeanour, to be genuinely patriotic Omanis and devout Muslims, and prostrate themselves to pray five times per day. In the classroom, however, most of them are bright and forthcoming, and are generally quite assertive within the bounds of acceptable Muslim behaviour.

Omanis are free to buy and install satellite dishes and can pick up over 40 different channels from around the world beamed from 3 satellites: 'Arabsat', 'Asiasat' and 'Panamsat'. There are many Arabic channels broadcasting into Oman from the Gulf States and beyond. Omanis are keen followers of, for example, Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian soap operas, camel racing from the United Arab Emirates and Arabic 'pop' videos. They are also able to receive Asian and western channels carrying material which many regard as explicit and offensive. Images of alcohol, cigarettes, and particularly 'underdressed' women found on these channels mean that many Omani families I talked to would not purchase a dish, despite being very keen to view the many Arabic stations available which are sensitive to Muslim mores.

The interview was conducted with two students whose families had a dish, and one - Maryam - who did not. At the beginning of the interview, not shown here, the reason Maryam gave for her family not buying a dish was that her brothers were still at school and her parents did not want them to be distracted from their studies. All three students were fond of several English and American programmes, either dubbed or subtitled, which they watched regularly, either on Omani television or on their dish. Programmes they mentioned included 'The Cosby Show', 'Sesame Street', 'Mr Bean', 'Eye Witness Video' and 'Rescue 999'. The interview continues as follows:

Interview with Maisa, Aziza and Maryam. (Case Study 1.2)David: (...) You said you like films. What kind of films do you like?

Aziza: Cowboy films. I love them, even the old ones in black and white.

Maisa: I like suspense movies and cowboy films, a little, and science fiction films. Many kinds.

Maisa: Sometimes, every twenty four hours, only news, news, news. I want to see something different, something more exciting than this.

Aziza: Yes, sometimes they show some bad pictures. ..underdressed women: I don't like it, because my brother's always watching the dish. I don't want him to see this, and also I don't want to see this. What I love is watching a lot of news - I want to know everything about the world. CNN is very good news.

Aziza: Yes, very different.

Maisa: Of course.

Aziza: I will make times for my children, and for me (laughs) to see these channels, and not... I will choose the best programmes.

Aziza: Yes, you can see all the films and programmes there. I will choose the time and I will tell them. They can see it then. I will lock the door (laughs)

Aziza: Maybe two. Two or three.

Aziza: It will not help. This will make them waste time. They will not use their time. I want them to study, I want them to learn, not just watch T.V.... I want them to learn English and this is the only way because I learnt English this way.

Maryam: Yes.

Maryam: Yes, one or two hours.

Maisa: Me, there are some channels I would delete from the dish. I would not let them see them.

Maisa: 'Orbit', and also French channels.

Aziza: 'LBC' from the Lebanon. It's a horrible channel.

Maisa: It's very bad: not good for the children to see.

Aziza: No.

[They nod in agreement].

Maisa: I want to see more films, more children's programmes like..many, many things.

Maryam: No, I hate them.

Maisa: There are no Omani films.

Maisa: There's only one, they made it last year.

Aziza: I want to see a lot of science films, American films.

Aziza: Yes, and also programmes about science. And also more world news. I love watching world news

Aziza: No, it's not enough. You know, MBC sometimes has more... is looking for news more than CNN.

Maisa: MBC. It's from London.

Aziza: Yes, but it's an Arabic channel. I was watching it and I saw a lot of, when Palestinians were fighting recently in Jerusalem - I saw it early on MBC and at night I saw it on CNN.

Aziza: Yes, it was about twelve o'clock in the morning on MBC and about 10 o'clock or eleven o'clock in the evening on CNN.

Aziza: 90%.

Aziza: Yes, some of them have two.

Maisa: Yes, we have two dishes in our house. One is Asiasat and the other is Arabsat.

Aziza: If you go to Muscat you'll see almost all the houses have a dish.

Aziza: In Ibri also, and in my town Bahla I saw a lot.. a lot. Now they are....everywhere.

Aziza: Because they can't. My cousin, my uncle doesn't have a dish. He said to us: 'I can't bring it here.' So we said we could bring it and we will pay for it and do everything, but he said no. We asked him why and he said, 'There's a lot of bad things. They will make my son do bad things like smoking and some bad things. It's helping a lot to do these things.

Maryam: Yes, because we have many channels, it's not normal.

Aziza: It's wasting time.

Maryam: And also our traditions. They're not the same.

Aziza: We are Muslim.

Maisa: It's very different, very different. We are Muslim. We are not allowed to see all of these pictures.

Maisa: Yes, a lot of problems.

Maryam: For example, when people see the dish a lot of time - we have a time to pray - we are wasting this - and people don't pray.

David: You said 90% of people have a dish, but also you said it caused big problems.

Maisa: Yes.

Maisa: They take off some channels: such as the French channels. These are bad channels. On our dish we don't see the French channels.

Maryam: In my village we haven't a lot of money. I saw that we can't buy a dish. But some people have the money but they don't buy it.

Maryam: Because we are Muslim. We are not allowed to see these things. And also we are not allowed to waste our time just watching T.V. and listening to music. No.

Aziza: When I go home I always watch T.V, that's clear. But I don't watch these American films or something like that. What I watch is CNN news, and I love it. I want to know everything about the world and I'm not wasting all my time. I watch it for two or three hours and then spend some time with my family and talk to them, that's all.

Aziza: The T.V. or the dish?

Aziza: I don't think my father or my mother watch the dish, but only my little brother. Now he is 13 years old. Before the dish, his ideas were very different.

Aziza: Believe me. (speaks in Arabic to the others) He changed a lot (laughs).

[They speak in Arabic]

Maisa: Can we stop it? (pointing to the tape recorder)

Aziza: ..The bad thing about dishes is that they bring a lot of people smoking and drinking. My brother is 13 years old. Before he wasn't making his hair like this (gestures a new hairstyle) and my cousin too.

Aziza: Like Michael Jackson (laughs).

Aziza: No, not a lot....sometimes. And a lot of our neighbours changed - they have had bad haircuts and, oh my God (laughs), awful. That's because they're watching these channels. And some of them don't pray.

Aziza: Some of them change their ideas about the world. Some of the channels make them know the world a lot. Not by changing their clothes, or changing their hair, but also by changing their ideas about everything, about other countries, about their countries, about politicians, about everything.

Aziza: On our television, on Omani television we don't see a lot of political things, but on CNN or MBC, or some of these channels we can see about your countries' politicians.

Aziza: Yes, and about... everything.

Aziza: For me, it's good.

Maisa: I know that in our house.. I have little sisters and brothers. 24 hours they are watching the dish. We want them to study - no, they don't want to study, they want to watch the dish. Why? Because, for example, in Dubai, there is cartoon television for them. It will finish in Dubai, it will then be from Abu Dhabi, then from Al Ain, then Sharkia - like this. One channel finishes and another starts cartoons, so for 24 hours they are watching cartoons. They don't want to study...like this.

Maisa: Satellite is good and at the same time, it's bad. If we know how to use it, it will be good.

Maryam: The dish is very important to teach.

Aziza: At home.

Maryam: In schools.

Aziza: They don't use it in schools !

Maryam: The teaching programmes.

Maryam: Yes.

Aziza: I want to say - what I want to say is that the dish is important - very important, especially because we are watching it every day. And what we want is to be like European countries - not like their behaviour, or something like that, but we want to improve in science... But the dish is very dangerous. And that will kill us - (laughs) one day it's going to kill us.

A written questionnaire was conducted in which 100 Omani teacher trainee students were asked about their television viewing habits. As with any questionnaire, the answers they have given may be innaccurate for a variety of reasons - failure to understand the question properly, failure to estimate their answers correctly, peer pressure or embarrasment are just some of the factors that may have influenced these results. Nevertheless, they may give some indication of to what extent the opinions put forward in the interview with three students are typical of the wider population of young, female teacher trainees.

Does your family have a television? 100% yes

(Average number of hours television that students said they watched per day was around 3)

Does your family have a satellite dish? 23% yes 77% no

Will you buy a satellite dish when you have your own home? 27% yes 65% no 8% not answered

The channels most watched on the satellite dish were other Arabic stations broadcast from countries such as Egypt, Syria, The United Arab Emirates, the Lebanon, Iraq and Kuwait, although some non-Arabic channels were watched, particularly CNN. Reasons given for watching satellite channels varied, but included the following attractions: enjoyable programmes and films, news, information about the world and the opportunity to listen to the Koran. Students claimed that on average about 20% of the programmes they watched were in English, usually with Arabic subtitles.These were popular because they said they helped them to learn English, were 'enjoyable' and 'interesting' and contained informative 'cultural information' about the ways other people live.

The ambivalent attitude to the dish seen in the interview was also evident in the questionnaire. Common phrases used to describe their opinion of satellite television included 'dangerous', 'it is against Islam', 'it teaches children bad things', 'it is against our traditions', 'it is a waste of time, 'it will destroy the countries who watch it', and 'it is important', 'it is good for learning', 'it is good for languages', 'interesting', 'it is good when you know how to use it' and so on. Many of the responses included both of these comments. The following sentences were typical:

'Television and the dish are good and bad at the same time. Their worth is limited by the person who sees them. I think they have bad ideas for children.'

'Some programmes are good and some are very bad. We want to learn a lot of good things about other countries.'

'Sometimes the television is a good thing because you can learn many things about history, science and you also can learn languages from it. But the dish is a very bad thing.'

58% of those questioned agreed with the statement; 'I think the dish has a bad influence on people.'

48% agreed with the statement 'I think we can learn a lot about the world through the dish and this will be a good thing for my country.'

47% agreed wih the statement 'I think the dish will have a bad effect on my country.'

Many of the respondents agreed with all the statements.

Go to Part 10

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