From literary to Audiovisual Satire After 9/11: The Case of U.S and the Middle East

Abstract

The central focus of this thesis is to trace the development, mechanisms, aims, and diverse global impacts of post 9/11 political satire from the West to the Middle East. From such standpoint, the thesis explores the diverse implications of Middle Eastern News Parody shows. Since 2011, various Middle Eastern countries have witnessed unprecedented coordination of public reform movements that have steadfastly opposed and spoken out against corruption in a number of Middle Eastern regimes. Prior to this period, significant political and economic regressions had already sparked such protests. Thus, numerous creative works have contributed significantly to popularizing this upsurge; notably, satirical content particularly that found on Egyptian audiovisual media has surely served as a catalyst for change by capturing the attention of an increasing number of individuals from all social strata. The issue is that a substantial portion of contemporary political satire performed by Egyptian comedians is highly imitative of its American counterpart, which ignores regional cultural limits. While it educates audiences about politics, it either fails to inspire a corrective behavior or might incite division and unrest. The purpose of this research is to probe the considerable potency of audiovisual political satire and its diverse implications in the Middle East by appraising the global effects of post-9/11 News Parodies from the U.S and Egypt.