Digital Communication: The Future of Identity in Arab TV Drama

A Field Study on a Sample of Arab Society in the UAE in 2017

Abstract

The digital communication of a product of communication and information revolution. It is characterized by accurate and comprehensive in its services and its effects, which brought changes in the structure of many communities and their organizational structures. They have significant impacts on the social systems and social relations, especially in the Arab societies, which are the focus of the globalized Western media, for many reasons: economical, political , cultural and social.
According to this perception, the Arab identity has become in an encounter with big challenges by the globalized media of trade and the media, which aims to achieve greater profits because of identity and its importance to the communities. This occurs particularly after its emphasis on drama for being one of the kinds of programs that attract considerable size of public and the ability of this type of program to make large and rapid changes in the social and cultural structures of the target communities. The identity is of the most prominent targeted icons, so as it represents the importance of communities’ identity throughout history. This is because the collapse of the identity the societies break down, lose the elements of existence, and ceases to perform its functions at the international level.
The Arab identity is defined as a system of value features of the Arab community that distinguishes it from other communities across the different historical stages. In addition, the identity represents the inherited and acquired values, which derived its components from the historical, intellectual, and cultural legacy, in addition to the values derived from religious beliefs, which Arab inherited in different historical stages, especially from the Islamic religion. Islam represents an integral system of human traits, and which is associated with behavioral and humanitarian practices. All of these represented the bright cultural and moral model, which fits every time and every place.
Therefore, the intensification of broadcasting such drama and its precise guidance was the most prominent effects that hurt the Arab social structure, especially after the concentration of broadcasters to offer foreign TV programs inflows. These programs do not fit in their contents the values and behaviors of the social environment of the Arabs. The outcome of this exposure of our communities caused various harmful effects. This makes our communities in dire need of protection, particularly after the international media organizations managed to employ TV drama in the digital communication by the force of its impact on the value systems which are related the identity of the communities. This exposed the future of the Arab identity to multiple risks and possibilities, which could lead to the erosion of national peculiarities or melting in the migrant cultures.