In a newly published — and very timely — piece (ungated pdf; “press release”:http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/arabnetworks.htm), Erik Nisbet and Teresa Myers argue that exposure to trans-national Arab media like Al Jazeera weakens national identities and strengthens identification as Muslim and Arab. The data come from 4 surveys conducted between 2004 and 2008 in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates.
For example, based on my eye-balled averaging of the results in each year (see their Figure 2), a respondent who reports watching Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya every day is roughly 15-20 points more likely to identify as Muslim than a respondent who watches these networks between 0-2 days a week. The effects on Arab identification appear somewhat smaller.
Interestingly, self-reported exposure to the Internet, while associated with higher likelihood of identifying as Arab, is associated with a _lower_ likelihood of identifying as Muslim.
Some important caveats:
* These are surveys of urban areas within each country. See Mark Blumenthal’s “post”:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/02/egypt-polls-conflicting-results-simple-lesson_n_817702.html on the potential problems with such surveys when trying to measure attitudes toward the United States. It is an open question whether such samples complicate measurement of exposure to trans-national media and political identities.
* There is always the concern that causality runs the other way: people who “feel” more Arab or Muslim — as opposed to, say, Egyptiam — might prefer transnational media to begin with. Nisbet and Myers address this by distinguishing between the selection of a transnational outlet and the amount of exposure to these outlets. They find that people who select these outlets are less likely to identify as Muslim but those who watch these outlets more often are actually more likely to identify as Muslim. This is consistent with the notion that exposure to media affects identity — although, again, this inference is still not definitive, as Nisbet and Myers acknowledge.
I asked Nisbet how he thought their results spoke to the ongoing protests in Egypt. Via email, he wrote:
bq. In the short term, the Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab narratives typically embedded Al Jazeera content, in combination with growing Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab identification among Arab audiences, most likely facilitate the “contagion” began by the successful Tunisian revolt. A large portion of Arab audiences who watched Al Jazeera’s extensive month-long coverage of Tunisia, and now Egypt, are interpreting these events and outcomes through transnational Muslim and Arab political lenses, rather than as Jordanian, Saudi Arabian, Moroccan, Yemini etc, etc. In turn, this may influence the lessons learned, the applicability of the Tunisian and Egyptian events to their own political circumstances, and the (increased) likelihood of audiences to challenge their own state political institutions.
bq. There are longer-term implications within Egypt as well. The role of the Muslim Brotherhood within Egypt and the anti-Mubarak protests has been heavily debated over the last week. Though most acknowledge that the Muslim Brotherhood was not the primary instigator of the protest movement and only joined the main opposition forces rather late, it still is one of largest, most organized, and broad-based opposition organizations within Egypt. Furthermore, Muslim political identity is strong in Egypt. The University of Maryland 2010 Arab Public Opinion Survey conducted by Shibley Telhami found that 37% of Egyptian respondents believed their government should base its decisions on what is best for Muslims in general, rather than Egypt specifically (34% cited Egypt in comparison). About one-third (31%) also responded that their Muslim identity was most important, compared to 37% which cited their Egyptian identity.
bq. Thus, if the political space opens up in Egypt and the Muslim Brotherhood becomes a legal and legitimate political actor, the increasing salience of Muslim political identity may provide a reservoir of political support upon which the Muslim Brotherhood may draw and mobilize. These trends in political identification may influence the character of a reformulated Egyptian state and shape how Egyptian political institutions balance competing national, Muslim, and Arab identities and interests.
bq. The trends identified by our paper also have important long-term foreign policy implications for the United States. Egypt’s unique set of bilateral relations with Israel and the United States has not been without a great deal of domestic opposition, despite the material benefits of such relations. Taking a constructivist perspective that perceived interests are shaped by identity, the dominant framing of American foreign policy and the Israel-Palestine conflict into regional Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab narratives by channels like Al Jazeera, in combination the growth of Pan-Muslim and Pan-Arab identities, poses a serious challenge for Egyptian relations with the United States and Israel.
bq. Egyptians who view the United States and Israel through transnational Muslim, rather than Egyptian, political lenses may perceive a very different set of (self) interests, policy choices, and relations than currently exist. In turn, if a new, more democratic regime emerges in Egypt, it will need to be responsive to public sentiment in order to gain and maintain long-term legitimacy – which may mean shifting the nature of its relations with the United States and Israel. In addition, these factors are not singular to Egypt – and thus greater political liberalization combined with the growth of transnational political identification may challenge the United States to enact foreign policy within a regional context dominated by transnational political identities whose interests may be more opposed, or at least less amenable, to U.S. foreign policy goals compared to state-centric identities.