Anas BuKash and Emirati Soft Power

By Noor Suwwan

One of the key impacts of globalization is the internationalization of what is originally meant to be national media. In the past two decades, we’ve seen the renegotiation of national icons to global ones, often accidentally. For example, the national Indian movie industry’s market expansion, Bollywood. According to the American Enterprise Institute, Bollywood had already overtaken Hollywood, as of 2004, in terms of both productions per annum and global viewership (Perry 2007).  Similarly, Netflix reveals the staggering popularity of the K-drama genre, which, at this point, has become a key South Korean export. So much so, that the global diffusion of Korean media created what has come to be known as a global Korean wave or Hallyu. Artists like Park Jae-Sang became a global sensation with his song, Gangnam Style, with well over 4.8 billion views on YouTube, breaking records of both number of views and likes previously held only by Western music videos. Similarly, the boy band, BTS, is widely accepted as the one of the most popular boy bands ever, often being equated with The Beatles, or the Backstreet Boys, in musical influence.

As the public view of national icons expands to include non-specific ethnicities, nationalities and cultures, beyond the borders of production, they gain political significance at the international level. Indeed,  they become one-way communication tools with multiple foreign audiences, often simultaneously - a rare tool of penetration to apolitical public audiences. Through these channels, cultural values, national logic and local perspectives can be debuted as a byproduct of a storyline, to an unsuspecting audience. Built on the newfound understanding of its people, the overall attractiveness of the country is increased. This newfound attractiveness can easily be translated into spikes in global consumerism of national products, as is the case with the newfound popularity of Korean skincare, owing to the Korean pop culture wave. It can also be translated into spikes in tourism, as was Turkey’s case after media-targeting an Arab audience. Most politically, however, fandom can be translated to foreign policy support in favor of the exporting country.

A country’s ability to ‘attract’ and be viewed positively is an important parameter for country integration into a globalized world. In International Relations Theory, this was famously defined as soft power by Harvard Professor Joseph Nye. Media globalization revealed the value of a country’s soft power, after visual leaks of American misconduct in the infamous Abu Ghraib prisons, during the US occupation of Iraq. The far-reaching images proved too costly to the United States; exposing the duplicity of American rhetoric, depleting its international support. For example, US approval ratings in the United Kingdom, one of its key allies, fell to less than half in 2003, according to a study published by Pew Research Center (Pew Research Center 2004). Ever since, countries have prioritized enhancing their soft power indicators by investing in resources that have the potential to be ‘pull’ factors.

For an emerging regional power like the United Arab Emirates, one media personality stands out for his ability to do precisely that. Anas Bukash is an Emirati millennial who rose to local fame after the debut of his show, AB Talks, in which he interviews guests in a unique casual style, breaking away from a long tradition of staged formality characteristic of pan-Arab media works. Initially, there was an over-representation of guests from the sports industry and public figures exclusively relevant to the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). Over time, however, the show expanded to include guests relevant not only to a local audience but to multiple foreign ones as well. From Bollywood’s Nora Fathi through Jordan’s Silawy to the International Jay Shetty, Anas was able to reach 168 million viewers on YouTube, an exceptional feat for the format by any parameter, for which he has been dubbed the Emirati Oprah, in reference to his relatability to an international audience. Similarly, AB Talks conducts interviews with influential citizens, moderating debates on national issues like private vs. public work, the origins of the Emirati national anthem and culture loss due to globalization. Bukash’s reach brings a new understanding of Emirati perspectives to a national, regional and international audience. With a severe scarcity of internationally relevant Emirati media figures, Anas Bukash presents immense possibilities for renegotiating the soft power of the UAE, in a globalized media environment, giving the UAE a fighting chance to further attract.

References

Perry, Mark J. 2007. American Enterprise Institute. June 13. https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/hollywood-vs-bollywood/#:~:text=In%20terms%20of%20the%20number,by%202.6%20billion%20viewers%20worldwide.

Pew Research Center. 2004. "A Year After Iraq War - Mistrust of America in Europe Ever Higher, Muslim Anger Persists." Pew Research Center. March. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2004/03/16/a-year-after-iraq-war/.