274 Mediated Publics
Resistance and retorts
Aware that they were poorly informed and indoctrinated day-in and day-
out, Algerian viewers turned en masse toward satellite television. This
entails a dual-purpose move: a turning away both from national television
and from Islamist prohibitions, literally boycotting Algerian television.
They do so not only because it is less fascinating but also because they
do not perceive it to be a “public good.” They say, “It belongs to four or
five people,” and by that they mean it is in the hands of a clique. In other
words, Algerian television does not offer them representations of them-
selves nor does it take into account their “culture.” I was reminded of this
by four young participants who were educated in Arabic but who mas-
tered the French language, as is the case with most middle-class children:
Réda: All day our [national] television network broadcasts
Egyptian films and shows that...
Rafik: They want to push Algerian culture [Réda: No, hold
on], they want to replace our culture by another so-called cul-
ture, they want our culture to incorporate other ideas.
Réda: That is our television that wants to impose upon us here
in Algeria an Arabo-islamism... Television is mobilized to
erase all traces of Algerian culture! However normally its role
is not to transform us into [copies of the] French or others,
but to make us Algerians.
Ratiba: Which means?
Réda: Our culture, our traditions, our arts and our music.is erasure of the quotidian is also experienced as a forgetting. It is Th
as if people’s lives did not count for much in the face of state security—or
simply in the face of a tradition of secret-keeping, which has a long history
in Algeria. In 1996, a bomb exploded in a small town where I was conduct-
ing research. The explosion left several dead and wounded. Everyone was
waiting for the local television news station to run a story. There was gen-
eral disappointment that the news was not reported on national television,
but that TF1, Antenne 2, Canal Plus and MBC each devoted airtime to the