Dubbed TV shows from Turkey, Korea and India with romance and action plots are extremely popular among young people in the UAE, with most youngsters spending an hour or two every night watching them on TV, a new study has found. The study by Badreya Al-Jenaibi, professor in the Mass Communication department at UAE University surveyed […]
Dubbed TV shows from Turkey, Korea and India with romance and action plots are extremely popular among young people in the UAE, with most youngsters spending an hour or two every night watching them on TV, a new study has found.
The study by Badreya Al-Jenaibi, professor in the Mass Communication department at UAE University surveyed over 500 Arab students, and interviewed 15 film and dubbing experts on at the impact of dubbed serials on students in the UAE. One out of five respondents reported that they always watch dubbed shows, while more than seven out of ten said they watch these shows sometimes. Out of the 500, 54% respondents said they watch Turkish series, 18% consume Korean TV and 14% like Indian shows.
Al-Jenaibis study also revealed that the most favoured accents in the UAE included Syrian, classical, and Gulf. The Turkish characters are fictional, dramatic and romantic, [they] invited anybody living in a city, village or a refugee camp to live vicariously through their dreamy journeys for a while and perhaps escape ones own reality, Rahman said in conversation with the media.
While most young people watch dubbed series for entertainment, many are looking to learn about new cultures and watch shows specifically addressing universal social issues, Al-Jenaibi’s study showed.
I noticed that there is a lot of interest among my students in the Far East in Japan and Korea, in particular. I would imagine Korea is slowly transforming from a traditional society to modernity, and perhaps trying to reconcile the two. In the Middle East, and in particular in the UAE, the traditional and modern coexist and, at times, people are trying to converge both worlds, the academic stated.
