Revisiting The Discourses Of The 'Clash' For The Study Of Culture In A Muslim Television Production

This article examines the power dynamics that shape the production culture of the Islam Channel, a Muslim television based in London. A study of production culture is critical as it stands to support our understanding of how religious television programming comes to take the form it does. This article adopts the discourses of the ‘clash’ drawn from culturalist Samuel Huntington and reformist Edward Said’s theses to identify the power dynamics facing the Channel. The study employs an ethnographic research design that forms a two-layer analysis that includes the sociocultural environment that the Channel exists and its institutional context. While the first layer of the research design discusses the discourses of the ‘clash’ that exist in the western society, the latter examines the missionary (da’wah) goals of the Channel. The results of the analysis point to the extent to which the missionary (da’wah) goals of the Channel manifest the ‘clash’ that shape its production culture and the ‘clash’ between the western and Muslim cultures. The Channel’s endeavour to seclude itself from ‘a suspect community’ (e.g., fundamentalists and extremists) has nurtured the ‘culture of caution’ among members of the production community at the Islam Channel. Such a ‘culture of caution’ has impacted the production quality and working life of employees involved in the production of magazine talk show Living the Life (2012 – present).