Aramco Television: Articulations of Social Identity in Television Adaptation 1957–1970

In the postcolonial era, the Joint Arabian American Company (ARAMCO) established the first television channel in the Arabian Gulf region, Aramco Television. Local audiences initially resisted the medium, perceiving television as a colonial instrument. Drawing on archival documents and interviews with experts and media producers associated with the channel, this article examines how Aramco Television adapted both the television device and its content to local Gulf contexts. It argues that this process relied on cultural foundations and selective filtering strategies to make the medium socially and culturally acceptable. The findings suggest that adaptation was not simply a matter of transferring foreign media forms, but a process of negotiation through which imported technologies and content were localized, appropriated, and made culturally meaningful. Aramco Television represented an early example of Gulf media adaptation in which foreign media forms contributed to emerging articulations of regional identity.