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Screen Media for Arab
and European Children
Policy and Production Encounters
in the Multiplatform Era

Naomi Sakr
Jeanette Steemers
Screen Media for Arab and European Children
Naomi Sakr • Jeanette Steemers

Screen Media for Arab


and European
Children
Policy and Production Encounters in the
Multiplatform Era
Naomi Sakr Jeanette Steemers
Westminster School of Media and Department of Culture, Media &
Communication Creative Industries
University of Westminster King’s College London
Harrow, UK London, UK

ISBN 978-3-030-25657-9    ISBN 978-3-030-25658-6 (eBook)


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25658-6

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institu-
tional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Pattern © John Rawsterne / patternhead.com


Cover design: eStudioCalamar

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Acknowledgements

This book is one of numerous publications that have resulted from research
undertaken as part of two projects funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities
Research Council (AHRC). The first, which ran between 2012 and 2016,
bore the title Orientations in the Development of Pan-Arab Television for
Children. As authors we wish to acknowledge the AHRC research grant
(AH/J004545/1) and to thank all those who helped with the grant and
the project.
The second, which ran between October 2017 and November 2018, is
linked to the first as a follow-on project for impact and engagement.
Entitled Collaborative Development of Children’s Screen Content in an Era
of Forced Migration Flows: Facilitating Arab-European Dialogue it was
designed to share knowledge from the first project, but also stimulate dia-
logue between European and Arab stakeholders around European screen
content for and about young children of Arab heritage who are living in
Europe. It was this project that stimulated us to explore more deeply the
many cross-cultural connections between Arab and European countries
around policy for and production of children’s screen media, which form
the focus of this book. Again we wish to acknowledge the AHRC research
grant (AH/R001421/1) and thank all those who offered guidance and
support. We especially thank Dr Christine Singer for her expert research
assistance and our project partners: BBC Children’s, BBC Media Action,
CPH:DOX in Copenhagen, the Danish Film Institute, the International
Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI) in Munich
and the Public Media Alliance. The second project consisted of three
workshops in different locations (Manchester, Copenhagen and Munich)

v
vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

and a symposium in London on 14 September 2018 under the title


Invisible Children: Children’s Media, Diversity and Forced Migration. It
generated five separate briefing reports and one final report that consoli-
dates all five, which can be accessed at www.euroarabchildrensmedia.org.
We also thank Mala Sanghera-Warren, Lucy Batrouney and Heloise
Harding at Palgrave Macmillan, and the anonymous readers of our pro-
posal and manuscript, for their encouragement and assistance. This vol-
ume is a companion to Pivot title Children and Screen Media in Changing
Arab Contexts: An Ethnographic Perspective by Tarik Sabry and
Nisrine Mansour.
Contents

1 Local, Regional and Global Media at a Time of Forced


Migration: Evolving Geometries of Power  1

2 Joining the Dots: How Arab and European Children Are


Connected by Screen Media 19

3 Towards Well-Being? Stimuli for Shared Practice on Policy


and Regulation 45

4 Face-to-Face: Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Provision


and Delivery 73

5 Arab Children in Europe: Managing Diversity on


Children’s Television101

6 Children’s Visibility as Stakeholders: From Provision to


Participation127

Index137

vii
About the Authors

Naomi Sakr is Professor of Media Policy at the Communication and


Media Research Institute (CAMRI), University of Westminster. She is the
author of three books about Arab media, editor of two others, and
co-editor of two, including Children’s TV and Digital Media in the Arab
World (2017, with Jeanette Steemers).
Jeanette Steemers is Professor of Culture, Media and Creative Industries
at King’s College London. She has published widely on European media
industries and media policy, including numerous articles and a book on
children’s media industries in the UK and internationally. Before
becoming an academic, she worked in children’s television distribution.

ix
CHAPTER 1

Local, Regional and Global Media at a Time


of Forced Migration: Evolving Geometries
of Power

Abstract Highlighting gaps in our understanding of processes underpin-


ning the making and circulation of children’s screen content across the
Arab region and Europe, this chapter explains how this book sets aside
Euro- or Arab-centrism to engage with an outward-looking version of
what might be called child-centrism in respect of policy and production.
We consider recent disruptive shifts in regional geopolitics and large-scale
population movements, before discussing production initiatives for dis-
placed and anxious children in Arab and European countries. We contem-
plate the challenges of terms like “local” and “global” in relation to the
Arab world and Europe, before setting out a framework informed by the
concept of “power-geometries” (Massey, Power-Geometry and a
Progressive Sense of Place. In Mapping the Futures: Local Cultures, Global
Change, ed. Jon Bird, Barry Curtis, Tim Putnam, George Robertson, and
Lisa Tickner, 59–69. London: Routledge, 1993), and questions about
who has the power to initiate flows and who is on the “receiving end.”

Keywords Convention on the Rights of the Child • Ethnocentrism •


Child migration • Local and global • Power-geometries • Sesame
Workshop

Ethnocentrism is a recurring feature of both the industries that produce


children’s screen content and scholarship on children and media. Timothy

© The Author(s) 2019 1


N. Sakr, J. Steemers, Screen Media for Arab and European Children,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25658-6_1
2 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

Havens analysed some time ago (2007) how the “vibrant business cul-
ture” of North American and European “children’s television merchants”
privileges an “industry lore” among insiders, which tracks North American
and European models of childhood tastes and promotes them as universal.
Public recognition of ethnocentric scholarship in the field is more recent,
as are concerns about a lack of studies on the institutions and industries
involved in children’s media. Revealing that only 14 per cent of articles
published in the Journal of Children and Media between 2005 and 2018
had studied the “processes of production, political-economic forces, or
the institutional policies and practices in the media with which children
engage” (Lemish 2019, 121)—namely processes related to the phenom-
enon articulated by Havens—the journal’s founding and outgoing editor,
Dafna Lemish, recalled her efforts to correct an “underlying ethnocen-
trism” in submitted manuscripts, whereby the “American context was
assumed to be the default position” (ibid., 123). She noted that her pre-
ferred practice of always naming the place where research had been con-
ducted met resistance: there were worries the published findings would be
seen as having narrower applicability, plus an implicit understanding on
the part of some scholars that research beyond the US represents “case
studies” of limited relevance.
This short book addresses gaps of this kind in our understanding of
processes that underpin the making and circulation of screen content
across two adjacent regions of the world. It attempts to do so by setting
“centrisms” aside, whether ethnocentrism, Euro-centrism or Arab-­
centrism. It does in some sense seek to engage with an outward-looking
version of what might be called child-centrism. That is to say: outward-­
looking in the sense of not “isolat[ing] children into child-centred areas
and concerns away from such matters as politics, economics or law”
(Anderson 2016, 6). The book’s “wide-angle” approach to geographical,
political-economic and childhood concerns is prompted by recent disrup-
tive shifts in regional geopolitics and large-scale population movements,
which have occurred simultaneously with global shifts in delivery plat-
forms for children’s screen media content.
Shifts of this magnitude call for new insights into how children’s screen
media policy and production proceed across divides of language and cul-
ture. Insights sought in this book start with questions about the extent to
which young children in Arab and European countries engage with the
same or similar content. By “young children” we mean those aged under
around 12 years since they are the focus of most industry attention. The
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 3

book focuses on sources of funding and ideas in the creation and delivery
of content targeted at children and, by examining some examples of col-
laboration, seeks to understand whether and how finance and ideas inter-
act across territories and cultures, and for whose benefit. Whose voices are
loudest when it comes to pressures for regulating children’s screen con-
tent, and what do they want: a vaguely worded catch-all protection from
ill-defined “harmful” content, more generous provision of beneficial
material or opportunities for children themselves to take part in media-­
making? How do commissioners and producers of children’s screen con-
tent respond to population flows that are changing the composition of
child audiences in those Arab and European countries that have taken in
the largest numbers of refugees? Questions like these problematise
attempts to assign initiatives or trends to separate geographic regions. For
one thing, content providers operate on an increasingly global scale and
the most powerful are based in the US. For another, the geographic remits
of relevant institutions are not always clear-cut. The European Union
(EU) overlaps with the larger Council of Europe (CoE), and Arab entities
are represented on bodies such as the European Broadcasting Union
(EBU) and the CoE’s European Audiovisual Observatory.
If regional demarcations can be problematic analytically, terms like
“local” and “global” have also been roundly challenged in studies of trans-
national media and childhood studies. Where media are concerned, migra-
tion and digital communication technologies mean that “local” content
can be accessed from anywhere, arguably leading to a situation in which
the local and the global “inform and transform one another in a constant
dialogue” (Chalaby 2009, 3–4). In the context of childhood, the global
scale of migration has reinforced analysts’ dissatisfaction with ethnocentric
binaries between a normative universal “global” and culturally particular
“local,” especially the subaltern “local” childhood of the majority world
(Hanson et al. 2018, 274, 292). Migration has blurred the “boundaries
between majority and minority worlds,” leading to research on transna-
tional families as well as the way children use digital technologies and
social media to develop and maintain relationships beyond the family and
“local” community and to relate with their peers in new ways (ibid., 277).
In the days when transnational television was still something of a nov-
elty, the concept of a “geolinguistic region” (Sinclair et al. 1996, 11–14)
seemed to suit the Arab world rather well, because certain forms of Arabic
were intelligible across multiple contiguous countries from the Atlantic to
the Indian Ocean. Even that concept, however, took account of media
4 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

flows not only within an “immediate geographic clustering” but with dia-
sporic communities “on other continents” (ibid., 26). Today an Arab-­
centric view of children’s media is rendered even less useful by the effects
of violent conflicts within the Arab region that set governments and com-
munities against each other. Among the six states (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman,
Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates or UAE) belonging to
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an “unprecedented” concentration
of power in the hands of the crown princes of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi
(the UAE’s most powerful emirate) is seen to have “widened existing frac-
tures, created new fault lines, and inflicted potentially long-term damage
on what had been the most durable regional organization in the Arab
world” (Coates Ulrichsen 2018). Starting in 2015, Saudi Arabia led a war
on Houthi rebels in neighbouring Yemen, with backing from the US, the
UK and France. Describing the ensuing 4-year toll of death, injury, fam-
ine, disease and deprivation as “the world’s largest humanitarian crisis,”
the United Nations Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) Regional Director for
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region said it had “not spared
a single child” (Cappelaere 2019). Fractures between governments on the
Arabian Peninsula, notably Saudi Arabia and Qatar, were meanwhile
implicated in escalating the civil war that started in Syria in 2011, because
of their support for different factions in the fighting. In March 2019,
UNICEF’s Executive Director reported that 2018 had seen the most chil-
dren killed in Syria of any year in the war so far, mostly through unex-
ploded ordnance and the highest number of attacks against education and
health facilities (Fore 2019).
In addition to these militarised rifts, another fault line that undermines
the rationale for studying media specifically for Arabic-speaking children is
the deep disparity between the plight of children living with the effects of
armed attacks and daily insecurity in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, the Gaza Strip
and Libya and the situation of those in other Arab countries where the
phenomena of displacement, lack of schooling and traumatic experiences
are not part of the everyday. Moreover, when it comes to finding what is
done to meet the information and self-expression needs of children in
these diverse circumstances, the story often involves non-Arab bodies,
including non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from Europe. This is
the irony of what is and what is not allowed under Arab authoritarian
regimes. These regimes are responsible for so many civilians having left
their homes to escape violence or because there are no jobs and they can-
not make a living or because they are under threat of detention for c­ laiming
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 5

their civil and political rights. Yet the political systems that perpetuate
pressure for forced migration cannot realistically be discussed without ref-
erence to a “tradition of external intervention” (Henry and Springborg
2001, 8), sustained in the post-colonial era through US and European
deals in arms and oil. Even before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 it
was recognised that any attempt to analyse “human development” in the
Arab region needed to include a “critical understanding of ‘external’
power dynamics,” including the “blind eye” turned by Western govern-
ments to “large-scale abuses of human, civil and political rights by client
regimes” (Levine 2002). Continuing cross-regional intergovernmental
relationships since 2003–04 may have been camouflaged on occasion by
efforts at “democracy promotion,” but true democratisation proved
incompatible with achieving the political continuity that governments on
both sides ultimately preferred (Sakr 2016, 175–176). The result has been
a situation in which Arab governments “mistrust” voluntary rights-based
associations, often to the point of banning them (Kandil 2010, 53), but
still allow a form of civil society to exist as a democratic “façade”—secure
in the knowledge that, by forcing associations that promote democratisa-
tion and human rights to limit their activities so as to avoid dissolution,
political authority in the country remains “profoundly authoritarian”
(Cavatorta and Durac 2011, 143).
Non-Arab NGOs conducting activities in the Arab region conse-
quently face constraints imposed by the underlying international power
dynamics. But, since some of these NGOs advocate for, or provide, chil-
dren’s media, including to refugee children, their presence constitutes a
further reason for looking beyond Arab countries themselves to discover
sites and processes of funding, conceptualising, producing and regulat-
ing children’s media, which are addressed in this book. The following
two sections of this introductory chapter consider media initiatives that
seek to respond to the impact that recent dislocations, conflicts and
demographic changes have had on Arab and European children. The
first looks specifically at media and education projects for displaced chil-
dren in Syria and its neighbouring countries and the second at ways in
which media practitioners have sought to share stories generated by
children’s and young people’s anxieties amid the upheavals of recent
years. The chapter concludes by articulating how the remainder of the
book conceives questions about decision-making across geographies
and cultures, taking account of children’s presence or absence from the
decision-making process.
6 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

Initiatives for Displaced Children


According to estimates collated by the Pew Research Centre in 2018, the
13 million Syrians displaced by conflict at that point made Syria the nation
with the largest percentage of its population displaced in recent decades
(Connor 2018). While more than 6 million were displaced inside Syria, 5
million were living in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and North African
countries like Egypt and Libya, 1 million had moved to Europe as asylum-­
seekers or refugees and smaller numbers to North America. Iraqis fleeing
conflict in their country followed similar routes. In 2015, when a record
1.3 million migrants applied for asylum in the 28 member states of the
European Union, plus Norway and Switzerland—more than double the
number for the previous year—Pew Research Centre (Connor 2016, 15)
calculations, based on Eurostat data, showed that Syrians accounted for
29 per cent of all asylum applications to these countries, followed by peo-
ple leaving Afghanistan (15 per cent) and Iraq (10 per cent). On average,
around a third of asylum-seekers are children. UNICEF (n.d.) reported
that European countries, led by Germany, received nearly 606,600 asylum
claims by children in 2016–17, with half the total number in 2017 coming
from just three countries: Syria (27 per cent), Iraq (10 per cent) and
Afghanistan (10 per cent). Of the overall total, 42 per cent were girls.
Responding to the communication and information needs of young
children caught up in humanitarian crises is not often the stuff of news
headlines. But the necessity of meeting these needs, alongside physical
ones, is rooted in several principles agreed internationally. The United
Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), signed by
all European and Arab states, makes various guarantees to children about
their rights to access information from diverse national and international
sources and to be heard on all matters affecting them. Under Article 2 of
the CRC these guarantees are not affected by displacement: they apply to
children “without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or
his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, dis-
ability, birth or other status.” Recognition of the right to information and
participation of all age groups is also enshrined in the Core Humanitarian
Standard, a voluntary international code adopted in 2014 to make human-
itarian action more accountable and effective. Of the Standard’s nine com-
mitments, the fourth pledges among other things to communicate in
“languages, formats and media that are easily understood, respectful and
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 7

culturally appropriate for different members of the community, especially


vulnerable and marginalized groups,” and to “ensure representation is
inclusive” with due attention to gender, age and diversity (CHS Alliance
et al. 2014, 13). The UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),
adopted by a UN General Assembly resolution in 2015 for the period to
2030, include Goal 4, on quality education, which promises to “[b]uild
and upgrade education facilities that are child, disability and gender sensi-
tive and provide safe, nonviolent, inclusive and effective learning environ-
ments for all” and Goal 16, on peace, justice and strong institutions, which
seeks to promote “public access to information” and strengthen “institu-
tions upholding human rights at the national level” (UN SDGs n.d.).
Despite such promises and aspirations and despite the earlier creation of
a UNICEF resource pack in many languages, including Arabic, on
Communicating with Children in settings characterised by injustice, preju-
dice and poverty (Kolucki and Lemish 2011), a focus on the development
needs of very young children in emergency settings was still considered
enough of an innovation in December 2017 for the Chicago-based
MacArthur Foundation to select a project with this aim as the winner of
the US$100 million award in its “100&Change” competition. The 2016–
18 round of the competition sought a proposal that would articulate a
“critical problem of our time” and propose a “proven solution” that
would create value for people beyond the grant recipient and “inspire
other funders to make the large investments needed to fund solutions at
scale” (MacArthur Foundation 2018). A partnership of two organisations
based in New York, Sesame Workshop and the International Rescue
Committee (IRC), won the 5-year award with a proposal to deliver a com-
bination of media content and direct caregiving programmes to mitigate
what a MacArthur Foundation press release called the “toxic stress experi-
enced by children in the Syrian response region.” The programme aimed
to create a new “standard for humanitarian assistance that will benefit the
youngest children affected by conflict” (MacArthur Foundation 2017). It
would do so through a Sesame television show made with local produc-
tion companies that would “model respect, inclusion, and equity,” build
children’s language, reading, mathematics and socioemotional skills (ibid.)
and be available to more than 9 million children aged 3–8 years in Syria,
Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. A year later, the Lego Foundation, based in
Billund, Denmark, granted another US$100 million to Sesame Workshop
for a project with young children affected by the Syrian crisis and the crisis
of the Rohingya who had fled Myanmar for Bangladesh, to ensure that
8 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

they would have “opportunities to learn through play.” A press release on


the Lego Foundation website on 5 December 2018 said the programme
would provide “critical new insights into effective models of learning
through play for children affected by crisis.”
The Sesame Workshop-IRC projects were not the only ones of their
kind in Syria and the surrounding region. BBC Media Action, the BBC’s
international development charity, worked with an independent radio
outlet in Syria and an animation producer to make content for children
and parents about the effects of post-traumatic stress, the dangers of
unexploded ordnance and the possibilities of catching up on schooling
even after a long absence (Butros 2017). In early 2019, with EU funding
promised but later put on hold, BBC Media Action moved to extend
research it had been doing in Lebanon since 2016 into providing learn-
ing resources through video for Syrian and other vulnerable children,
aimed at building resilience and life skills and providing psychosocial
support. It advertised a 2-year post for a Beirut-based Head of Research,
who would be responsible, with a team in London and Beirut, for
designing the research needed to develop a project to deliver non-formal
educational content to three age groups: 6–10, 11–14 and 15–18 (UN
Jobs 2019).
It is relevant to this book’s interest in tracking children’s place in media
activities and the geometries of decision-making to note the obvious point
that initiatives like those of BBC Media Action and Sesame Workshop are
not carried out in a vacuum. On one side there is coordination with
funders. On the other are institutions and political realities of countries
where the intervention takes place. For example, BBC Media Action’s
Head of Research was expected to liaise with “various stakeholders” in
Lebanon, including the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and
the Center for Educational Research and Development (ibid.), which
itself reports directly to the Ministry. In the Sesame Workshop case, its
collaborators included the Global TIES for Children research centre at
New York University (NYU), which is linked to Abu Dhabi through its
NYU Abu Dhabi campus and NYU Abu Dhabi Research Institute. Its
funder, the MacArthur Foundation, supported a period of reassessment
before the start of the project, as a result of which the media plan changed
so that, instead of delivering media content only in colloquial Arabic, it
was decided to add versions dubbed into two Kurdish dialects and English
(MacArthur 2018). Given Kurdish mobilisation over the past century
towards uniting a Kurdistan that had been divided across Turkey, Syria,
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 9

Iraq and Iran, through elaboration of a symbolic unity, including a


“common language” and “largely unified historiographical discourse”
­
(Bozarslan 2018, 14, 21), the decision to dub into Kurdish was an innova-
tion. In that respect, it ranked along with other cultural elements of the
project that were innovative in the local context, such as the attention paid
to preschool children and the emphasis on learning through play.

Shared Stories
For children displaced to Europe and for European-born children who
witnessed new arrivals in their classrooms and communities, there have
been other media initiatives aimed at allaying anxieties and countering a
backlash against migration. One way of monitoring what worries children
is through child helplines, a telephone service that children and young
people can call to ask for help or protection. In 2007 the European
Commission reserved the number 116 111 for helplines to provide social
services to children and youth in the EU and a year later the International
Telecommunication Union encouraged all countries worldwide to adopt
the same number for the same purpose, with the result that, by end-2017,
181 helplines across 147 countries were networked through Child
Helpline International, based in Amsterdam (Child Helpline International
2017, 2, 14). From 2014 an increasing number of calls received by
European helplines related to child migration, with the difficulty of adjust-
ing to a new environment being the single biggest problem reported in
2016 (ibid., 7). In the MENA region, many children contacted helplines
because they were affected by conflict. The Palestinian helpline Sawa,
established in 2004, received more than 22,000 calls in a few months after
the war on Gaza in 2008–09, while helplines in Jordan and Iran were
contacted by child refugees left scarred by witnessing violence and having
to “face situations and take on responsibilities far beyond their years”
(Child Helpline International 2013, 11). Fears brought to light by
helplines have informed the making of content for children. After the
UK’s Childline added a webpage called “Worries about the World” in
2016, in response to a rising number of calls expressing anxiety about
world events, the UK production company Evans Woolfe created the
series Where in the World? to familiarise young children with the everyday
normality of their counterparts around the globe (Steemers et al. 2018,
23). The producers of 4eVeR, a semi-scripted drama series for 9–12-year-­
olds shown on Ketnet, the Flemish public service children’s channel,
10 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

c­ ollaborated with the local child helpline Awel to identify storylines that
would respond to children’s fears (ibid., 61).
Sharing the concerns of teens and young people across countries and
regions through a transmedia format was the purpose of a project called
“Generation What,” which started off in France in 2013 but then expanded
across Europe in 2016 and, in 2018, across a number of countries in Asia
and a small number on the southern and eastern shores of the
Mediterranean. The project, consisting of an online survey, an interactive
website, web videos, television documentaries and other media output,
had the support of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), the EBU, Asian Broadcasting Union (ABU)
and Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU). It was aimed at young peo-
ple rather than children, but official online accounts show that the lower
age limit for participation varied from 15, when it launched as Génération
Quoi in France, to 18 for the Europe-wide version and 16 for the Arab
version. In Europe, the project yielded nearly 1 million survey responses,
amplified in videos by young people’s reactions to the survey questions as
well as their answers, thereby painting a detailed, if self-selected, portrait
of 18–34-year-olds. Christopher Nick, of Yami2, the production company
that worked with web specialists Upian to create Generation What, said in
May 2017 that it had worked well in France and Europe because the need
for that generation to be taken seriously was “nearly an emergency” (Nick
2017). He said the survey—containing 149 survey questions (EBU 2017),
divided into 21 themes (Generation What 2018a)—gave young people a
chance to engage with each other and a research operation that they per-
ceived to be beneficial to society, did not involve journalists and was fun to
do (ibid.). Nick envisaged that sharing answers to the questionnaire could
help to lower tension between neighbouring countries, suggesting that an
Algerian and Moroccan would realise how much they have in common
with each other and, for example, with someone their age in Spain (ibid.).
It remained to be seen how far that objective could be achieved. Although
Tunisia permitted all questions, this was not the same across the other
seven Arab broadcasters involved in the project (EBU executive 2017).
With just 4500 responses by May 2018 (Generation What 2018b), the
portrait of young people’s concerns in the eight ASBU countries surveyed
was relatively small scale.
Children’s media projects initiated in Europe and seeking to share Arab
and European children’s experience internationally have also had relatively
small Arab components. They can be said, however, to have tried in
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 11

­ rinciple to replace ethnocentrism with an approach that puts children of


p
diverse ethnicities at the centre. The Prix Jeunesse Foundation, set up by
Bavarian public institutions in Germany in 1964, describes itself on the
home page of its website as a “world-embracing movement for high-­
quality television for children that meets their unique needs.” On the web-
site under “About us,” Prix Jeunesse says it wants to “bring forward
television that enables children to see, hear and express themselves and
their culture, and that enhances an awareness and appreciation of other
cultures.” In 2018 the biennial Prix Jeunesse Festival in Munich bore the
theme “Strong Stories for Strong Children,” alluding to a longer-term
project by the Foundation to foster resilience in children experiencing dif-
ficult life situations and provide outlets for their creativity. One compo-
nent of the project, the Storytelling Club, ran in partnership with UNICEF
and the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation’s International Central
Institute for Youth and Educational Television (IZI). It brought groups of
children together in different countries to “play, listen, tell, draw and write
stories of strength they have experienced” with the aim of creating a sto-
rybook, in which the children themselves are the “heroes and heroines” of
narratives that can help other children in a similar situation (Taher et al.
2018, 37). Along with the clubs, IZI and Prix Jeunesse developed an
international screen drama format called The Day I Became Strong, in
which 15 participating countries (European, African, Asian) produced a
live action episode, 5–6 minutes long, telling the true story of a 7–11-year-­
old (Gӧtz 2018, 32).
Making an Egyptian film for the series The Day I Became Strong and
running Storytelling Clubs in Egypt and Lebanon challenged norms and
assumptions on the part of Egyptian, Lebanese and German facilitators.
The Egyptian film, The Day I Became a Big Brother, followed 8-year-old
Ahmed who, having been an only child all his life, is suddenly confronted
with a baby brother and, charged with taking care of him one day, realises
he cares enough about this little human being to overcome his revulsion
at the baby’s full nappy and change it. Europeans who saw the film at the
Prix Jeunesse Festival in May 2018 asked its producer, Andria Gayed, why
there were no shots of the nappy or the baby’s bare bottom; Gayed told
them that showing these things was “forbidden” (Gayed 2018). But the
film did contravene conventions—not only in Egypt—by implying that
“real men” change nappies, that it is not weak for males to share their feel-
ings and that when children share feelings this is “not a joke” (ibid.).
When Storytelling Clubs were held in Luxor, Sinai and Cairo, local
12 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

e­ducators needed persuasion from their Egyptian colleague to try an


approach that differed from the “same authoritarian system” the children
were “subjected to in schools” (Taher et al. 2018, 38). In Beirut, the proj-
ect took place with seventeen Syrian refugee children. Some of their har-
rowing stories of physical and emotional abuse (ibid., 39) raised questions
beyond the work plans and advice contained in the Storytelling Club
handbook for educators. For if adults decide to place children at the centre
of recounting traumatic experiences, they also have a responsibility to pro-
vide additional support such as counselling (Steemers et al. 2018, 7).
Putting children “at the centre” can be contentious in any cultural set-
ting. Jan-Willem Bult, a Dutch producer, director and scriptwriter with
long experience of working on children’s content in different cultures,
believes that putting children at the centre—which means not “under
your control and your rules”—is often perceived as dangerous by produc-
tion staff or unacceptable to parents (Bult 2018a). Appointed in 2014 to
run the Free Press Unlimited international network, Wadada News for
Kids, Bult applied his approach, which values children’s “autonomy,”
“power and talent” and recognises that “children are bothered with rules
all the time” (ibid.). That meant, among other things, doing away with
presenters but implicitly keeping adults sufficiently in the frame to ensure
that children first have “good information,” to avoid having a “kid saying
things on television about things they can’t know” (Bult 2018b). Of the
20 countries in the Wadada network by 2019, only Egypt was in the
MENA region and all the others, apart from Ukraine, were in South
America, southern Africa and Southeast Asia. The Egyptian production
company, Icon Media, joined the network in 2015 and the resulting show,
called “I-News,” illustrates some of the obstacles and outcomes of the
Icon-Wadada collaboration. Instead of being shown on a state channel,
Icon Media relied on distribution through Facebook, YouTube and SAT7
Academy (Taher 2018). The latter is part of the Cyprus-based pan-Arab
SAT7 network funded and governed by a number of Christian organisa-
tions based in North America and the Middle East. The network, which
broadcasts in Arabic, Farsi and Turkish and has studios in Cairo, Beirut
and Istanbul, also runs a channel called SAT7 Kids. It contributed to the
cost of I-News production, including through the use of its facilities
(ibid.). But the series, rather than being aimed at the core age group of the
Wadada model, which is 8–12 years, targeted teens in the 13–16 bracket
after research showed that this group talks “a lot about hot topics but
without understanding what’s happening” (Taher 2018). I-News adopted
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 13

a 7-minute magazine format that includes a “teen report,” filmed and


uploaded by a teenager themselves. Through training with Wadada, Icon
Media’s managing director found that crews learned “how to put a child
in the centre of all your production,” a child who is at “ease in front of the
camera,” “not acting” but “spontaneous” (ibid.).

Children, Other Stakeholders and Sources of Input


and Influence

The challenge of putting children “at the centre” also applies to the mak-
ing of children’s media policy just as much as to the production of screen
media for children. Considering whether children’s voices are listened to
in media matters affecting them adds a crucial dimension to this book’s
scrutiny of Arab-European policy and production encounters and its
attempt to locate sources of input and influence across territories and
jurisdictions.
Examples of collaboration such as those discussed above illustrate the
range of political, social, cultural and economic factors at play in the policy
and production landscapes, as well as the diverse nature of players.
Institutions range from intergovernmental bodies such as UNESCO,
UNICEF and the EU to government ministries, private philanthropic
foundations, NGOs, broadcasters, broadcasting unions, media and web
production companies—both commercial and not-for-profit—academic
research centres and children. Some players in this context, with a “vested
interest” in outcomes (Van den Bulck and Donders 2014, 20), may be
referred to as stakeholders. Stakeholders may have a “distinct interest in a
certain outcome” without being part of the policy process that produces
it, while policy actors such as academics or bureaucrats may influence the
outcome even though they have no “explicit stake” (ibid., 21). Children,
being on the receiving end of the output of these collaborations, certainly
count as stakeholders. Yet they have rarely been listed as such. The “chil-
dren’s television community” was said to include content creators, pro-
grammers, toy tie-in companies, advertisers, government bodies, advocacy
groups and philanthropic organisations (Bryant 2006, 40). The “commu-
nity of key stakeholders” was seen as consisting of “academic researchers,
child advocates and industry lobbyists, among others” (Jordan 2008,
236). Even though children make up a substantial proportion of popula-
tions in the EU and an even more substantial proportion in Arab ­countries,
14 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

they are not “courted as stakeholders” because their communication needs


are seen as subordinate to the priorities of national governments and
media business, with the latter primarily interested in “parental expendi-
ture” and, in Europe at least, deterred by restrictions on advertising aimed
at children (Steemers 2019, 181–182).
The following four chapters of this book deal with stakeholders and
players in content provision, policy, collaborations in production and dia-
logue about how production takes place. Chapter 2 charts the type and
volume of content that is available to be seen by children on various deliv-
ery platforms in both Arab and European countries, tracking interconnec-
tions where these take place in modes of delivery and the supply chain.
Chapter 3 considers initiatives aimed at reducing disparities in European
and Arab regulatory approaches to children’s screen media. Chapter 4 pres-
ents some case studies of Arab-European collaboration in delivering video
content for children. Chapter 5 draws on dialogues that took place between
Arab and European practitioners in 2017–18 around the creation of
European content for the continent’s refugee and immigrant children, to
understand diverse stakeholder positions on such content and the condi-
tions for producing it. In each chapter, the analysis is informed by geogra-
pher Doreen Massey’s term “power-geometry,” which she coined to
highlight the social differentiation that occurs within the “geographical
stretching-out of social relations” that came to be called “time-space com-
pression” (Massey 1993, 59–61). In the flows and interconnections invoked
by the notion of time-space compression, Massey argued that it is “not
merely” an issue of “who moves and who doesn’t” but about power in rela-
tion to flows and mobility. As she put it: “some are more in charge of it than
others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on
the receiving end of it than others; some are effectively imprisoned by it”
(ibid., 61). Her focus was on place and space, but Gillian Rose (2016, 343)
has shown how the concept of power-geometry serves in analysing the
“highly uneven distribution of different kinds of digital cultural work.”
In drawing attention to the dimensions of control and initiation that
warrant scrutiny alongside “movement and communication,” Massey
offered diverse examples of complex social differentiation in terms of
­location, gender, class and age. It is interesting that age in her essay was
represented by a pensioner but not a child (1993, 61–62). As Anderson
notes (2016, 6), “the words people and human beings often refer only to
men and women,” with the result that the world’s child population is
often not “explicitly considered” (ibid.). Nevertheless, a “power-geometry”
1 LOCAL, REGIONAL AND GLOBAL MEDIA AT A TIME OF FORCED… 15

approach to flows and interconnections relating to children’s screen media


opens up multiple avenues of inquiry. It points to relationships and dif-
ferential levels of control between and among investment, production and
regulatory entities based in different places and systems, and how these
shape screen content creation and distribution. Equally it points to the
position occupied by children in different places and systems vis-à-vis the
shaping of screen media aimed at them. Further perspectives on children’s
access, voice and participation are set out as part of the book’s conclusion
in Chap. 6.

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CHAPTER 2

Joining the Dots: How Arab and European


Children Are Connected by Screen Media

Abstract In this chapter we outline the type and volume of screen con-
tent available to be seen by children on various delivery platforms in both
Arab and European countries, tracking interconnections where these take
place in modes of delivery and the supply chain. We assess the changing
landscape of delivery and the impact of the arrival of subscription video-­
on-­demand. We consider what this means for provision, before comparing
and contrasting trends in the spread of US content in each region, particu-
larly animation and the consequences of a pan-Arab approach when
sources of finance are limited. Analysis of the spectacular growth of online
video via YouTube raises questions about the future dominance of
imported animation, as well as the persistent prominence of global
corporations.

Keywords Amazon • Animation • Online screen distribution • Netflix


• Subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) • YouTube

In this chapter, we outline connections that may potentially exist between


some groups of Arab and European children through the screen media
they use. The connections are partly brought about through the global
spread of online video-on-demand, along with large volumes of imported
content on the expanded number of children’s channels in both regions.
In parallel, however, connections are also driven by offline phenomena.

© The Author(s) 2019 19


N. Sakr, J. Steemers, Screen Media for Arab and European Children,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25658-6_2
20 N. SAKR AND J. STEEMERS

The latter include mass forced migration, which results in displaced chil-
dren from the Arab world being exposed to European content—a topic
we come to in Chap. 5. This chapter’s purpose is to chart the type and
volume of content that is available to be seen by children in both regions.
At another level, however, any exploration of who makes, distributes and
accesses this content inevitably raises questions that were discussed in
Chap. 1, about power relations behind production, distribution and
reception decisions and their outcomes. As well as tracking transnational
flows of content and consequent interconnections, the following analysis,
therefore, seeks to locate where critical decisions are made at various stages
in the supply chain.

Content Crossover on Pay TV Platforms


In the age of global providers of video online, such as YouTube and sub-
scription video-on-demand operators like Netflix, how accurate is it to
suggest that children under twelve are likely to be familiar with at least a
few of the same items of screen content whether they are in Amsterdam,
Avignon, Amman or Al-Ain? The question of what children are watching
on whatever screens are available to them—tablet, television, computer or
mobile phone—is one that can be answered more readily in Europe than
the Arab world, because the collection and credibility of data differ sharply
between the two regions. However, a key factor in assessing the potential
for crossover in content viewed is the changing landscape of delivery plat-
forms and what this means in terms of the range of provision.
Connection to high-quality broadband internet is a prerequisite for
access to the increasing range of online video content available from plat-
forms and services which, with or without payment, compete with televi-
sion supplied by traditional broadcasters. Similarly, connectivity is essential
for catch-up and streaming services that help to underpin the market posi-
tions of big television networks. Over the decade to 2017, the proportion
of households using broadband internet in the 28 member-countries of
the European Union (EU) more than doubled from 42 to 85 per cent
(Eurostat 2018). Some non-EU European countries like Norway and
Switzerland had higher rates, while the lowest rate in the whole EU, in
Bulgaria, was 67 per cent. The Arab region differs from Europe not in the
highest rates of broadband internet penetration but in the presence of
wide variations from one Arab country to another. The percentage of TV
households that regularly watch television or video online in rich Gulf
2 JOINING THE DOTS: HOW ARAB AND EUROPEAN CHILDREN ARE… 21

countries and Lebanon is between two and three times that of Egypt,
Jordan or Morocco (Maurell et al. 2018, 10). Reasons for the disparity are
explained by data in a World Bank study, which showed that large seg-
ments of the population in Gulf countries had access to high-speed broad-
band internet, compared with fewer than a quarter of households in many
other Arab countries, with the cost being prohibitive for low-income fami-
lies in Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen (Gelvanovska et al. 2014). Since then
wars in Yemen and Syria have put access further out of reach for many
more. Northwestern University in Qatar has tracked aspects of media use
across the region over several years. In 2018, it reported that 87–98 per
cent of nationals in Lebanon, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) watched video content online and that the number of
nationals doing so in Tunisia had shot up from 46 to 71 per cent between
2016 and 2018 (Northwestern University in Qatar 2018). In Egypt, the
equivalent figure in 2018 was 48 per cent (ibid.; see also Schoenbach et al.
2018, 705–706)
The ability to watch television-style content on any device with a suit-
able internet connection has implications for what gets watched. A rise in
fixed and mobile broadband penetration has increased the viewing options
for many, especially young people, in Gulf countries with advanced broad-
band infrastructure. In a region where tight censorship and lack of invest-
ment limit local production—including production for children—a key
rationale behind paying for television is to gain access to foreign content
that is not subject to the full range of local limitations. The entry into Gulf
markets specifically and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) markets
more generally, of US-owned “over-the-top” (OTT) players like Netflix
and Amazon Prime, which provide subscription video-on-demand
(SVOD) by internet, shook up the region’s existing pay TV landscape.
Netflix started in the UK in 2012, France and Germany in 2014 and parts
of the Middle East in 2016 as part of a big push that year to expand to
over 130 countries. Amazon Prime Video was added to Amazon’s existing
Prime service in the UK, Germany and Austria in 2014 and became avail-
able in the UAE at the end of 2016, then spreading to other parts
of the Gulf.
SVOD providers’ success in parts of MENA where credit cards are less
widespread is dependent on partnering with local telecommunications
companies and internet providers to come up with alternative payment
solutions. For example, Dubai-based Icflix, which started up in 2012,
partnered with Maroc Telecom in Morocco and Orange Egypt, allowing
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
120 Tab. X, 4–6 (Schädel); id. 1893 III, 78; W e b e r 1894 ib.
474.
Mus chrysocomus („n. sp. 3o“ J e n t i n k 1879 T. Ned. D. Ver. IV
p. LVI); B. H o f f m a n n 1887 Abh. Ber. Dresd. 1886/7 Nr. 3 p.
20, Tafel Fig. 1 a–f (Schädel); T h o m a s 1895 AMNH. (6) XVI,
163 und 1896 XVIII, 247; T r o u e s s a r t 1897 Cat. Mam. 485;
T h o m a s 1898 TZS. XIV, 403.
Mus fratrorum T h o m a s 1896 AMNH. (6) XVIII, 246;
Trouessart 1897 Cat. Mam. 485.
fem.,
a, b.
in Spiritus, Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord Celébes, III
und IV 94.
mas juv.,
c. in Spiritus, Tomohon, III 94.
fem.
d, e.
juv., in Spiritus, Tomohon, III 94.

Als H o f f m a n n 1887 M. chrysocomus beschrieb, besass das


Dresdner Museum kein Exemplar von callitrichus, er war auf
J e n t i n k s Beschreibung angewiesen. 1894 trafen aber 4
Exemplare ein, die Dr. J e n t i n k die Güte hatte, mit seinen Typen
zu vergleichen und als solche zu bestimmen, man kann daher an
ihrer Identität nicht zweifeln, trotzdem die Beschreibung der Art
(NLM. 1879 I, 12) nicht so zutreffend und genügend ist, dass sie
danach allein sicher erkannt werden könnte. Zwischen dem einzig
vorhandenen Typus von chrysocomus und den mir nun vorliegenden
Exemplaren von callitrichus kann ich aber keine irgendwie
wesentlichen Unterschiede constatiren, sowenig wie zwischen M.
fratrorum Thos. (wovon das Dresdner Museum 2 von T h o m a s
bestimmte Exemplare besitzt) und callitrichus. Dieser sagt (AMNH.
XVIII, 247), dass fratrorum M. chrysocomus sehr nahe stehe, aber
durch Grösse, geperlte Supraorbitalränder und mächtigere Molaren
unterschieden sei, allein die Schädel der zwei mir vorliegenden
Exemplare zeigen diese Perlung nicht, sondern haben scharfe
Ränder wie gewöhnlich; Grösse und mächtigere Molaren können als
Artunterschiede, in Ansehung der bedeutenden Differenzen der
Exemplare nach Alter und Geschlecht, nicht angesehen werden.

J e n t i n k identificirte ferner einen Schädel ohne Unterkiefer von


Parepare, Süd Celébes (Webers Zool. Erg. I, 120) mit callitrichus
und sagt, dass es sehr leicht sei, die Art nur nach dem Schädel zu
unterscheiden, unterlässt es aber die unterscheidenden Charaktere
anzugeben; er verweist nur auf einige Abbildungen zum Vergleiche
(Cat. MPB. IX Pl. 7, Zool. Erg. I Tab. X), die aber hierfür, in
Ansehung der beträchtlichen Unterschiede nach Alter und
Geschlecht und wegen der nicht hinlänglich deutlichen Details an
den Zähnen, nicht genügen. Ich halte eine solche Identificirung für
unsicher und möchte erst weiteres Material von Süd Celébes
abwarten, so wenig ich die Möglichkeit des Vorkommens von M.
callitrichus in Süd Celébes in Abrede stellen will. [25]

Endlich hat T h o m a s neuerdings (TZS. XIV, 403) M. chrysocomus


vom Berge Data, Lepanto, Nord Luzon, von 8000 Fuss Höhe
aufgeführt und bemerkt, dass die Art von fast allen anderen der
Gattung durch das völlige Fehlen der scharfen Supraorbitalränder
unterschieden sei. Ein von T h o m a s bestimmtes, ebenfalls
männliches, ziemlich adultes Exemplar im Dresdner Museum von
demselben Fundorte zeigt am Schädel ebensowenig scharfe
Supraorbitalränder, während der Typus von chrysocomus von Nord
Celébes, ein noch junges Exemplar, diese deutlich markirt hat, wie
auch aus der H o f f m a n n schen Abbildung ersichtlich ist, und wie
es der von mir angenommenen Identität mit callitrichus entspricht.
Da nun ausserdem das Exemplar von Luzon einen viel weicheren
und nicht so lebhaft gefärbten Pelz hat wie callitrichus (und
chrysocomus) und noch andere kleine Unterschiede aufweist, so
möchte ich, auch unter Berücksichtigung des entlegenen und hohen
Fundortes, trotz notorisch vorhandener Ähnlichkeiten, die Identität
nicht vertreten und nenne die Exemplare vom Berge Data: Mus
datae. Erst bei einer weit besseren Kenntniss der Mäuse dieser
Gegenden, die wohl noch lange auf sich warten lassen wird, kann
man zu einer klareren Einsicht, als es jetzt möglich ist, gelangen.

Was die speciellen Fundorte von M. callitrichus auf Celébes angeht,


so ist die Art im Norden aus der Minahassa registrirt von Manado,
Langowan, Kakas (Mus. Leid.), Tomohon (Sarasins), Lotta (Mus.
Dresd.), Rurukan 3500 Fuss hoch („fratrorum“ Brit. Mus. und Mus.
Dresd.), Amurang („chrysocomus“ Mus. Dresd.); im Süden von
Parepare, welcher letztere Fundort aber meiner Ansicht nach noch
der Bestätigung bedarf.

[Inhalt]

36. Mus hellwaldi Jent.

Tafel VII Fig. 2–10

J e1879
n t i n k T. Ned. D. Ver. IV p. LV („5o“); id. NLM. I, 11
id.1883
ibid. V, 176
id.1887
Cat. MPB. IX, 212
id.1888
ibid. XII, 65
W1894
e b e r Zool. Erg. III, 474
T 1896
h o m a s AMNH. (6) XVIII, 246
T r1897
o u e s s a r t Cat. Mam. 479.
mas,a. in Spiritus, Minahassa, Nord Celébes, 8. V.

Bis jetzt nur von der Minahassa bekannt: Manado, Langowan,


Amurang (Mus. Leid.), denn die Angabe, dass die Art auch auf
Bórneo und Bunguran (Natuna Ins.) vorkäme, hat T h o m a s
(AMNH. 6. s. XIV, 455 1894) zurückgezogen (vgl. auch H o s e Mam.
Borneo 1893, 59, Nov. Zool. I, 658 1894 und NLM. XIX, 160 1897).

Der Färbung und weichen Beschaffenheit des Pelzes nach eine sehr
schöne Art. Der Schwanz ist (nach dem S a r a s i n schen Spiritus-
Exemplar) unten gelblich, oben im basalen Drittel grau, im mittleren
zu gelblich übergehend, im distalen gelblich wie unten (dies zur
Ergänzung der J e n t i n k schen Beschreibung). Die schöne braune
Farbe der Oberseite ist scharf von der weissen Unterseite abgesetzt,
auch an den Beinen.

Bezüglich der einzelnen Figuren siehe die Tafelerklärung.

[Inhalt]

37. Mus xanthurus Gr.

Tafel VI Fig. 2–10

J.1867
E. G r a y PZS. 598
G1879
ü n t h e r ib. 75 (Mus everetti); J e n t i n k T. Ned. D.
Ver. IV p. LV („4o“) und p. LVI („2o“); id. NLM. I, 10
J e1883
n t i n k NLM. V, 177
H 1887
o f f m a n n Abh. Ber. Dresd. 1886/7 Nr. 3 p. 1, 4, 13;
T h o m a s PZS. 514 (Mus xanthurus und everetti);
J e n t i n k Cat. MPB. IX, 212
J e1888
n t i n k Cat. MPB. XII, 66
H 1893
i c k s o n Nat. N. Cel. 229 [26]
W1894
e b e r Zool. Erg. III, 474
T 1895
h o m a s AMNH. (6) XVI, 163 (Mus everetti)
id.1896
ibid. XVIII, 246
T r1897
o u e s s a r t Cat. Mam. 472
T 1898
h o m a s TZS. XIV, 400 (Mus everetti).
Bälge
a, b.mit Schädel, mares, Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord
Celébes, 11. VII 94 und 30. III 95.
Balg c.mit Schädel, fem. juv., Makassar, Süd Celébes. 26.
XI 95.
2 mares,
d–f. 1 fem., in Spiritus, Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord
Celébes, III und IV 94.
1 mas,
g, h. 1 fem., in Spiritus, Minahassa.
fem. juv.,
i. in Spiritus, Matinang Südspitze, 29. VIII 94.

An manchen Exemplaren ist das Schwanzende behaarter als bei


anderen, ein behaarteres ist Tafel VI, 2 abgebildet.

G ü n t h e r beschrieb M. everetti von Mindanao oder einer kleinen


Insel der Nachbarschaft; er hat zwar keinen Fundort angegeben,
während solche bei allen anderen Arten, die in der Abhandlung
vorkommen, nicht fehlen, allein da sie sich nur über Mindanao-
Thiere oder Thiere der nächsten Nachbarschaft verbreitet, so scheint
der Fundort nicht zweifelhaft; ebensowenig sagt T h o m a s (TZS.
XIV, 400), woher das Exemplar stammte, er erwähnt aber die Art
vom Berge Data, Nord Luzon, 7500 Fuss hoch, von wo auch das
Dresdner Museum ein Exemplar von derselben Ausbeute und
demselben Fundort erhielt. An diesem allein kann ich die Identität
feststellen, denn G ü n t h e r s Beschreibung ist ungenügend. Da
nun aber keine wesentlichen Unterschiede zwischen diesem
Exemplar und denen von M. xanthurus von Celébes vorhanden zu
sein scheinen und Mindanao (oder Nachbarschaft) die Brücke
zwischen Celébes und Luzon bildet, so ziehe ich sie zusammen bis
eventuell eine bessere Kenntniss mir Unrecht giebt.

Die Fundorte auf Celébes sind bis jetzt in der Minahassa: Tondano
(Brit. Mus.), Manado, Langowan, Tondano, Kakas, Amurang (Mus.
Leid.), Manado, Amurang, Lotta, Rurukan 3500 Fuss hoch, Berg
Masarang 3500 Fuss hoch (Mus. Dresd.), Berg Kelelonde 4000 Fuss
hoch (Hickson), Tomohon (Sarasins); ausserhalb der Minahassa:
Matinangkette, westlich vom Gorontaloschen (Sarasins); im Süden:
Makassar (Mus. Dresd. und Sarasins).

Die Art muss sehr zahlreich vorkommen nach der relativ grossen
Zahl von Exemplaren im Leidener und Dresdner Museum und in der
Ausbeute der Herren Sarasin zu urtheilen (in Dresden 17).
H i c k s o n erwähnt dies auch für den Berg Kelelonde und sagt,
dass diese Ratten die saftigen Stiele der Kaffeebeeren besonders
lieben und daher den Plantagen sehr schaden. Ratten sind in der
Minahassa eine gesuchte Zuspeise zum Reise, 3 Arten Rattenfallen
von dort befinden sich im Museum der Bataviaasch Genootschap
(Not. XXV, 145 1897 und LIV [1898]), was beides für die Häufigkeit
der Thiere spricht.

Bezüglich der einzelnen Figuren siehe die Tafelerklärung.

[Inhalt]

38. Lenomys meyeri (Jent.)

Tafel VIII. Nat. Grösse

J e1879
n t i n k T. Ned. D. Ver. IV p. LV („7o“) und LVI („5o“, J.
verwies hier irrthümlich auf 6o p. LV = M. callitrichus); id.
NLM. I, 12
H 1887
o f f m a n n Abb. Ber. Dresd. 1886/7 Nr. 3 p. 12, 17, 21,
Tafel Fig. 2 a und b (Zähne); T h o m a s PZS. 514;
J e n t i n k Cat. MPB. IX, 211 pl. VII, 5–8 (Schädel)
J e1888
n t i n k Cat. MPB. XII, 65
W1894
e b e r Zool. Erg. III, 474
T 1896
h o m a s AMNH. (6) XVIII, 246
T r1897
o u e s s a r t Cat. Mam. 472
T 1898
h o m a s TZS. XIV, 409 Anm., pl. XXXVI, 1 (Zähne).
Lenomys, von den früheren Autoren zu Mus gestellt.
Bälge
a, b.mit Schädel, fem., Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord
Celébes, 6. und 18. III 94.
Skelette,
c, d. mas, fem., Tomohon III 94. [27]
Skelet, e. mas, Kema, Minahassa, Nord Celébes, VIII 93.
mares,
f, g. in Spiritus, Tomohon, III 94.

Die Individuen variiren in der Färbung zwischen mehr Grau und


mehr Braun, auf Tafel VIII ist ein graueres Exemplar abgebildet.

J e n t i n k (NLM. I, 13) sagt, dass die braunen Schnurrhaare weiss


gespitzt seien, allein dies ist bei den mir vorliegenden 8 Exemplaren
(ausser den obigen noch 4 des Dresdner Museums) nicht der Fall,
höchstens dass man bei dem einen oder andern vielleicht eine
schwache Andeutung davon sehen könnte; keinenfalls ist diese
Angabe für die Art charakteristisch.

Bis jetzt nur aus der Minahassa und dem Gorontaloschen bekannt,
aus letzterem von Bone (Mus. Leid.), aus ersterer von Manado-
Langowan (Mus. Leid.), Lotta, Rurukan 3600 Fuss hoch, Berg
Masarang 3500 Fuss hoch, Amurang (Mus. Dresd.) und Tomohon
(Sarasins). Vielleicht ist der Verbreitungsbezirk der Art über Celébes
ein viel grösserer. Wenn man bedenkt, wie lange dieses relativ
grosse Thier aus der Minahassa, wo so viel gesammelt worden ist,
unbekannt blieb, so dürfte diese Vermuthung nicht ungerechtfertigt
erscheinen.
[Inhalt]

39. Craurothrix leucura (Gr.)

Tafel IX. Nat. Grösse

J.1867
E. G r a y PZS. 599 Echiothrix (Schädel abgebildet)
J e1879
n t i n k T. Ned. D. Ver. IV p. LVI. Echiothrix
id.1880
NLM. II, 12. Echiothrix
id.1883
ibid. V, 177. Echiothrix
id.1888
Cat. MPB. XII, 73. Echiothrix
F 1891
l o w e r & L y d e k k e r Intr. Mam. 477 Echinothrix
W1894
e b e r Zool. Erg. III, 474 Echiothrix
T 1896
h o m a s AMNH. (6) XVIII, 246 Craurothrix
T r1897
o u e s s a r t Cat. Mam. 502 Echiothrix.
Balg a. mit Schädel, fem., Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord
Celébes, 11. VII 94
2 fem.,
b–d. 1 mas juv., in Spiritus, Tomohon, IV 94 und IV 95.

Bis jetzt nur von der Minahassa, Nord Celébes, bekannt, und zwar
von den Localitäten Amurang (Mus. Dresd. und Mus. Leid.), Berg
Masarang 3500 Fuss hoch (Mus. Dresd.), Tomohon (Sarasins).
G r a y hatte zwar die Art von Australien beschrieben, aber
T h o m a s desavouirte diesen Fundort. Ob sie auf Celébes eine
grössere Verbreitung hat, wird die Zukunft lehren.

L y d e k k e r (Intr. Mam. 1891, 477) sagt anmerkungsweise, dass er


Echimys Gray in Echinothrix (PZS. 1867, 59) verbessere, allein
G r a y hat Echiothrix, nicht Echimys. T h o m a s schlug 1896 vor,
Craurothrix für Echinothrix zu gebrauchen, da letzterer Name bereits
vergeben sei.
1 Die Farbe der nackten Theile (Füsse etc.) der Ratten auf dieser, wie den
folgenden 3 Tafeln ist mehr oder weniger nach Gutdünken gewählt, da Angaben
darüber nicht vorliegen. ↑
2 Die goldige Ringelung der einzelnen Haare konnte auf der Abbildung (mit
Handkolorit) nicht wiedergegeben werden. ↑
[Inhalt]
Ungulata
Suidae

[Inhalt]

40. Sus verrucosus celebensis (Müll. Schl.)

Eine a.Kopfhaut mit Schädel eines alten Männchens von


Kalimba am Pik von Bonthain, Süd-Celébes, 26. X 95.
Haut b.eines Weibchens, in Spiritus, aus der Gegend von
Makassar, Süd Celébes.
2 Häute
c, d. mit Schädeln, in Spiritus, von Frischlingen,
l ä n g s g e s t r e i f t , von Kema, Nord-Celébes, XII 94.

Weitere Schädel sind noch in den Händen des Hrn. Dr. S t e h l i n in


Basel, um zusammen mit den Babirusaschädeln der Herren
S a r a s i n (s. unten) bearbeitet zu werden. [28]

Ich weise auf N e h r i n g s Besprechung von Sus celebensis (Abb.


Ber. Dresd. 1888/9 Nr. 2 S. 5–14, Taf. I–II) und bemerke nur, dass
die Sau eine gelbliche Querbinde an der Schnauze und der alte Eber
nur éine Gesichtswarze jederseits besitzt. Im Übrigen scheint mir
F o r s y t h M a j o r ’ s Benennung (AMNH. 6 s. 1897 XIX, 527) die
zweckentsprechendste zu sein. Da das Dresdner Museum
inzwischen ein grösseres Material von Wildschweinen von Nord und
Ost Celébes (im Ganzen jetzt 14 Bälge, 12 Skelette, 4 Schädel, 1
juv. in Spiritus), sowie von den Philippinen erhielt, so hoffe ich darauf
zurückkommen oder das Material Anderen zur Verfügung stellen zu
können.

Die Herren S a r a s i n brachten auch den jungen Schädel mit


Milchgebiss eines Hausschweines von Tomohon, Nord Celébes, mit,
das eventuell vom Wildschwein abstammen könnte.

[Inhalt]

41. Babirusa alfurus Less.

Die Herren S a r a s i n erbeuteten 16 (oder mehr) Babirusa-Schädel


in Celébes, die Hr. Dr. S t e h l i n in Basel zur speciellen Bearbeitung
übernommen hat. Ich benutze aber diese Gelegenheit, indem ich
zugleich auf meine früheren Auseinandersetzungen über Babirusa
alfurus (Abh. Ber. 1896/7 Nr. 6 S. 15–25 Taf. IX) verweise, folgende
Bemerkungen über inzwischen erhaltenes Schädelmaterial zu
machen:

Der (l. c. p. 17) von mir erwähnte angebliche Babirusa-Schädel aus


dem Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg von den Salomo Inseln ist
nunmehr im Leipziger Museum für Völkerkunde aufgefunden
worden, und meine Vermuthung, dass es nur ein Sus-Schädel mit
abnorm gewachsenen unteren Hauern sei, hat sich als richtig
erwiesen (er figurirt im Leipziger Museum jedoch noch als Babirusa-
Schädel). Die oberen Hauer sind frühzeitig entfernt worden, so dass
sich die unteren unbeschränkt entwickeln konnten, allein sie sind in
dieser Entwicklung noch nicht weit vorgeschritten, und die
oberflächliche Ähnlichkeit mit einem Babirusa-Schädel, wenn man
überhaupt von einer solchen reden kann, ist nur im Stand einen
Laien zu täuschen. Übrigens sehe ich nachträglich, dass F i n s c h
dies bereits 1888 (Ethn. Erf. I, 148) richtig gestellt hat. Einen
kreisförmigen Schweinezahn bildete schon E. R o u s s e a u : Anat.
comp. du syst. dent. Paris 1839 T. 20 f. 2 ab.
Hinsichtlich der Frage der o b e r e n E c k z ä h n e b e i d e r
a d u l t e n S a u bemerkte ich l. c. p. 25: „Ob die Normalformel für
den weiblichen Babirusa bezüglich der Eckzähne 0/1 oder 1/1 zu
lauten habe, lässt sich erst sagen, wenn mehr authentische
weibliche Schädel in den Sammlungen sein werden, um zu
erkennen, ob 0/1 oder 1/1 die Ausnahme ist.“ Das Museum erhielt
von der Insel Lembeh bei Nord Celébes einen adulten weiblichen
Schädel (B 3452) von 286 mm Länge, der beiderseits einen mehr
oder weniger horizontal nach vorn und auswärts gerichteten, links
11, rechts 9 mm aus der Alveole hervorragenden, ziemlich spitzen,
oberen Eckzahn hat. Die Alveolarkrämpe (aileron), in der er wurzelt,
ist nicht stärker ausgebildet als bei dem l. c. Taf. IX, 3 von mir
abgebildeten Exemplar ohne oberen Eckzahn. Die Eckzähne des
Unterkiefers ragen links 11, rechts 12 mm aus der Alveole hervor.
Weibliche Schädel sind selten in Museen. Hr. Dr. S t e h l i n theilte
mir mit, dass ihm unter c 80 Schädeln, die er an verschiedenen
Orten gesehen, nur 5 weibliche vorgekommen seien. Sie werden
ihrer Unscheinbarkeit wegen eben an Ort und Stelle nicht
aufbewahrt, während die auffallenden Eckzähne des Männchens
jeden Laien zum Sammeln anregen. Das von mir l. c. p. 24 erwähnte
Leidener semiadulte Exemplar ist nach Dr. S t e h l i n s Ansicht völlig
adult und zeigt auch rechts eine Spur des oberen Eckzahnes in
Form eines Rudimentes; der linke ist zugespitzt. Ein dritter junger
weiblicher Schädel in Leiden, von 177 mm Länge, habe auch keine
Spur eines oberen Eckzahnes, so wenig wie das von mir erwähnte.
Die Herren S a r a s i n hätten aber auch einen alten weiblichen
Schädel mitgebracht mit oberem Eckzahne beiderseits von nicht
ganz 1 cm Länge, ziemlich stumpf, mit einem auf eine sehr mässige
Kante reducirten Alveolarvorsprung.

Ich bin an der Hand dieser Daten jetzt mehr geneigt, c 1/1 für die
Norm und c 0/1 für abnorm anzusehen. Bei seiner Gracilität kann der
Zahn unter Umständen früh ausbrechen oder ist überhaupt deciduös
und sein Fehlen daher, wie in dem von mir l. c. p. 24 beschriebenen
Falle, möglicherweise besser so zu erklären, als durch die Annahme,
dass er nie vorhanden gewesen sei; denn sein Nichtvorhandensein
bei j u n g e n Schädeln mit Milchgebiss oder Resten davon beweist
nicht, dass er nicht schon vorhanden gewesen sein konnte. [29]

In Bezug auf die Z a h n f o r m e l d e s a d u l t e n E b e r s meinte


ich l. c. p. 22, dass es noch sicher gestellt werden müsste, ob in
allen Fällen im definitiven Gebisse 3 Praemolaren auftreten. Das
Dresdner Museum erhielt inzwischen ebenfalls von der Insel
Lembeh bei Nord Celébes einen jungen männlichen Schädel (B
3453) von 249 mm Länge, der in dieser Beziehung lehrreich ist: m 3
überall noch nicht durchgebrochen; im Unterkiefer jederseits 3
Praemolaren, p 3 (der vorderste) aber beiderseits deciduös;
Eckzähne c 22 mm aus der Alveole hervorragend, ihre Wurzeln
reichen aber bereits bis ans hintere Ende von m 2; im Oberkiefer
beiderseits nur 2 Praemolaren, p 3 ist schon ausgefallen, die
Alveolenreste sind jedoch noch vorhanden, und man erkennt hier
deutlich den Grund des Ausfallens: die Wurzeln der Hauer, die c 27
mm aus der Alveole hervorragen, reichen bis an die vordere Wurzel
von p 2 und sind über den alveolaren Löchern der ausgefallenen p 3
sichtbar, sie haben zweifellos das Ausfallen von p 3 mechanisch
bewirkt; p 2 dex. bietet noch die Anomalie, dass er quer steht, die
Längsaxe der Krone ist nicht von vorn nach hinten gerichtet, sondern
von aussen nach innen; der Grund davon liegt zu Tage, indem ein
Praemolar des Milchgebisses zwischen den Alveolen von p 3 und p
2 stehen geblieben ist und noch so fest sitzt, dass man ihn nicht
bewegen kann; p 2 war nicht im Stand ihn hinauszudrängen und hat
sich daher quer stellen müssen. Legt man die Zahnreihen beider
Kiefer aufeinander, so passen sie rechts normal, links aber findet
sich zwischen p 2 und p 1 sup. eine Lücke, da p 2 nicht längs,
sondern quer steht.
Dieser Befund von 3 Praemolaren im Unterkiefer und der sichere
Beweis, dass auch p 3 im Oberkiefer vorhanden gewesen ist, lässt
mich, zusammen mit dem Umstande, dass Hr. Dr. S t e h l i n mir
mittheilt, er habe Spuren von p 3 oder die Zähne selbst öfters
angetroffen, nunmehr annehmen, dass das Vorhandensein von p 3
im Dauergebiss als die Norm zu gelten habe, wenn dieser Zahn
auch meistens früh ausfällt; im Oberkiefer treibt ihn die Wurzel des
Eckzahns mechanisch heraus, im Unterkiefer ist dies bei dem
vorliegenden Schädel (B 3453) nicht der Fall, die Wurzel verläuft im
basalen Theile des Knochens und berührt die Knochen von p 3
nicht.

Endlich bemerke ich über einen auch neuerdings erhaltenen alten


männlichen Schädel (B 3556) von 302 mm Länge aus dem
Gorontaloschen (wo der Babirusa tualangio heisst), dass ihm p 2
sup. sin. fehlt und dass dessen Alveole vollkommen verstrichen ist;
in Folge davon hat sich p 2 inf. sin. abnorm entwickelt, er überragt
mit seiner Spitze die Kaufläche von p 2 um 6 mm, während diese bei
p 2 inf. dex. unter der von p 1 bleibt, und stösst fast an den Rand
des Oberkiefers; p 2 inf. sin. steht mit seiner Basis auch höher als p
1, was wohl ebenfalls eine Folge des fehlenden Antagonisten ist;
denn dass die Wurzel des unteren Hauers die Basis in die Höhe
getrieben haben sollte, ist nicht anzunehmen, weil der
Zwischenraum zwischen ihrer Alveole und dem Kieferrande zu gross
ist. In diesem Fall hat aber auch die Wurzel des oberen Hauers p 2
sup. sin. nicht etwa ausgetrieben, denn ihre Alveole berührt dessen
Basis nicht. Wenn schon, wie wir oben und l. c. p. 22 sahen, p 3
Wechselfällen in höherem Maass ausgesetzt ist, so scheint sich
doch auch p 2 mehr oder weniger, wenn auch seltener, anomal zu
entwickeln, und steht auch dies wohl in Correlation zu dem
aussergewöhnlichen Wachsthume des Eckzahnes.
Bei einem schon länger im Museum aufbewahrten adulten Schädel
von Buru (Nr. 1993), von 284 mm Länge, liegt p 2 sup. sin. nicht
hinter p 2 inf., wie normal, sondern sie stehen übereinander und in
Folge dessen haben sich die Spitzen gegenseitig platt geschliffen.

Was die V e r b r e i t u n g d e s B a b i r u s a anlangt (l. c. p. 15), so


erfuhr ich inzwischen, dass er bei Tolitoli (Nordküste von Celébes)
ganz ausserordentlich häufig vorkomme.
[Inhalt]
Cervidae

[Inhalt]

42. Cervus moluccensis Q. G.

Schädel,
a, b. mas und fem., von Tomohon, Minahassa, Nord
Celébes, III 94.
Schädel,
c. fem., von der Insel Djampea im Süden von
Celébes.
20d–x.
Geweihe: 1 von Kema (Nord Celébes), 3 von
Tomohon (Nord Celébes), 1 aus der Minahassa, 3 von
der Insel Djampea, 12 ohne nähere Bezeichnung aus der
Umgebung des Tominigolfes (in Gorontalo gekauft).

[30]

R ö r i g (Geweihslg. 1896, 49) hat neuerdings den Hirsch von


Celébes nach einem Geweih artlich als „C. celebensis?“ abgetrennt
und (l. c. Fig. 19) abgebildet; er sagt: „Die Geweihform dieser
Species unterscheidet sich insofern von den eben beschriebenen
(equinus), als die von der Hauptstange abgehende Sprosse nicht
hinten oder innen, sondern an der Aussenseite sich abzweigt, so
dass die dadurch entstehende Gabel nicht seitlich, sondern v o r n
offen ist. Die Träger dieser Geweihe bilden in Bezug hierauf somit
den Übergang zu denjenigen Hirschen, bei denen jene Sprosse auf
der Vorderseite der Stange entspringt und auch nach vorn gerichtet
ist, wie wir es z. B. bei den Molukkenhirschen wahrnehmen“ (vgl.
auch seine schematische Tafel zu S. 16). L y d e k k e r (Deer of all
Lands 1898, 166) nennt den Celébeshirsch C. hippelaphus
moluccensis (Q. G.) und nimmt auf R ö r i g keine Rücksicht.
W e b e r (Zool. Erg. I, 112 1890) führte nach Geweihen den
Celébeshirsch als Russa russa S. Müll. ausser von Süd Celébes von
der Insel Saleyer auf, H i c k s o n (Nat. Cel. 1893, 69) von der Insel
Talisse im Norden von Celébes.

Das S a r a s i n sche Material zusammen mit dem des Dresdner


Museums zeigt, dass R ö r i g s Abtrennung der Celébesform von
moluccensis nicht gerechtfertigt ist. Auch ich erbeutete in Süd
Celébes ein grosses Geweih, das die von R ö r i g namhaft
gemachten Charaktere exquisit zeigt, dagegen andere vom Norden
und Süden, die moluccensis entsprechen. Unter den
S a r a s i n schen sind solche, die sich als Übergänge erweisen. Es
ist nicht möglich, die von R ö r i g beschriebene Geweihform als
Altersform anzusehen, da z. B. ein junges Exemplar von
moluccensis, das ich von Ternate mitbrachte, den Charakter bereits
vorzüglich aufweist. Es giebt auch Geweihe, deren eine Stange
mehr zu moluccensis, die andere mehr zu „celebensis“ hinneigt. Das
Geweih dieses Hirsches variirt jedenfalls stark. Ein Fell aber, das
das Dresdner Museum von Nord Celébes besitzt, stimmt sehr gut
mit der Abbildung von Q u o y & G a i m a r d (Voy. Astr. 1833 I pl. 24,
Text 1830 I, 133), die einen Hirsch von Buru darstellt, so dass ich an
der Artzusammengehörigkeit nicht zweifle.

Die Herren S a r a s i n hatten den Eindruck, als ob, nach dem


Geweih zu urtheilen, der nördliche Celébeshirsch grösser sei als der
südliche, das Dresdner grosse Geweih vom Süden bestätigt dies
nicht, allein Endgültiges lässt sich jetzt noch nicht sagen. Wie
G r a a f l a n d (Minahassa 2. Aufl. 1898 App. p. V) mittheilt, wurde
der Hirsch erst Anfang der dreissiger Jahre dieses Jahrhunderts in
die Minahassa eingeführt, die Sprachen dieser Gegend haben daher
auch keine ursprüngliche Bezeichnung für ihn. Man wird ihn wohl
von den Ländern der Tominibucht angebracht haben. Im Süden ist er
sehr häufig, wie ich gelegentlich einer grossen Treibjagd im Jahr

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