Abstract:
The study aims to identify how television programs address taboos,
between dilution and enlightenment. It took the program "In the Orbit of the
Forbidden" as a model for the study, examining the nature of the program's
dialogue and discussion, while analyzing the course of the episodes within the
same program. The main question of the study was as follows: How does the
media treatment of taboos manifest in the program "In the Orbit of the
Forbidden" on France 24, in light of the dialectic of enlightenment and the
dissemination of the forbidden?
The study relied primarily on a descriptive approach and a content
analysis tool for a sample of 13 episodes out of 177 of the program's episodes,
broadcast from June 2015 to June 2024.
The study reached several conclusions, the most important of which are
that the topics of the episodes had religious, sexual, and political dimensions.
The communicator's goal was focused on shaping social awareness, which was
most clearly and eloquently achieved through the management of the discussion
and dialogue within the studio and through the persuasive methods employed.
While its direction was investigative, as for the guests, it became clear that
female participation was more prominent than male, and the nationality of the
majority of them was Egyptian, then Moroccan, as for their nature, they were
activists in the field of human rights, then media professionals, and the
characteristics of most of them were secular, then those concerned with the topic
of the episode, in addition to the fact that the person in charge of communication
was committed to creating a balance in communicating with the guests via
satellite and studio guests, and also using the classical language in most of the
interventions and the colloquial dialect in some of them, and the program
targeted the female segment of the audience more than it targeted the general
public, and it also relied on the rational method of attraction, as the timing and
time of the interventions were largely balanced and close in time.
