The Struggle of Entertainment and Neoliberal Postcolonial Capitalist Politics in "New" Saudi Arabia

This book analyzes the General Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia in transforming the state into a more neoliberal capitalist form of modernity. This book employs postcolonial analysis to examine how the Saudi government has produced and circulated cultural products in society to serve the postcolonial politics of the Global South.

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The author argues that the Entertainment Authority of Saudi Arabia was created in 2016 was meant to introduce "a new Saudi" to the Western outsider audience that the "new Saudi" state is on a mission to transform the country from a traditional and conservative kingdom to a new state that is dedicated to social modernization and openness. The author argues that globalization and the neoliberalism capitalist mode of politics have reinforced the transformation of cultural production into global entertainment production. Therefore, the entertainment sector relies heavily on reproducing the Western culture of entertainment production and depending on Western businesses to bring entertainment into the country instead of investing in local entertainment businesses to force the state to adopt neoliberal capitalism. The author shows how the new modernity of Saudi Arabia has become a political tool through which neoliberal capitalists can create positive relationships with Western powers and, through these relationships, gain political power within the country as part of the postcolonial struggle of the Global South. The author argues that there is a connection between the role of geopolitical power in globalization and postcolonial studies that explains the struggles of indigenous cultures related to providing their own production to society.