Pan-Arab news satire: Transnational critiques and the contingency of satire

Pan-Arab news satire—as exemplified by satirical news websites such as Al-Hudood (‘The boundaries/borders’, 2013–present, independent)—has come to garner large transnational following across the Arab World and its diasporas. This sphere of news satire is strongly characterised by its transnational dimension whether at the level of production, content, or reception. This paper aims to examine the concrete critiques formulated by pan-Arab news satire, the transnational stance underlying them, and the synergies and tensions these entail vis-à-vis satire as a genre. The study is based on a thematic and discursive analysis of al-Hudood’s political coverage over a 6-months period (Nov 2022—May 2023) complimented by in-depth interviews with staff satirists at the media outlet. Our preliminary analysis shows three main interlinked critiques in al-Hudood’s coverage: (1) a domestic political (democratic) critique; (2) a socio-economic critique; (3) a geopolitical critique. All three levels of critique, we argue, depart from a regional and transnational lens in making sense of different situated (national or local) realities and contexts across the region. This privileges an understanding of power as fundamentally transpiring across borders and of resistance and social change as a profoundly transnational undertaking. On the other hand, we argue that these critiques have to contend with tensions between these different scales (local-transnational) whether at the level of production (e.g., in terms of the imagined audiences) or the satirical texts themselves (e.g., in terms of their inherently intertextual nature) which highlights the contingency and ambiguity of ‘rebellious humour’.