아프리카ㆍ중동

Saudi Arabia is considered as a media power in Arab world as well as a biggest market for media equipments. Introduction of new media to Saudi society has brought confusion on the idea of gender line or prohibition of ‘ikhtilat’. Saudi young people now could experience indirectly another society where gender line does not exist by watching satellite TV. Also, they could experience 'ikhtilat' which is forbidden in the real society on the artificial space or cyber space. Internet mediated communication which surpasses the physical time and space has made possible a new type of communication for Saudi people whom their men and women are separated in reality by the gender line. Especially, TV reality shows which have challenged boundaries between the real and cyber space, and between the public and private space have engendered a lot of controversy in Saudi society. It is known that the reality on cyber space could deconstruct the traditional idea of time and space to change the communal life style of human being. On this background, this paper will study on the relation between the gender line and new media by analyzing how the gender line is kept or broken down in Saudi society, whether the gender line on cyber space is free from off-line norms or not, and how much impacts and influences has been brought to Saudi society by the encounter of cyber and real space on reality TV shows.B