Pirates of the Mediterranean : Moroccan music video and technology

Abstract

Technologies for the consumption and production of global media have brought ‘foreign bodies’ into the domestic spaces of millions of Moroccans. Such unprecedented access to cultural materials is, however, negotiated at a local and familial level, and this paper considers the workings of this domestic interface. It examines the economy of music video production in Morocco and the close links existing between new technologies, traders and their markets. The paper also shows how moving images can be ‘ripped’ from global sources and re-edited to fit indigenous musical structures.