Portrayed in Western discourse as tribal and traditional, Afghans have in fact intensely debated women's rights, democracy, modernity, and Islam as part of their nation building in the post-9/11 era. Wazhmah Osman places television at the heart of these public and politically charged clashes while revealing how the medium also provides war-weary Afghans with a semblance of open discussion and healing. After four decades of gender and sectarian violence, she argues, the internationally funded media sector has the potential to bring about justice, national integration, and peace.

Fieldwork from across Afghanistan allowed Osman to record the voices of many Afghan media producers and people. Afghans offer their own seldom-heard views on the country's cultural progress and belief systems, their understandings of themselves, and the role of international interventions. Osman analyzes the impact of transnational media and foreign funding while keeping the focus on local cultural contestations, productions, and social movements. As a result, she redirects the global dialogue about Afghanistan to Afghans and challenges top-down narratives of humanitarian development.

|Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. Legitimizing Modernity: Indigenous Modernities, Foreign Incursions, and Their Backlashes
Chapter 2. Imperialism, Globalization, and Development: Overlaps and Disjunctures
Chapter 3. Afghan Television Production: A Distinctive Political Economy
Chapter 4. Producers and Production: The Development Gaze and the Imperial Gaze
Chapter 5. Reaching Vulnerable and Dangerous Populations: Women and the Pashtuns
Chapter 6. Reception and Audiences: The Demands and Desires of Afghan People
Conclusion: The Future of Media, the Future of Afghanistan
Appendix A: Ethnic Groups Table
Appendix B: Media Funding Sources and Recipients Table
Appendix C: TV Stations and Affiliations Table
Notes
References
Index| ICA ACJS Outstanding Book Award, 2021 — ICA ACJS Outstanding Book Award
|Wazhmah Osman is a filmmaker and assistant professor in the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University. She is the codirector of the critically acclaimed documentary Postcards from Tora Bora and the coauthor of Afghanistan: A Very Short Introduction.