Drama queens: the engagement of Sarawak Malay housewives with television's cosmopolitan morality

[Truncated abstract] Due to the presence of television, domestic space is no longer so isolated. Television has allowed housewives exposure to electronic messages concerning globalisation, modernity and, in the case of Malaysia, a form of Islam which is promoted by the government. These messages are embedded in different television genres in locally produced programs. The purpose of this study is to explore how urban Sarawak Malay housewives engage with television. The context is Kampung Tabuan Melayu, a working class Malay village in Sarawak’s capital city, Kuching. The life of housewives in the village is framed by motivational and talk-show television programs in the early morning; drama serials or imported telenovelas in the mid-afternoon; prime-time news in the evening and reality television or television magazine programs at night. The research examines how these housewives search for images on television of ‘ideal wives and mothers’ and how they use these images as resources to guide their own role performance in a changing society. The research argues further that this is possible because free-to-air Malaysian television adopts a cosmopolitan outlook focused on cultural diversity, emphasising moral values which the women are able to use to enhance their local social standing. The ethnographic approach applied in this research enables a detailed investigation of how housewives interpret television messages. In-depth interviews and participant observation proved insightful methods in understanding how television messages permeate the everyday lives of housewives in Kampung Tabuan Melayu. Moreover, the adoption of a multi-sited fieldwork approach (Marcus 1995) made it possible to trace the housewives’ mobility and to comprehend their desire for consumer lifestyle commodities featured on television.