‘‘On the Road in America’’ follows four Arabs on a cross-country journey, which included a blues jam session in Mississippi.

By ELIZABETH JENSEN

Can a television series created for diplomatic purposes work as entertainment- The Sundance Channel is about to find out.
The cable channel’s series “On the Road in America,” originally produced by a nonprofit group with the hope of showing Arab viewers in the Middle East a broader and more nuanced view of America than that seen in Hollywood exports, has now come full circle back to the United States.
The 12-part series, which began this month, is a travelogue delivered through the eyes of four relatively Westernized Arabs - three men and a woman - with some outspoken political debate thrown in along the way. One minute during their summer 2006 road trip, the travelers are ogling New York skyscrapers, the next they are arguing over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Some of the most intense debate comes from the spontaneous conversations between the Palestinian Lara Abou Saifan and one of the show’s cameramen, Guy Livneh, an Israeli .
The series had its genesis in the wake of September 11, 2001. Layalina Productions - a nonpartisan Washington nonprofit created to foster Arab- American understanding - asked the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California to encourage programming for the Middle East, said Leon Shahabian, vice president of Layalina and an executive producer of the series.
The idea for “On the Road” ultimately came from Jerome Gary, another executive producer and the institute’s strategic director. Some 500 young people in Lebanon, Dubai, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco were auditioned, Mr. Gary said. None of the four - in addition to Ms. Abou Saifan, they include the Egyptian student Ali Amr, the Saudi student Sanad Al Kubaissi and a slightly older Jordanian, Mohamed Abou-Ghazal, who at the time of filming had completed medical studies - is a particularly observant Muslim.
Ms. Abou Saifan was technically enlisted as Mr. Gary’s production assistant, because “three guys and a girl traveling across America would be unacceptable to certain Muslims in the Middle East,” Mr. Gary said .
Mr. Gary, who directed nine episodes, said that he wanted to cast a very observant Muslim, but that few auditioned. “The problem was, they were so threatened by America,” he said, adding that he hopes to include more diverse religious views in a possible second season.
About 4.5 million viewers tuned in for each episode when the series was shown in 2007 on the Middle East Broadcasting Center, a Saudi-owned channel that broadcasts all over the Arab world, Mr. Shahabian said.
Even though Americans weren’t initially the intended audience, Mr. Gary called his subjects “our own little Arab de Tocquevilles,” referring to the 19th-century French author whose “Democracy in America” helped the fledgling United States understand itself.
The series appealed to Sundance, which specializes in independent films, because it “challenges people to dig a little deeper in terms of understanding the issues,” said Laura Michalchyshyn, the network’s executive vice president for programming. Citing Ms. Abou Saifan’s criticism of the quality of news reporting she sees in the United States, Ms. Michalchyshyn said that the group of four “provides a viewpoint of America that is refreshingly healthy for us to hear.”