A Letter to Obama

From the MIT Center for International Studies' Advice to President Obama, Peter Krause writes

U.S. media outlets like Al-Hurra should be reconfigured to engage viewers using a C-Span-type model . . . Obama must realize that the U.S. government is often not the most effective actor to lead a dialogue of ideas, particularly concerning debates over Islam. Intelligent engagement is as much about listening, learning, and picking the right battles as it is about resources, and an increase in the latter must not obscure the importance of the former in America’s efforts.

Krause's remarks echo a 2004 NYT op-ed by Steven Cook.   Arguing for a C-Span format, Cook expands on Krause's brief letter:

One of the most effective ways in which the United States can pursue this goal is to transform Washington's Arab satellite news channel, Al Hurra, into a kind of C-Span for the Arab world . . . It could begin, however, with programming that has already proved its attraction to Middle Eastern audiences: the workings of the United States government.  On May 7, after revelations about torture at Abu Ghraib prison, Al Hurra broadcast Donald Rumsfeld's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee to the Arab world.  The spectacle of the secretary of defense of the United States answering questions from elected legislators about the conduct of American soldiers transfixed many Arabs.  After all, many leaders in the Middle East are unelected and unaccountable, and most Arabs have never seen a senior government official called to account.  If America's Arab satellite news channel broadcast Arabic translations of United States government hearings, as well as other aspects of the American political system, it would go a long way toward promoting democratic principles in the Middle East.

Obama's decision to go on Al Arabiya instead of Al Hurra casts further doubt as to the future of Al Hurra.  Krause's leter is a welcome reminder that now is the time to reconsider the potential of existing American broadcasting infrastructure instead of calling for brand new institutions.  Re-programming Al Hurra is a frugal and innovative way to change the direction of U.S. public diplomacy.

Further Reading:

Madeline Albright and Vin Weber, "The Right Path to Arab Democracy," Washington Post, June, 8 2005.

John Brown, "Fixing Al Hurra: Some Small Steps," AmericanDiplomacy, June 2, 2005.

Media Wars and Borderless Journalism

Pintak makes some interesting points in this article about how, “American and Arab viewers are seeing two vastly different conflicts play out on their television screens” in the Gaza coverage from various international broadcasters. The most interesting point to me though is the difference between coverage on CNN’s domestic and international channels which are clearly directed toward different audiences.  Pintak describes how CNN domestic coverage may be more sympathetic to the Israeli side while CNN International is focusing more on Palestinian casualties on the ground. 

An American diplomat here in the Middle East told me that he and a colleague were working out in the embassy gym one day with the television on. The embassy gets a feed from Armed Forces Radio and Television, so diplomats have access to CNN’s domestic service. Out of curiosity, they started switching back and forth between CNN domestic and CNN international, the parallel – separately staffed and produced – version of the network seen outside the U.S. “We couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. The domestic CNN was dominated by commentary supporting Israeli actions, while the international feed was focused on the devastation on the ground.”

Web 3.0?

AJE's new advertising campaign.

Note anything funny on Foreign Policy's Passport? Also on Marc Lynch's FP blog?

Hello, NHK World

Via, KAE, Japan has announced that it will re-launch NHK World. NHK aims "to establish an international reputation...as a reliable source of news and other information from Asia." Interesting time to dump a lot of resources into a new English-language broadcaster, no? What will be NHK World's niche? I can't help but suspect that they'll try to become the "go-to" broadcaster for financial news.

By beefing up news content and commissioning more external programming for NHK World TV, a channel already available to 80 million households worldwide, NHK hopes to attract more viewers. It eventually aims to rank alongside CNN and BBC World in the global news market, corporation executives said on Wednesday. "We are not CNN or the BBC," Yoshinori Imai, executive vice-president of NHK, told reporters in Tokyo. "We are trying to be in their ranks, but it will take some time," he added. The corporation hopes to extend its reach to 150 million households within five years from its Feb. 2 re-launch, compared with 276 million households for BBC World News. NHK, which is funded by government subsidy and a levy imposed on television viewers, has allocated an annual 7 billion yen ($79 million) for international broadcasting, from which it will fund 200 news production staff. By comparison, CNN, owned by Time Warner Inc has a news production staff of 4,000, according to its website.

Does any other International Broadcaster have a blog discussing editorial dillemmas?

Cause the BBC does. And it is really interesting too. Run by "editors from across BBC News," where they are tasked to "share [their] dilemmas and issues." Topics include Gaza, Obama, the economy, etc. As a small taste, read Simon Wilson's (BBC's Washington Bureau Editor) thoughts on the day after President Obama was inaugurated:

In our coverage, we obviously need to reflect the genuine sense of excitement here without getting carried away ourselves or suspending the BBC's traditional approach of holding those in authority to account. I think we're broadly getting that right.

But it's interesting that in my e-mail inbox on Wednesday morning there was already a set of comments culled from our online audience beginning to criticise us and other news organisation for giving Obama too easy a ride. "Same wolf, different clothing" was the tenor of some of the messages I saw, although it's only fair to reflect that the messages were overwhelmingly favourable.

The comments section is also great. Al-Jazeera English doesn't have such a blog, nor does Alhurra.

Was Alhurra snubbed?

According to Marc Lynch, yup :

"Obama's choice to give his ground-breaking interview to the Saudi Al Arabiya and not to the American Alhurra is as clear a statement as it is possible to make of Alhurra's failure. It's time to face the facts and clean house to recoup some of that investment"

Also, I hadn't heard anything about Alhurra's news anchors dressing in all black during the Gaza fighting to demonstrate their solidarity with the Palestinians (via Dafna Linzer at ProPublica)

"Last month, news anchors at Alhurra swapped out brightly-colored outfits for black suits as a demonstration of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza who were under Israeli fire during weeks of fighting there. Alhurra broadcasts to the Middle East, but its website carried streaming video of the anchors, wearing black suits on air at their news desk and during reports on the fighting. Two people with direct knowledge of the incident said Alhurra managers had instructed anchors to halt the practice at the beginning of the new year and were conducting an informal review of the incident."

BBC/Firewall Update: Not so much (Updated 1/26)

Tony Benn (Britain's Secretary of State for Energy) to BBC: "If you wont broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself." He's also has publicly argued that the BBC has betrayed its public service obligations following its decision not to broadcast a public appeal for funds for Gaza, adding:

"I appeal to the chairman of the BBC Trust to intervene to reverse this decision to save the lives of those who are now in acute danger of dying through a lack of food, fuel, water and medical supplies."

So much for editorial independence...

UPDATE: AJE gets into the mix. I wonder if AJE's support of broadcasting the call for humanitarian aid actually makes it less likely that the BBC will reverse its decision? From The Peninsula, via Kim Andrew Elliot's blog:

DOHA: Al Jazeera English has contacted the UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) to support their call to broadcast announcements for humanitarian aid for the victims of the Gaza War. Al Jazeera English has pledged to run public service announcements in UK prime time on Al Jazeera English at no cost in support of the Committee’s appeal. The announcements will begin running tomorrow. The appeal will be broadcast to UK citizens both in the UK and across the world with Al Jazeera English’s global reach to over 130 million households. “We launched the Gaza Crisis Appeal as the devastation inflicted in the Gazan territory was so huge that British aid agencies were compelled to act and we are pleased with Al Jazeera’s support to broadcast the humanitarian aid appeal announcements,” said Brendan Gormley, Chief Executive of the Disasters Emergency Committee. Al Jazeera English can be seen in the UK on Sky Guide number 514, on Freesat 203, and online at www.livestation.com/aje.

Update (2): Is the BBC's decision to not air the DEC appeal actually generating more attention to the cause than it would have had there not been any controversy? Those clever brits!

The BBC has been on the receiving end this weekend of some fairly heavy criticism for not broadcasting an appeal from the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC) for donations to help people in the Gaza region. The Archbishop of Canterbury, a group of 50 MPs launching an Early Day Motion, 11,000 viewers and protestors outside Broadcasting House have urged the corporation to reconsider its stance...As such, there’s an argument that the BBC’s refusal to broadcast the charity’s appeal is generating even more coverage for it.

11,000 viewers came out to protest an editorial decision? Really? I'm going to look for some photos of this...

Evidence of an effective firewall at the BBC?

Of relevance given our discussion of the BBC's different tasks last week. Would airing the appeal for aid actually impacted the credibility of BBC news, or is the BBC just being overly cautious given a history of accusations of having an anti-Israel slant in its coverage in the Middle East?

The Director General of the BBC has rebuffed a request from the Government to reconsider its decision not to broadcast a charity appeal for the aid effort in Gaza.

In a letter to Douglas Alexander sent this evening, Mark Thompson, the head of the corporation, said that even if it was possible to deliver aid to Gaza, the BBC would not transmit an appeal from the Disasters & Emergency Committee (DEC) because to do so would tarnish the broadcaster’s attempts to remain impartial in the conflict.

Mr Alexander wrote to chiefs of broadcasters this morning expressing his disappointment that no television appeal will appear, saying the humanitarian situation in Gaza is “dire”.

AJE Surges in the US

Reuters is reporting that AJE's online viewership surged during the conflict in Gaza, which is no surprise. But the US audience grew by 600%......begging the question of just how long American cable providers can continue to argue that they aren't carrying AJE because it is not "commercially viable."

Livestation said Al-Jazeera English footage viewed on its site jumped to 17 million minutes worldwide over a two week period during the Gaza conflict, up from 3 million minutes in a similar time period before the conflict began.

The service did not break down those numbers by specific country. But it said that over one full week of the Gaza conflict, the number of U.S. viewers to Al-Jazeera English on Livestation surged by six times the usual level.

The boost in viewership was also reflected on YouTube where viewers can watch individual television reports. Over the past month during the Gaza crisis, Al-Jazeera was the most viewed English-language traditional news channel on YouTube's "News and Politics" category.

Time to go back to Shortwave?

As I mentioned Thursday, new technologies like the Internet seem to be making censorship easier, not more difficult. Maybe it is time to reconsider all of the budget cuts in shortwave radio technologies....though, how many Chinese youth own a radio?

The Internet crackdown has been described by analysts as another step in the Communist Party's battle to stifle dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries, including the 20th anniversary of the crackdown on the pro-democracy Tiananmen Square protests.

"The Internet remains where the battle for information lies and the fact that the government is devoting so much effort at reining it in, in itself indicates how much of a threat they perceive it to be," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch.

China polices the Internet intensely, quickly removing any content deemed subversive or overly critical of the Party.

The government has closed over 1,200 websites, including a popular blog site, but with an estimated 3,000 new sites appearing daily, the battle to maintain control of the online world is never-ending.

"Staff Finds White House in the Technological Dark Ages"

Wonder what this means for the White House's ability to contribute to PD 2.0?

Two years after launching the most technologically savvy presidential campaign in history, Obama officials ran smack into the constraints of the federal bureaucracy yesterday, encountering a jumble of disconnected phone lines, old computer software, and security regulations forbidding outside e-mail accounts.

What does that mean in 21st-century terms? No Facebook to communicate with supporters. No outside e-mail log-ins. No instant messaging. Hard adjustments for a staff that helped sweep Obama to power through, among other things, relentless online social networking.

"It is kind of like going from an Xbox to an Atari," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said of his new digs.

Think Al-Jazeera English is Pro-Hamas? Think Again.

I read an interesting article on AJE's website this morning by Mark Levine (professor of Middle East history at the University of California, Irvine) outlining how the current tensions between Israel and Hamas isn't entirely Israel's fault, and in fact if Hamas continues down its current path of practicing "violent jihad," it was most certainly fail. Certainly no apologist for Israeli, Levine suggests that Hamas look to adopt non-violent approaches of protest, similar to MLK, Ghandi and Desmond Tuto. Levine concludes by calling for a change in the shape and tone of discourse on both sides, expressing hope that the exposure that the last three weeks of fighting has provided to the plight of Palestinians in Gaza will push the international community to encourage both Israel and Hamas to reconsider their options:

If there is a bright spot for Palestinians in the horrific violence of the last few weeks, it is that Israel's deployment of disproportionate and indiscriminate violence in Gaza has revealed the abnormality of the occupation for millions of people who previously had been unable to perceive it.

This revelation offers Hamas, and the Palestinian leadership more broadly, the chance to change the larger terms of the debate over the future of Israel/Palestine.

It could help move Palestinian society (and with it Israeli society, however reluctantly) away from the paradigm of two nationalist movements engaged in a competition over territory and towards a common future.

This process can only begin with the conversion of Israelis and Palestinians to the idea of sharing sovereignty, territory and even identity in order to achieve the greatest good for the most members of the two societies.

It is worth noting that the far left in Israel has long had such a bi-national programme. For its part, the PLO came close to it with its call for a "secular democratic state" in all of Mandate Palestine in 1969.

However, such an idea has never had a chance of being considered seriously as long as terrorism has been identified as the central strategy for the realisation of Palestinian nationalism.

When the two-state strategy epitomised by the Oslo peace process collapsed at the Camp David talks of July 2000, there was an opportunity for Palestinians again to change the terms of the debate.

Hamas in particular could have offered an alternative discourse to Yasser Arafat's supposed 'No' to a generous Israeli final offer.

But the movement had little new to offer.

Is the BBC going too far with "Broadcasting 2.0"

I mean, really, would you watch this show? I get annoyed enough with low-end journalism...

Thousands of videos, pictures and emails are sent in to the BBC every week and we are now choosing the best ones to make it onto a new show called Your World News.

So what do you have to do to make it on the programme? Quite simply, get out there and send us what's happening in your world.

You could film a protest on your mobile, snap some fantastic weather pictures on your camera or record yourself on your webcam reacting to the week's big stories. But remember you should never put yourself in danger or break any laws.

We've had viewers hitting the beach in Thailand showing us how the protests at airports have affected tourism and eyewitness reports of fires in Los Angeles.

The show is presented by the BBC's interactive reporter Siobhan Courtney and is broadcast every Friday on BBC World News. Siobhan and the BBC's interactive team look through all the material you've sent and choose the best video, texts, emails and pictures. It doesn't matter whether you live in a city, on a island, under a tree, or on a boat, just get out there and send us your news.

Al-Jazeera Goes Creative Commons?

Yup. The AJ network has put up a ton of their raw footage from Gaza online for free for any and all to use as they see fit. The footage is from both the Arabic and English feeds and does not include any AJ commentary sans a brief written timeline of what the cameras are looking at. Unprecedented move, to say the least. And it is important to put this in perspective: AJ is the only intenational news network in Gaza with cameras rolling, i.e. they have a monopoly on these images. By offering them for free and encouraging citizens and journalists alike and mash-up and reuse as they see fit is a bold move and could be read a s a rebuttal to Israel's refusal to allow any journalists into the Gaza strip. Thoughts?

Oh -- as a follow up -- The Economist is reporting that it is precisely these types of images that AJ is now offering to anyone with a modem and a computer that is responsible for Israel "losing the propaganda war" in Gaza. It will be interesting to see if/how the blogosphere starts to use and mash-up these feeds in the coming days.

Monitoring the Global Media Project

Here is a description of exactly what the Monitoring the Global Media Project entails, and what readers can be expect when they read this blog.

An essential part of understanding the role and influence of IB requires a hands-on study of the actual content international broadcasters. As a research exercise, each student will choose an international broadcaster that they will listen to each week for 2 hours and then post on what they thought of the broadcaster’s programming. Any international broadcaster can be chosen. Since the course benefits the most from a diverse selection of broadcasters, no two students can choose to monitor the same international broadcaster. Thus, broadcasters will be chosen on a first come, first serve purpose. Each student must have chosen an international broadcaster and write a two-page description of the international broadcaster that they have chosen no later than January 29th (see below for details of the two-page assignment). Students are strongly encouraged to choose a non-English broadcaster when possible (you must be able to understand the language of the broadcaster that you choose). Examining foreign language international broadcasts would, of course, add an additional layer of depth to our comparative analysis.

As part of the project, students will be asked to, each week, post a short analysis of how his or her broadcaster presented the news. The class will, collectively, choose a topic each month (February, March and April) that will be the focus of the monitoring of international broadcasters, though you are also encouraged to comment on other topics that you think are relevant to the class (for example, how an international broadcaster reports negative news about its funding government or organization). Attention should be paid not only to how a broadcaster frames particular issues, but also the structure of the programming: is it interactive, does it offer a range of experts, is the format aesthetically pleasing, etc. The posts will be on a blog and made available to the public. The benefits of the blog format are numerous, including the use of hyperlinks to the original text of the IB that you are reporting on. Moreover, the blog format allows for greater interactivity, and you are strongly encouraged to read each other’s posts and respond as you see fit. The blog posts will also help you develop your final paper for the class. The goal of the global media monitoring project, along with helping you write your final papers, will be to compile a comparative analysis of how a diverse group of international broadcasters covered and framed several highly salient international events in the spring of 2008. This compilation, via your final papers, will be submitted for publication.

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the official blog for PUBD 516, International Broadcasting: Influence and Power in the Age of Information. The purpose of the blog is to monitor several international broadcasters over the course of the semester and examine how each broadcaster covers international events differently and why.

Curious about the course? Course Description (from the syllabus):

This course examines the role of international broadcasting (IB) in the practice of public diplomacy. IB has, historically speaking, been essential to the success of public diplomacy efforts, particularly during World War II and later during the Cold War. Yet, today’s information environment has changed dramatically, altering the roles, goals and measures of success and failure of international broadcasters. Drawing from historical examples and theory, this course will examine contemporary broadcasters in an effort to better answer the meta-question: what role do/can international broadcasters play in contemporary public diplomacy efforts and, more broadly, international politics?

Typically, when someone hears the words “international broadcasting,” they immediately think of the great state-backed broadcasters of the 20th century, like the BBC and Voice of America. But IB is much broader than state-funded broadcasters, and today includes a diverse set of public and private actors around the world. For example, Al-Qaeda broadcasts its messages worldwide via the Internet. Chinese-Canadians broadcast their thoughts on living in Montreal to their homeland via pod and video-cast. Moreover, foundational IB organizations, like the BBC, are dramatically reforming their programming to become more participatory and development-oriented, particularly in Africa and Asia. At the same time, we are witnessing a substantial resurgence of more traditional state-funded and, in some cases, state-controlled broadcasters, including: Russia Today (Russia), Al-Jazeera English (Qatar), Press TV (Iran), Telesur (Venezuela), France 24 (France), and of course, Al Hurra and Radio Sawa (US).

Not only are there more actors engaged in IB, but their purposes also vary. A consequence of globalization has been the mass migration of millions of people from the developing world to the developed, a reality that has resulted in the creation of niche diasporic media, whereby migrant groups are staying connected to cultural and political developments in their home country via these niche IB efforts. Importantly, this process is bi-directional: not only are Iranians living in Los Angeles staying up-to-date to on Iranian politics via IB, but Iranians living in Tehran are learning about American politics and culture through private IB efforts, streamed through the Internet, generated right here in Los Angeles. Religious broadcasting is on the rise as well. For example, each year the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia funnels millions of dollars into international broadcasters who focus on Islamic talk shows and programming. International broadcasting is no longer simply a top-down form of communication, utilized by powerful nation-states in an effort to control the flow of global communications. Rather, IB is now best described as a battle between “flow and contra-flow,” whereby international broadcasters – private and public, dominant and disenfranchised – are competing for the attention of people as a means of gaining influence.

This course will synthesize scholarship exploring the significance and lessons drawn from the history of IB, theories of media globalization and contemporary efforts that exemplify the best and worst cases of IB today in order to answer the question, what role do/can international broadcasters play in contemporary public diplomacy efforts and, more broadly, international politics?

Each week’s lesson will pair a theory relevant to the influence of international broadcasting to several case studies that will help us understand and evaluate the relevance of certain conceptions of IB in today’s age of information. Each lesson will provide practical lessons for the class, both in terms of understanding how to best exercise influence via IB in a range of contexts, as well as understanding how to recognize, analyze and respond to antagonist international broadcasting efforts. Moreover, each week will include a discussion of our findings from the Global Media Monitoring project, outlined above.