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By
William A. Rugh
When Americans became aware
that the prestige of the United States after 9/11 had declined seriously
in the Arab world, many called for an intensified public diplomacy effort
in the Middle East in order to reverse that decline. Reacting to that
concern, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is responsible for
US Government-sponsored international broadcasting, developed two new
projects intended to help explain America better to the Arab public. One
of them was Radio Sawa, an Arabic language radio channel that the BBG
started 2002, and which replaced the Voice of America's Arabic Service,
and the other was Alhurra Television, also in Arabic, which the BBG started
in February 2004.
The BBG intended Radio Sawa to target the 15-30 age cohort in the Arab
world, and in order to appeal to that group, the program content was primarily
American and Arab pop music, interspersed with periodic brief news bulletins.
Congress gave Radio Sawa $100 million in startup funding. In order to
improve access, the Broadcasting Board of Governors enhanced Sawa's signal
on medium wave by shifting the use of some transmitters, and also arranged
for leases on several local FM channels in Arab countries.
Alhurra was intended to reach a general audience by satellite and its
sponsors said it would offer programs that would demonstrate American
democracy and deal with issues that it said had been avoided by all Arab
TV channels. Congress gave Alhurra $102 million in startup funding.
Now that both Radio Sawa and Alhurra television have been in operation
for some time, it seems clear that both have shortcomings.
There are several problems with Radio Sawa. First, its sponsors claim
that it is successful because it has developed a significant audience
share in the Arab world. However to be effective in supporting American
public diplomacy, audience share is not enough. Radio Sawa is giving the
young Arabs the programs they want, namely pop music, but the station
does little to advance public diplomacy objectives, which include improving
understanding and appreciation of American society and foreign policies.
The Voice of America Arabic Service that Radio Sawa replaced presented
a broad spectrum of programming including extensive news reports and analyses,
features on American culture and society including on current issues,
and in-depth background pieces that helped Arab audiences understand America
better. Radio Sawa does none of that, so those programs are now lost.
Moreover, VOA Arabic appealed to many age groups and types of listeners,
including policy makers and influential professionals, while Radio Sawa
only aims at youth and is only of interest to them.
Supporters of Radio Sawa claim that its transmissions are audible to more
people and that few Arabs could hear VOA. There was some truth in that,
because much of VOA's transmitter power was in short wave, and the medium
wave and FM frequencies that most people now listen to were simply not
available. Also the VOA audience had declined because of the growth of
both FM and satellite TV. But VOA management was trying to address that
problem. In 2001 it had a $15 million plan to implement a major transmitter
expansion at an annual cost of $4 million that could have included FM
leases and provided 24/7 service. VOA had already boosted the Kuwait medium
wave transmitter from 100 to 600 KW in 1996, and they planned to boost
the medium wave transmitter on Rhodes from 300 to 600KW. But the BBG shut
down the Arabic Service on April 19, 2002 before those plans could be
carried out.
Alhurra also has several problems. Its sponsors have succeeded in obtaining
substantial funding from Congress by claiming that existing Arab television
channels are hopelessly anti-American and in addition are all so tightly
controlled by Arab governments that no sensitive issues are ever aired.
The BBG argument is that in order for the US to fight terrorism we must
promote democracy and a free press in the Arab world, and the best way
to do that is to establish an American-style TV channel based on American
principles of free press, and that competition will force the Arab channels
to open up.
The premise of that argument is incorrect and the performance of Alhurra
does not meet that standard. Professor Marc Lynch in his well-researched
essay in the book Engaging the Arab and Muslim Worlds through Public
Diplomacy has amply demonstrated the falsity of the BBG premise. He
has shown what Arab viewers know, that Arab television channels have for
some years taken up issues that are very sensitive politically and deal
openly and frankly with Arab social and cultural taboos. As for Alhurra's
performance, testimony by Arab viewers of the channel found that it is
far from liberal in its programming but in fact it looks much more like
the old-style Arab TV channels that were totally controlled by authoritarian
Arab governments and that served primarily as propaganda arms of those
governments.
For example, when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Alhurra essentially featured
commentators friendly to the US Government, while Al Jazeera broadcast
the Senate hearings that featured Richard Clarke and other critics of
the administration, and the latter was much more effective public diplomacy.
Another example was that in March 2004 when Sheikh Ahmad Yassin was killed
by the Israelis, Alhurra gave it very brief coverage and ignored most
of the reaction in the Middle East, putting a cooking show on instead.
Al Jazeera and other Arab channels in contrast not only covered the funeral
but broadcast interviews with Israelis and Americans as well as with Palestinians,
programs that appealed to the audience and also showed balance.
When Alhurra began, Arab viewers expected a great deal from it and they
were deeply disappointed because the quality of the programs was poorer
than the quality of Arab satellite TV. The quality has improved somewhat
but it is still below standard and well below what audiences expect from
a channel sponsored by the government of the world's only superpower.
In fact, Alhurra faces an existential dilemma. Because of its government
funding and Congressional oversight, Alhurra must be careful not to go
too far in presenting views critical of the US Government, but at the
same time it must regularly include a fair amount of open discussion of
American foreign policy if it is to compete with Al Jazeera and other
Arab channels. It is not clear how it can it do that over the long term.
For the time being, however, the Broadcasting Board of Governors has been
able to avoid that dilemma because members of Congress do not in fact
know what is being broadcast on Alhurra except what the BBG wants to tell
them. Members of Congress and their staffs know no Arabic, they do not
watch Alhurra, and they have no independent means to monitor it. So far,
that ignorance has allowed the BBG to obtain generous funding from Congress.
When the BBG presents opinion poll data to Congress, the data is accurate
but misleading. The polls do not show Alhurra or Radio Sawa in head-to-head
competitions, but only ask whether audiences have watched the programs.
Arab viewers and listeners asked if they have watched Alhurra or listened
to Radio Sawa this week will probably answer yes even if have only watched
or listened for one minute, while devoting most of their time to other
channels. A much better test of audience penetration would be to ask which
channel the audience prefers. Moreover, as was pointed out in the Congressionally-mandated
study "Changing Minds, Winning Peace," issued in October 2003
by a group of experts headed by Ambassador Djerejian, if the purpose of
public diplomacy is to change opinions ("move the needle"),
questions probing the questions need to be asked about the impact of these
new channels on opinion change, and this has not been done.
It is likely however that despite these shortcomings, Alhurra and Radio
Sawa will survive. That is so because Congress feels under great pressure
to "do something" about America's serious public diplomacy problem
in the Arab world, and supporting Alhurra and Radio Sawa seems to them
like a simple remedy, if not a quick fix. There are no other simple and
appealing options on the table. And since members of Congress, like Senator
Biden (D-Delaware), who enthusiastically support it have no way of monitoring
these programs directly, all they know about them is what they hear from
people with a vested interest in more funding. When Senator Biden and
others visited the Alhurra production studios they were dazzled by state-of-the-art
equipment, and by the fact that the staff members are native speakers
of Arabic, so they decided that the programs "must be good."
Without any real independent oversight by knowledgeable people, these
efforts will continue, whether they are worth the cost or not.
There are, however, alternatives. Voice of America professionals have
called for the revival of the VOA Arabic Service, and they are right to
do so because effective public diplomacy needs serious broad-spectrum
radio programming that appeals to a variety of different groups including
policy makers. Moreover, instead of denouncing Al Jazeera, American officials
should try to make much more use of all of the existing Arab television
channels that are willing to give them access, so that they can get their
policies and views out to the Arab public. Ignoring or boycotting these
channels as they have done is self-defeating, and denouncing them reinforces
the impression that America follows a double standard, opposing free speech
only when it hurts. That is the wrong message to send.
William A. Rugh was
a US Foreign Service Officer 1964-1995, serving in Washington and at seven
Middle Eastern diplomatic posts including public affairs officer in Saudi
Arabia and Egypt. From 1995 until 2003 he was President and CEO of AMIDEAST
and he is currently an Associate of Georgetown's Institute for the Study
of Diplomacy, an Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute, a Trustee
of the American University in Cairo, and a Board Member at AMIDEAST. Rugh
holds a PhD in political science from Columbia University and has taught
graduate level courses on Public Diplomacy and on US Policy in the Middle
East. He is the author of Arab Mass Media and editor of Engaging
with the Arab and Islamic Worlds Through Public Diplomacy: A Report and
Action Recommendations.
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