Intermap

Shawn Powers

Okay, so this is some shameless self-promotion, but that’s what the blogosphere is for, no? My colleague Mohammed el-Nawawy (at Queens University of Charlotte) and I have completed our six-country study of viewers of Al-Jazeera English, the first global news broadcaster based in the Arab world, and we’d love to get some feedback from the intelligent folks who we know read this blog. The report prepared for the Knight Foundation can be downloaded here, and the press release about the findings is below. Comments encouraged! Feel free to get in touch directly: powers [dot] shawn [at] gmail [dot] com or visit the project’s website, ajerp.com for more information.

New study: Al-Jazeera English encourages negotiation and reconciliation. Study by Queens University of Charlotte and USC Annenberg scholars finds the television network reduces dogmatic thinking in its audiences around the world

Charlotte, N.C. (Dec. 16, 2008) – Researchers at Queens University of Charlotte and the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication have released a study finding the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera English (AJE) is more likely to cover contentious issues in a way that creates an environment conducive to cooperation, negotiation and reconciliation.

Queens communication professor Mohammed El-Nawawy and USC Annenberg Ph.D. candidate Shawn Powers collaborated on the report with the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School serving as a partner institution.

The study, “Mediating Conflict: Al-Jazeera English and the Possibility of a Conciliatory Media” (Figueroa Press), compiled findings from 597 AJE viewers in six countries over the past year. Viewers rated the network favorably in covering stories of injustice in the world, and providing public space for politically underrepresented groups.

“We were really intrigued by the mission of Al-Jazeera English because its mission is unique in this day and age,” el-Nawawy said. “They’re not concerned about the ratings, but rather about giving a voice to the voiceless and covering parts of the world that are marginalized. We wanted to see if this mission could be realistic in today’s media climate.”

Among the findings:

• Al-Jazeera English viewers found it to function as a “conciliatory media,” which is a news broadcaster that is likely to cover contentious issues in a way that contributes to creating an environment that is more conducive to cooperation, negotiation and reconciliation. Overall, viewers found that AJE was a conciliatory media, and the longer they had been watching AJE, the better they thought it was at fulfilling its conciliatory role.

• The more months a viewer had been watching AJE, the less dogmatic they were in their thinking. Here, dogmatism is a measure of how open or closed one is to other people’s ideas, arguments and values and able to change his/her opinion based on the introduction of new information. Importantly, previous research has demonstrated a positive correlation between levels of dogmatism and confrontational behavior in conflict situations; thus, AJE may have the potential to decrease people’s proclivity to think and behave in such confrontational ways.

• Viewers tune into international news for affirmation rather than information. For example, viewers that were dependent on CNN were more likely to be supportive of U.S. foreign policy in Iraq and in Israeli-Palestinian issues, whereas viewers dependent on AJE were less likely to be supportive of U.S. policy in these areas. The research provided strong evidence to argue that viewers seek out broadcasters that they think will provide news and stories that will reaffirm their pre-existing opinions rather than inform and educate them of other people’s perspectives.

El-Nawawy and Powers presented their findings at the Arab-U.S. Association for Communication Educators conference in Richmond, Va. from Nov. 14-17 and have been invited to present their report at the Al-Jazeera Forum in Doha, Qatar in March 2009.

“We hope that people are more willing to listen to other people’s ideas and be more open to alternative sources of information,” Powers said. “Our study argues that, if people simply continue to tune into media that reinforce their pre-existing opinions, global conversations on difficult international problems become more and more intractable. Today’s international environment demands global cooperation on issues ranging from global warming to solving tensions in the Middle East, and that cooperation requires a softening of stereotypes of cultural ‘others’. This can only be achieved if people are willing to be more open to conflicting opinions and arguments, something that Al-Jazeera English was found to provide in a productive and professional manner.”

continue reading…

by Craig Hayden

As President-Elect Obama’s national security team was announced in recent weeks, journalists covering the developments noted the importance of “soft power” in the new administration. Indeed, soft power’s centrality to new formulations of national security where further bolstered in Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ assessment of U.S. military strategy’s adaptation to current problems, as published in Foreign Affairs. This recognition of the ideational dimension of contemporary conflict is not new. Gates’ reasoning on this subject was articulated in the widely cited speech at Kansas State University on November 26, 2007.

So what does this mean for soft power as an orienting principle for integrating the policy instruments of national security? Those like myself who follow public diplomacy could read this development as a positive signal for more attention to public diplomacy programs, international broadcasting, and international aid. It might also direct military planners to reemphasize the informational and rhetorical dimensions in counter-insurgency operations – as well as the global information infrastructure (as we become more aware and prepared for cyber-terrorism and informational warfare).

But is the concept of soft power still useful as a means to strategize and draw together the new administration’s policy activity – to make communication, persuasion, and dialogue vital at the “take offs” of foreign and security policy design and not just the “crash landings”? (As a side note, it’s really amazing how much mileage PD advocates get out of this Murrow quote). In short, I think it remains an important, if somewhat flawed concept for foreign policy-makers.
continue reading…

By Craig Hayden

The title of this post comes from a Dec 1 New York Times article by Tim Arango, “World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America.” Jeffrey Schlesinger, Warner Brothers’ head of international television at Warner Brothers, said ““Batman is Batman, regardless of if Bush is in the White House or not,” to suggest that global opinions about the United States do not necessarily translate to opinions about American entertainment media products. And, the recent successes of U.S. media products abroad have not resulted in positive opinions about the United States.

This disconnect is not new. Pollsters have been aware for some years what Arango noted, that Bush’s characterization, that others “hate us” for our freedoms and our values is simply not true. Arango’s piece also reflects on the ways in which Hollywood was courted by the Bush administration after 9/11 to join in a propaganda offensive. While such collaborations aren’t unprecedented (at least in the Cold War) – Arango’s article provides a new perspective on an old problem – what exactly are the effects of American media on the rest of the world?
continue reading…