We’ve all heard about concerted attempts by the U.S. government to improve our nation’s image in the Middle East. I never delved too deeply into the details, but I more or less assumed the initiative would include print and broadcast media that emphasizes the best America has to offer in the way of ideals, values, and political principles.
But The American Prospect’s Garance Franke-Ruta noted in the current issue that these assumptions are a little off. When the president’s longtime adviser Karen Hughes digs into her work as the administration’s undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, she takes over a message machine that has exceedingly odd priorities.
[T]he newest programs Hughes has inherited for her public diplomacy, and which she’s pledged to support, mostly promote pop culture — precisely the cultural products most likely to irritate Arab and Muslim traditionalists (just as they do social conservatives at home). New radio shows, a television station, and an Arab-language magazine all focus on disseminating the popular and the lowbrow at the expense of more educational materials.
The Arab-language monthly Hi magazine, produced since 2003 for the State Department, has pitched America as a gee-whiz futuristic society whose consumers are obsessed with the latest gadgets and peculiar dating strategies. No joke: Hi magazine recently featured a story on the “Dinner in the Dark” dating service, and another on Flexcars, whose relevance to, say, tribal areas of Pakistan is open to some serious question. TV station Al-Hurra was launched in 2004 as a kind of American alternative to Arabic news network Al-Jazeera, and has been met with decidedly mixed reviews in the Arab world, where suspicion of government-backed television channels is high.
Other recent efforts are likewise not clear winners. The Voice of America’s Arab radio edition was eliminated in 2002 in favor of a new venture, Radio Sawa, a lifestyle channel broadcasting a mix of American and Arab pop music for a less talk, more schlock approach. Critics dub the approach “pop-aganda”; a report drafted by the State Department’s inspector general in 2004 found that the $22 million a year channel “failed to present America to its audience.”
Now, I don’t claim to be an expert in Middle Eastern culture, so far be it for me to suggest I know what’s best in executing a public relations campaign to this audience. But if I’m a disillusioned Pakistani, for example, and I’m inclined to believe most of the awful things I hear about the United States, I’m probably not inclined to change my mind because Americans enjoy ipods and quirky dating habits. Call it a hunch.
I don’t mean to sound picky, but if we’re going to use state-sponsored propaganda to win over hearts and minds in the Middle East, could we at least use effective state-sponsored propaganda?