The Geopolitics of the News: The Case of the Al Jazeera Network

Shawn Powers

Howard Frederick's unique book treats international communication in an international relations context--the first truly comprehensive study of its kind. This book discusses how the modern media face the challenge of promoting peace, building confidence among nations and peoples, and strengthening understanding. Accelerate by the rapid advances in electronic technologies, global information networks have been central to international relations. Its topics include: History of Long-Distance Communication; A World of Communication; The Channels of Global Communication; The Dimensions of Global Communication; Communication, Information and 'New World Orders'; Contending Theories of Global Communication; Communication in War and Peace; International Communication and Information Law; Global Communication as we enter the Twenty-First Century.

International networks foster solidarity within an information audience by creating virtual communities. Namely CNN, BBC and Al-Jazeera are increasing people's awareness in their religion, culture and place in the world. In addition, faster and easily accessible information within global media had triggered the information wars among the states which have changed power politics. This article argues that the involvement of the media in international relations signifies interdependence and mutual exploitation between the media and politics. In this context, with a specific emphasise on the concept of 'the CNN effect' and 'the Al-Jazeere effect', it shows how the media have become integral parts of the world politics, how they have transformed international power struggle and have enabled the rise of the rest against the Western hegemony

The Influence of International Media, touches on the public, in a global scale. In sociological & cultural analysis of globalization, Media such as satellite, television, the internet, computers, mobile phone etc, are often thought to be among the primary forces behind current reconstructions of social & cultural geography. Through these tool’s & processes, in twenty-first century, the International Media can influence the public (Giddens, 1999, Tomlinson 1999). For example media giants such as CNN, BBC, CBC, NBC, Fox, Al-Jazeerah, etc, are all part of International Media.

THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE NEWS: THE CASE OF THE AL JAZEERA NETWORK by Shawn Powers A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMMUNICATION) December 2009 Copyright 2009 Shawn Powers DEDICATION To my family: My mother, Ellyn; my father, Richard; and my brother, David. Thank you for your love, care, and support. I am who I am today because of you. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project brings together thoughts, writing, and research that I have been working on since I began working on my Ph.D in August 2004 at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. Many people and institutions have helped along the way. I would like to acknowledge the support of USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, without which this project would simply not have been possible. My advisor, Thomas Hollihan, has been a remarkable academic resource and friend throughout the project, and for that I am eternally thankful. Philip Seib has served as a mentor, collaborator, and friend as well, all for which I am truly thankful. Patricia Riley was a tremendous influence in guiding my research and expanding my methodological expertise. Nicholas Cull, one of the world’s best thinkers when it comes to international broadcasting and public diplomacy, offered terrific insight throughout. Outside of my dissertation committee, there were other faculty members at USC Annenberg that were hugely important for support, intellect, and guidance. Gordon Stables, a good friend and mentor, is responsible for me taking the plunge and enrolling at USC in the fall of 2004. Our conversations throughout graduate school helped to shape my thoughts into this dissertation. Sandra Ball-Rokeach inspired me to not only be a scholar whose work is respected in both the academic and policy-making worlds, but also iii taught me how to do conduct such research. Thomas Goodnight offered a helpful ear throughout the process, always willing to listen and offer advice on how make my work more diligent, theoretical, and intellectually sound. Diane Winston was terrific in helping me refine my research into articles relevant not only in the communications community, but in journalism scholarship as well. Abigail Kaun, a brilliant colleague, was also helpful in navigating the most difficult bureaucratic hurdles, while also providing very helpful teaching advice. Sheila Murphy volunteered critical guidance, without which the quality of my work would not be what it is today. Geoff Cowan has been an incredible resource throughout. There were several other members of the Annenberg family that have also been essential to my mental health and Ph.D. Sherine Badawi-Walton, one of the kindest and smartest people I know, has been a wonderful friend and colleague. Anne Marie Campian and Donna McHugh were essential in helping me manage the numerous bureaucratic pitfalls that could have easily set me back at any point in the process. Outside of USC, there are several academic colleagues that I would like to express my gratitude towards. Eytan Gilboa, while visiting USC in the fall of 2005, took me under his wing and helped me develop a more rigorous and thoughtful approach to my work. Today, he remains a mentor and a good friend. Similarly, Mohammed elNawawy, my collaborator and close friend, helped me further refine my thinking on global media and Arab politics while we traveled the world in 2007-2008. I look forward iv to continuing collaborations and conversations with both. In addition, Monroe Price has helped me think outside of the box on any number of occasions, pushing me to always think more critically as I research and write. Edward Panetta, an early mentor from my days at the University of Georgia, helped tutor me into the scholar I am today. I am happy to have an extraordinary group of friends that helped me stay focused and encouraged along the way. Most important is, of course, Amelia Arsenault, my best friend. There is not a doubt in my mind that I would not be where I am today if it were not for her intellect, kindness, support, and love. Omri Ceren has been one of the world’s greatest friends, and I am happy to call him one of my closest. John Kephart, Craig Hayden, Zoltan Majdik, Jeff Hall and Austin Carson have all been terrific inspirations and I am indebted to them for their support and kindness. I am also happy to thank Anne Arsenault for her instrumental help in carefully editing this dissertation. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their enduring support throughout this process. Writing a dissertation is a grueling, difficult time, and it is often the case that time with one’s family is sacrificed in the name of editing a draft or writing another chapter. Thank you, Richard, Ellyn, and David for your support, help, and most importantly, your understanding. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgments iii List of Tables viii Abbreviations ix Abstract x Chapter 1: Broadcasting Power in the Age Of Information: The Rise of the Al Jazeera Network Media and International Politics: The CNN Effect And Beyond News Media & Politics in the Middle East Communicating Power: The Case of Al-Jazeera Media & Power: Research Questions Method Précis of Chapters Chapter 1 Endnotes 1 3 14 19 29 35 36 38 Chapter 2: News and the Nation-State: An Early History of International Broadcasting The Origins of International Broadcasting: The World Wars Broadcasting Bipolarity: The Cold War In the Line of Fire: Broadcasting in The Middle East Figure 2.1: Estimated Total Program Hours of International Broadcasters, 1945-1996 The End of the Cold War and the Rise of Satellite TV Conclusion Chapter 2 Endnotes 39 Chapter 3: Al Jazeera and the Rise of a Microstate The Decline of International Broadcasting and the Rise of Al Jazeera The History of Qatar and the Birth of Al Jazeera Al Jazeera and the Rebirth of International Broadcasting in the Middle East Al Jazeera and the Rise of Qatar Conclusion 87 88 93 41 53 68 68 74 82 86 103 116 122 vi Chapter 4: Between News and Propaganda: Al Jazeera, “Objectivity,” and Arab Politics Objectivity & Media Culture in the Arab World Propaganda Propaganda, Myth & The Middle East Filling the Gap: Between News and Propaganda Conclusion 124 Chapter 5: Al Jazeera Goes Global From Arabic to English Coming to America Digital Dialogue? Conclusion 156 158 168 178 189 Chapter 6: Qatar and the Geopolitics of the News Qatar: Realpolitik or Kant’s Perpetual Peace Al Jazeera and International Politics Moving Forward Conclusion Chapter 6 Endnotes 192 193 202 225 232 236 Bibliography 237 Appendix: List of Interview Subjects 256 127 130 136 140 153 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Seven Geopolitical Effects of International Media 14 Table 2.1: List of International Broadcasters, 1925-1991 76 Table 3.1: A History of Al Jazeera’s Diplomatic Difficulties 108 Table 5.1: AJE’s Availability in the US 178 Table 5.2: Is AJE a Conciliatory Media? 188 Table 6.1: The Geopolitics of the Al Jazeera Network 224 Table A.1: Interview Subjects 256 viii ABBREVIATIONS AIM Accuracy in Media AJE Al Jazeera English AP Associated Press BBC British Broadcasting Corporation BBG Broadcasting Board of Governors CIA Central Intelligence Agency CNN Cable News Network DW Deutsche Welle DBS Direct Broadcast Satellite DTH Direct to Home Broadcasting IDF Israeli Defense Force IED Improvised Explosive Device MNC Multinational Corporation NGO Non-Government Organization OWI Office of War Information PA Palestinian Authority PBS Public Broadcast Service PRC People’s Republic of China RFE/RL Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty TNC Transnational Corporation UN United Nations USIA United States Information Agency VOA Voice of America ix ABSTRACT News and information have always been critical factors in the conduct of international relations and the negotiation of political power in the international sphere. Yet, the increasingly ubiquitous nature of global telecommunications infrastructure and the ease and speed with which content can be exchanged around the world have altered the scope of players involved who are able to shape geopolitical calculations. Whereas militarily powerful and resource-rich nation-states were the primary articulators of political power in generations past, today’s network society provides a new playing field for determining how international prestige and power is ordered, and thus how international relations are conducted. This study examines how the Al Jazeera Network helped to foster the rise of a microstate, Qatar, into a regional geopolitical force. At risk of becoming a colony of either the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or Iran just 15 years ago, Qatar now demands global attention and has emerged as a critical actor in the region’s ongoing political and religious conflicts. Drawing from over 30 interviews with members of the Al Jazeera Network’s Arabic and English news broadcasters, including the current and former managing directors, the study examines the precise strategies behind Al Jazeera’s growing popularity in the region and beyond, discussed in the context of the geopolitical aspirations of Qatar and its regional rivals. The project concludes by arguing that Qatar’s investment in the Al Jazeera Network, including Al Jazeera English and its numerous x sports and children’s channels exemplifies a larger trend towards the convergence of different media networks. This convergence of networks of influence—particularly media and financial networks—is a primary means of achieving power and influence in the network society, and no country is moving faster towards this form of networking power than Qatar. Qatar’s investment in the Al Jazeera Network is thus part of its continued effort to build a network of media, financial, and military “nodes” in order to promote a foreign policy seemingly guided by Immanuel Kant’s famous 1795 treatise, Perpetual Peace. xi CHAPTER 1: BROADCASTING POWER IN THE AGE OF INFORMATION: THE RISE OF THE AL JAZEERA NETWORK “If you try to control the Middle East, it will end up controlling you.” Retired Gen. John Abizaid, 2009 For most of the twentieth century, international broadcasting was seen as a tool of the nation-state. The US government, for example, used Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), to influence foreign publics in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. Then, with the advent of Direct Broadcast Satellite (DSB) technology in the 1980s, Ted Turner established his Cable News Network (CNN), and private and semi-private news networks emerged as a force in global politics. Academics and politicians alike speculated about the emergence of a so-called “CNN effect,” arguing that the rise of the satellite era meant that private news networks now had the upper hand, able to influence the behavior of nation-states. Today, scholars speculate about the possibility of an “Al Jazeera effect,” a term Philip Seib (2008) argues is a reference to the various ways in which new media technologies are shaping international politics in the twenty-first century.1 A discussion of a possible Al Jazeera effect begs the larger question of what role news and information play in contemporary international politics. While the Al Jazeera 1 Network (the Network) has become, at least in some circles, a symbolic hero for the potential of new media technologies and actors to shape international decision-making, it is also a state-financed broadcaster, similar to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) or the Voice of America (VOA). Without question, it has been a tremendous asset to the government of Qatar, a microstate that was virtually unknown internationally just a few decades ago.2 Its mission—to give a voice to the voiceless—is steeped in a thick anti-hegemonic, contra-flow frame meant to resonate with the globally disenfranchised. Qatar’s decision to go global by launching Al Jazeera English (AJE) in 2006 is the single largest down payment—approximately $1 billion—in international broadcasting history (Stebbins 2008). The Network, mostly via its Arabic language broadcasts, has been a geopolitical cause célèbre, sparking international hostility towards Al Jazeera and its principal financier, the Emir of Qatar. Based in a tiny peninsula in the Persian Gulf, the Network relies on the broadest and most advanced broadcasting technologies—ranging from shortwave radio to mobile video—to reach audiences around the world. Its broadcasts, in both English and Arabic, focus on telling the news “with an alternative voice, putting the human being back at the center of the news agenda,” offering a rebuttal to the West’s mainstream CNN and BBC (Al Jazeera Network Annual Report 2009). The Al Jazeera Network is, at its core, a hybrid of East and West, North and South, old and new, global and local, private and public. Balancing this hybridity has been the key to its successful ascendance as a powerful actor on the international stage. 2 This project traces international broadcasting from its origins to the present day, detailing the rise of Al Jazeera, including its global launch, in order to analyze the geopolitical nature of news and information today. Chapter 1 summarizes the different ways in which international broadcasters have impacted geopolitics over many decades and, in so doing, develops a typology of the seven means by which international media influence international affairs. It then proceeds with a brief introduction to broadcasting and politics in the Arab world prior to introducing a case study of the Al Jazeera Network (often referred to as the Network). After an overview of the rise of Al Jazeera, as well as its global operations, it then considers the Network in the context of Manuel Castells’ (2009) theory of communication power. This discussion provides the theoretical backdrop for the project’s research questions and strategy, which largely centers on the following question: How can the experience of the Al Jazeera Network best inform thinking on how international news shapes geopolitical calculations today? MEDIA AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: THE CNN EFFECT AND BEYOND There may be no hotter topic in communication studies today than the impact that news communication technologies have on human relations and the conduct of governments. Information quickly and easily flows across borders, the impact of which is often profound, especially during periods of conflict. While developments in communication technologies have often influenced international relations, the rapid 3 changes that have occurred in recent years stand out from previous developments in that they fundamentally alter the ways in which information is processed and opinions are formed. According to Philip Taylor (1997, 3): Politics, society, culture, the economy and foreign affairs all now operate inseparably from the information created, shared and exchanged on an international basis, while the mass media continue to occupy the most significant place for most people when they access the world beyond their immediate environment. That the mass media are almost entirely twentieth-century phenomena is what, quite simply, has made this millennium fundamentally different from all those that have gone before it. Together, perhaps, with the internal combustion engine, penicillin and the splitting of the atom, they have served to transform the very nature not only of how human beings live their lives but of how they perceive the world around them. Irving Goldstein, President of INTELSAT, a consortium that owns and operates satellites providing telecommunications services around the world, predicts that information “will be for the twenty-first century what oil and gas were for the beginning of the twentieth century. It will fuel economic and political power and give people everywhere more freedom and momentum than the fastest automobile or supersonic jet” (cited in Snyder 1995). Similarly, in the 1970s, Modernists suggested that the invention and expanded use of the modern jet would dramatically alter geopolitical calculations as territory and geography would become less and less factors in international politics. More recently a number of technological prophets such as Clay Shirky (2008) and Thomas Friedman (2005) have pointed to non-state actors, such as non-government organizations (NGOs) and multi and transnational corporations (MNC and TNCs, respectively) as rising players in international politics. In some regards, these analysts have been correct. 4 Technologies, especially information and communication technologies, have changed the way the world operates. But the precise ways in which these technologies have impacted the international system have been much more nuanced than many had imagined. In some cases, non-state and non-traditional international actors have been able to utilize information technologies as influence multipliers on the global stage, propelling their message to transnational audiences that had been otherwise largely inaccessible. Al-Qaeda’s early success in using Internet-based technologies to recruit and train supporters and organize attacks is perhaps the most poignant example. At the same time, governments around the world have begun to adjust to the global information revolution, and, in some cases, have surpassed the new and non-traditional actors in their websavviness. China’s “50-cent army,” a group of an estimated 50,000 citizens who search out dissident content on the web and then offer rebuttals based on the communiqués issued by the Communist Party, is just one example of how governments have learned how to neutralize the revolutionary potential of the World Wide Web (Elgan 2009). Yet, much of today’s scholarship that focuses on the rise of the information sphere—or the fifth dimension of geopolitics, as some have proclaimed it—ignores a rich history of the role of information in the conduct of foreign affairs (see Lonsdale 1999). There is much scholarship on the role of information, especially the role of broadcast media, in international politics. Propaganda, as it was described throughout most of the twentieth century, was an essential element of both World War I and II, and held 5 enormous influence over public opinion in nations throughout Europe. Indeed, a persuasive case has been made that British propaganda, along with the materials from US Committee on Public Information, was partially responsible for propelling the US to enter into both world wars. Had the US not participated in both, it would likely not be the global power it is today (Cull 1995; Hollihan 1984; Taylor 2001). More recently, international broadcasting was an essential component of the Cold War, with governments trying to control the flow and narration of information around the world through broadcasters such as Radio Moscow, the VOA, and RFE/RL. Indeed, the Cold War was seen by many as the golden age of propaganda, particularly in the United States (see Chapter 2). As James Wood (1992, 2) reflects, “the Cold War, in Europe and in much of the rest of the world, was fought mainly with words.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the media’s capacity to impact international relations was demonstrated with the events at Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Soviet Union. In both circumstances the media functioned as a critical conduit, making information available to the world that, in one case, sparked geopolitical tensions between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States, and, in the other, sparked democratic movements across Eastern Europe (Gross 2002). In the Middle East, the potential import of foreign news media coverage became abundantly clear during CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War in 1991. The combination of unprecedented military and media technologies made the presentation of “news” of the war spectacular in historical comparison, drawing attention from viewers around the world. Moreover, 6 CNN’s Gulf War coverage has been credited with spurring the development and popularity of similar satellite news channels that provide regional accounts of news in Asia and the Middle East (Rai and Cottle 2007). The series of humanitarian crises that followed in the 1990s continued to elevate the media’s role as a political actor. In Bosnia, Rwanda, and Kosovo, media coverage of political and ethnic violence sparked global debate over international responses to what were previously considered regional problems. Since then, media coverage, while not always spurring military or humanitarian intervention, has invariably had tangible international political consequences. While there is much debate surrounding a proposed “CNN effect”—a term often used to describe the role of the media as a political actor on the international stage—it seems clear that media coverage has impacted the decision-making processes involved in conducting foreign policy.3 In 1993, Madeline Albright, then Ambassador to the United Nations (UN), speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, acknowledged the growing importance of the media in relation to American policy in Somalia: Television’s ability to bring graphic images of pain and outrage into our living rooms has heightened the pressure both for immediate engagement in areas of international crisis and immediate disengagement when events do not go according to plan. Because we live in a democratic society, none of us can be oblivious to those pressures (cited in Gilboa 2005, 328). Writing in his memoirs, former Secretary of State James Baker III (1995, 103) similarly recognized the growing power of the media, arguing that since Tiananmen Square, “in Iraq, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Chechnya, among others, the real-time coverage of 7 conflict by the electronic media has served to create a powerful new imperative for prompt action that was not present in less frenetic time.” The media’s role in foreign policy can also be seen more broadly. In addition to the mobilizing power that media coverage may have during humanitarian crises, it can also facilitate the erosion of public or international support for a military intervention. Charles Krauthammer (1995), a journalist for the Washington Post, argues, “it is inconceivable that the U.S., or any other Western country, could ever again fight a war of attrition like Korea or Vietnam. One reason is the CNN effect. TV brings home the reality of battle with a graphic immediacy unprecedented in human history.’’ This fear was certainly omnipresent in the George W. Bush administration, especially with regard to media coverage of casualties from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not only did the Department of Defense have a strict policy banning photographs of dead American soldiers (or their coffins), but also the uninhibited and graphic coverage of the wars by Arab media outlets, Al-Jazeera in particular, has resulted in outrage among some American policy-makers. In one sense, the Bush administration’s fears of the images were justified. A quantitative analysis examining media consumption in the Middle East conducted by Nisbet, Nisbet, Scheufele, and Shanahan (2004) found that viewers of pan-Arab satellite television channels were more likely to hold antiAmerican views and to be against the war in Iraq. Mohammad Ayish (2002) also found that sensationalism and highlights of images of casualties and consequences were 8 prominent among Al Jazeera’s coverage of American and Israeli military efforts in the Middle East, offering one possible explanation for the correlation between consumption of pan-Arab media and anti-Americanism in the Middle East. According to Eytan Gilboa (2006), mass-mediated diplomacy (media diplomacy for short) is a category of international communication that is often used to encompass the different ways in which the news media interact with international politics. There are three types of mass-mediated diplomacy: (1) state-sponsored international broadcasting efforts, like the VOA, Deutsche Welle (DW), Alhurra, and, arguably, Al Jazeera; (2) media diplomacy, where policymakers utilize private media in order to send messages, interact, and negotiate with adversaries and allies; and (3) media-brokered diplomacy, referring to efforts by journalists themselves to intervene between adversaries in order to create a climate more suitable for negotiations and/or reconciliation. State-sponsored international broadcasting efforts have historically been a pillar of American public diplomacy efforts, particularly during the Cold War (Cull 2008). They typically include factual reporting, as well as official and unofficial communiqués and policy framing from the broadcaster’s government. Media diplomacy is most often associated with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s efforts at “shuttle diplomacy,” during which he utilized the mass media to further negotiations between Arab states and Israel. More recently, media diplomacy, or “summit diplomacy,” has become associated with celebratory media events, whereby policy-makers rely on the 9 mass media to cover and celebrate events surrounding tense negotiations in order to increase public pressure on the governments involved to commit to difficult concessions (Dayan and Katz 1994). However, after numerous failed attempts by the media to pressure Arab-Israeli negotiators during summits, media diplomacy may become less significant in the conduct of foreign affairs (for example, see Reuters 2007). Lastly, media-brokered diplomacy is most notoriously exemplified by Walter Cronkite’s efforts to bring together Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Begin in 1977, or, more recently, by Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya’s efforts at meditating the Russian-Chechen hostage crisis in 2002 (Gilboa 2006, 310). In addition, international media impact international politics by shaping crosscultural tensions. Sometimes referred to as “war or peace journalism,” the ways in which international media frame cross-cultural tensions can either contribute to or help resolve the so-called “clash of civilizations” (Seib 2004).4 For example, Dov Shinar (2003, 5) argues that the media’s professional standards, which thrive on drama, sensationalism, and emotions, are more compatible with war than with peace: “War provides visuals and images of action. It is associated with heroism and conflict, focuses on the emotional rather than on the rational, and satisfies news-value demands: the present, the unusual, the dramatic, simplicity, action, personalization, and results.” Similarly, Ghadi Wolfsfeld (1997, 67) has highlighted several reasons why media principles are contradictory to peace principles: 10 A peace process is complicated; journalists demand simplicity. A peace process takes time to unfold and develop; journalists demand immediate results. Most of the peace process is marked by dull, tedious negotiations; journalists require drama. A successful peace process leads to a reduction in tensions; journalists focus on conflict. Many of the most significant developments within a peace process must take place in secret behind closed doors; journalists demand information and access. Daya Thussu (2003, 117) explains that the continuous demand for news in an environment that is dominated by 24/7 satellite television has led to “sensationalization and trivialization of often complex stories and a temptation to highlight the entertainment value of news.” Knowing that audiences are likely to tune in more often in times of conflict, news media have little incentive to locate and focus on areas of cooperation in conflicts, and often overstate the tendency for ‘violence to break out at any moment’ in order to maintain viewership and audience attention. Networks such as CNN and Al Jazeera are particularly guilty of this phenomenon (Wolfsfeld 2004). Unfortunately, the news media’s focus on violence and the parochial nature of their coverage of global conflicts have resulted in “a de facto adoption of Huntington’s theory” of an inevitable clash of civilizations (Seib 2004, 76). Not only is this a considerable factor preventing international news media from fostering a peacebuilding environment, it also represents “a serious threat to peace in the globalized world of the 21st century” (Hafez 2000, 3) These risks underscore the necessity for studying the role of media in conflict through the lens of collective identity: “When media representations enter into fields of conflict structured by deep-seated inequalities and entrenched 11 identities, they can become inextricably fused with them, exacerbating intensities and contributing to destructive impacts” (Cottle 2006, 168). Alternatively, scholars have developed a concept often referred to as peace journalism, or “de-escalation-oriented conflict coverage.” Jake Lynch & Annabel McGoldrick (2005, 5) define peace journalism as that which takes place “when editors and reporters make choices—of what stories to report and about how to report them— that create opportunities for society at large to consider and value non-violent responses to conflict.” Johan Galtung (2002), a pioneer in the field of peace journalism studies, argues that media in times of conflict should focus on “conflict transformation,” a shift that requires journalists to be empathetic and understanding; to be able to provide a platform for all parties and voices to express themselves; and to focus on the negative impact of violence, such as damage and trauma. Similarly, in his study of the role of media in the buildup to and downfall of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo accords, Wolfsfeld (2004, 5) notes that it is the responsibility of reporters in the war zones “to provide as much information as possible about the roots of the problem and to encourage a rational public debate concerning the various options for ending it.” Wolfsfeld (2004) argues that encouraging rational deliberation among alienated groups can sometimes encourage all parties to refrain from escalating violence and rather to engage in thoughtful consideration of ways to end the conflict. 12 Thus, this review of the literature has identified seven ways in which international media—broadly conceived—effect geopolitical calculations (see Table 1.1). First, based on the Cold War model of Western international broadcasters, especially RFE/RL, an international broadcaster can help organize and mobilize dissident political movements. Second, based on discussion surrounding the CNN effect, international media can highlight humanitarian and human tragedy in order to mobilize governments into action. Third, also drawn from the discussion of a possible the CNN effect, international media can draw attention to the grotesque nature of war, pushing governments to withdraw troops from or to support an international conflict. Fourth, international broadcasting can project a positive image of the host country, while also providing timely and accurate information to foreign audiences. Fifth, governments can use international media to interact and negotiate with political adversaries and allies, typically foreign governments. Sixth, international broadcasters can themselves become involved in negotiating a resolution to a conflict—media-brokered diplomacy, as Gilboa (2006) refers to it. Seventh, international broadcasters can broadly function as mediators in cultural conflicts, either furthering perceptions of a clash of civilizations or providing fora for cross-cultural understanding and reconciliation. This project examines how the Al Jazeera Network has, at different times, functioned in each of these different capacities. This list is not meant to be exhaustive; instead it encapsulates seven effects that are commonplace consequences of international media that can be observed as influencing international politics. Importantly, while there 13 is some overlap, this list is separate from the traditional functions of international broadcasting, as it is a synopsis of how all types of international media, both publicly supported and privately financed, influence international politics. This study does note Al Jazeera’s role as a traditional, state-financed international broadcaster throughout, especially in chapters 3, 5, and 6. TABLE 1.1: SEVEN GEOPOLITICAL EFFECTS OF INTERNATIONAL MEDIA Function Examples Mobilization RFE/RL during the Cold War, VOA during Tiananmen Square, Al Qaeda’s early use of the Internet Policy forcing—intervention/aid Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, Chechnya Policy forcing—withdrawal Vietnam, Somalia Government policy framing VOA, Russia Today, Alhurra, China’s “50-cent Army” Media diplomacy Kissinger’s Shuttle Diplomacy Media-brokered diplomacy Cronkite and the Middle East, Politkovskaya and Russia/Chechnya Cultural cooperation or conflict Al Jazeera Arabic (conflict); Al Jazeera English (cooperation) NEWS MEDIA & POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST According to Marwan Kraidy (2008, 3), the Middle East has “one of the most complex and dynamic media sectors in the world.” The development of new 14 communications technologies, satellite television in particular, has resulted in growth in the media sector “whose speed and scope are unprecedented in the contemporary world” (Ibid). Prior to the dawn of the satellite TV era, Arab governments had a virtual lock on any and all media transmissions that occurred in the region. As Kraidy points out, “They owned production and broadcasting facilities, had the final say on what went on the air, and to a large extent could influence what their populations listened to and watched. Nearly without exception, national television systems used terrestrial (non-satellite) broadcasting for purposes of fostering socioeconomic development, enhancing national unity, and regime propaganda” (Ibid). Today, the Arab media environment has greatly expanded to include, according to some estimates, more than 600 satellite television channels that are available via free-toair, including 15 channels dedicated to news (Fandy 2007). The channels span a wide ideological spectrum and reflect competing political, economic, and religious agendas. Up to two-thirds of households in the region have satellite dishes, and group or community viewership is common in impoverished parts of the region where every family may not be able to afford a television and satellite dish (Fakhreddine 2007). Put simply, in less than 20 years, the region has gone from information drought to overload (discussed in further detail in Chapter 4). The proliferation of media has coincided with increased international interest in the socio-political trends in the region. Particularly in the aftermath of the events of 9/11 15 and the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, governments around the world have increased their interest and desire to have influence in the Middle East. In today’s highly interconnected world, events in the Middle East affect the economies and policies of countries around the world. Not only are there strong religious connections between the citizens of the region and Muslims worldwide, but the Middle East also maintains control over a significant share of the world’s oil and natural gas reserves, a reality which ensures that instability in the region is felt globally. Adding to the intensity of the situation is the highly conflicted and historically difficult nature of geopolitics in the region. Religion plays an essential role in shaping the identities not only of many peoples in the region, but also shapes national identities, such as those of Iran and Israel. The resulting boiling pot of tension has manifested in global interest in the region, and has created extreme competition for influence over the Middle East’s inhabitants, its governments, and its resources (Haass and Indyk 2009). Communication technologies are central to any discussion of politics—and thus security—in the Middle East today. While governments were once able to control the flow of information and thus, to a large extent, easily monitor and control Arab opinion, new media technologies have dramatically altered the relationship between governments, citizens, and public opinion in the region. Cell phones are now used to organize protests in Cairo and set off improvised explosive devices (IED) in Mosul. Via chatrooms, email, Facebook and Twitter, personal computers, and the Internet are central to the social identity and political acumen of many Arab youth (Shapiro 2009). As has already been 16 noted, Al-Qaeda has for many years used the Internet to recruit, train, fundraise, and organize terrorist attacks (Kimmage 2008). Media-driven globalization has weakened the traditional authority of governments, leaving millions of Arabs feeling more politically and socially autonomous, and, in the eyes of many governments, more dangerous. Adding to the anxieties of today’s increasingly connected Arab citizen is the speed at which the transition has taken place. In the developed parts of the West, new communications technologies have been integrated into societies where the free flow of information has been the norm for decades. Contrastingly, citizens of the Middle East are leaping into a new and drastically expanded media environment, and many have little knowledge about how to appropriately filter the overwhelming and often contradictory amount of information now available to them. As cultural mores are violated, conversational norms broken, and world-views altered, many governments are concerned that new media technologies may be creating instability amongst their citizens. As Hussein Amin (2008), an architect of and advocate for the 2008 Arab League Satellite Broadcasting Charter cautions, “While in the West, the impact of this kind of programming might be limited, it is not difficult to imagine the impact of this kind of content on relatively uneducated and unsophisticated Arab audiences who receive most of their entertainment and information from television.” Accordingly, governments both within the region and around the world have invested significant resources in efforts to gain influence over this increasingly informed yet fragmented Arab citizenry. Similar to how governments during World War II, and later during the Cold War, tried to persuade 17 foreign audiences through the use of information dissemination, and news in particular, countries around the world have increased focus and resources on international broadcasting efforts in the region. How will today’s new media environment impact international broadcasting? For most of the twentieth century, the Middle East depended on foreign broadcasting for timely and accurate news on the region. Particularly since 1967, when many of the Arab media outlets were exposed as puppets of government manipulation in the aftermath of the Israeli victory over Arab forces, Arabs depended on radio broadcasts from the BBC, DW, Radio Monte Carlo, and the VOA for their news. According to Adel Iskander, “Literally for 30 years Arabs had to go to international news stations to get anything credible” (cited in Rushing 2007, 132). Today, the ubiquity of global satellite and fiber optic cables means that every country can access the global circuitry, potentially decreasing the need and demand for foreign broadcasting. As a result of decreased costs in production and content creation, there has been a leveling of the playing field, and indigenous programming is sprouting up across the globe, including in the area of television news. Moreover, there is considerable evidence that audiences strongly prefer “homegrown” content that reflects local sensibilities and culture. A 2001 survey conducted by Nielson Media Research found that 72 percent of the top 10 programs in 60 countries were locally produced. As Bibiane Godfroid, an executive at the French channel Canal Plus, suggests, “The more the world becomes global, the more people 18 want their own culture” (cited in Hanson 2008, 82). One example of such “homegrown” content is the most popular news network in the Middle East: Al Jazeera. COMMUNICATING POWER: THE CASE OF AL-JAZEERA Qatar, a country roughly the size of Connecticut (11,437 sq km), was among the most obscure in the world when it gained independence in 1971. To many people both inside and outside Qatar, the country was seen as a little brother to Saudi Arabia, a “discreet satellite” dependent on the larger and more powerful country for its safety and security (Da Lage 2007, 50). Qatar’s rise in regional influence began in 1995, when Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani came to power after ousting his father, Sheikh Khalifa, in a bloodless coup. Sheikh Hamad had been running the day-to-day operations of the Qatari government for some time and quickly moved to enact fairly extensive liberal reforms, at least in the context of the Middle East. One act in particular stood out: the creation of a free and uncensored media. Sheikh Hamad abolished the Ministry of Information (a move that was not completed until 1998), and established Al Jazeera, a regional news network that set out to be free of the traditional government controls on news and information in the region. Initially, Al Jazeera was “just a rumor in much of the Arab world. Before the station was widely included in various satellite broadcasting packages, VHS tapes of its debate shows could be bought on the black market in Damascus and Baghdad” (Rushing 2007, 133). But by 1999, Al Jazeera was broadcasting original programming 24 hours a 19 day and was by far the most popular news network in the region (Telhami 2005). Al Jazeera’s success and notoriety is based on several factors. First, it borrowed from Western journalism in two respects: One, after the collapse of the BBC’s Arabic TV effort in 1996, Sheikh Hamad hired approximately 150 BBC-trained journalists; and two, the network invested in the most advanced broadcasting equipment and technology, hoping to mimic and eventually improve upon the fast moving and visually stimulating model that CNN had made popular during its broadcasts of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 1991. Thus, Al Jazeera both looked and sounded like legitimate journalism, and was much more advanced than its regional competitors. Second, as opposed to other international broadcasters, the staff was composed entirely of Arab journalists. Importantly, because Qatar is so small, the network had to reach out across the region to assemble its journalistic corps. As a result, the staff was diverse and able to process and contextualize news from across the region better than any of its competitors. By 1998, the network employed journalists from all 22 countries in the region (Halel 2008). The third key to Al Jazeera’s success was its perceived independence, both from the government of Qatar and from other political and religious establishments in the region. Al Jazeera’s programming delivered heavy-hitting stories on corruption and human rights conditions in the Arab world. Moreover, its talk shows included lively debate on topics largely considered taboo in the region, including women’s rights, the 20 personal matters of foreign leaders (political scandals), and even homosexuality. For many, Al Jazeera was a breath of fresh air for a citizenry that had been living in one of the most repressive information environments in the world: “It has conclusively shattered the state’s monopoly over the flow of information, rendering obsolete the ministries of information and the oppressive state censorship that was smothering public discourse in the 1990s” (Lynch 2006, 2). Most important of all, however, was the network’s tone in dealing with issues relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the ongoing tensions between the international community and Saddam Hussein. In 1998, Al Jazeera’s exclusive coverage of Operation Desert Fox, the British and American bombing campaign that sparked widespread street protests, was well received throughout the region. After watching the protests on Al Jazeera, one Arab writer declared, “As the night does not resemble the morning, the winter of 1998 cannot resemble the summer of 1991…Where the Gulf crisis divided the Arabs, these attacks united us” (cited in Lynch 2006, 13). Its intense coverage of the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000 cemented its valiant status: “It was the station that virtually everyone watched—and that everybody knew that others had seen— creating a real sense of a single, common Arab ‘conversation’ about political issues” (Lynch 2006, 23). Indeed, as many have commented, the period from 1997-2003 can be fairly described as the “Al Jazeera Era.” 21 Important in its coverage of both Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is its anti-imperial tone. In covering Iraq, Al Jazeera has, since its inception, aired programming focusing on the devastating impacts that the international sanctions were having on the Iraqi people. Ignored by much of the mainstream media in the West, the sanctions were imposed in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War and truly crippled Iraq’s infrastructure. While the international community, led by the United States, imposed the sanctions in an effort to curb Saddam Hussein’s regime, the civilian sector felt the sanctions the most. According to Mueller and Mueller (1999, 51), the sanctions are “responsible for the deaths of more people in Iraq than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history,” killing close to one million. Indeed, “Iraqi suffering under the sanctions allowed Arabs to rebuild the sense of sharing a community of fate, as Iraqi suffering under the sanctions became a potent symbol of the suffering of all Arabs” (Lynch 2006, 10). This is the backdrop—as an advocate for the Iraqi people—with which Al Jazeera reported during the renewed bombing in December 1998. The American and British forces were framed as neo-colonial armies simply interested in controlling the country’s natural resources, and the Arab world was quick to mobilize in opposition to the renewed war effort. This opposition was further emboldened in 2003 when the US again led an international coalition into Iraq. Marc Lynch (2006, 10) conducted a content analysis of Al Jazeera’s programming spanning five years (1999-2004) and found: 22 The issue of Palestine was, without question, the area of the widest consensus in the new Arab public sphere. Support for the Palestinians against Israel was rarely, if ever contested…Palestine served as a unifying focal point, one which diverse political groups could use as a common front, rather than as a point of meaningful debates. While many in the West point to this fact as evidence of bias, Al Jazeera’s Director General, Waddah Khanfar, disagrees. According to Khanfar (2007), “Al Jazeera has accepted the fact that it does report from within the Middle East. It does respect the collective mind of the Arab world. It does see through Arab eyes, and, therefore, it does offer a perspective that might be different from others.” This theme—reporting the news through Arab eyes—exists across the board in Al Jazeera’s programming and is a defining element of its widespread popularity. Rather than reporting the news from the eyes of foreign governments, like the VOA, or as a mouthpiece of Arab regimes, such as Egypt’s Nile News, Al Jazeera was seen as representing the voice of the Arab people, in all of their diversity. In Khanfar’s (2007) words, “The audience felt that they owned Al Jazeera rather than that they were dealing with something owned by a second party or a third party to promote either commodities or politics on the screen.” Speaking more broadly, Al Jazeera’s “arguments took place within a common frame of reference, an Arab identity discourse that shaped and infected all arguments, analysis and coverage. Together, these elements produced a distinctive kind of political public sphere, an identity-bounded enclave, internally open and externally opaque” (Lynch 2006, 3). According to Lynch (2006), particularly in its early years, Al Jazeera is credited with the reinvigoration of Arab public discourse and is part and parcel with a growing 23 civil society in the region. Governments were both angered by and scared of Al Jazeera’s growing popularity. Every government in the Arab world has at one point or another taken action against the network, either by arresting its journalists, closing its local bureau, or removing ambassadors from Doha, Al Jazeera’s home base. According to Al Jazeera’s Moahmmed Krishan, “Our target is public opinion, the masses…to win the confidence of the people in this station, even at the expense of the anger of the official Arab institutions and the United States” (cited in Lynch 2006, 25). Khanfar (2005) notes, “Al Jazeera is the most important instrument in pushing freedom of expression, reform, and democracy in the Arab world. That is what Al Jazeera has actually done.” Today, more than 50 million people in the Arab world watch Al Jazeera, and surveys consistently find that it is the most popular channel for news in the region, with few exceptions (Telhami 2009).5 In March 2006, Al Jazeera was reborn as part of an international media corporation, formally named the Al Jazeera Network. Later that year, the Al Jazeera Network launched its global, English-language broadcaster, Al Jazeera English (AJE). Originally titled Al Jazeera International, the broadcaster’s name was changed just days prior to its first broadcast to appease members of the Arabic channel who were arguing that they too were an international news network and that to give the “International” title to the English language network was a slight to the Arabic side (Rushing 2008). Thus, on November 15, 2006, AJE transmitted its first broadcast from Doha, Qatar. 24 Part of what makes AJE stand out from other “global” news networks is its reliance on four broadcasting bureaus that truly span the globe. Broadcasting in the morning typically starts in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where AJE has a state-of-the-art studio atop the Petronas towers, the tallest twin buildings in the world. Then, after four hours, the venue switches to the main bureau in Doha, which is across the street from— and casts quite a shadow on—the Arabic studios. AJE’s studio in Doha is, of course, also state of the art, featuring the world’s largest LCD screen. AJE’s London bureau gets the broadcasting baton after Doha, broadcasting from their basement bureau in the 1 Knightsbridge building, in the heart of one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in the city (De Burton 2000). Then, AJE’s day winds up in Washington, D.C., where the Americas bureau broadcasts for four to five hours. The Americas bureau is the least impressive; in fact, it is almost hidden from the public. According to Bureau Chief Will Stebbins (2008), this is intentional. When the Network first launched its operations in Washington, prior to broadcasting they would routinely receive anonymous threats. The situation was so bad that other tenants demanded that Al Jazeera move or they would. Thus, eventually Stebbins and his cohort established a less public and less visible home within the D.C. limits. Importantly, each bureau is live for most of the day, and thus able to chime in as the day’s events demand. AJE’s global network is deliberately unique in its broadcasting structure. Khanfar (2007), one of the architects of the Network, said that the design was intended to integrate the local with the global. It intentionally hired a diverse staff—over 50 25 nationalities are represented—and it operates 69 news bureaus around the world (this total includes both the Arabic and English language bureaus). AJE’s mission, driven into everyone who works there, is to give a voice to the voiceless and to represent the “South” in global media discourse. When pressed on what this means, Ibrahim Helal (2008), Deputy Manager for News and Programming at AJE, says, “The ‘South’ here is not meant to be geographical. It is symbolic. It is a lifestyle because in the West, you have a lot of South as well. In Britain, you have South. In Europe, you have South. The South denotes to the voiceless in general.” Expanding on the mission, Helal (2008) suggests, “The AJE way of journalism is a bit different from the West because we tend to go faster to the story and to go deeper into communities to understand the stories, rather than getting the [news] services to give us the information…We try to do our best to set the agenda by searching for stories others cannot reach or don’t think of.” According to Helal (2008), the Network’s pool of local talent produces superior news when compared to Western news networks: We were in Myanmar exclusively during the tensions last year. We covered Gaza from within Gaza by Gazan correspondents. We looked into why Gazans are united behind Hamas despite the suffering. These kinds of stories are not easily covered by other media. It’s not an accusation [against other media]. It’s about the elements of perceiving the knowledge, the know-how when it comes to covering the story and producing it. It’s not there in Western media but we have invested in people by bringing more than 40 ethnic backgrounds and nationalities represented in the staff.6 Today, AJE is available in over 140 million households in over 100 countries and is available in “cable, satellite, broadband IPTV, ADSL, terrestrial and mobile platforms” 26 (Al Jazeera Network 2009). Since the Network’s 2009 annual report was released, Al Jazeera also added shortwave to its list of broadcast mediums, due to Arab and Persian government efforts at censoring the Network’s satellite broadcasts (Lawrie 2008). To help put these figures in perspective, according to the Executive Director of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), the body that overseas American international broadcasting, the VOA reaches only 80 countries (Trimble 2009). It is important to recognize that the Al Jazeera Network—which includes the flagship Al Jazeera Satellite Channel (Arabic), Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Documentary, Al Jazeera Sport, Al Jazeera.net (in both English and Arabic), the Al Jazeera Media Training and Development Center, the Al Jazeera Center for Studies, Al Jazeera Mubasher (basically an Arab C-SPAN), and Al Jazeera Mobile—does not make a profit. Indeed, the Network constitutes quite a financial burden on the Qatari government. While exact figures are not publicly known, the launching of AJE alone cost over $1 billion (Stebbins 2008). And Al Jazeera Arabic, despite its popularity, continues to have difficulty generating advertising revenue, partially because Saudi Arabia and Kuwait unofficially boycott any company that advertises on Al Jazeera. Thus, according to the former managing director of AJE, Nigel Parsons (2008), the Qatari government generously funds the Network, and it is often said in the newsroom that money is of little concern. This is due, in part, to the fact that Qatar has rights to approximately five percent of the world’s remaining natural gas, the third largest remaining reserve in the world. As a result, the country is flush with resources. With a population of less than one 27 million, the large majority of which is immigrants, Qatari’s living standards are among the highest in the word. In fact, according to the International Monetary Fund (2009) Qataris enjoy the highest GDP per capita in the world at $85,868. Moreover, as the world economy has shrunk during the current recession, Qatar’s economy continues to grow due to the relatively stable price of natural gas, compared to oil, and the long-term nature of most natural gas contracts (Middle East Magazine 2009). While it can be said that Al Jazeera put Qatar on the regional map, it should also be recognized that AJE is the microstate’s effort to make a better global impression. Indeed, while Al Jazeera is widely popular in the Arab world, many in the West view it with disdain. Partially due to its association with Osama bin Laden—after 9/11, Al Jazeera was the “go-to” network for bin Laden’s communiqués to the world—but also partly due to a concerted effort on behalf of the Bush administration to tarnish the Network’s image, Al Jazeera is not well regarded by most Americans (Accuracy in Media 2006). More importantly, outside of the Arabic speaking world, most people have never heard of Qatar. AJE, along with its media training, research center, and mobile focus, is an effort to reach out and connect to global audiences. By focusing on “giving a voice to the voiceless,” AJE has targeted the developing world, Asia and Africa in particular. It sees these markets as relatively untapped and often ignored by Western mainstream media. While AJE is steadfast in its commitment to high-quality journalism, its influence is no doubt broader than simply injecting untold stories into public discourse. Rather, it is part of a larger effort by Qatar to become a force in international 28 politics. With its rise to power considered highly improbable just a few decades ago, Qatar has the two most essential elements that dictate power in the international arena today: ample financial resources and a global, albeit locally-tuned, megaphone. MEDIA & POWER: RESEARCH QUESTIONS According to Manuel Castells (2009, 24), the collective impact of the rapid advancements in contemporary communications technologies is the emergence of the network society, “a society whose structure is made around networks activated microelectronics-based, digitally processed information and communication technologies.” In the network society, “sources of social power in our world—violence and discourse, coercion and persuasion, political domination and cultural framing—have not changed fundamentally from our historical experience.” Rather, according to Castells (2009, 50), the means by which power relationships are constructed has changed in two fundamental ways: (1) power is constituted through a careful balancing of the global and the local; and (2) power is organized around networks, rather than single units or organizations. In the network society, “the state, which is the enforcer of power through the monopoly of violence, finds considerable limits to its coercive capacity unless it engages itself in networking with other states” (Castells 2009, 51). Of course, nationstates can always resort to violence, Castells acknowledges, as the US did in its invasion of Iraq in 2003, but “unless it finds ways to bring together several strategic networks 29 interested in the benefits of the state’s capacity to exercise violence, the full exercise of their coercive power will be short-lived” (Ibid). Rather, in the network society: Discourses of power provide substantive goals for the programs of the networks. Networks produce cultural materials that are constructed in the variegated discursive realm. These programs are geared toward the fulfillment of certain social interests and values. But to be effective in programming the networks, they need to rely on a metaprogram that ensures the recipients of the discourse internalize the categories through which they find meaning for their own actions…This is particularly important in the context of global networks because the cultural diversity of the world has to be overlaid with some common frames that relate to the discourses conveying the shared interests of each global network. In other words, there is a need to produce a global culture that adds to specific cultural identities, rather than superseding them, to enact the programs of networks that are global in reach and purpose (Castells 2009, 51-2). Castells (2009) argues that power is articulated in two ways: switching and programming. Switching refers to those with the ability to control access to the network, and programming refers to those who decide the content of the network’s communications. Counterpower (efforts to disrupt the discourses of power) is pursued by “disrupting switching in order to defend alternative values and interests,” as well as the production of programming that defends alternative cultural narratives and values. According to Castells, switching power is determined largely by an actor’s ability to generate exchange value, either through currency or barter. Programming power “ultimately depends on the ability to generate, diffuse and affect the discourses that frame human action.” Castells (2009, 53) concludes his theory of communication power by explaining that in the network society discourse shapes reality: Because the public mind—that is, the set of values, and frames that have broad exposure in society—is ultimately what influences individual and collective 30 behavior, programming the communication networks is the decisive source of cultural materials that feed the programmed goals of any other network…Discourses frame options of what networks can and cannot do. Read in the context of the geopolitics of the news, Castells’ theory of power in today’s network society sheds some light on how, for example, a tiny microstate in the Persian Gulf, which gained independence from British rule less than 40 years ago, has been able to become a regional power. First, Al Jazeera’s Arabic and English broadcasters are exemplar in their ability to mix the global and the local. Both primarily rely on local talents to gather and tell the news through the diversity of their journalists as well as their broadcast bureaus. For example, in September 2001, when the US launched its attack on Afghanistan, Al Jazeera was the only international news presence with a bureau in Kabul. Both broadcasters are global in that they are available anywhere in the world, typically via multiple mediums, and rely on many of the newest communications technologies. Moreover, both broadcasters balance the global and the local through their interactive features. In 2009, during the conflict in Gaza, Al Jazeera Labs, part of the Network’s new media outreach, launched a Your Media webpage that was flooded with photos and videos from Palestinians in Gaza, many of which made their way to Al Jazeera’s webpage and some of which were rebroadcast in the Network's programming. In addition, the Mapping the War in Gaza feature was extremely innovative. Using software developed by Kenyan-based Ushahidi, the Network created a map (based on Microsoft's Virtual Earth program) that integrated information submitted from its citizen 31 journalists into a zoom-able map of Gaza and the surrounding territories. Each bit of submitted information from citizen journalists—be it a tweet, a video, or a cell phone photo—was turned into a dot, categorized by color to differentiate different types of events (dark blue dots noted a death of some sort while yellow dots were references to news about international aid), and placed on the map. Citizen reports were vetted to ensure that they were indeed factual, and then integrated into reports from the mainstream media to ensure that the map was providing a comprehensive look at the events taking place (Townend 2009). Castells’ second dictate, that power is now constituted through networks rather than through single units, is also helpful in explaining how the Al Jazeera Network—and thus, its financier, Qatar—has gained international prestige. In addition to the Network’s global operations, detailed briefly above, Al Jazeera is also establishing content sharing arrangements to gain audiences where its reach may otherwise be limited. For example, Telesur, Hugo Chavez’s broadcaster that targets Latin America, has a content sharing agreement with the Network. More recently, the Network reached an agreement with The Independent (UK) whereby it can stream select AJE programming on its website. In the United States, AJE’s toughest market to break into, it has established content sharing agreements with Link TV, MHz Cable Systems, Public Broadcast Service’s (PBS) WorldFocus, and the web-based LiveStation in order to get around cable and satellite operators uninterested in adding the channel (discussed in more detail in Chapter 5). Perhaps most demonstrative of the Network’s commitment to collaborations is its 32 decision to begin sharing video content on the World Wide Web via the most open Creative Commons license available. The Network first started sharing its footage during the 2009 conflict in Gaza via Creative Commons—making its video free to anyone from blogger or broadcaster to rebroadcast—and it is currently working on making all of its content, in both Arabic and English, available for free online in a searchable archive. As Mohamed Nanabhay (2009), director of Al Jazeera’s New Media, describes, “We are doing the exact opposite of what everyone else in the business is doing. While they try to find business models to monetize their content, we are giving it away for free to anyone with Wifi.” To put the anecdote in perspective, the Al Jazeera Network was the only international broadcaster with a broadcasting crew within Gaza during the conflict. Thus, the content that it made available for free to the world typically would have been sold to other news agencies for financial gain. Between its extensive resources and its highly regarded and influential news network, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network has access to what Castells (2009) calls switching power—the ability to use resources to control the scope of a network—and programming power—the ability to shape the content of communication in particular network. Thus, according to Castells’ (2009) theory, Al Jazeera is well suited to be a powerful actor in contemporary international politics. 33 This project traces the rise of Al Jazeera, in the context of the history of international broadcasting, to analyze exactly how the Network has become a powerful international actor. The project addresses the following research questions: • How has the Al Jazeera Network influenced geopolitical calculations, particularly for Qatar? • How has Qatar used the Al Jazeera Network for geopolitical gain? • What is it about Al Jazeera’s approach to the news that resonates so well with its Arab audiences, and how does that approach translate into its global broadcasting operations? o How do questions of Arab and Muslim identity shape the Network’s broadcasting content? • Analyzed in the context of the history of international broadcasting, what lessons does the case of the Al Jazeera Network provide for the future of international broadcasting and public diplomacy? o How does Al Jazeera’s hybrid identity translate into a model for effective and persuasive international broadcasting and public diplomacy? o How does the Al Jazeera Network utilize new communications technologies and platforms to enhance its reach, and do these efforts represent models for effective news broadcasting in the twenty-first century (or, as some would say, broadcasting 2.0)? 34 METHOD This study includes extensive archival research on the history of international broadcasting and the rise of Al Jazeera and its microstate financier, Qatar. Research materials used include both scholarly works, news archives (via Lexis-Nexis, Google News, and Proquest) as well as translated materials (via MideastWire and MEMRI). In addition, the researcher conducted 28 face-to-face interviews with Al Jazeera Network personnel drawn from across the organization. These interview subjects included reporters, producers, and bureau chiefs stationed in bureaus around the world. The subjects were selected based upon the following criteria: knowledge of the Arabic and/or English network’s operations; previous public statements made about Al Jazeera’s mission, strengths, and weaknesses; and willingness to talk on the record. Fortunately, the researcher was able to interview members of the leadership team, including the current Managing Director of the Al Jazeera Network (Wadah Khanfar 2007), the current and former Managing Directors of AJE (Nigel Parsons 2008; Tony Burman 2009), each of AJE’s active broadcasting bureau heads (Sue Phillips 2007; William Stebbins 2008), the two highest level journalists that have worked on both the Arabic and English networks (Ibrahim Helal 2008; Marwan Bashara 2007), and two of Al Jazeera Arabic’s most prominent on-air personalities (Ahmed Mansour 2008; Faisal Al-Kasem 2008). In addition, interviews were conducted with two former employees of the Al Jazeera Network (David Marash 2008; Faisal Bodi 2009), and four independent Arab media 35 scholars and/or journalists (Mohamed Zayani 2009; Larry Pintak 2006; Marc Lynch 2009; Deborah Campbell 2009). In total, 34 people have been interviewed for this project. A full list of interviewees is listed in the Appendix.7 The interviews were semistructured and conducted between July 2006 and July 2009. The interviews ranged in length (average length of about 45 minutes) and took place in London, UK; Washington, D.C.; Doha, Qatar; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; and Cairo, Egypt. While most interviews took place in person, several follow-up interviews/clarifications have been conducted by email and telephone. PRÉCIS OF CHAPTERS Chapter 2 (“News and the Nation-State: An Early History of International Broadcasting”) outlines the origins of contemporary broadcasting, from 1896 with the invention of the mass media to the end of the Cold War. The chapter focuses both on the centrality of broadcasting during both world wars I and II, as well as the Cold War, as an instrument of foreign policy in order to better contextualize current arguments about the impact of news and information in international politics today. Chapter 3 (“Al Jazeera and the Rise of a Microstate”) outlines the motivations behind the establishment of Al Jazeera and traces the Network’s development in the late 1990s and early 2000s, arguing that the broadcaster played a central role in Qatar’s rise to regional influence during that time. Chapter 4 (“Between News and Propaganda: Al Jazeera, ‘Objectivity,’ and Arab Politics”) focuses on the content of Al Jazeera’s Arabic broadcasting. The chapter offers 36 an examination of the news cultures in the Middle East as well as a brief discussion of two concepts related to international broadcasting—objectivity and propaganda. It argues that Al Jazeera’s success is based in part on its pan-Arab framing of news related to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the US-led war in Iraq. Chapter 5 (“Al Jazeera Goes Global”) charts the global expansion of Al Jazeera with its launch of AJE. This chapter outlines the similarities and differences between the two news networks, both in terms of content and news culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of AJE’s potential as a means of public diplomacy and as a conduit for better cross-cultural dialogue. Chapter 6 (“Qatar and the Geopolitics of the News”) summarizes this study’s findings. It draws from the previous chapters and provides new arguments and examples to demonstrate how the Al Jazeera Network has impacted geopolitics in each of the seven functions outlined above (see Table 1.1). The chapter then revisits Castells’ theory of communication power and addresses the final research question: What lessons does the case of the Al Jazeera Network provide for the future of international broadcasting and public diplomacy? 37 CHAPTER 1 ENDNOTES 1 There is some debate over the proper spelling of “Al Jazeera.” Some authors spell it as “Al-Jazeera,” while others remove the capitalization of “Al” and use “al-Jazeera.” This study uses the spelling offered by the Network itself, “Al Jazeera,” though when quoting other sources, it follows the original spelling offered by other authors. 2 The term “microstate” is a term of art (Plischke, 1977), referring to a sovereign nation-state with either a very small population (fewer than one million citizens) or land area (less than 386 square miles). According to Sieglinde and Neuman (2004), traditionally microstates are not only small in size or population, but oftentimes their sovereignty is called into question by other countries, or there is a perceived deficit in a country’s military capacity often resulting in dependence on another country for security. As is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 3, Qatar, with its population of fewer than one million, sovereignty challenged in recent history by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and dependence on American forces for its security, meets the criteria of a microstate. 3 According to Gilboa (2005), the ‘‘policy forcing’’ definition of the CNN effect first appeared in connection with the Kurdish rebellion against Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War. Despite initial resistance by British and U.S. policymakers to intervening, several “commentators and scholars argued that CNN’s coverage of Saddam’s atrocities forced them to reverse their policy.” The Independent (London) published a piece shortly after the beginning of the operation and observed that ‘‘public opinion, shaped by newspaper, radio, and television coverage, has set the pace and forced the politicians to toughen their line and take action to succor the Kurds’’ (13 April 1991:14). 4 In 1993, Samuel Huntington published “The Clash of Civilizations,” an article arguing for the existence of “seven or eight” different civilizations whose clashes would “dominate global politics.” Huntington argues, “culture and cultural identities, which at the broadest level are civilization identities, are shaping the patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conflict in the post-Cold War world.” Central to Huntington’s thesis was the argument that the processes of globalization were increasing the propensity for tension and conflict between civilizations. As traditional sources of identity—the nation-state in particular—become less cogent, and as cross-cultural interactions become more intense, people will become increasingly bound to their civilizational identity, and thus critical of other civilizations that challenge their social norms and cultural mores. Accordingly, Huntington concludes, “the fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.” 5 Al Jazeera is not very well regarded in Iraq, for example. For more detailed information on Al Jazeera’s audience, see Chapter 3. 6 Since the interview (March 2008), AJE has increased the number of ethnicities represented by its journalistic staff to 45. This is consistent with the figure listed above, noting that AJE employs more than 50 nationalities, as different nationalities do not necessarily constitute different ethnicities, but its still an important contribution to the network’s diversity. 7 All of the original 28 interviews with Al Jazeera journalists and employees were conducted with Mohammed el-Nawawy of Queens University of Charlotte. Each of the interviews was slightly adapted to focus on the specific experiences of each of the interviewees and jointly conducted by both Powers and elNawawy. 38 CHAPTER 2: NEWS AND THE NATION-STATE: AN EARLY HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING "News is a weapon of war. Its purpose is to wage war and not to give information." Joseph Goebbels, 1942 News and information have always been of particular importance to international politics. Indeed, with each new communication technology, such as the telegraph, radio, television, and the Internet, proponents almost inevitably promise that their invention will foster a new era of cross-cultural conversation and decreased conflict. When Guglielmo Marconi invented wireless telegraphy in 1902, he declared, “communication between peoples widely separated in space and thought is undoubtedly the greatest weapon against the evils of misunderstanding and jealousy” (cited by Hale 1975, xiii). As the thinking goes, the more connected the world is, the more difficult it is to engage in conflict. In 1910 Norman Angell argued that economic interdependence—fostered by technological advances and what we now describe as globalization—would create an international system in which conducting war would no longer be in the interest of the nation-state, thus fostering an unprecedented era of global peace. As radio technologies were advancing in the 1920s, Sir Oliver Lodge, a British physicist and inventor, concurred: “in the long run, when present international troubles have subsided, the power of rapid communication will surely conduce to better understanding between nations, and will lead, in due time, to the much desired, but long delayed, era of universal peace” (cited by 39 Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 8-9). Yet, despite the predictions of producing a “global village,” international broadcasting has more often than not been used as a tool in wartime, and typically not with peaceful intentions. This chapter provides a detailed discussion of the rise international broadcasting as an element of foreign affairs and a medium of diplomacy, from World War I until the end of the Cold War. This chapter charts the long history of government use of news and international broadcasting as part of its means of engaging—and, often, influencing—foreign audiences. Born at the turn of the twentieth century, wireless communication—first in the form of Morse code, but later as radio and televised transmissions—fundamentally altered the ways international relations were conducted and foreign disputes were resolved. In World War I, the UK actively manipulated the flow of news from Europe to the United States in order to turn American public opinion towards supporting entering the war. World War II witnessed the birth of radio as a critical instrument in foreign policy, and also the approval of the first international agreements that regulated and acknowledged the importance of international broadcasting. Radio was considered so important during WWII that broadcasting transmitters were often the primary targets of any military invasion. The Cold War sparked global investment in international broadcasting technologies, both meant to send programs around the world, as well as to block unwelcome transmissions. According to many, international broadcasting was a critical element in the fall of the Soviet Union, providing dissidents in the USSR and its satellite countries access to uncensored information, as well as a means of 40 communicating, organizing, and protesting. In the Middle East in particular, international broadcasting has always been deeply entrenched in the region’s geopolitical battles. In the 1960s, the popularity of the Voice of the Arabs helped foster the rise of Nasser’s Egypt as a regional leader, while the US, UK, and USSR beamed in programs in Arabic in an effort to quell anti-communist and anti-imperialist sentiment. For much of the twentieth century, Arabic language programming was second only to English, a reality that reflected the importance that so many countries placed on having a voice in the Arab public street. The chapter concludes with the rise of satellite broadcasting, the entrance of CNN as a critical conduit of global information, and the fall of the Soviet Empire. THE ORIGINS OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING: THE WORLD WARS Philip Taylor (2003) charts the enhanced role of information in international conflict back to the turn of the twentieth century, which bared witness to two revolutionary developments: (1) the birth of mass media; and (2) the rise of total wars. In London in 1896, Lord Northcliffe founded the world’s first mass-circulation daily newspaper, The Daily Mail. While newspapers had certainly reached large audiences years earlier, The Daily Mail “broke the mold” by focusing not simply on niche communities among the upper class, but instead by catering to a large British working class audience. “Imitations rapidly followed throughout the industrialized world” (Taylor 2003, 174). In the same year in Southern England, Guglielmo Marconi provided the first public wireless telephony experiment, technology that he would use in 1901 to 41 successfully transmit the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean. Also in 1896, Parisians witnessed the first commercial screening of a cinematograph. Thus, “in one remarkable year…the principle means of mass communication—press, radio, and film— came into their own and the communications revolution made a quantum leap” (Taylor 2003, 174). Moreover, the emergence of total wars—wars that in some significant way affected every member of a society—resulted in increased interest in events from far away, as those events were more likely to have direct consequences for all citizens in countries involved in the war effort. Industrialization of the West fostered communities that were increasingly dependent on others making goods from afar, often from across political and geographic borders. Increased trade and immigration between nation-states also fostered increased levels of interdependence. “The new warfare brought the battle closer to the lives of ordinary citizens than ever before, whether in the form of women being recruited into factories or in the form of civilian bombing” (Taylor 2003, 173). Moreover, the scale of wars, which had previously been fought by professional soldiers in far-off lands, increasingly called for the participation of the masses, fundamentally altering how society saw and thought of international relations. As a result, mass media and information began to matter more and more in the conduct and outcome of international conflicts. It was out of these related yet different developments that international broadcasting was born. As information became more important in 42 international affairs, governments began to invest heavily in finding ways to control the production and flow of the news. The British use of news to persuade American opinion leaders of the necessity of joining the allied side in World War I is perhaps one of the most well documented examples of the early manipulation of news media by a government in an international conflict. In 1914 the British established a secret war propaganda bureau whose main goal was to convince America to join the war effort. Focusing on using factual news that they would disseminate to the American masses via newspapers, the British fed US news organizations stories that described the Germans as inhumane villains, willing to kill innocent civilians and violate international laws. After cutting the cable that Germany used to communicate with the Western hemisphere, the British managed the only direct cable communications between North America and Europe. It was thus able to control the narrative surrounding the war. The British government even used Reuters, a seemingly private and independent news wire, to subtly campaign for America to enter the war. As James Squires (1935, 49) notes, the campaign was a “gentle courtship” rather than a “violent wooing.” Newspapers across the country ran stories fed to them by the British. At the outset, American involvement in the war was far from a given. Not only had President Woodrow Wilson run and won on a “Keep America out of the War” ticket, but there was also some anti-British sentiment in the States based on the large Irish and German immigrant populations (Esslinger 1967; Wood 1992). Yet, a steady stream of 43 anti-German news slowly convinced the American elite of the need to join the allied forces. As a testament to the success of the propaganda, President Wilson changed his mind and decided on the necessity to join the war within six months of gaining office. Then, in early 1917, British intelligence intercepted, decoded, and fed the Zimmerman telegram to the American press and government. The telegram, written by the German Foreign Minister to the German ambassador in Washington suggested an alliance between Germany and Mexico so that it could be capable of launching an invasion into the United States if it entered the war. As newspapers published the telegram, public sentiment quickly turned, with many arguing that entering the war was now a national security necessity. The US declared war on Germany just one month later (Taylor 1999; Sanders 1975; Taylor 2003). Essential to the UK’s success in enlisting the US in WWI was its ability to control the flow of information. As the world’s most powerful nation, the British deliberately established London as the hub for the transfer of news, and it served the country well. Yet, whereas the UK was able to closely monitor and control what flowed through the cables used to spread information during WWI, the creation of wireless communication (i.e. the radio) made it much more difficult for any one country to control the flow of information or the narrative of the news thereafter (Hanson 2008). In its current manifestation, the term “broadcasting” is relatively young, arriving only in the 1920s to describe what radio stations popping up across Europe and in the 44 United States were doing. Originally an agricultural term, meaning to “scatter seed over a broad area rather than sowing it in designated places,” experts thought that it expressed the proper idea behind radio (Hanson 2008, 24). Using developments in beam technology, in 1924 Marconi successfully tested Shortwave (SW) radio and introduced it to the world. Compared to medium and high-wave broadcasts, SW broadcasts could be received thousands of miles away, using a relatively small amount of electricity. While the sound quality wasn’t as good compared to the other waves, the potential to reach audiences in foreign countries sparked significant interest among governments. Interestingly, while most European governments were focusing on SW as a means of communicating with their distant colonies, US private broadcasters were focused on developing more advanced SW technologies to increase their potential audiences, thus increasing their profits. Accordingly, the US government left radio broadcasts almost entirely to a handful of private companies, including Westinghouse Electric, NBC, and CBS. These companies drove early technological developments in SW broadcasting in order to reach audiences in Central America, where their sponsors, such as Coca-Cola and The United Fruit Company were eager to reach new consumers (Wood 1992). Early on, governments deployed shortwave international broadcasting in an effort to communicate with their colonies with increased efficiency. In 1927, The Netherlands launched an international radio service in order to provide timely information to citizens in its colonies, particularly the Dutch East Indies. In the UK there was little doubt of the potential impact that radio technology would have on international politics. In 1925, the 45 British Postmaster-General, who would oversea the launch of the British Broadcasting Company, suggested that radio would become “the most potent weapon in the armory of the League of Nations” (Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 9). The Soviet Union was the first country to launch an international broadcaster with the explicit intent of influencing foreign populations. In 1925, in what is considered the first time radio had been used to deliberately persuade foreign publics, the Soviet Union conducted a radio offensive against Romania regarding a dispute over Bessarabia, a slice of territory in northeastern Romania. Three years later in 1929, under a banner of “a great and holy hatred of capitalism,” Radio Moscow went on air, broadcasting in English, German, and French. Upbeat at first, touting the successes of Communist governance and lifestyle, the broadcasts soon turned more critical, confronting the rise of the Nationalist Socialist Party in Germany and fascist governments in Europe. Most Russians argue that the radio was actually invented in Russia by Alexander Stepanovich Popov in 1895, one year before Gulgielmo Marconi successfully conducted his public experiment. The Russian naval fleet was equipped with wireless capabilities for communication via Morse code during WWI. Early on, radio was seen as a critical instrument for Russian governance. Due to its massive landmass (the USSR spanned over 11 time-zones and included 8,649,500 square miles of territory), radio was developed and deployed as an essential tool for governance. In 1922, the government established a domestic service, providing the central government the means to quickly communicate with the 15 different republics. Vladimir Lenin was an early advocate of research into radio technologies, 46 describing radio as “a newspaper without paper which could not be suppressed or confiscated” (Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 7). This early emphasis on the importance of radio technologies resulted in widespread adoption of SW radios throughout the USSR, a phenomenon that would continue throughout the twentieth century and eventually come back to haunt the Soviet state. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was established in 1927 and formally expanded to include international broadcasting in 1932.1 Broadcasting with the motto, “Nation shall speak peace unto Nation,” the Empire Service began broadcasting in order to enable “the far-flung peoples of the British Empire to remain in constant touch with the mother country” (Taylor 2003, 205). According to the BBC’s first Director General, Sir John Reith, the Empire Service would serve as “a connecting and coordinating link between the scattered parts of the British Empire” (cited by Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 13). Stemming from the success that the BBC’s domestic programs had had in fostering increased social stability and an enhanced respect for the rule of law within the UK, the BBC began broadcasting to its colonies, with an early focus on India, in order to quell dissent and “keep British culture alive in the minds of the subjects of these colonies” (Wood 1992, 37). Moreover, the broadcasts hoped to stimulate trade and commerce. By 1935, Reith and the British Colonial Office argued for the addition of foreign language broadcasts to the BBC’s repertoire “in the interest of British prestige and influence in world affairs” (Report of the Broadcasting Committee 1936). In his speech inaugurating the BBC’s Empire Service’s first broadcast in 1932, Reith suggested: 47 “the great possibilities and influences of the medium should be exploited to the highest human advantage…the service as a whole is dedicated to the best interests of mankind” (Taylor 1997, 8). By the end of the Second World War, the BBC was broadcasting in 46 languages and producing 850 hours of original content per week, more than both the United States and USSR combined (Wood 1992, 2). While international broadcasting was a low priority in the Weimar Republic, once Adolf Hitler assumed power in 1933 shortwave broadcasts were regarded as a vital element of Nazi propaganda. Indeed, Hitler and his Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels drove global interest in the use of radio broadcasting as a means of foreign policy. An early act of the new German government was to place all broadcasting under the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda where a senior official could oversee it. When Herr Eugene Hadamovsky was appointed to the job, he described his task as “to make broadcasting a sharp and reliable weapon of government…I had incessantly and untiringly demanded that German broadcasting should be the chief instrument of political propaganda” (cited by Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 17). Impressed by the impact that the Soviet Union’s German language broadcasts were having within Germany, by 1934 Hitler and Goebbels had established their own foreign language broadcasting services, focusing especially on the United States. By the end of 1935, Germany was broadcasting regularly on seven channels in German and four other languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch). Great importance was attached to the news, with 22 bulletins broadcast each day. Emphasizing the central role of radio in 48 German thinking at the time, the head of German radio Hadamowski wrote, “We spell radio with three exclamation marks because we are possessed in it of a miraculous power—the strongest weapon ever given to the human spirit—that opens hearts and does not stop at borders” (cited by Hale 1975, 1). In 1934, when the Nazi Party attempted to stage a coup in Austria, the first move by the Nazi SS was to take over the RAVAG broadcasting station in Vienna and broadcast a false bulletin that the Federal Chancellor Dollfuß had handed over the reins of government, an announcement that resulted in revolts across the country for days. “This was the first practical demonstration of the newly acquired strategic status of the radio transmitter. It was a pattern that was to be repeated over and over again in the war in Europe” (Wood 1992, 66). In 1940, the Nazi occupation of Denmark was made possible largely due to the ability to plant a powerful medium-wave transmitter near the Citadel that could broadcast Nazi propaganda on a trusted domestic frequency (Radio Copenhagen), falsely declaring that the King had surrendered to Germany’s authority. By 1940, Germany had seized control over almost every broadcasting station in Europe, stretching from the Arctic Circle through Holland, France, North Africa, and Eastern Europe. Germany also possessed the largest broadcasting network in the world, which led to “[Winston] Churchill’s growing obsession with the power of radio broadcasting as a propaganda weapon to be turned against the Nazis” (Wood 1992, 67). Importantly, much of Germany’s broadcasting efforts were positive, uplifting stories, news and otherwise, part of an effort to lift morale within Germany and in its occupied states. According to 49 Thomas Grandin (1939, 26) of the Geneva Research Centre, the German broadcasts paid off: “The effect abroad of programs from the Reich is considerable. It is certain that transmissions from Germany have influence upon minorities in Poland, Hungary and Rumania.” Italy began its international broadcasting in 1934 with the launch of 2RO. Italy was a pioneer in news broadcasts in that it was the first country to tailor the news depending upon the region to which it was broadcast. Unlike Germany, which broadcast the same news bulletins across stations and platforms, Italy adapted its newscasts based upon how the news would be received by different audiences. The Italians were also the first broadcasters to try to interact with their audiences. In addition to news and entertainment programming, the broadcasts offered Italian lessons. In an attempt to get Arabs to practice their Italian language skills, the stations aired Mussolini’s speeches and encouraged listeners to transcribe what they heard and mail it into Rome for correction. A few weeks later, listeners would receive their corrected transcription along with pamphlets filled with fascist propaganda. By 1937, Rome was broadcasting in 16 different languages and more than 35,000 people had sent in copies of their dictations and received corrected information from the Italian Ministry of Information (Bumpus and Skelt 1984). Another watershed year for the emergence of international broadcasting as a foreign policy tool was 1938. In 1934, Italy had launched Radio Bari, its Arabic-language 50 radio service. While Radio Bari at first broadcast mostly entertainment programming, in 1937 the content turned increasingly political, and was often critical of British foreign policy. Moreover, Radio Bari was growing in popularity, partially due to Italian distribution of cheap shortwave radios throughout the region. As tensions were brewing in Europe, the Italian broadcasts turned even more disparaging, including accusations that the UK was using poison gas against Arabs in Aden and Yemen, and describing the British Empire as “decadent” while referring to the British fleet as a number of “museum pieces” (Bumpus and Skelt 1984, 25). Recognizing the risk of increased anti-British sentiment among Arabs, the British launched their first foreign language service, BBC Arabic, on January 3, 1938. Typical of the organization’s reputation, BBC Arabic quickly won audiences over because “it was able to set a standard of service and gain a reputation for being a reliable source of news and information, objectively reported and independent of government control or censorship” (Wood 1992, 39). On its first day of broadcasting, BBC Arabic aired a piece about a Palestinian who had been sentenced to death for a minor crime, a story that did not paint a favorable picture of the UK’s colonial rule. As a result, unlike Radio Bari, BBC Arabic was seen as an independent and credible source of news. Just a few months after the BBC launched its Arabic service, the UK and Italy signed the Anglo-Italian Pact, requiring, among other things, that Italy “desist from promoting propaganda in the Middle East.” “This pact recognized for the first time the significance of radio propaganda as a diplomatic instrument and a political tool” (Wood 1992, 40). 51 In 1941, after the United States had entered WWII, it recaptured parts of the shortwave radio spectrum from its privately run-domestic networks and launched the Voice of America (VOA), a US-government funded service that would broadcast the news throughout the world. Prior to 1941, the US government had remained fairly handsoff with regard to radio broadcasting. At the time, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had been mostly concerned with laying down technical standards for the development of a standardized communication infrastructure. On February 24, 1942, the VOA began broadcasting in German, promising listeners, “The news may be good. The news may be bad. We shall tell you the truth” (Hale 1942). First launched under the auspices of the Foreign Information Service (FIS), VOA broadcasts were mostly an aggregation of translated news that had been put together by CBS, NBC, and other private networks. Then, in June 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of War Information (OWI), which took over operating VOA and began to produce original content. Just one year later, VOA was broadcasting in 46 languages with more than 50 hours of programming a day. “Once launched, the Voice of America became a permanent instrument of international politics” (Shulman 1990, 3). The Second World War really drove the early development of international broadcasting. “Shortwave broadcasting…was a tool of extraordinary power for international politics, and no period had more intense international politics than the 1930s and 1940s” (Herman and McChesney 2001, 16). During WWII, British, German, Russian, and Italian broadcasting services were greatly expanded. By the end of WWII, 52 55 nations had formal foreign-language international broadcasting services. Slow to adopt foreign language international broadcasting, the UK was the world’s leading broadcaster with a weekly output of 850 hours in 45 languages. Surveys carried out after the end of hostilities showed clearly that the BBC had attracted vast audiences throughout Europe, even in Germany itself. In the final days, German army units had tuned to the BBC to find out what was going on (Nelson, 1997). France’s General De Gaulle credited British broadcasting as a “powerful means of war” that was critical to inspiring a defeated French citizenry to continue to challenge German rule. British historian Lord Asa Briggs (1970, 5) argued that “the feeling of generalized resistance in Europe, a movement with some kind of solidarity, owed much to BBC reports of what was happening, often spontaneously, in scattered countries.” BROADCASTING BIPOLARITY: THE COLD WAR The Cold War sparked massive investment in international broadcasting around the world. Governments were engaged in a long-term struggle for the “hearts and minds” of citizens everywhere, battling to win the primary ideological contest of the twentieth century: communism versus capitalism. For the first time, a geopolitical rivalry was staked almost entirely on a government’s ability to persuade foreign audiences to support its philosophical worldview. As President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953) declared, We are now waging a cold war…It is conducted in the belief that…if two systems of government are allowed to live side by side, that ours, because of its greater appeal to men everywhere, to mankind, in the long run will win out. That it will 53 defeat dictatorial government because of its greater appeal to the human soul, the human heart, the human mind. The Americans understood the Soviet’s ambitions in similarly prodigal terms. According to the National Security Council Policy Paper 68 (1950), The Kremlin is inescapably militant. It is inescapably militant because it possesses and is possessed by a world-wide revolutionary movement, because it is the inheritor of Russian imperialism, and because it is a totalitarian dictatorship…. It is quite clear from Soviet theory and practice that the Kremlin seeks to bring the free world under its domination by the methods of the Cold War. As such, governments around the world turned to radio systems as a primary means of reaching and influencing foreign audiences. The BBC began broadcasting to the Soviet Union in Russian in March 1946, around the same time that Cold War tensions and alliances were being formed. From its outset, the BBC was placed outside the authority of the UK’s Foreign Office in order to ensure that the broadcaster’s programs were independent in spirit and content from the UK’s foreign policies. That said, the Foreign Office arranged with the BBC to offer guidance on the “nature and scope” of its foreign language services and the “relationship between the two would remain very close” (Nelson 1997, 13). As is typical of many Western broadcasters, the relationship between the UK’s official policies and the BBC’s broadcasts were often not perfectly synchronized. Early on, the goal of the BBC was quite simple: To make the truth available in places where it might otherwise not be known. According to William Haley, Director General of the BBC, “By its presence [the BBC] forced newspapers and broadcasters in authoritarian countries themselves to 54 approximate closer and closer to the truth” (Nelson 1997, 13). Haley did not think that the BBC’s news programs should be meant to persuade foreign audiences, nor should they interfere with the domestic affairs of other countries. Of course, the BBC’s independence was soon challenged. As the perceived threat of communism grew, some British elites called for a more aggressive campaign to discredit what was considered to be the myth of a happy and sustainable communist lifestyle. In 1948, the Foreign Office began feeding telegrams to embassies behind the Iron Curtain that included pointed information regarding the “poverty and backwardness” of the communist system, asking the embassies to send the telegrams back to the BBC as first-hand reports to be integrated into daily news bulletins. By 1949, political momentum had swung entirely in the direction of the propagandists, and the UK began a more overt and systemic campaign to try to discredit communism and to weaken Soviet influence in the satellite states (Nelson 1997). Despite this, throughout the Cold War the BBC’s programming was seen as the most balanced of all the Western international broadcasters. The Cold War generated the ideological and political rivalry required for a rejuvenation of the Voice of America. The VOA followed the BBC’s lead in 1947 and began broadcasting to the USSR in Russian. Tasked with providing comprehensive and accurate news about American policies and culture to listeners behind the Iron Curtain, 55 the VOA always walked a fine line between providing objective news and pushing America’s values and political system onto its listeners. In 1948, Congress passed the US Information and Educational Exchange Act (often referred to as the Smith-Mundt Act, H.R. 3342), finally authorizing the State Department’s international broadcasting efforts. Smith-Mundt is a landmark piece if legislation that continues to be the bedrock for American public diplomacy efforts abroad. The legislation also was important in that it acknowledged the critical role of information in global politics. In the run-up to the enactment of the legislation, proponents of international broadcasting argued, “the cause of world peace would be advanced through the operation of a United States information service.” In a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing, Secretary of State George Marshall argued, “one effective way to promote peace is to dispel misunderstanding, fear, and ignorance. Foreign peoples should know the nature and objectives of our policy. They should have a true understanding of American life. We should broadcast the truth to the world through all the media of communication” (Paulu 1953, 303). In 1950, President Truman laid out his “Campaign of Truth” with ideological zeal. Truman described a newly reinvigorated mission for the VOA in these emphatic terms: The cause of freedom is being challenged throughout the world today by the forces of imperialistic Communism. This is a struggle, above all else, for the minds of men. Propaganda is one of the most powerful weapons the communists have in this struggle. Deceit, distortion and lies are systematically used by them as 56 a matter of deliberate policy. This propaganda can be overcome by truth—plain, simple, unvarnished truth—presented by newspapers, newsreels, and other sources that people trust….We know how false these communists promises are. But it is not enough for us to know this. Unless we get the real story across to people in other countries, we will lose the battle for men’s minds by pure default….We must make ourselves known as we really are—not as Communist propaganda pictures us. We must pool our efforts with those other free peoples in a sustained, intensified program to promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery. We must make ourselves heard around the world in a great campaign of truth. The United States Information Agency (USIA) was formed soon thereafter in 1953 and took over for the OWI which had been responsible for the VOA during WWII. Charged with its new ideological mission of protecting and extending the free world, the VOA’s budget was greatly expanded. “It was the world’s first truly global broadcasting network” (Wood 1992, 108). By this time, the United States international output was already exceeding that of the domestic broadcasting networks in total hours. It was during the Cold War that the US government began truly to think of broadcasting as an essential element of international politics. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy promoted the Voice of America as a key player in the “peaceful evolution” of socialist and communist countries (Price 2002, 202). In 1980, Congressman Edward Derwinski argued, “The Congress, the Administration and the American people must be educated to think of the Radios as weapons—albeit nonlethal—key elements in out national security” (cited in Powell 1982, 25-26). “Radio propaganda broadcasting was elevated to the weapon of cold war, equating with the nuclear bomb in the everthreatened hot war” (Woods 1992, 53). Michael Nelson (1997, xiii), Chairman of the 57 Reuters Foundation and former General Manager of Reuters, described the importance of information politics during the Cold War in the form of a question: “Why did the West win the Cold War? Not by use of arms. Weapons did not breach the Iron Curtain. The West’s invasion was by radio, which turned out to be mightier than the sword. ‘Those skilled in war subdue their enemy’s army without battle,’ wrote Sun Tzu.” Zbigniew Brezinski, former National Security Advisor, believed that the loss of a monopoly over mass communications was “the key breakdown of communist totalitarianism.” President Ronald Reagan (1983) said, “few assets are more important than the Voice of America and Radio Liberty as our primary means of getting truth to the Russian people.” The VOA was more aggressive in its programming compared to the BBC. Congress directly encouraged the VOA to correct and refute Soviet propaganda quickly and decisively. Early on, Congressional leaders instructed the VOA to air programming that would encourage resistance and cause disobedience to local governments within totalitarian and satellite countries. Importantly, the tone of VOA broadcasts varied in the early years of the Cold War. According to John Albert, chief of the VOA’s German broadcasting unit, “As the official statements of the United States leaders took up polemics and attacks on the USSR, so too did the VOA…And with McCarthy, if you weren’t hard hitting, you ran the risk of being soft on communism” (Nelson 1997, 36; Cull 2008). 58 In addition to the VOA, the United States launched Radio Free Europe (RFE) and Radio Liberty (RL) to create alternative domestic services for people in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, respectively. In 1949, just two years after the investiture the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the US covertly launched RFE under the auspices of private funding and management. Yet, the CIA oversaw RFE’s Munich-based operations. Staffed by a group of anti-communist intellectuals that had been locally recruited throughout Eastern Europe, the networks produced high-level and heavy-hitting programming that condemned communist governance in general and Soviet Communism in particular. In order to staff the news broadcasts services, the US government and intelligence community recruited Eastern European exiles, including former cabinet ministers. Importantly, having been forced out of their homeland, their political views were typically jaded, ideal for RFE/RL’s mission: “A politician driven into banishment by a hostile faction generally sees the society which he has quitted through a false medium. Every object is distorted and discoloured by his regrets, his longings and his resentments. Every little discontent appears to him to portend a revolution” (Nelson 1997, 39). During the Cold War, RFE broadcast programming in Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian. Radio Liberation (later renamed Radio Liberty) broadcast news to ethnic groups within the Soviet Union in Russian and 12 other languages. A transmission was also added for Afghanistan in 1980 once it became clear that it would become an important player in fringe Cold War 59 politics. RFE/RL’s mantra, deeply stoked in the Western ideals of democracy promotion and the development of civil society, was adopted from the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has a right to seek, receive and impart information regardless of frontiers” (Wood 1992, 180; Holt 1999). The addition of RFE’s services was explained twofold. First, while the VOA promoted American policies, culture, and society broadly, this was not enough to promote freedom in foreign lands. Rather, as General Lucious Clay, former commanding general of US forces in Europe, described, “When I left Germany, I came home with a very firm conviction that we needed in addition to the Voice of America a different, broader voice—a voice of the free people—a radio which would speak to each country behind the Iron Curtain in its own language, and from the throats of its own leaders who fled for their lives because of their beliefs in freedom” (Holt 1958, 15). Second, some felt that the VOA was operating under too many restrictions and would not be able to broadcast as freely as would be necessary to effectively combat the Soviet propaganda that was spreading throughout Europe. RFE claimed many successes throughout the Cold War. In 1953, a defected colonel in the Polish Secret Police handed over copies of private files detailing the personal life of members of the Polish Communist Party to the American government. RFE capitalized on the opportunity and broadcast more than 100 interviews with Colonel Swiatlo during which he outlined in detail the widespread levels of corruption and 60 personal squabbling within the Party. According to State Department officials, the broadcasts were the most effective use of information for geopolitical gain since the end of WWII and resulted in several high-level arrests in the Polish secret police. Soon thereafter, the power of the police forces was curbed and scrutiny expanded. Cord Meyer, then chief of the CIA’s International Organizations Division, believes it was “a startling demonstration of the effective influence of RFE within Poland and an important step in the sequence of events that finally led to the establishment of the more moderate Gomulka regime in the autumn of 1956” (Nelson 1997, 70). RFE’s Hungarian service’s coverage of Poland's Poznan riots in 1956 served as a spark for the Hungarian revolution. In October of the same year, RFE broadcast a program by a well-known dissident radio personality, Colonel Bell, instructing listeners on how to best riot, including strategies for sabotaging phone and rail lines. The broadcasts also left the impression that Western military assistance would follow an uprising against the sitting government. In the days following, programs provided specific instructions on how to best combat Soviet forces, including anti-tank maneuvers. In November, fearful of the growing discontent fueled by RFE’s programming, the Soviets sent troops to Budapest, crushing the resistance and arresting its prime minister. The Hungarian White Book, an official report on the revolt, said, “The subversive broadcasts of Radio Free Europe—backed by dollars, directed from America, and functioning on the territory of West Germany—played an essential role in the ideological preparation and practical direction of the counter-revolution, in provoking the armed 61 struggle, in the non-observance of the cease fire, and in arousing mass hysteria” (Nelson 1997, 73). Of course, no Western military assistance was provided, but the 1956 Hungarian uprising is widely considered a significant loss for the Soviet Union. According to Attila Lengyel of the Balassi Balint Institute for Hungarian Studies, the most important messages of ‘56 outside of Hungary was that it definitely proved that communism itself couldn't be reformed…It also destroyed an illusion that perhaps the Stalinist system was not as bad as its reputation showed sometimes after the 1930s...[The 1956 uprising] was not only a Hungarian revolutionary event, but it is much more, because its message went beyond the borders of Hungary (Solash 2006). The Hungarian revolution resulted in changes to US broadcasting strategy. Radio Liberation was renamed Radio Liberty in an effort to not be seen as calling for actual liberation movements to try and overtake governments. Broadcasts from then on began to urge more constraint among its listeners, while still providing local news and information that painted a poor picture of communist governance and society. According to Nelson (1997), had RFE/RL not changed its approach, not only would the Soviet empire have lasted longer, but the revolutions would have been much bloodier. Early on, American broadcasting struggled at marketing the Western free-market ideology and the American brand. According to Frank Altschul (1950), a Wall Street banker that led the effort to establish RFE, in the broad domain of propaganda, the United States has not until now been conspicuously successful. There is much evidence to indicate that we have been losing the war of words on many fronts…we have been convincingly portrayed to more than half the world as the prototype of reaction, capitalist imperialism, even 62 fascism. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union...has contrived to get itself accepted…as the fountainhead of liberalism. Over a decade later the US continued to struggle to effectively project its image abroad. In 1961, Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson declared, “The United States has not sold itself to the world. A nation that knows how to popularize cornflakes and luxury automobiles ought to be able to tell the world the simple truth about what it is doing and why it is doing it” (cited in Nelson 1997, 50). According to Altschul (1950), the problem with the American effort was that, while in totalitarian states policy and propaganda were closely linked thus creating a cohesive message, the US broadcasting efforts often did not coincide with and even contradicted official American policies. In 1960, the US Advisory Commission on Information estimated that the United States was 30 years behind the Soviet Union in propaganda effectiveness (Sorenson 1968, 236). A large part of the problem was that “the Stalinist state was as ruthless in its suppression of opposition as it was rigorous in its control over the media,” thereby making it quite difficult for alternative accounts to become accepted public opinion (Taylor 1997, 32). Lamenting the difficulty of countering the powerful narrative of the communist peace movement that was so attractive to many in Eastern Europe, Altschul argued for RFE to draw from the idea of America as a land of opportunity, as well as the emerging peace in Western Europe as alternative models to the communist counterpart. It was argued that, upon adopting a free-market system, grounded in the protection of individual choice and autonomy, a truly classless and cooperative transatlantic society could 63 emerge. Early audience research found that RFE was at least partially effective at achieving this goal. As a young skilled worker from Poland told researchers at Columbia University in 1952, The VOA and the BBC achieved something that the Communists were trying to do, but didn’t succeed in all these years—to break down social barriers. Today all social classes, people of all political creeds of all professions, and religions, and all age groups are listening to Western Broadcasts (Columbia University Poland Report 1952, 3). In 1955, the USIA found that the radios played an important part in encouraging defections from the Soviet Union; four out of every 10 defectors said that the foreign broadcasts were an important part of their decision to leave the USSR (Nelson 1997, 136). Radio Liberty had a different set of goals that were a bit more modest than its sister organization, RFE. It was launched with three primary objectives: (1) to aid the worldwide Russian and nationalistic emigration in its effort to sustain the spirit of liberty among the peoples of the USSR; (2) to preserve and sustain the historic cultures of Russians and the nationalities; and (3) to aid the emigration in seeking to extend understanding of the West within the USSR (Nelson 1997, 57). While RFE/RL was at first funded through the CIA and not officially recognized as part of the American international broadcasting services, Congress intervened in 1972. That same year, the Presidential Committee on International Broadcasting, chaired by Milton Eisenhower, wrote a report for Congress calling for the continuation of the 64 surrogate radio broadcasters: “The Commission is convinced that Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, by providing a flow of free and uncensored information to peoples deprived of it, actually contribute to a climate of détente rather than detract from it” (Nelson 1997, 146). Accordingly, in 1974 Congress established the Board of International Broadcasting (BIB), which was designed to receive annual appropriations from Congress, give them to radio managements, and oversee the appropriation of funds. In 1976 the two broadcasters merged to become RFE/RL and added three Baltic language services to their arsenal. Throughout the Cold War, the USSR continued to broadcast via Radio Moscow (later the Voice of Russia), which promoted “the virtues of socialism, portrayed the USSR as a benign military and economic power, explained Soviet foreign policies, and attached the evils of capitalism and imperialism” (Hanson 2008, 33). The Soviets identified language in particular as essential in order to secure its “Marxist-Leninist historical imperatives.” Words were seen as weapons to be used to reinforce their ideological narrative and achieve a moral high ground in terms of the struggle between communism and anti-communism. Terms like “freedom” and “independence”—critical idioms in the West’s lexicon—were recast in terms of opposition to a neo-imperial order, led by the United States. The Soviet story was particularly effective in the Third World where such narratives had much historical relevance, especially in the Middle East. For this reason international broadcasting was seen as “one of the most important means of the class struggle” where radio was “the most effective peacetime weapon of 65 psychological warfare” (Taylor 1997, 33). From the 1950s through the 1980s, Radio Moscow was the most prolific international broadcaster, transmitting more hours per week, in more languages and through more transmitters than any other station. But, its audience never amounted to more than 10 percent of that of either the BBC or the VOA (Elliot 2001). Broadcasting was so important to the Soviets that, in some circumstances, it even took the place of traditional diplomacy. For example, during the Suez Canal crisis, Radio Moscow transmitted personal messages from the Soviet leadership to British, French, and Israeli leaders “before they had reached their intended recipients by conventional diplomatic channels” (Rawnsley 1994, 46). Emphasizing the historical importance of the new means of conducting diplomacy, Rawnsley (1994, 46) noted, “5 November 1956 marks a significant stage in the development of international radio broadcasting as a tool of diplomacy; broadcasting that previously would have been considered private diplomatic communications now became a regular method of conducting Soviet foreign policy.” Yet, Soviet efforts at broadcasting generated very small audiences and commanded very little credibility in the West. Unlike the West, the USSR invested heavily into jamming technologies in order to block the radio signals coming in from the West. Jamming was a constant during the Cold War, especially on the Soviet side. The BBC estimates that the jamming cost the USSR almost $1 billion a year. In 1945, the 66 Soviet Union had over 1000 stations broadcasting white noise on the same frequencies that Western broadcasters were using and tripled the number of jamming stations by 1962. Eduard Shevardnadze, Gorbachev’s foreign minister, estimated that the overall cost of fighting the ideological war with the West between 1970-1990 had cost more than 700 billion rubles (about US$175 billion). The BBC estimated that just four days of jamming cost as much as the BBC’s Russian service cost in an entire year (Trethowan 1981). Nelson (1997, xiv) notes, “Research [from] the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union confirmed that the Communists believed that Western radio propaganda was the strongest and most effective weapon that existed for ideological intervention in the Soviet Union.” For a full picture of the comparative importance countries placed in international broadcasting, consult Figure 2.1 which outlines the estimated total program hours per week of the world’s top 10 international broadcasters (in terms of hours broadcast from 1945-1996). 67 FIGURE 2.1: ESTIMATED TOTAL PROGRAM HOURS OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTERS, 1945-19962 3000 US 2500 USSR China (PRC) 2000 UK West Germany 1500 Egypt 1000 DPRK Albania 500 India Austraila 0 Poland Sources: International Broadcast Audience Research, June 1996; Wood 1992; Bumpus and Skelt 1984. IN THE LINE OF FIRE: BROADCASTING IN THE MIDDLE EAST Both Cold War superpowers were tremendously concerned about their influence in the Middle East and used broadcasting and news dissemination in efforts to enhance their relative power. Soviet propaganda focused on painting the West as a group of imperialist countries trying to control and excavate the region’s natural resources, impressions that were fairly convincing given the existence of British troops and American oil companies in the Gulf. To this effect, the Soviets relied on Moscow Radio 68 and local Communist groups and Soviet information groups to insert news from Moscow into local newspapers and broadcasts and attempted to seize upon the Arab-Israeli conflict in order to stir up tensions in the region. The Soviet news agency Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) also expanded its operations in the Middle East in the 1950s, further demonstrating how important Moscow felt the Middle East was to the overall balance of power. The US and the UK teamed up to counter Soviet information operations in the region. Britain’s anti-propaganda agency Information Research Department (IRD) focused on producing, translating, and disseminating material painting the Soviet system as totalitarian and highlighting the dramatic levels of social and economic plight behind the Iron Curtain. The United States, via the USIA, focused on numerous cultural exchanges, including sports and jazz tours, hoping to discredit the idea that America promoted an immoral and uncultured lifestyle. Both countries also focused on using the Islamic sermons of local clerics to highlight the compatibility of Islamic and Western ideas and values while portraying communism as a “godless creed” (Vaughan 2002, 96). In the end, however, neither camp’s effort to woo the region’s citizenry was tremendously powerful. The perception of Israel as the principle threat to the region trumped all others. By the end of the 1950s, most of the countries in the region had shifted toward the Soviet camp, with Syria and Egypt soon to follow. 69 In addition to the superpowers, several other nations set up international broadcast services in the Middle East. Under the leadership of Gamal Nasser, Egyptian transmitters covered the Arab world. Israel's service, Kol Yisrael (The Voice of Israel), served to present the Israeli point of view to the world and to communicate with the Jewish Diaspora, particularly behind the Iron Curtain. Egypt’s international broadcasting arose with a set of goals different from both the Soviet and Western efforts. Launched in July 1953, Nasser’s service called for the revolutionary goals of radical social change and Arab unity throughout the Middle East. Called Sawt al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs), the radio broadcaster worked to “expound the viewpoints of Arab nations, reflect the hopes and fears of the Arab countries…unite the Arabs and mobilize their forces to achieve Arab unity” (Bornigia 2002, 16). Initially only available for 30 minutes a day, the Voice of the Arabs was available for 16 hours a day by 1964, and 24 hours a day by the 1970s. “Directed at the entire Arab world, the station was significant in creating mass public opinion” (Bornigia, 2002: 16). Indeed, according to James (2006), the Voice the Arabs profoundly shaped public discourse and opinion in the region: “The new programme was perfectly timed to take advantage of a critical moment in the history of transnational broadcasting. Newly inexpensive transistor radios were being acquired by the illiterate poor in cities and villages across the Arabic speaking countries. The Voice of the Arabs was instantly popular, and expanded rapidly. It used highly emotive rhetoric, combined with music from such iconic singers as Umm Kalthoum, to draw in its listeners. 70 The Middle East provided a terrific environment for broadcasters due to its common language, making it possible to reach audiences throughout the region with the same programs. Also, due to widespread illiteracy and poverty, newspapers and television were used only among the elite, thus making radio the premium medium to communicate with the masses. As a result, the Voice of the Arabs’ pan-Arab message began to break down the barriers between national and regional politics that had plagued the region since the end of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. As James (2006) points out, Above all, it deliberately created a sense of national identity that had previously existed in, at most, a latent form. It created that identity, moreover, in a particular image, dissociating Arabism from Islam even as it bound the new ideology together with strands of socialism and anti-colonialism. The station was run by Ahmed Said, a trusted friend of President Nasser, who has been described as a “Goebbels-like figure who refused to allow contradiction, who conceived of every single program, even music, in political terms, and censored everything himself” (Bornigia 2002, 16). In his book Philosophy of the Revolution, Nasser explained that his idea of a unified Arab consciousness developed partially from the plight of the Palestinians and consequences of foreign imperialism. The Voice of the Arabs played off both of these memes, arguing for an “Arab nation from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arab Gulf” and often using radio broadcasts to squash any political dissent (Bornigia 2002, 15). Other Arab governments looked to Egypt for guidance in establishing their own radio broadcasting operations. Beginning in 1953, the Egyptian 71 radio corporation dispatched trained technicians to Saudi Arabia, Libya, Kuwait, and Syria to help establish radio and broadcasting operations. Soon after, according to Boyd (1999), Arabic was second only to English as an international broadcasting language. The Voice of the Arabs went on to wreak havoc throughout the region. Antiimperialism was a critical theme in its programming, and the British were often the target of its harsh coverage, as were other unfriendly Arab governments. Ahmed Said acknowledges that part of the Voice of the Arabs’ mandate was to “inform Arabs of their own governments’ sins” (James 2006). In 1954-55, the Iraqi ruler Nuri al-Said became a target of the broadcasters’ attacks over his support for a pact with the British. Four years later, an Arab nationalist coup forced Nuri to attempt to flee Baghdad dressed in women’s clothing. In 1962, the Voice of Arabs aired a show titled The Secrets of Yemen that featured a Yemeni revolutionary accusing the sitting Imam and his family of major Islamic sins. The Yemeni revolutionary, Dr. Abdel Rahman al-Baydani, claims that his final radio announcement on September 26, 1962, contained the secret code words— referring to a well-known Yemeni story—that signaled the start of the revolution: “Friday is Friday, the sermon is the sermon” (James 2006). Saudi Arabia was also a common target of the Voice of the Arabs programs. One program, titled Enemies of God, often criticized both King Saud and the Crown Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The Cairo broadcaster also often aired Saudi dissidents, including exiled Prince Talal and, after being deposed by his brother, King Saud. Boyd (1999) 72 credits Egypt’s constant needling of Saudi Arabia with sparking the Kingdom’s decision to invest heavily in broadcast media in order to combat the influence of Egyptian propaganda. Needless to say, the Voice of the Arabs was an essential foreign policy tool of the Nasser government. According to Said, it had strong ties to Egyptian intelligence, and some programs were dispatched throughout the Arab world to measure audience reactions to the programming and advise as to whether to “raise or lower the tempo” (James 2006). It was its close ties to the Nasser government and its foreign policy, as well as its populist anti-colonial message, that eventually led to the broadcaster’s demise. After years of strongly anti-colonial and anti-Israel broadcasting, in 1965 the Voice of the Arabs began to ramp up its rhetoric, including rumors that the Egyptian intelligence services had infiltrated the Israeli government. As tensions escalated, the Voice of the Arabs continued its escalatory rhetoric. In May 1967, it began openly calling for war, and not only against Israel: “‘We challenge you, Israel,’ it broadcast, adding: ‘No, in fact, we do not address the challenge to you, Israel, because you are unworthy of our challenge. But we challenge you, America.’”(James 2006, via the BBC Monitoring service, BBCSWB:ME2473, 22/5/67). War broke out in June 1967, and the Egyptian military fed the Voice of the Arabs updated information on the conflict. As it turned out, the information provided was entirely false. While the Voice of the Arabs was proclaiming that the Arab forces had shot down most of the Israeli Air Force, it turned out that the exact opposite was true. Worse, the broadcaster continued to boast grand victories even after the 73 Western media had exposed the scale of the defeat—Israel had taken the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights with little trouble. As a result of this misinformation, the Voice of the Arabs’ “credibility would never recover” (James 2006). The losses that took place in 1967, both geographical and psychological, discredited hopes of secular Arabism and facilitated the rise of the Islamist alternative that emerged in the 1970s. Radio broadcasting has always played a particularly important role in Arab politics. Historical, geographical, climatic, and linguistic features, as well as the Islamic faith, link the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Moreover, Arab culture is primarily an oral culture, in which emotion and rhetoric are held above structured argument. Moreover, literacy rates have improved more slowly in the region, leaving many relying on word of mouth, radio, and later television for their news. Importantly, “the radio receiver became a social instrument—no restaurant or café in the cities or towns was complete without one” (Wood 1992, 205). Similar to how social media today is best facilitated through high levels of interactivity and access, news media in the Middle East has historically been consumed in a social setting, often amidst a discussion among the audience. THE END OF THE COLD WAR AND THE RISE OF SATELLITE TV In 1980, Ted Turner launched CNN, the world’s first 24-hour news channel. Five years later, in the face of growing local competition, Turner launched CNN International 74 (CNNI). “Without a doubt, CNN is the godfather of the global television news reporting to audiences around the world” (McPhail 2006, 143). CNN was the first private organization to launch a global news network, and its success was made possible only after the development of global satellite distribution infrastructure. In 1984, Douglas Muggeridge, Managing Director of the BBC’s international broadcasting, called for the launch of an around-the-clock news service that could be relayed around the world. Despite the introduction of satellite news, radio remained supreme, at least in terms of scope. By 1983, there were at least 70 countries broadcasting radio in English, about 50 in French and a similar number in Arabic, over 40 in Spanish to Latin America, nearly 30 in Russian, about 20 in Mandarin, a similar number in Indonesian and about 15 in Swahili. “The number of countries investing in [radio] rose from four in 1939 to well over 100 by the 1980s” (Wood 1992, 2). For a more comprehensive list of major international broadcasters from 1925-1991, see Table 2.1. 75 TABLE 2.1: LIST OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTERS, 1925-1991 YEAR COUNTRY BROADCASTER 1925 Soviet Union TASS 1927 The Netherlands PCJ 1929 Austria Radio Hekaphon 1929 Denmark Oxy 1929 Kenya Broadcasts to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) 1929 Soviet Union Radio Moscow 1929 Germany Various international services 1930 Italy Raitalia Radio 1931 Australia Voice of Australia 1931 France Radio Colonial 1931 Portugal Radio Colonial 1931 Vatican Vatican Radio 1932 UK BBC Empire (World) Service 1932 League of Nations Radio Nations 1932 Spain Transradio Espanola 1933 France Radio Luxembourg 1934 Belgium ORK 1934 Germany Formally established foreign language broadcasting 1934 Italy Began broadcasting to North and South America and the Middle East 1935 Japan NHK and Radio Tokyo 1936 India All-India Radio (AIR) 1936 Yugoslavia Zagreb Radio 1937 UK The UK began broadcasting in foreign languages 1939 Australia Australia Calling, renamed Radio Australia in 1945 1941 China China Radio International 1943 France (Germany) Radio Monte Carlo 1945 Canada Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1949 China Radio Peking 1950 United States Radio Swan (targeting Cuba) 1950 United States RFE 1951 United States RFA 1953 Egypt Voice of the Arabs 1953 United States RL 1957 UK The BBC started broadcasting to Africa in native languages 1961 Cuba Radio Havana 76 TABLE 2.1 CONTINUED 1961 Ghana Started broadcasting in foreign languages 1961 Portugal Voice of the West 1962 Nigeria Voice of Nigeria 1962 United States Telstar, the world's first communication satellite, was launched 1964 USSR Radio Station Peace and Progress (targeting Latin America) 1965 Palestine Liberation Organization Voice of Palestine United States Early Bird (Intelsat I) was launched. It was the first geosynchronous satellite 1966 India Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1966 South Africa Radio RSA 1971 Algeria Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1971 Mali Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1972 Bangladesh Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1973 Chile Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1973 Zambia Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1974 Venezuela Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1975 Uganda Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1977 Cameroons Began broadcasting in foreign languages 1980 United States Ted Turner launches CNN 1982 1982 1983 1983 France Venezuela United States Tunisia Re-launch of Radio France International Voice of Venezuela USIA established WORLDNET Targeting the Tunisian diaspora 1983 United States Radio Marti 1985 United States CNN International 1990 UK Bloomberg Network is established 1990 United States TV Marti 1965 1991 UK BBC World Service TV 1991 Saudi Arabia Middle Eastern Broadcasting Center (MBC) Sources: Wood 1992; Wood 2000; Bumpus and Skelt 1984; Nelson 1997; Cull 2008. The 1980s was the decade of achievement for Western radio broadcasters, especially in Poland, where the Eastern European revolution started. Polish dissident Adam Michnik notes, “Masses of people listened to Radio Free Europe, searching not 77 only for information about parts of the world not covered by the Polish media, but also for honest news about their country—about the follies of censorship and the protests of the intellectuals” (cited in Nelson,1997, 158). The Polish Solidarity movement depended on RFE to communicate, even using the broadcaster to transmit the times and places of meetings. Jerzy Urban, a representative for the Polish government, recounted, “If you would close your Radio Free Europe, the underground would completely cease to exist” (Nelson 1997, 160). When asked how important RFE was to the underground movement, Polish Union leader Lech Walesa retorts, “Would there be earth without the sun?” (Nelson 1997, 160). Elaborating, Walesa summarized RFE’s success thus: When a democratic opposition emerged in Poland, the Polish Section of the Radio Free Europe accompanied us every step of the way—during the explosion of August 1980, the unhappy days of December 1981, and all the subsequent months of our struggle. It was our radio station. Presenting works that were ‘on the red censorship list,’ it was our ministry of culture. Exposing absurd economic policies, it was our ministry of economics. Reacting to events promptly and pertinently, but above all, truthfully, it was our ministry of information (Nelson 1997, 160). Western broadcasters’ influence in Poland served as a springboard for the rest of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Bronislaw Geremek, leader of the Polish Solidarity caucus, thanks Jan Nowak, director of RFE’s Polish service, for the caucuses’ success and influence. Lev Timofeyev, a leading Soviet dissident, said, “Without Poland’s Solidarity, there would be no Gorbachev, nor Sakharov in Paris” (cited in Nelson 1997, 160). Georgui Vatchnadze (1991), a Moscow-based specialist in international broadcasting, makes a similar argument: “Solidarity was a manual for all citizens of the 78 USSR.” Vatchnadze wrote a book documenting the role of international radio in the liberalization of Poland and argues that perestroika would not have occurred without radio programming from RFE/RL, VOA, and the BBC. According to Arch Puddington (2003, 313), director of research at Freedom House, RFE/RL “proved one of the most successful institutions of America's Cold War effort, and made an important contribution to the peaceful nature of communisms demise.... In a war of ideas between communism and democracy...the freedom radios proved to be one of democracy's most powerful weapons.” The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in April 1986 was a breaking point for Soviet censorship. French historian Helene Carrere d’Encausse describes it as “the end of the lie” (cited in Nelson 1997, 164). While the Soviet Ministry of Information at first denied that any accident had occurred, international broadcasters were relaying details of the worst nuclear accident in history to radios behind the Iron Curtain. As news spread, Western broadcasters gained credibility and popularity, and official Soviet communiqués were increasingly exposed as propaganda. According to a RFE/RL survey, 45 percent of Russians heard about the accident at Chernobyl via international radio, and only 24 percent reported that they had learned of the news via local news. Three days after the accident, Chernobyl finally made it into the official Soviet news, albeit buried beneath a number of stories. Of course, Soviet news bureaus did not report the full extent of the accident and its consequences. News of the accident was especially troubling given how important the belief of Soviet superiority in the fields of science technology was to 79 people’s faith in the whole communist system. Nelson desribes, “The news of the Chernobyl disaster brought to Russians by the Western Radios was the most shattering blow to communist belief they had ever experienced” (1997, 168). Ironically, it was a false report of a student that had allegedly died in a police attack aired by both VOA and RFE on November 18, 1989, that sparked the sequence of events that would eventually bring down the communist government in Poland. As it turned out, the death was staged, but the incident sparked demonstrations where over 200,000 protestors gathered. According to Michael Zantovsky, a correspondent for Reuters, the reported death “started the whole thing and got the ball rolling” (Simpson 1990, 170). According to Nelson (1997, 188), “the Western radios were a forum for dissidents…a handful of dissident intellectuals were isolated figures who knew of each other’s existence mainly from listening to the BBC and Radio Free Europe.” Writing in the Washington Post, Blaine Hardin argues, “shortwave foreign broadcasts, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, as well as British, German and French stations, helped to undermine the Orwellian repression” In Hungary, too, international broadcasting was critical to the end of communist rule. According to Tamas Palos, the director general of the Hungarian News Agency, “It was RFE that was the opposition in Hungary for many years” (cited in Nelson 1997, 189). Perhaps international broadcasting’s most important contribution to the end of the Cold War was its role in defeating the coup attempt in August 1991. Yeltsin in particular 80 understood the importance of Western radio broadcasts and in fact sent prepared statements and information to Washington, D.C., knowing that it was his best way to reach Russians while held in isolation. On August 9, 1991, Yeltsin’s aides sent the following fax to the Washington, D.C.-based Center of Democracy: The Russian government has NO way to address the people. All radio stations are under control. The following is [Boris Yeltsin’s] address to the Army. Submit it to the USIA. Broadcast it over the country. Maybe ‘Voice of America.’ Do it! Urgent! (Ignatius 1991). It was reporting by the VOA, BBC, and RL that helped inform Russians of the coup and organize their resistance. This time, however, the broadcasters had a new partner: CNN. It was CNN’s coverage of Yeltsin on top of Soviet tank no. 110, of tanks rolling down the streets of Moscow, as well as footage of the civil protests and resistance that were essential to mobilize opposition to the coup effort. Sergei Medvedev, a journalist for the state-run news program 2100 hours, rebroadcast CNN’s footage to televisions all across the USSR. Within two days, the coup was defeated, with more than one million Russians protesting the military’s efforts. Upon his return, President Gorbachev credited foreign broadcasts for his ability to survive in total isolation and psychological panic: “We were able to catch some broadcasts and find out what was happening. We got BBC, best of all—BBC best of all. They were the clearest signal. Radio Liberty, then Voice of America” (Clines 1991, A13). Writing in the days following the coup, David Hoffman (1991), diplomatic correspondent for the Washington Post, argued: 81 The global communications network has become more important for the conduct of diplomacy than traditional cables and emissaries…The pictures of resistance outside the Russian Federation Parliament building and in the streets of Moscow, reflected in the West’s news coverage and beamed back to the Soviet Union, helped energize the resistance. According to a source in the US administration, “our first consideration on hearing about the coup was not how to cable instructions on the US reaction to American diplomats, but how to get a statement on CNN that would shape the response of all the allies. Diplomatic communications just can't keep up with CNN” (Hoffman 1991, A27). According to the Washington Post’s Jonathon Yardley (1991, C2), “Television told the people of Eastern Europe that those of the West, whom they had been taught to hate and fear, were nothing except ordinary people and that the system under which they lived was neither extraordinary nor evil. Television demystified and demythologized the West and, in time, made it seem desirable.” Crediting the communications revolution as an essential component of the failed coup, George F. Kennan, a key architect of US foreign policy during the Cold War, said, “I find it difficult to find any other turning point in modern Russian history that is so significant as this one” (Lewis 1991, 9). CONCLUSION This review of the history of international broadcasting makes three important contributions to a discussion of the geopolitical import of the news. First, news and information have, since the beginning of the mass media and likely well before, been a central part of international politics. In fact, the relative importance of particular 82 broadcasters has likely waned since the days of the world wars and the Cold War when the comparative dearth of information meant that the importance of any flow from outside a controlled information environment was more likely to catch the attention of foreign audiences. Today, with multiple, contradictory, and often ignored flows of news zipping throughout the world, the likelihood of any single “flow” impacting geopolitical calculations necessarily has declined. This, of course, is dependent on the media environment and the scope of the media network in question. For instance, in the Middle East, where until 2003 there was still a very controlled and limited news environment, the potential for credible and seemingly free and independent media to shape public opinion, and thus policy, was still significant. But, in more advanced communications ecologies, the relative import of any single flow declines unless that flow is interconnected with larger organizations and networks that transcend traditional international broadcasters. Second, new technologies neither increase nor decrease the relative import of information in international politics, but they do fundamentally reshape the actors involved, and thus can change how power is negotiated between countries, organizations, and networked groups. Whereas during WWI the lack of wireless telegraphy allowed for the British government to control the flow of information in the Western hemisphere, shortwave radio allowed for the rise of hundreds of international broadcasters during the Cold War to compete for the attention of global audiences. Moreover, the introduction of geosynchronous satellites in space and the increasing affordability of personal satellite dishes have increased the ability for private news networks to reach global audiences 83 with higher quality programming than before. Importantly, satellite technology adds a critical element to the news that shortwave radio broadcasts were unable to—images. By adding visual aspects to their storytelling, international media are even more able to grab the attention of audiences around the world, and thus the relative importance of visual news media, and the organizations that own and operate these networks, has increased. Of course, the growth of the World Wide Web adds yet another layer to this phenomenon, as do advanced mobile phone technologies and broadband. Finally, what makes a broadcaster credible, and thus a force in molding international public opinion, remains the same. Local sensibilities are the most important factor in constructing a message that foreign audiences find compelling. Accurate information is also essential, and if a broadcaster is caught airing misinformation, as the Voice of the Arabs was in 1967, its credibility can be permanently doomed. Today’s technologies, particularly mobile video and broadcast capabilities, only further increase the import of local and accurate information. The diversity of broadcasters now means that audiences are able to find information that fits into their broad worldview, and thus working with local knowledge will be critical for international broadcasters to connect with foreign audiences. Moreover, the ease with which photos and video can be documented and shared on the Internet only enhances the likelihood that disinformation will be seen as lies, and thus only further increases the importance of factual reporting by international broadcasters. 84 From the beginning of the twentieth century through the end of the Cold War, news flows were an essential component of international conflicts. Governments invested heavily in efforts to control the flow of news, both in terms of promoting their particular take on events, but also in technologies that could physically control where and what was heard when. But, at the end of the Cold War, a government’s ability to control the flow of global information became quite difficult. In 1988, the USSR ended jamming foreign broadcasters, partly in recognition that in today’s increasingly interconnected world, strict regulations on foreign media are simply not feasible over the long term. As personal satellite dishes become more and more affordable and accessible, governments will find it difficult if not impossible to maintain a tight grip on the content of the news. This reality—that information can no longer be left to the dictate of autocratic and totalitarian governments—was not only critical to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union, but will also have tremendous consequence for international politics in the developing world. In the Middle East in particular, a region known for its tight control of news and information, this new media ecology is certain to have geopolitical impact. Traditional regional powers—countries that have gained their influence through culture, religion, and military force—will now be forced to increasingly consider the role of information in their foreign relations. Importantly, the rise of a new medium of communication and a new force in international relations—satellite television—provides a new opportunity for a shake-up in the region’s geopolitical dynamics. 85 CHAPTER 2 ENDNOTES 1 The UK established the British Broadcasting Company in 1922. Due to pressure from the newspaper industry, this first incarnation of the BBC didn’t broadcast news, but instead focused on entertainment programming and social events. The BBC became a corporation in 1926, with a Royal Charter, and was then permitted to broadcast news. 2 USA includes VOA, RFE, RL, and Radio Marti; USSR includes Radio Moscow, Radio Station Peace and Progress, and regional stations; West Germany includes DW and Deutschlandfunk. 86 CHAPTER 3: AL JAZEERA AND THE RISE OF A MICROSTATE “Qatar created Al Jazeera, but now Al Jazeera is creating Qatar. It’s like when you build a robot and eventually lose control of it and it controls you.” Amr Choubaki, 2009 Launched in 1996, Al Jazeera has been the subject of much debate. Based in Doha, Qatar, Al Jazeera is largely recognized as the most important news organization in the Middle East, not only due to its ability to gather large audiences, but also for its ability to mobilize the Arab citizenry perhaps better than any government or political group in the region. Every Arab country has at one time or another protested to the government of Qatar about the unfavorable content aired on Al Jazeera. In the West, particularly in the United States, Al Jazeera is best known as “Terror TV,” or the “Voice of Osama bin Laden,” characterizations that were fueled by Bush administration officials who publicly decried the organization for its graphic and anti-war coverage in Iraq and Afghanistan (Miles 2005). Al Jazeera has been dubbed by many as the first “uncensored” Arab news network, and its creation sparked a wave of investments in other state-run and private news broadcasters in the region. Scholars such as Marc Lynch (2006) have argued that Al Jazeera has been critical in creating an Arab public sphere, sparking interest in politics and providing an outlet for legitimate and uncensored expression of dissenting political opinions. 87 Yet, while much attention has been focused on Al Jazeera itself and its influence and importance in the region, little scholarship has focused on the role that Al Jazeera has had in the rise of a microstate—Qatar—as a regional power with newfound international prestige. Having only gained political independence from the United Kingdom in 1971, Qatar was not seen as geopolitical force until recently. In fact, Al Jazeera’s birth was partly due to fears that other countries in the region—Saudi Arabia in particular, but Iran as well—were plotting to encroach on parts of Qatar’s territory in order to access its generous deposits of oil and natural gas. Throughout its 13 years of operation, the Al Jazeera Network has played an important role in establishing Qatar’s reputation in the region and beyond. This analysis of the origins of the Network thus provides an interesting case study for examining the role of international broadcasting in contemporary geopolitics. THE DECLINE OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING AND THE RISE OF AL JAZEERA Often described as purveyors of “propaganda,” international broadcasters have been identified as crucial players of twentieth century geopolitics. During both world wars, international broadcasters such as the BBC, the Voice of America, and Radio Moscow aired competing narratives of global events in an effort to sway the masses toward each broadcaster’s particular agenda as well as to scare and spread disinformation within enemy territories. During the Cold War, international broadcasting was at the center of the global conflict. Indeed, the Cold War was seen by many as the golden era of 88 propaganda, particularly in the United States, where experts such as A. Ross Johnson (2007), former director of RFE/RL, argue that international broadcasting was an essential means of combating the Soviet Union’s influence during the Cold War. Johnson cites a number of internal government research reports, as well as testimonials to make his case, including a conversation with East Germany’s head of General Intelligence Marcus Wolf where he acknowledged, “of all the various means used to influence people against the East during the Cold War, I would count [Radio Free Europe] as the most effective.” Yet, at the end of the Cold War, investment in international broadcasting declined substantially. Political scientists such as Francis Fukuyama (1989) argued that we had entered the “End of History,” suggesting a wave of transitions to democratic governance was about to follow the American victory over the Soviet Union. Predicting that the emerging New World Order would result in an unprecedented cycle of peace and prosperity, governments found international broadcasting and public diplomacy efforts to be less important, and budgets for such initiatives were cut substantially. In the United States, the agency in charge of international broadcasting, the USIA, was abolished altogether. The end of the Cold War, and the decline in international broadcasting coincided with the rise of privately operated, commercial broadcasting that could be beamed around the world via satellite dishes that were becoming increasingly popular. The Atlanta-based Cable News Network (CNN) quickly became a brand recognized around the globe for its high-quality news coverage of global events. In 1989, CNN highlighted the protests and violence at Tiananmen Square in China, coverage that at 89 least in part resulted in international pressure on the government of China to be more respectful of human rights and more open to democratic and public discourse (Deane 2009). As a result, the perceived need for government investment in international broadcasting, efforts that were justified under the auspices of promoting the free flow of information in countries that typically censored politically sensitive information, declined substantially. Monroe Price (2002, 206) suggests that CNN’s rise—along with a number of competing private broadcasters that were covering global events—meant that “in the mid-1990s the institutions of international broadcasting were under pressure from the great private media moguls and their political counterparts. They argued that international broadcasting was unnecessary in the ‘age of CNN.’” This concern that privately-owned satellite news broadcasters had replaced government-backed broadcasting was even reflected in Section 303 of the US International Broadcasting Act of 1994, which called for an elimination of all US international broadcasting that “duplicate[s] the activities of private United States broadcasters.” “Typical of the mood at the time, the act, ominously, expressed the sense of Congress that the private sector should assume all funding for the radios no later than the end of fiscal year 1999” (Price 2002, 206). CNN’s coverage of the first Gulf War in 1991 had a significant impact on broadcasting in the Middle East. Still the only private 24-hour news network in the world, CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War featured real-time and technologically advanced images directly from the conflict zone, which were available in many countries for the first time to the general public. CNN shook the world with its in-depth coverage of the war, largely 90 due to its cooperation with the US Department of Defense (DOD), but it also embarrassed the government-run media in the region that had failed to cover, or even acknowledge, the existence of a war in Iraq. The most prominent example is the Saudi Arabian media which denied the existence of war for the first three days of the US-led invasion until it was forced to publicly acknowledge its role in the war due to the extensive coverage provided by CNN, as well as the BBC, available in parts of the country through outlawed satellite dishes. The Saudi’s refusal to report on the war is truly remarkable when examined in the context of the events at hand; not only was Iraq a critical rival of Saudi Arabia, but after invading Kuwait the Iraqi troops extended their operations into Saudi territory in order to burn a large Saudi oil field, an effort that was defeated by coalitions forces (Sakr 2001; Pintak 2006). Naomi Sakr (2001, 11-12) argues that this was the moment that satellite-driven globalization began in the Middle East: “Following the 1991 Gulf War, transformation of the Middle East media landscape gathered pace, involving physical expansion of satellite capacity serving the area, a rapid increase in the number of channels and matching growth in the size of the satellite audience.” CNN’s rise in the 1990s was so influential that scholars and even some policymakers began to argue for the existence of a “CNN effect,” speculating that CNN’s ability to cover global events, particularly humanitarian disasters in real-time with dramatic video, had the ability to motivate action among nation-states. Famously described as “the sixteenth member of the Security Council” by the then Secretary General of the United Nations Boutros Boutros Ghali, CNN set the 91 stage for a wave of re-investment in international broadcasting around the world (Gilboa 2005, 28). Importantly, in the Middle East, the defeat of Saddam Hussein “further consolidated the position of Saudi Arabia in both soft and hard power terms,” while ending “the last hope for secular nationalism to dominate the region. Islamism, as an ideology, filled the vacuum” (Fandy 2007, 45). Recognizing the important role that satellite TV could play in shaping the opinions of Arab publics through CNN’s coverage of the Gulf War, the government of Saudi Arabia invested heavily in satellite technologies and programming. Three networks in particular were established, each with pronounced ties to and financed by the ruling family of Saudi Arabia, al-Saud: MBC (1991), ART (1994), and Orbit (1994). Each provided a mix of news and entertainment programming. Orbit was the largest of the satellite networks, launched with over $1 billion in investment. Importantly, the broadcasting network was not simply profit driven, but ideologically driven as well: “Rather than flouting local traditions, the company’s managers professed themselves committed to socially responsible programming that would reflect the interests, tastes and ‘political and religious sensibilities of the region’s distinctive cultures’” (Sakr 2001, 48). One of Orbit’s early initiatives undertaken in 1994 was a joint venture with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to create a television news service that would provide high-quality news in Arabic. BBC Arabic TV was launched with a staff of about 92 250 journalists and editors. Most employees were native Arabic speakers that had undergone journalism training through the BBC, thus making it the only Western-trained yet still “Arab” news service in the region. Despite promises of editorial independence, it did not take long for the new Arab news service to encounter resistance from its Saudi financers. In 1996, Orbit refused to air segments of the BBC’s programming featuring an exiled Saudi dissident, Mohammed Masari. Then, in April, the BBC aired a Panorama program that was “highly critical of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record,” resulting in the news service’s “untimely end” (Sakr 2001, 49). After the BBC refused to change its editorial tone for fear of losing credibility and tarnishing the BBC’s overall brand, the Saudi financers withdrew their money, and BBC Arabic collapsed. It is this unlikely exigency that helped foster the emergence and success of Al Jazeera. THE HISTORY OF QATAR AND THE BIRTH OF AL JAZEERA In order to fully understand the motivations behind launching Al Jazeera, and to evaluate its impact on and relationship to Qatari foreign policy, a bit of history may be helpful. Qatar, a constitutional monarchy governed by the Al Thani family, is a small peninsular country in the Persian Gulf sharing its only territorial border with Saudi Arabia. The Al Thani family is, surprisingly for the country’s small size, the largest ruling family in the Middle East. It also has a reputation for being the most argumentative: “Transition from one ruler to another has rarely been smooth and the family’s propensity for spilling one another’s blood won them the title ‘the thugs of the Gulf’ from one pre-independence British administrator” (Miles 2006, 13). 93 Qatar is about the size of the state of Connecticut (11,437 sq km). The small emirate gained independence from the United Kingdom on September 3, 1971. It is an archetype of an oil monarchy, fortunate enough to be in control of the world’s third largest remaining natural gas reserve (approximately five percent of the world’s total known supply), as well as a small amount of oil (0.4 percent of the world’s total). Like many of the natural gas reserves in the Gulf, some of Qatar’s deposits remain in disputed territory with its Northern neighbor Bahrain, and its largest deposit, the North Dome, is in the heart of the Persian Gulf, well beyond the established maritime borders with Iran (Cordesman 1997; Blanchard 2008). Territorial disputes have always been a critical point of conflict throughout the Persian Gulf, particularly for the smaller Gulf states like Qatar. Most of the current borders were determined by colonial powers, and they include miles of desolate desert that are difficult to discern. Border disputes are not only common, but they have also proven very difficult to resolve. Adding to the problem is the ubiquity of oil and natural gas deposits in the region, underneath the ground, often crossing over existing political boundaries. Arguably the most significant of the recent border conflicts was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991. The two nations are separated by a border that was first codified in 1919, during a period of colonial governance. Because many other borders in the region were similarly created at the same time, this invasion sparked a renewed concern about other possible territorial conflicts in the region (Amirahmadi 1996). 94 In 1968, when the UK first announced that it would withdraw from all Gulf countries and grant independence to the Emirates, it envisioned a single state that would consist of what is today the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Bahrain. Yet, partially due to territorial disputes that trace back to the 1930s, a bitter rivalry erupted between the Al Thani family of Qatar and the Al Khalifa family of Bahrain. Somewhat due to this rivalry, negotiations to create a single emirate broke down in 1970, resulting in the creation of the three separate sovereign nations that exist today. The conflict between Bahrain and Qatar continued for the next 30 years. As Da Lage (2007, 50) argues, “the dispute over the isles of Hawar and the Fasht al Dibel [reefs], which came close to degenerating into a military confrontation in 1986, paralyzed the activities of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) between 1987 and 2001.” The tensions were resolved only recently, when the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled in favor of Qatar’s claims to ownership of the resources surrounding the small island, while Bahrain was granted sovereignty to the island itself. In terms of religious identity, Qatar is closer to Saudi Arabia than Bahrain, following a Muslim Sunni tradition with Wahhabi precepts “which are rigorous and austere to say the least” (Da Lage 2007, 51). In its brief history as a nation-state, Qatar has always stood out. In 1974, the UAE ceded to Saudi Arabia a portion of territory adjacent to Qatar, forcing anyone entering or leaving Qatar by land to travel through Saudi Arabia. Qatar never accepted the new borders, which were difficult to determine precisely in the perpetually changing desert land. In 1990, in preparation for the Coalition’s attack on Iraq, Saudi Arabia began 95 deploying troops to the contested piece of land, near their naval base on Khor Obeid. Qatar quickly countered and established the Khafous frontier post, about 80 miles southeast of Doha. Soon after, Saudi Arabia began enforcing its interpretation of the borders, forcing all traffic traveling from Abu Dhabi to enter and be cleared by Saudi authorities. Qatar, unable to assert its military strength against its stronger neighbor, countered by establishing diplomatic ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s largest religious and political rival in the region. In addition to several high-profile visits to Tehran, Qatari and Iranian officials started publicly discussing the possibility of security and defense cooperation. “In Riyadh, the perception was that Qatar had become the Trojan horse of Iran. Throughout the Gulf, Qatar’s diplomacy started to worry even those who did not have much sympathy for Saudi Arabia” (Da Lage 2007, 52). One important dimension of Saudi Arabia’s dominant and overwhelming influence in the region was the fact that it was seen as a staunch and critical ally of the United States. While much of this relationship was based on America’s dependence on Saudi Arabia for stable access to oil reserves, it also included military cooperation. Since the 1950s, the US had operated military training exercises from within the Kingdom. During the Cold War, as the United States’ dependence on oil rose, so too did its need to maintain stability in Saudi Arabia and throughout the region. Its military presence in the Kingdom increased accordingly. During the 1991 Gulf War, the United States had 550,000 troops stationed in Saudi Arabia, and the Kingdom served as the critical launching pad for driving Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. Yet, particularly after it 96 was revealed that the Coalition used Saudi territory for most of its operations in the Gulf War, opposition to US troops grew. According to Otterman (2003): Antagonism toward the seemingly prolonged U.S. presence fed resentment and anger toward the kingdom's authoritarian government and fueled Islamic extremism. One of the chief grievances of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden was that ‘infidel’ troops from the United States were present in Saudi Arabia, which contains Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. As a result, President H.W. Bush promised King Fahd that American forces would leave the Kingdom after the first Gulf War ended. After the war, the number of US forces was reduced to 5,000-6,000 for most of the 1990s, and today only 400-500 troops remain on Saudi soil. Qatar also joined the American coalition during the 1991 Gulf War. In fact, part of its mandate was to assist in protecting Saudi oil fields from an Iraqi incursion, which it did in January 1991, along with American forces. After the war, in June 1992, Qatar and the United States signed a defense cooperation agreement, “opening a period of close coordination in military affairs that has continued to the present” (Blanchard 2008, 12). Importantly, as Saudi Arabia became more reluctant to host the American military, the US government began looking elsewhere in the region for a new strategic ally. In September 1992, tensions between Qatar and Saudi Arabia escalated. A group of Saudi forces strayed into Qatar’s territory, near the Khafous frontier post, pulled down the Qatari flag, and destroyed a border post, killing three members of the Qatari defense forces (Richards 1992). While typically such a skirmish would have been covered up and 97 not aired by any of the state-operated media, Qatar reacted furiously. Perhaps as a prelude of things to come, Qatari media gave the incident maximum publicity and accused Saudi Arabia of attempting to seize part of its territory. The Khafus incident marked the beginning of a long period of tension between Riyadh and Doha. Contrary to what might have been expected, it is the larger and stronger state which is put on the defensive by the smaller one. Of course, most of the other Gulf monarchies considered that Qatar was wrong in its aggressive behaviour which was not in line with the usual relations between ‘sisterly countries’. But there was also a sense of satisfaction to see a small shaikhdom teaching a lesson to a kingdom which had often treated him with the arrogance of a powerful suzerain (Da Lage 2005, 3-4). This was the first time one of the smaller emirates had betrayed the Saudi Kingdom, and it was a sign of things to come. Qatari-Saudi territorial disputes continued. In September 1993, a little-documented encounter resulted in several more deaths, and five QatariSaudi border skirmishes occurred during 1994 resulting in a diplomatic row during which Qatar boycotted the 1994 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit conference (Cordesman 1998). Qatar, one of the founding countries of the GCC, was the first to ever boycott the summit. Qatar’s modern history really begins in 1995, when Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani came to power after ousting his father, Sheikh Khalifa, in a bloodless coup. As a result, tensions rose between the newly established Qatari government and Saudi Arabia and Egypt, neither of which initially supported the new Emir. As Sakr (2001, 48) notes, after the Gulf War, “Gulf states felt vulnerable to both Saudi Arabia and Iran and always had the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait on their minds. Qatar, in particular, felt it might face a similar invasion like that of Kuwait, but the aggressor this time would be either Saudi 98 Arabia or Iran.” After the deposed Emir and some of his supporters received a warm welcoming in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, “the Qatari elite felt that Saudi Arabia and Egypt were trying to bring the deposed Emir back” (Fandy 2007, 46). It is out of this insecurity that Al Jazeera was born. In 1995, when Emir Hamad ousted his father, Qatar was seen by most as a “discrete satellite of Saudi Arabia” (Da Lage 2007, 50). But the new Emir was set to put Qatar on the map. In the 1970s, Saudi Arabia had exerted its influence as the default protectorate of the emirates and “forced Kuwait and Bahrain to put an end to their parliamentary experiments,” suggesting that such forms of governance were antithetical to the Wahhabi principles of Islam (Da Lage 2005, 6). It is in this context that, within the first year of taking power, Emir Hamad announced that the small Gulf state would embark on an ambitious set of liberal reforms, which included an end to press censorship, as well as municipal and parliamentarian elections where women could both vote and be elected. The reforms were bold, and included abolishing the Ministry of Information, a move unheard of in the Arab world. In the eyes of the Saudis, the move was seen as a profound act of defiance. It is important to note the unique position Qatar was in. At the time, Qatar was home to 560,000 people, only 155,000 of which were native Qataris (5,000 of whom were part of the royal family). Qatar’s GDP per person was the highest in the region, a socio-economic reality that allowed for a relatively content citizenry. Moreover, Qatar 99 had invested heavily in education and health care, making it an ideal place to live in the eyes of many in the region. Education is free through university, as are all utilities and health care (even if that requires a trip abroad for an operation). Every Qatari citizen is allowed a free plot of land, interest-free loans, a housing stipend, as well as money for furnishing a newly acquired home. Also, there is no income tax (Miles 2006). Put simply, Qatar did not have to worry about the levels of animosity and anger that many other Arab governments were concerned with at the time and was thus able to move faster towards more liberal forms of governance. Moreover, its liberal reforms, including the freedom of information, set Qatar apart from any other Arab country at the time and provided the ideal rationale for establishing first “independent” 24-hour Arab news channel, Al Jazeera. By taking a principled stand for freedom of information, Al Jazeera allowed for Qatar to stand out from other GCC and Arab countries, particularly as it was keen to air dissenting views of existing regimes that had long been suppressed throughout the region. “Qatar’s high-profile in uncensored satellite television, conducted via Al Jazeera, was undertaken at the behest of the Qatari emir as part of a top-down campaign of carving out a distinctive niche for its tiny state” (Sakr 2001, 64). Al Jazeera was founded by royal decree on February 8, 1996. While ostensibly an extension of Qatar’s commitment to a free and independent press, Al Jazeera was also launched as “a response to regime vulnerabilities on the Islamic front as well as a means of legitimizing Qatar’s military and economic pact with the United States in the [eyes] of angry Arab audiences” (Fandy 2007, 47). Accordingly, “the new regime was 100 vulnerable…and it created a media equivalent of a super-gun under the name of Al Jazeera to keep Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt on the defensive, or at the very least to respond to attacks appearing in the Egyptian and Saudi Arabian media” (Fandy 2007, 46). Indeed, almost to ensure that Saudi Arabia took notice, when BBC Arabic TV was disbanded, Qatar hired roughly 120 journalists from the BBC team that had been highly critical of Saudi Arabia to come work for Al Jazeera. Thus, not only did Al Jazeera have the resources to produce high-quality programming, it also had the talent—trained by the BBC—to produce good journalism (Rushing 2007). This is not to take away from the democratic impact that Al Jazeera has had on the Arab media scene. The news network quickly made a reputation for itself by exposing corruption among Arab governments and initiating political discussions on topics that had previously been taboo (el-Nawawy and Iskander 2003). But due to Qatar’s small size and tiny regional presence, viewers were rarely concerned by the broadcaster’s outward focus. Early on, Al Jazeera was used to defending itself from attacks in the Egyptian and Saudi press challenging the legitimacy of the new Qatari Emir. In 1996, in addition to embarking on a significant agenda of reform and investing in the region’s first “independent” news network, the new Qatari Emir invested over $1 billion to build the Al Udeid military base, a facility that would eventually become “the most important base for the US outside its national territory” (Da Lage 2007, 59). According to GlobalSecurity.Org 101 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/udeid.htm), “The Qatari philosophy behind construction was likened to ‘build it and they will come’—obtain the best defense by providing the best facilities for US and coalition forces.” The base includes one of the world’s longest runways and is able to accommodate up to 120 aircraft and over 10,000 troops. To put this in perspective, at the time Qatar owned and operated only 12 operating combat aircraft (Cordesman 1997). In 2000, Secretary of Defense William Cohen traveled to Doha to confirm that the United States was considering using the Al Udeid military base in “times of crisis” (Cohen 2000). In the autumn of 2001, the US began installing computers, communications and intelligence equipment, and other assets at Al Udeid Air Base, and by 2002 the US was moving much of its equipment and personnel from its Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. Al Udeid continues to play a key role in both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and has replaced Saudi Arabia's airbases as the hub of US Persian Gulf operations (Foley 2003). In addition, the US has two other bases on Qatar—As Saliyah, which is located just on the edge of Doha, and Camp Snoopy, attached to the Doha International Commercial Airport. Combined, these latter two bases constitute America’s largest prepositioning facilities in the world and are the headquarters for Central Command while at war with Iraq (Johnson 2005). Building the bases did have its costs, however. In 1995 and 1996, terrorist groups attacked American military facilities in Saudi Arabia, and “their presence was a flashpoint for domestic critics and generated political problems for Saudi rulers” 102 (Otterman 2003). Many religious conservatives argued that hosting American troops was inherently “unIslamic,” as they had been used to invade another Islamic country, Iraq. As such, Qatar’s enhanced military cooperation with the US and open invitation to host American military assets and troops resulted in some questioning of Qatar’s Islamic credentials, criticisms that Qatar would try to overcome using its news international broadcaster, Al Jazeera (Marshall and Murphy 2003). AL JAZEERA AND THE REBIRTH OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING IN THE MIDDLE EAST Al Jazeera’s early success caused waves in Arab politics, and Arab citizens and governments quickly took note. In its early years, Al Jazeera wasn’t widely accessible, though rumors of an independent and spirited news broadcaster spread like wildfire. Videotapes of Al Jazeera’s heated political talk shows could be found being passed around the streets of Riyadh, often for as much as $100 an episode. Up until the launching of Al Jazeera, almost all media, particularly the broadcast media, were statecontrolled. Newspapers and TV news featured information that helped maintain the political status quo; governments only allowed stories that were critical of political enemies and regional rivals. Arab citizens depended on international broadcasters such as the BBC, Radio Monte Carlo, and the Voice of America for information. Thus, when Al Jazeera hit the airwaves, viewers flocked to the broadcaster. It was the first news network indigenous to the region that was highly critical of standing Arab governments, as well as existing social and religious mores. Importantly, it mirrored CNN in quality, but was 103 distinctly “Arab,” featuring Arab journalists and stories told from a pan-Arab perspective. For the first time, Arabs could tune into a news channel that was their own. They didn’t have to depend on Western or state-run international broadcasters for news about what was going on in their backyard. Al Jazeera became a source of pride for an Arab citizenry that for so long had suffered from a sense of humiliation due to a long history of colonial and corrupt governance (Miles 2005). Conversations regarding the rights of women in Islam, widespread government corruption, and even homosexuality were introduced on Al Jazeera’s high-intensity talk shows. Josh Rushing (2007, 128), a former Public Affairs Officer for the Marines, describes the change as such: “Al Jazeera changed the way Arabs thought about the news in the same way Henry Ford changed the way Americans thought about travel.” Critical to Al Jazeera’s success was its ability to be seen as credible in the eyes of its viewers. Having grown accustomed to being inundated with state-controlled news flows, both Arab and Western, Arab audiences have learned to be naturally skeptical of broadcast news. Yet, Al Jazeera’s news agenda seemed to operate independent from any particular government’s interests. In this regard, Qatar’s relative obscurity in the Arab world and politics was essential to Al Jazeera’s strength. Had one of the more powerful governments in the region launched a similar news organization—Egypt, Iran, or Saudi Arabia, for instance—viewers would have been more suspicious. At the time, Saudi Arabia was seen by many as Qatar’s protector, and thus Al Jazeera’s highly critical 104 coverage of Saudi affairs and influence only added to the Network’s credibility (Fandy 2007). By 1998, Al Jazeera was available to almost anyone with a satellite dish. The Network had found its stride and was broadcasting original content 24 hours a day. Not surprisingly, “soon after its inception the network was recognized as a thorn in the side of regimes that had grown accustomed to controlling the news flow” (Powers and Gilboa 2007, 58). Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were among the most critical of the Network and acted accordingly. Leaders in both countries organized an unofficial boycott of any company that advertised on Al Jazeera, effectively making it impossible for the Network to generate any advertising revenue. And it didn’t take long for governments to begin taking official action against the Network and its financier, the Emir of Qatar. One of the Network's first significant public controversies took place in November 1998. Al Jazeera's most popular show, The Opposite Direction, featured a debate between a former Jordanian foreign minister and a Syrian critic that resulted in a series of accusations tying Jordan to an Israeli plot to eradicate the Palestinian territories. The day after the show, the Jordanian Minister of Information shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Amman, declaring that the show's moderator, Dr. Faisal al-Qasim, was conducting an “intentional and repeated campaign against Jordan” (Miles 2005, 45). Similarly, criticisms and condemnations of Al Jazeera's news were featured prominently in the Saudi press, which were widely considered to be an extension of the 105 government's opinion. In an article titled “Arabsat and Another Kind of Pornography,” the Saudi Press analogized Al Jazeera to a form of entertainment pornography, arguing that it should be regulated and banned in a fashion similar to that of traditional pornography (Miles 2005, 46). The severity of Arab criticism of the Network increased considerably after its coverage of the America-led Operation Desert Fox, during which Al Jazeera not only transmitted exclusive coverage of the 70-hour bombing campaign throughout the region but also gave high-level Iraqi officials access to their airwaves in an unprecedented fashion. Saudi Arabia, the free Kurdish community, and Kuwait all opposed the coverage, seeing it as “unacceptable propaganda” that could be used to “rehabilitate the Iraqi regime” (Miles 2005, 54). Saudi Arabia in particular was rattled as the coverage included a focus on the Operation Desert Fox’s use of Saudi airbases for the attacks on Iraq, thus exposing Saudi Arabia’s complicity with the attack on another Arab country. As a result, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah accused Al Jazeera of being a “disgrace to the [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, of defaming the members of the Saudi Royal family, of threatening the stability of the Arab world and of encouraging terrorism” (Trabelsi 2002). Other members of the Saudi government have similarly criticized Al Jazeera for its coverage of deaths relating to Arab pilgrimages in Saudi Arabia, calling it “a dagger in the flank of the Arab nation.” Saudi Arabia also took some of the most dramatic measures in its efforts to limit Al Jazeera's success. While Al Jazeera's journalists were prohibited from reporting from within the Kingdom almost since its inception, Saudi officials started 106 speaking out publicly against the Network and its alleged propaganda. Interior Minister Prince Nayif declared that Al Jazeera “is a distinguished high-quality product but it serves up poison on a silver platter” (Miles 2005, 53). Saudi mosques followed the government’s lead, criticizing the organization and issuing a “political fatwa forbidding Saudis from appearing on the Station's shows” (Miles 2005: 53). The Kingdom went as far as to prohibit watching satellite television in coffee shops in an effort to restrict the Network's reach. Kuwait's criticisms of Al Jazeera similarly escalated in response to a talk show that featured a discussion of women's rights that was critical of the Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. The Emir was so outraged with Al Jazeera's handling of the show that he went to Qatar to argue that Al Jazeera had “violated the ethics of the profession and harmed the State of Kuwait,” a rebuke of Kuwaiti law that resulted in the banning of the Network's operations within Kuwaiti jurisdiction (Miles 2005, 54). Yet, while Kuwait and Saudi Arabia were the two most pronounced critics of Al Jazeera in the Arab world, every government in the region—save Saddam Hussein's Iraq—had at one time or another lodged formal criticisms against the Network or taken action to restrict Al Jazeera's ability to gather or distribute the news (See Table 3.1). Libya “permanently withdrew” its ambassador from Qatar in response to Al Jazeera's airing of a discussion that included one guest who called Muammar Al Qadhafi a “dictator.” Morocco also withdrew its ambassador, accusing the Network of leading “a campaign against...its democratic revolution,” and Tunisia went as far as to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar 107 after a show that aired views of members of the Islamic opposition that were critical of human rights conditions in Tunisia (Urbina 2002). TABLE 3.1: A HISTORY OF AL JAZEERA’S DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES Year Country Rationale Result 1998 Jordan Guest on The Opposite Direction accused Jordan of conspiring with Israel to eradicate the Palestinian territories. Closed down Al-Jazeera's bureau in Amman for four months. 1999 Saudi Arabia/Kuw ait Al-Jazeera aired an exclusive interview with Osama bin Laden. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait organized an informal yet powerful ban on all companies that advertise on AlJazeera. 1999 Kuwait On an episode of Religion and Life, an Iraqi caller from Norway harshly criticized the Kuwaiti Emir Closed down Al-Jazeera's bureau in Kuwait for one month. 2000 Libya On an episode of The Opposite Direction, a Libyan dissident called Colonel Qadhafi a dictator. Libya permanently removed its ambassador from Doha. Al Jazeera aired a clip from a documentary that was disrespectful to Yasser Arafat. Bureau was closed for five days. Upon his return to Palestine, Arafat re-opened the bureau, claiming no knowledge of the incident (Miles, 2005). Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah strongly criticized the Qatari channel and accused it “of being a disgrace to the GCC countries, of defaming the members of the Saudi Royal family, of threatening the stability of the Arab world and encouraging terrorism." Saudi Arabia began plans to launch a competing pan-Arab news network. 2001 Palestine Saudi 2001 Arabia 108 TABLE 3.1 CONTINUED 2001 United States The Pentagon asserted, without providing additional detail, that the office was a "known Al-Qaeda facility," and that the US military did not know the space was being used by Al-Jazeera. In his recently published book The One Percent Doctrine, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind wrote that US forces deliberately targeted AlJazeera’s Kabul bureau in November 2001 to send a “message” to the station. 2001 United States Sami al-Hajj is accused of having ties to Al Qaeda. Al-Hajj was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay until 2008, when he was released without being charged with a crime. Bahrain The Bahraini Minister of Information accused Al-Jazeera of harboring pro-Israeli and anti-Bahrainian sentiments ("penetrated by Zionists"). Al-Jazeera was permanently banned from reporting from within Bahrain. 2002 Jordan A Syrian commentator criticized Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel, describing Jordan as "an artificial entity" populated by "a bunch of Bedouins living in an arid desert." According to Jordanian authorities, Al Jazeera was accused of "knowingly harming the Kingdom and its national positions." Ministry of Information closed AlJazeera's bureau in Amman and revoked the accreditation of its journalists. The bureau was reopened in 2003. 2002 Kuwait Al Jazeera was accused of not being objective and violating professional standards of journalism. Kuwait closed down Al Jazeera's bureau in Kuwait City and sued the Network. 2002 The US bombed Al Jazeera's bureau in Kabul. No casualties. 2002 Saudi Arabia Al Jazeera was accused of disrespectful coverage of the Saudi royal family. Recalled its Ambassador from Doha and revoked the press credentials of AJ journalists. As a result, AJ wasn't able to cover the annual pilgrimage to Mecca from 2003 until 2008. 2003 Palestine Al Jazeera was accused of disseminating information that it had received from the Israeli intelligence service. Al Jazeera's correspondent was detained and the bureau chief's car was bombed. 109 TABLE 3.1 CONTINUED United States Al Jazeera framed the US-led invasion of Iraq as a violation of international law and offered comprehensive coverage of violence against civilians. The US bombed Al Jazeera's bureau in Baghdad, killing Tareq Ayyoub. 2004 United States Al-Jazeera's coverage of the US-led war in Iraq was "false, inflammatory and antiAmerican." Secretary of State Colin Powell told Emir Hamad that the broadcaster was threatening "an otherwise strong relationship between the two nations." 2004 Algeria An Al-Jazeera broadcast criticized the Algerian government and military leaders. Jailed Al-Jazeera journalists and froze the Network's ability to broadcast within its borders. 2004 Iraq Iraq authorities accuse Al Jazeera of inciting violence inside Iraq. Al Jazeera's bureau is permanently closed. 2004 Sudan The Network's bureau chief in Khartoum was arrested and charged with defaming the state. The bureau was shut down and the bureau chief served 17 days in prison. 2005 Iran Accused Al-Jazeera of "inciting disorder" (protests) within Iran. Iran closed Al Jazeera's offices in Tehran. 2005 Spain Spanish court found Al Jazeera journalist Tayseer Alouni guilty of collaborating with al Qaeda. Alouni was sentenced to seven years in jail. 2005 United States US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld describes Al Jazeera's reporting in Fallujah (Iraq) as "vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable." Soon thereafter, President Bush allegedly argued that the US-UK coalition should consider bombing Al Jazeera's headquarters in Doha. 2003 2006 Israel Al Jazeera is accused of colluding with Hezbollah. Several Al Jazeera journalists are imprisoned for a short period of time; Al Jazeera journalists are denied access to sites attacked by Hezbollah. 2006 Tunisia Al Jazeera aired programming that included members of the Islamic opposition criticizing Tunisia's human rights record. Severed all diplomatic tied and closed its Doha embassy. 110 TABLE 3.1 CONTINUED 2009 Palestine Al Jazeera broadcast dissident Farouk Qaddumi suggesting a possible link between Abbas and the death of late President Yasser Arafat. The PA closed Al Jazeera's bureau in the West Bank for six days. The Egyptian and Algerian governments accused the Network of supporting the cause of Islamic extremists by offering ideological and extremist group leaders access to the mass media airwaves. Algeria was so afraid of the influence that Al Jazeera wielded that it once was forced to cut the power to several major cities in the middle of an episode of The Opposite Direction that featured criticisms of the government's human rights abuses during the country's civil war (Maharaj 2001). Bahrain banned Al Jazeera from covering its 2002 elections, arguing that the Network had been “penetrated by Zionists” (BBC 2002). Iraq shut down Al Jazeera's bureau in Baghdad because, according to interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, the Network was an advocate of violence, “hatred and problems and racial tension” (Associated Press 2004). All in all, according to Faisal AI-Qasim, moderator of Al Jazeera’s most popular talk show, The Opposite Direction, “six countries [Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco] withdrew their ambassadors from Doha because of [The Opposite Direction]. They were protesting against what was said [on] the program” (Interview with Goodman 2006). Having failed to curtail the Network's critical journalism through public criticisms and pressure on the Qatari government, an unnamed Gulf state went as far as to offer Qatari foreign minister 111 Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabr AI-Thani $5 billion simply to close down the station (Urbina 2002). Al Jazeera was introduced to most in the West during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, when it became the go-to channel for news about the conflict. When the US-led coalition first attacked Afghanistan, Al Jazeera was the only international news organization with a bureau in Kabul. As a result, audiences worldwide depended on Al Jazeera for timely footage of the conflict. Western news organizations such as CNN, ABC, NBC, and Fox News quickly made agreements with Al Jazeera to purchase their high-quality and proprietary footage, and American audiences become familiar with its very foreign, “Arab looking” logo spinning at the bottom of their television screens (Rinnawi 2006). In 2003, with the onset of the war in Iraq, Al Jazeera began making headlines in the American press as the Bush administration repeatedly decried Al Jazeera for its onesided coverage of the conflict. US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz went as far as to suggest that Al Jazeera’s coverage was “inciting violence” and “endangering the lives of American troops” in Iraq (Fisk 2003). Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (2004) followed up by accusing the Network’s coverage of the War on Terror as being “vicious, inaccurate, and inexcusable,” arguing that Al Jazeera had repeatedly cooperated with the insurgents in Iraq to portray US soldiers as “randomly killing innocent civilians.” Secretary of State Colin Powell contended that the Network showed videotapes from 112 terrorists “for the purpose of inflaming the world and appealing to the basest instincts in the region” (Torriero 2003). Powell concluded a meeting with visiting Qatari foreign minister by declaring that Al Jazeera had “intruded on relations” between the US and Qatar (Richter 2004). Hostility towards the Network finally reached a pinnacle in 2004, when President Bush himself took time out of his State of the Union address to describe Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Iraq as “hateful propaganda,” a comment that only further ignited rumors that he had at one point suggested to Prime Minister Blair that the Western coalition add Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha to a list of the coalition’s military targets in the war on terror (Mackay 2005). While the accusations leveled against Al Jazeera were heavy-handed and mostly unfounded, the Bush administration’s concern about the Network’s influence is understandable. Similar to how CNN’s coverage of the 1991 Gulf War controlled the narrative of how the war was received throughout the region, Al Jazeera’s coverage of Iraq, as well as the War on Terror, largely determined how the war efforts were received around the Arab world. The Bush administration assessed that rising anti-American sentiment was due to its failure to combat Al Jazeera’s framing of the war efforts as modern-era colonialism. In order to counter what they saw as this one-sided message, in 2004 the administration launched Alhurra, its own 24/7-satellite news broadcaster. In the same State of the Union where President Bush criticized Al Jazeera, he announced the new effort, arguing that, unlike Al Jazeera, this new, US-funded network “will begin providing reliable news and information across the region” (Pintak 2006). 113 Indeed, Al Jazeera’s widespread notoriety sparked a wave of attention to and investment in news broadcasting in the Middle East. In 2003, the Saudi-financed MBC group launched Al-Arabiya to counter what it perceived as inflammatory style of Al Jazeera. Soon after, the Iranian government jumped into the mix and launched Al-Alam, a Tehran-based Arabic-language television news channel, and the Saudi government launched the Riyadh-based Al-Ekhbariya, each hoping to compete with Al Jazeera for the “hearts and minds” of the Arab citizenry. The UAE quickly followed suit, launching Abu Dhabi TV and Dubai TV, both of which feature a mix of news and entertainment programming (Schleifer 2004). Outside the region, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and France all took notice. France followed the Bush administration’s Alhurra initiative with an Arab stream of France 24 in 2006, Russia followed with Russia Today in 2007, and the UK re-launched BBC Arabic TV in 2008. China’s CCTV recently announced their plans to launch an Arabic newscast in 2009 (Lam 2009). Needless to say, there are now many competing voices and political views available on the region’s airwaves. Importantly, the “media battles” taking place in the region are far from the freespirited, independent discursive contests that many democratic-media theorists idealize. Rather, according to Mamoun Fandy (2007, 120), “if one looks at the Arab media, one never fails to notice that they are mostly controlled by Arab governments, whether directly or through proxy owners.” Indeed, despite claims to independence, there are no truly independent Arab media: “The fact remains that it is the state and not market forces 114 that is the main player in shaping the Arab media…The disproportionate time devoted to the outside world, relative to the meager content awarded to domestic issues in the host state, proves this point.” Additionally, “the programming and content of Arab media tends to serve the interests of the host state. Domestically, the function of the media is to rally support for regime policies and in many instances attribute the failure of these policies to outside powers, especially Israel and the United States” (Fandy 2007, 3). Thus, despite a revolution in communications technologies, as well as the perceived weakening of the traditional means of governmental social control, Arab governments and political and religious forces continue to have a strong hand in the flow of information within and throughout the region. Indeed, rather than working as selfless instruments of information for the people—fulfilling their prophetic role as a “Fourth Estate” critical for democratic society—Arab broadcast media can be seen more as extensions of the interests of government, religious, and political groups, each vying for influence in the region. This reality was further codified in early 2008 when Arab governments convened and collectively agreed to, for the first time, a charter strictly regulating the content of all satellite broadcasts in the region. By most accounts, the Arab League Satellite Broadcasting Charter was an attempt by governments to reassert their authority and control over the flow of information, including Al Jazeera. Mohamed Elmenshawy (2008) argues that the Charter is a demonstrable setback to the free flow of information in the region, pointing to the call 115 not to damage social harmony, national unity, public order or traditional values, and to exempt Arab rulers from any criticism. Equally, it empowers Arab governments to make necessary legislative measures to deal with violations, including the confiscation of broadcasting equipment and withdrawal of broadcasting authorization. Qatar and Lebanon were the only two governments that did not sign the Charter. AL JAZEERA AND THE RISE OF QATAR “Al Jazeera has become the symbol of the emirate as well as the source of its fame. In a sense, Al Jazeera is for Qatar what the casinos are for Monaco” (Da Lage 2005, 55). In an interview with Josh Rushing (2007, 134-5), Larry Pintak, the CBS Middle East correspondent in the 1980s, said, The Emir didn’t set up Al Jazeera to get a membership card at the press club. It’s about power. This has allowed him to, if not checkmate, then at least occasionally check the Saudis. He did it for the same reason he brought Central Command to Qatar. It made him a player in the region and now Al Jazeera English makes him a player on the world stage. What started out as an effort to help Qatar step out from the shadow of Saudi Arabia has since become the fifth most recognized brand in the world. Adel Iskander argues that Al Jazeera “sets the agenda in the Arab world,” adding, “In many countries where there is no official opposition party, Al Jazeera became the opposition party” (cited in Rushing 2007, 135). Larry Pintak argues that Al Jazeera has done for the Arab world what Woodward and Bernstein’s Watergate reporting did to a young generation of journalists in America. He claims, “young Arab journalists see the possibility of changing things and they see the role that their profession a can play in 116 doing that. That is a direct response to the presence of Al Jazeera” (cited in Rushing 2007, 141). Vital to Al Jazeera’s popularity among most Arabs is its hard-hitting and heavyhanded coverage of unpopular governments, especially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United States, and Israel. A widely cited survey conducted by Gallup (2002) found that viewers in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon are most likely to turn to Al Jazeera first for information on regional and world events, and more broadly that “Al Jazeera is regarded positively in the Arab world” (Zayani 2005, 3). In 2005, a survey measuring the relative importance of Al Jazeera demonstrates the widespread popularity of Al Jazeera across the region: 42.7 percent of Egyptians, 67.3 percent of Jordanians, 58.6 percent of Kuwaitis, 45.8 percent of Moroccans, 64.1 percent of Saudi Arabians, 46 percent of Syrians, and 78.8 percent of citizens in the United Arab Emirates ranked Al Jazeera as one of their three most important sources for news (Rhodes and Abdul-Latif 2005). Even among Israeli-Arabs, Al Jazeera is the most popular channel. When asked to rank the three news channels they watch most, 57 percent of Israeli-Arabs put Al Jazeera in first place and 21 percent ranked it in second place, far ahead of any other local or foreign channel (Jamal 2006). Perhaps more interesting is the number of Arabs who consider the information from Al Jazeera trustworthy: 89 percent of Bahrainis, 93 percent of Egyptians, 96 percent of Jordanians, 95 percent of Kuwaitis, 90 percent of Moroccans, 94 percent of Saudi 117 Arabians, 93 percent of Tunisians, and 96 percent of citizens of the United Arab Emirates (Rhodes and Abdul-Latif 2005). And, despite the growth of a hyper-competitive and oversaturated news media environment, Al Jazeera remains the most watched source of news. A 2009 poll conducted by University of Maryland with Zogby International (Telhami 2009) found that 55 percent of participants surveyed in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco said that when they tuned in to international news they chose Al Jazeera most often, up from 53 percent in 2008. This perception of credibility and the overwhelming popularity of the Arab satellite broadcaster bring with it a tremendous bit of influence. Miles (2005) describes the organization as “the most powerful, non-state actor in the Arab world today,” arguing that if Al Jazeera were a political party it would give Hamas or Muslim Brotherhood a run for their money. Similarly, Zayani (2005, 8) suggests that by “tapping into the Arab identity during times marked by Arab disunity, Al Jazeera has emerged as a key opinion maker.” Poniwozik (2001, 65) agrees arguing, “Among all the major influences on Arab public opinion—the mosque, the press, the schools—the newest and perhaps most revolutionary is Al Jazeera.” Moreover, in 2005, the world's leading brand-monitoring survey organization found that Al Jazeera was voted the world's fifth most influential brand, and the most identifiable Arabic brand in the world, beating out prestigious companies such as Finland’s Nokia, United Kingdom’s Virgin, and the American-based Coca-Cola (Sauer 2005). 118 In addition, many Arabs are pleased with Al Jazeera’s external role and admire the challenge the Network mounts against the Western media coverage of international and Middle Eastern events. Described by some as a “contra-flow,” Al Jazeera’s counterhegemonic mission to combat the influence of Western news networks has become a source of pride for many in the Arab world (Sakr 2007). Indeed, it is this external role that has helped Qatar capitalize on Al Jazeera’s success for its own geopolitical gain. Al Jazeera’s popularity has helped to foster the rise of the microstate, Qatar. Virtually unheard of as late as 1995, Qatar is now a rising regional power with global aspirations. Doha has become a hub for commerce and culture in the region. The liberal democratic reforms that Emir Hamad embarked upon in 1995—symbolized by Al Jazeera—have fostered an era of stable economic growth and cultural modernization. As Schleifer (2004) describes: This amazing transparency and Qatar's almost stealth-like movements from strength to strength are reflected in the complex mix of its subtle and effective politics, much of which plays off the presence of Al Jazeera…What's particularly relevant for Al Jazeera about all of these emerging signs of financial and political strength is that Qatar is increasingly generating resources—intellectual, cultural, and scientific—at a global level of competence that not only did not exist when Al Jazeera opened shop in 1996 but do not exist so significantly anywhere else in the Arab world, including Dubai. Importantly, Qatar’s long-term natural gas contracts have allowed it to weather the current economic storm better than any other country in the Gulf. Moreover, Doha has become a hub for non-governmental and intellectual growth. Recently, Qatar's state-funded Qatar Foundation, chaired by the Emir’s wife, Sheikha 119 Moza Bint Nasser Al-Misnad, has collaborated with such prominent think tanks and NGOs as the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) from the US; Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy in the UK; France's International and Strategic Relations Institute and the Arab Press Club of Paris; and the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Egypt. In 2008, Qatar established the world’s first Press Freedom Center with a mission to “help imperiled journalists and promote press freedom everywhere” (Campbell 2009). An education city, based on the outskirts of Doha, includes satellite campuses from such prestigious institutions as Georgetown, Northwestern, and Carnegie Mellon. In 2007, the RAND Corporation established the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute, which will provide “world-class research and analysis not just for Qatar's government, private sector, and growing number of NGOs, but for the entire region extending to North Africa and South Asia” (RAND 2007). As Schleifer (2004) notes, the collaborations and organizations “bring many hundreds of outstanding figures, both academic and professional, in political thought, development theory, and the natural sciences to Qatar to participate in an almost endless stream of impressive open-forum conferences and symposiums that are also media events of substance for Al Jazeera’s reporters and camera crews.” Recently, the government of Qatar has seized on its increased visibility and popularity. In 2008, “the tiny Gulf state emerged…at the forefront of regional diplomacy, successfully shepherding the negotiations between feuding Lebanese factions to end 120 months of political turmoil and violence” (Blanford 2008). The Qatari Emir succeeded at negotiating a settlement after Arab and Western leaders had failed. Qatar is also mediating between the Sudanese government and rebel factions in Darfur, with a measure of success. A recent deal between Sudan and Chad was signed in Doha under Qatar's tutelage. Moreover, Qatar has also been critical in efforts to bring an end to the al-Houthi rebellion in the north of Yemen. “They're recognized as just about the only player that seems to be able to make any difference” (Moran 2009). While these achievements may seem minor to some, they are significant in the context of the current geopolitical realities of the region: “The reaction of Egypt and Saudi Arabia is partly explained by the fact that these nations have thus far not been able to prove themselves successful solvers of these [regional] conflicts, whereas the Qataris have on occasion. They are needled by that” (Moran 2009). Qatar has managed to strike a balance in its diplomatic relationships, maintaining strong ties with the West, while also being friendly with Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hezbollah. “Qatar has close ties with Iran, yet it also is host to one of the world’s biggest American air bases. It is home both to Israeli officials and to hard-line Islamists who advocate Israel’s destruction; to Al Jazeera, the controversial satellite TV station; and (at least until recently) to Saddam Hussein’s widow. Saudi Arabia is a trusted ally, but so is Saudi Arabia’s nemesis Syria, whose president, Bashar al-Assad, received an Airbus as a personal gift from the Qatari emir this year” (Worth 2008). While the traditional Arab powers—Egypt and Saudi Arabia—resent much of Qatar’s diplomatic reach, it has also 121 garnered the small emirate a certain level of respect. “Despite occasional diplomatic problems and frequent complaints, Qatar’s policy seems to have worked, catapulting the country to new levels of recognition around the globe” (Worth 2008). CONCLUSION Al Jazeera has allowed Qatar to “punch above its weight” (Salama 2009). As has been noted, Qatar's prestige emanates largely from the Al Jazeera channel based in Doha. The state-owned station broadcasts the most comprehensive coverage in the region but also plays to populist anti-Israeli and anti-US views, giving Qatar legitimacy among Arabs even as it hosts one of the largest US bases in the region (Fleishman and El-Hennawy 2009). Amr Choubaki, an Egyptian analyst, argues, “Qatar is acting as a mediator…and it is using Al Jazeera for this purpose. Qatar created Al Jazeera, but now Al Jazeera is creating Qatar” (Fleishman and El-Hennawy 2009). Today, Qatar has emerged as a regional force, a model for economic growth and Arab political modernization that just 10 years ago didn’t exist. Yet, essential to Al Jazeera’s popularity and, thus, to Qatar’s rise in influence was the perception that the tiny Gulf peninsula had little strategic ambition in the region, a perception that is rapidly changing. As Qatar’s geopolitical ambitions grow, it will be important to see how they are reflected in Al Jazeera’s programming, as well as viewer perceptions of the Network. The origins of Al Jazeera—regime insecurity—represent an important example of the importance of information in modern geopolitics. Whereas, in previous generations, 122 emphasis may have been centered on developing military strength, during Qatar’s rise to regional stardom, it was actually able to cut military spending (Blanchard 2008). This is due, of course, to its military ties with the United States; though for years Qatar relied primarily on Al Jazeera to defend itself from attacks from regional rivals such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The rise of Al Jazeera, and thus Qatar, represent a telling case study of the ways in which the dissemination of information is as important as the traditional tools of international influence. Moreover, it is an important example of how non-traditional and geographically small actors can compete with historically and culturally important countries by investing in the production of news, information, and knowledge that resonates with publics abroad. 123 CHAPTER 4: BETWEEN NEWS AND PROPAGANDA: AL JAZEERA, “OBJECTIVITY,” AND ARAB POLITICS “American news channels tend to show the missiles taking off. Al-Jazeera shows them landing.” Riz Kahn, Al Jazeera English Depending on whom you ask, Al Jazeera is often described either as an agent of propaganda or as a beacon of democratic freedom. Many in the West, particularly those that served in the Bush administration, considered the Network as an official mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operatives. Long-standing Arab regimes see the Network as the abolished Qatari Ministry of Information reborn, broadcasting news in interest of the Emir and his royal family. Others, including many who work for the Network, see it is a symbol of freedom and democracy taking hold in a region long known for its oppressive political and social environments. All sides have plenty of evidence to make their case. Al Jazeera has, no doubt, revolutionized the news business in the region. It has sparked political controversy in almost Arab every country (see Table 3.1 in Chapter 3), and governments have acknowledged the Network as a political force able to shape public opinion. Al Jazeera’s coverage, especially on human rights issues and governmental corruption, has encouraged reform movements in many countries including 124 Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. More importantly, the Network has sparked a revitalization of the Arab public sphere. It has opened up discussions on many topics that had previously been considered taboo. In doing so, it has sparked vociferous public criticism of many incumbent governments, as well as established religious institutions and groups (Lynch 2006). Yet, the image of Al Jazeera as either an agent of propaganda or a symbol of freedom and democracy need not be seen in total opposition. Al Jazeera’s independence, relative to other Arab media from vested political interests in the region, and thus its ability to be critical of the oppressive status quo is an important part of how the Network has served the political ambitions of Qatar. As is outlined in the previous chapter, Al Jazeera helped put Qatar on the metaphorical map, and today is part and parcel with Qatar’s ability to “punch above its weight” when it comes to regional affairs. This chapter looks at exactly how Al Jazeera became the region’s most important source of news, and has come to be seen by many as a political party in its own right (Miles 2005). While Al Jazeera’s rise in influence and viewership in the region is no doubt due to its highly advanced and polished style, timely reporting, and an overall image of independence, this doesn’t paint the whole picture. Central to any news network’s success or failure are the stories that it tells, which collectively constitute the news, and how those stories fit within the range of collective expectations, opinions, and memories of its audiences. Al Jazeera’s success is, in part, due to its ability to shape current events 125 into a historical context that resonates with its audiences. In order to understand why particular stories and meta-narratives are persuasive, this chapter first briefly outlines the culture of news in the Middle East, and outlines how that informs Al Jazeera’s journalists’ approach to reporting on regional events, particularly the plight of the Palestinians and the war in Iraq. This is followed by a discussion of the history of the term propaganda, detaching it from its contemporary negative connotation in order to draw several lessons helpful in determining why particular messages work with foreign audiences. Combined, the history of propaganda and the mindset and background of Arab journalists help contextualize why certain stories are told, and why they are so effective at grabbing Arab audiences. The chapter then reviews Al Jazeera’s perceived bias when covering regional issues, and argues that, while the Network has at times played a deliberate role in helping improve the Qatari government’s image in the region, it simultaneously has served as a critical journalistic institution with important and profound consequences for Arab politics. Finally, the chapter concludes that, by balancing the different goals of providing the region with high-quality news, thus arming the Arab citizenry with the information needed to push back against autocratic governments, the Network also projects a pro-Arab image against pervasive foreign influences. In doing so, Al Jazeera has not only grabbed the attention of the Arab world but also become a symbol of its success and a model for its future. 126 OBJECTIVITY & MEDIA CULTURE IN THE ARAB WORLD Despite its academic critics, objectivity is considered, particularly among Western journalists, the gold standard when it comes to reporting the news. The basic idea is that journalists work to provide a representation of the world around them—of events, people, and circumstances—to be shared with others as an appropriate description and interpretation of reality. Importantly, the yearning for objectivity is not limited to the West: “In his work on comparative, cross cultural media ethics, Cooper argues that the search for truth and objectivity is a universal feature of global media ethics, much more universal that other values like privacy or freedom (in Hafez 2008, 149). Yet, different media cultures define the concept of objectivity differently. Media culture in the Middle East has, historically, been tilted and defensive against any foreign influence. Indeed, formal media codes in the region have reflected a conflict between the “First” and “Third” worlds, arguing against foreign ideologies like Zionism, foreign national interest, assistance for the (neo)colonialist “enemy,” and foreign experts (Hafez 2002, 239). The Federation of Arab Journalists decreed in its 1972 ethical code that Arab journalists not exert any propaganda “for the benefit of imperialist states, reactionary forces and foreign monopolies.” Similarly, in 1980 the Islamic Mass Media Charter of Jakarta was intentionally designed to protect the Middle East and the Islamic world from Western media and political and cultural influence. The Jakarta conference demanded that the journalist “combat all forms of colonialism, aggression, fascism and racism” 127 along with “Zionism and its colonialist policy of creating settlements as well as its ruthless suppression of the Palestinian people” (cited in Hafez 2002, 239). Larry Pintak (2006), former director of the Adham Center on Journalism at the American University in Cairo, argues that Arab journalists first and foremost report from “an Arab perspective.” For Pintak, this Arab perspective represents a set of community values and biases that are stumbling blocks to reporting the news in a perfectly “objective” way. A study by Ramaprasad and Hamdy (2006, 168) surveyed 107 Arab journalists and found that “Arab news media perform functions similar to those performed by their peers in the West, but they also add unique twists to these functions. The information function of conveying news and commentary is almost always tainted with political bias, while the cultural reinforcement function is performed at two levels, pan-Arab and nation-state.” Interestingly, Arab journalists rated “Support Arabism/Values” as the most important role, and, within it, “Support the cause of Palestinians” had the highest mean, indicating its prime importance (Ramaprasad and Hamdy 2006, 176). The former Managing Director of Al Jazeera, Mohamed Jassim Al Ali, argued that his Network embodied BBC-style reporting, but in a distinctly Arab fashion: Al Jazeera, from the idea up to the launch, was built on a staff coming from Arab countries. Maybe they have had experience working with Western media— they’re ex-BBC, ex-US media—but all are Arabs. So they take the professional experience from the BBC, but their background as Arabs means we can adopt this experience and apply it to the Arab world (cited in Schleifer 2000). 128 Wadah Khanfar (2007), Al Jazeera’s current managing director and Al Ali’s replacement, argues that this distinctly Arab staff is critical to the broadcaster’s identity and success: At Al Jazeeraa, the majority of news is in much more depth, with much more understanding, much more memory, and much more history. How did we do that? We have an excellent network of reporters. And these reporters are not aliens to the culture or the environment that they report from. This is important in terms of understanding the collective mind of each nation that they are coming from. And they understand it. So they analyze evidence based on this collective mind. Not only that, they also foresee for the future. But in order to foresee for the future, you have to have an excellent knowledge of the past, and deep knowledge of the past. El-Nawawy and Iskandar (2003) introduced the term “contextual objectivity” to describe “the necessity of television and media to present stories in a fashion that is both somewhat impartial yet sensitive to local sensibilities.” Applied in the context of Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Iraq, el-Nawawy and Iskandar acknowledge bias, but argue that it is an audience-centered bias that does not deviate from the facts of the event and is no greater than the Western-tilt that is seen in most American media. Put simply, they argue that all media deviate from the standard of objectivity by framing the facts of a given situation in ways that are socially accepted and expected amongst their particular audiences. Having lived for so long with strictly controlled media environments, Arabs are keenly aware of bias in the news media. Indeed, despite its widespread popularity, most audiences, including those that tune in regularly, do not consider Al Jazeera objective. According to a Gallup (2002) poll, only 48 percent of respondents thought that Al Jazeera’s reporting was objective. Increasingly, the credibility of the news media is called into question in the West as well, with Americans seeing the news media as 129 politically partisan and lacking credibility (Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism 2009). Importantly, while the Arab media are increasingly “independent,” they are still far from free of government influence. As political scientist Mamoun Fandy (2007, 9) argues, The electronic media of Arab countries are instruments of the regimes…This is because the owners of the media have not only close political ties to the state based on ideological positions or self-interest, but also close family ties and religious affiliations that ultimately link them to their respective governments…Strategic political and economic motives structure this context. Yet, while structured by the political economy of the region, news organizations have more freedom than they did in decades past. Sure, governments do have influence in the overall direction of a broadcaster, but that influence is constitutive, as clear editorial bias in favor of one government or another can make a news network impotent in the face of its regional competitors. Thus, while objective and truthful reporting in the region is ideal, both governmental and cultural influences continue to shape what constitutes the news. In world wars I and II and during the Cold War, such broadcasters’ programming would have been described as propaganda, or perhaps, democratic (i.e. based in truth) propaganda. PROPAGANDA Propaganda is perhaps among the most stigmatized words in the field of communication. Once considered a neutral term to describe a particular means of 130 persuasion, today propaganda triggers immediate almost visceral reactions, with criticisms ranging from its authoritarian consequences to it being ethically vacuous. Yet, as Taylor (2003, 322) explains, “propaganda is about sides. Whether or not something is branded as 'propaganda' depends upon which side you are on.” A similar argument is made by John Paluszek (2002, 441): “When the communication is being executed by communicators who do not share our views about government, the nature of humankind, or the world in general, we call their efforts ‘propaganda.’ However, when we try to share our own views, we are ‘communicating’ or ‘informing’ or ‘educating’ our audiences.” For the purpose of this project, the concept of propaganda is used not as a category of communication—or worse, as a means to slander an international broadcaster—but rather as a resource for exploring the history of the concept, and to draw from relevant historical lessons to help us understand contemporary cases of effective international political communication. Definitions of the term propaganda inevitably ruffle feathers. In a world where “all communication has some sort of spin, especially communication addressed to a large, anonymous public from across demographic borders,” it becomes difficult to discern propaganda from everyday forms of mass communication (Hartley 2002, 188). Put another way, “Propaganda is a bit like pornography—hard to define but people think they will know it when they see it” (Koppes and Black 1998, 49). Indeed, many have argued for jettisoning the term altogether. Arguing that the word propaganda has evolved to encompass too many different forms of communication and thus has become meaningless 131 as a theory of communication, scholars have shied away from studying contemporary mass communication through the frame of propaganda studies. But, as Ellul (1973, xi) argues, “To abandon the term propaganda altogether because it cannot be defined with any degree of precision…is inadmissible intellectual surrender [that] would lead us to abandon the study of the phenomena that exists and needs to be defined.” In fact, the term has a history of definitional ambiguity that has made it a difficult concept to study. According to Ellul (1973, xi), “From 1920 to about 1933 the main emphasis was on the psychological: Propaganda is a manipulation of psychological symbols having goals of which the listener is not conscious.” Later in the twentieth century, “attention became focused on the intention of the propagandist…the aim to indoctrinate…has been regarded as the hallmark of propaganda.” Rather than attempt to define the term once again, Ellul (1973) argues, “In propaganda we find techniques of psychological influence combined with techniques of organization and the envelopment of people with the intention of sparking action.” Perhaps most famously, in his effort to provide some definitional parameters, Ellul (1973, x) notes, “Ineffective propaganda is no propaganda.” But today, propaganda and propagandists have evolved from their twentieth century predecessors. While the revolution of communication technologies has not fostered a truly democratic information ecology, it has increased competition in the global information environment, a reality that means actors can no longer control any person or group’s informational palette. Put simply, the “dark” age of propaganda, when Hitler’s Nazi regime was able to dominate Germany’s media spaces, is no longer 132 feasible. Today, some argue we have entered an era of democratic propaganda, a form of communication that both relies on the fundamental precepts of what constitutes effective persuasion techniques, while at the same time adjusting to today’s changed media environment. As Ellul describes: The principle aspect of democratic propaganda is that it is subject to certain values. It is not unfettered but fettered; it is an instrument not of passion but of reason. Therefore, democratic propaganda must be essentially be truthful…There is an unmistakable evolution here: lies and falsehoods are used less and less…The use of precise facts is becoming increasingly common (Ellul 1973, 239). The history of democratic propaganda is of particular relevance in a study of Al Jazeera, not only because the Network is steadfast in its use of factual information in its reporting of the news, but also because the Network has the declared purpose of promoting democratic values and culture via their broadcasting of the news. Indeed, the concept of democratic propaganda is aptly suited to describe much of what we today consider the “balanced” news: “A…trait of democratic propaganda is that it looks at both sides of the coin. The democratic attitude is frequently close to that of a university: there is no absolute truth, and it is acknowledged that the opponent has some good faith, some justice, some reason on its side. It is a question of nuances” (Ellul 1973, 240). Harold Lasswell first introduced the concept of democratic propaganda in 1927. To date, Laswell’s (1927, 627) definition of propaganda maintains resonance: “Propaganda is the management of collective attitudes by the manipulation of significant symbols.” Laswell makes a few distinctions between propaganda and other forms of communication. He argues that propaganda is different from education in that education 133 is focused on techniques while propaganda is about the “creation of valuational dispositions or attitudes.” Moreover, he argues that propaganda is distinct from deliberation in that “deliberation implies the search for the solution of a besetting problem with no desire to prejudice a particular solution in advance. The propagandist is very much concerned about how a specific solution is to be evoked and ‘put over’” (Lasswell 1927, 628). Importantly, Laswell (1927, 628) suggests that “the most subtle propaganda closely resembles disinterested deliberation (emphasis added).” Lasswell describes the distinction between democratic and totalitarian propaganda as one being between “contrasted incitement” and “positive incitement,” arguing that democratic propaganda “symboliz[es] the extended brotherly hand, [and] is a stimulus that springs from what the powers that really feel, in which they want to make the masses participate. It is a communal action” (cited in Ellul 1973, 240). Ellul (1973, 234) expands on Lasswell’s conception of democratic propaganda, arguing that it is in fact an inevitable and even necessary part of democratic governance in modern society. Indeed, he goes as far as to suggest that contemporary democratic societies have to lean on propaganda as the “implicit core of the democratic doctrine.” For Ellul (1973, 235), modern “truth is meaningless without propaganda,” and, he adds: facts do not assume reality in the people’s eyes unless they are established by propaganda. Propaganda, in fact, creates truth in the sense that it creates in men subject to propaganda all the signs and indicators of true believers. For modern man, propaganda is really creating truth…And in the view of the challenge the democracies face, it is of supreme importance that they abandon their confidence in truth as such and assimilate themselves to the methods of propaganda. Unless 134 they do so, considering the present tendencies of civilization, the democratic nations will lose the war conducted in this area. Drawing from the examples of communist and authoritarian regimes of World War II, Ellul (1973, 243) seems to lend credence to the case for propagating support for democratic governance, arguing, “the myth of democracy is far from exhausted and can still furnish good propaganda material…And to the extent that democracy is presented, constructed, and organized as a myth, it can be a good subject of propaganda.” Ellul (1973, 243-4) elaborates, suggesting that propagating the myth of egalitarian democratic governance can effectively promote democratic cultures abroad: “Propaganda appeals to belief: it rebuilds the drive toward the lost paradise and uses of man’s fundamental fear. Only from this aspect does democratic propaganda have some chance of penetration into non-democratic foreign countries.” Thus, propaganda was not necessarily a negative, but it was also considered to be an important element of developing of democratic culture and knowledge. More recently, Philip Taylor (2002, 439) has laid out an “unashamed argument” for democratic propaganda. He states, “Propaganda is about persuasion, and democracy is about consensus. Any attempt to persuade people to abide by a commonly held set of rules (laws) and principles (values) is not incompatible with toleration of minorities, acceptance of the ‘other’ or respect for law and order.” Pointing to the British example for truthfulness during World War II, Taylor (2002, 440) argues that the key to effective 135 democratic propaganda is not only telling the truth, but expressing truthful claims in credible ways, something he refers to as “credible truths.” Put another way: Propagandists frequently provide reliable and accurate information to their intended audience…Information that can be verified, what we commonly refer to as facts, is far more credible than empty assertions on the part of the propagandist. And this credibility bleeds over not only to the source but to surrounding messages as well. Propaganda messages that are easily supported by readily available information will work to increase the credibility of the source among audience members. And most importantly, when bits of fact are pieced together in a carefully crafted news story, these verifiable factual bits lend credibility to the overall news story (Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 2004, 155). Thus, Taylor argues that what is crucial to identifying and studying propaganda is not looking at the “facts” of a particular newscast per se, but rather how facts, images, and information of current events are pieced together, or narrativized, to constitute a story. In scholarly communication literature, we often refer to this process as the “framing” of the news (for example, see Entman 2004). PROPAGANDA, MYTH & THE MIDDLE EAST Propaganda, as a theory of communication, has a long history. As Taylor (1992) notes, “Plato left it to his pupil Aristotle to develop another fundamental axiom of modern democratic propaganda, namely his statement in Rhetoric that ‘the truth tends to win out over the false.’” Indeed, the concept has deep roots in rhetorical theory. According to O’Shaughnessy (2004, 65), “Rhetoric, symbolism and myth are the interwoven trinity that has underpinned most propaganda through history,” adding, “to work effectively rhetoric must ‘resonate’ with attitudes and feelings within the target; 136 great rhetoric is substantially a co-production between sender and receiver.” The second part of the trinity, symbols, are “condensed meaning and as such [are] an economical form of propaganda…a symbol eludes precise scrutiny and can be ‘read’ in many ways, endowed with multiple meanings.” Symbols constitute the visual aspect of the propaganda, a critical connecting variable between the rhetorical message and the myth, or the larger story within which the news is presented. Myth “is the power of narrative. Propaganda rejects intellectual challenge, and it seeks the refuge of the structures of myths.” O’Shaughnessy’s “trinity”—three variables that I think are more accurately described as the rhetorical dimension of propaganda—is important in that it helps explain which messages are most effective at influencing the emotions, opinions and actions of the audience. Moreover, it is a helpful reminder that studying propaganda is not simply about the intentions of the actors and organizations involved, but also about the specific dispositions and cultural inclinations of the target audience. Ellul (1973, 243) agrees that cultural myths are at the center of any effective propaganda: We have abundant proof nowadays that straight information addressed to a foreign country is entirely useless…facts are not believed…In fact, propaganda can penetrate the consciousness of the masses of a foreign country only through the myth. It cannot operate with simple arguments pro and con. It does not address itself to already existing feelings, but must create an image to act as a motive force. This image must have an emotional character that leads to the allegiance of the entire being….That is, it must be a myth. Ellul’s analysis is of particular note given the changes in today’s information environment. Audiences today—particularly in the Middle East—are faced with many 137 competing depictions of the facts of a particular event. In situations where audiences are confronted with competing narratives of global events, people turn to the source of information that they see as most familiar—information that is likely to affirm their beliefs and values rather than inform their opinions (see Hafez 2007). “Individuals seek out opinion formers from within their own class or sex for confirmation of their own ideas and attitudes. Most writers today agree that propaganda confirms rather than converts, and is most effective when its message is in line with the existing opinions and beliefs of those it is aimed at” (Welch 1999). Broadly speaking, the international news broadcasters are natural conduits of what has historically been described as propaganda. As Gadi Wolfsfeld (1997, 3) explains, “the best way to understand the role of the news media in politics is to view the competition over the news media as part of a larger and more significant contest among political antagonists for political control.” International broadcasters, and the news media in general, are tasked with condensing both local and global events and highly complicated goings-on in limited segments of time, and often without total knowledge of the background of the events being reported. They are, for the most part, encouraged to keep the audience’s attention, a fact that is becoming exceptionally difficult with even the most creative forms of entertainment, not to mention news media. Of course, the sine quo non of broadcast journalism is to pick and choose facts, events, and images from a particular day’s reporting, and package them in a way that presents a story capable of drawing in and informing an audience. Sometimes it is a story of strength, other times 138 weakness and failure, but regardless the process of narrativizing bits of information into consumable stories is journalism. And it is this process of packaging information that lends itself to be easily corrupted into propaganda. According to the infamous German propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels (1930): Political propaganda…speaks the language of the people because it wants to be understood by the people. Its task is the highest creative art of putting sometimes complicated events and facts in a way simple enough to be understood by the man on the street…It is a question of making it clear to him by using the proper approach, evidence and language. It is thus the stories that are told—using factual information—that can constitute democratic propaganda. By packaging news into a story that pulls from the audience’s collective understanding of culture, history, and politics, broadcasters can shape current events to reaffirm or, occasionally, slightly alter existing cultural myths that are at the heart of public attitudes. Cultural myths, and the narratives that they draw from, are of course related to perceptions of the collective identities of the targeted audience. Similar to Aristotle’s description of the enthymeme as the most effective means of persuasion, effective broadcasting calls upon the collective memory of the audience in the construction of the overall story. “Propagandistic measures work only to the extent that they accurately and effectively tap something within the audience’s collective identity operating in a specific context…it should not be forgotten that the audience takes an active role in constructing meaning from the communicative acts created in the interaction” (Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 2004, 163). Thus, part of identifying and evaluating propaganda requires an in139 depth examination of the target audience and the available collective memories that are drawn from as broadcasters talk about current events. The framing of events, conflict and war in particular, needs to be read in the context of the history of the region, for it is that collective memory that is drawn from in the day-to-day narrativization of a day’s events. Put another way, according to O'Shaughnessy (2004, 4), “Propaganda dramatizes our prejudices and…thus becomes a co-production in which we are willing participants, it articulates externally the things that are half-whispered internally. Propaganda is not so much stimulus-response as a fantasy or conspiracy we share.” FILLING THE GAP: BETWEEN NEWS AND PROPAGANDA Since its inception, Al Jazeera has received an enormous amount of publicity for breaking many of the taboos of self-censorship in the Arab media. New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman (2001) wrote that Al Jazeera is “not only the biggest media phenomenon to hit the Arab world since the advent of television, it also is the biggest political phenomenon.” Indeed, many Middle Eastern experts have praised Al Jazeera for creating a forum in which Arab opposition movements can freely criticize their host governments without fear of retribution. According to Edmund Ghareeb (2000), an expert on Middle Eastern affairs, “it has raised the level of debate and opened the door for freer and more accurate news in the Arab world…Al Jazeera has helped satisfy a hunger in the Arab world. Its debates and discussion programs are tumultuous even by western standards.” 140 While Al Jazeera has been able to be far more critical—and as such appears independent—than any of its competitors, this is not to say that the broadcaster is divorced from Qatari politics. When the broadcaster was launched, the outgoing undersecretary at the Ministry of Information and Culture, Sheikh Hamad bin Thamir Al Thani, was appointed to lead Al Jazeera’s board of directors. Al Jazeera is much softer on the Qatari government than it is on other governments in the region. For instance, the Network very rarely draws attention to the fact that the Al Udeid airbase and the central headquarters for Central Command are stationed just 20 miles west of Doha. According to Zayani (2005, 10), Al Jazeera “offers a sparing coverage of its host country and is careful not to criticize it….There is a perception that the Qatari political leadership subtly manipulates Al Jazeera for the purposes of controlling Qatari society by ignoring domestic issues.” Naomi Sakr (1998) argues that Al Jazeera walks a very thin line between objectivity and subjectivity: “Al Jazeera’s output indicates that it has been given considerable scope. Its staff prioritize stories according to their newsworthiness, not their acceptability to local regimes…Newsworthiness criteria, however, are subjective, and Al Jazeera’s criteria may well reflect the Qatari leadership’s agenda.” As an example of the synergy between Al Jazeera’s news agenda and Qatar’s national interest, many point to a heavy-handed anti-Saudi slant in Al Jazeera’s coverage of Saudi Arabia during its first 10 years of operation, a bias that was seen as part of Qatar’s efforts to combat Saudi influence in the region. This comes as no surprise given the history of hostilities between Sheikh Hamad and the Kingdom. According to an Al 141 Jazeera newsroom employee, “coverage of Saudi Arabia was always politically motivated at Al Jazeera—in the past, top management used to sometimes force-feed the reluctant news staff negative material about Saudi Arabia, apparently to placate the Qatari leadership” (Worth 2008). In 2005, Al Jazeera aired a number of programs needling Saudi Arabia on human rights issues, including the lack of women’s suffrage, the poor treatment of political prisoners and its use of the death penalty on children. AlArabiya, the Saudi-financed pan-Arab news outlet, responded with a special highlighting the friendly relationship between the Emir’s wife and the Israeli deputy minister of education who had recently visited Qatar’s newly minted education city. Al Jazeera responded by escalating its critical coverage of Saudi human rights in a run-up to a meeting between the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and President Bush, and Al-Arabiya upped its personal attacks against the Qatari royal family, airing a feature accusing a member of the Qatari royal family of having sexual relations with underage women in Prague while on vacation. While Al Jazeera’s reports were factual and indeed newsworthy, they were also in perfect sync with Qatari efforts to combat Saudi influence and establish independence from its neighbor (Fandy 2005). Yet, recently, after the reestablishment of Qatari-Saudi diplomatic ties in March 2008, Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Kingdom has softened considerably, and “the newly cautious tone appears to have been dictated to Al Jazeera’s management by the rulers of Qatar” (Worth 2008). More broadly, since its inception, countries throughout the region, as well as the US, have responded to ill-received coverage on Al Jazeera through official diplomatic 142 channels with the government of Qatar, a sign that most governments feel that Al Jazeera operates under the authority of its financier and overseer, Sheikh Hamad. Recently, in January 2009 Egyptian officials were enraged over Al Jazeera’s coverage of Egypt’s role in Gaza, arguing that it was an effort to tarnish Egypt’s role as an impartial mediator while promoting Qatar’s status as a fair and trustworthy negotiator. Egyptian hostility towards the Network and the Qatari government was significant. In the Egyptian daily AlAhram, columnist Tareq Hassan wrote to Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad saying: We all know very well that the Al Jazeera employees...are merely civil servants, and do not have the right or the authority to determine the station's policy or approach. Therefore, it is not they who are responsible for this tendency to systematically attack Egypt on every matter…The stance taken by Al Jazeera will…have negative repercussions for Qatar's relations with the other Arab countries (MEMRI 2009). As a result of Al Jazeera’s harsh coverage, Egypt lobbied and successfully excluded Qatar from being invited to a summit, held in Riyadh in February 2009, focused on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (Lynch 2009). Yet, the potential synergy between Qatari politics and Al Jazeera’s agenda has not been key to Al Jazeera’s popularity, nor has Qatar’s growing regional influence. Rather, it has been the Network’s coverage of regional conflicts that has really drawn the attention of Arab audiences and the ire of Western governments. Indeed, in the Middle East there are two issues that stand out as critical in the collective psyche of its citizenry: the US-led invasion of Iraq and the ongoing conflict between the Arabs, particularly the Palestinians and Israelis. A number of public opinion polls confirm that these two issues 143 are central to how many in the region form their opinions about the United States and Arab governments. James Zogby (2002) reported findings from an eight-country survey (Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel) of 3,800 Arab adults and found that Arabs had described “the rights of the Palestinian people” as more important than their concern for their “personal economic situation” and “moral standards.” More recently, another poll conducted by Zogby International’s Arab American Institute (2006) in five Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Lebanon) found that US policy towards the Palestinian people and Iraq was most likely to impact the respondent’s opinion of the United States. Gallup (2009) released similar findings, with approximately 1000 participants from 10 predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa, the large majority of which responded that pulling out of Iraq would most profoundly impact their opinion of the United States. Importantly, Gallup released these results with data regarding US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict omitted. Lynch (2009) argues that this omission is significant: “Virtually every survey has found this to be among the most— and usually the single most—important issue shaping Arab perceptions.” Divorced from its negative baggage, the history of propaganda provides some helpful lessons for understanding why particular media messages resonate with Arab audiences. In the Middle East, while not necessarily seen as objective, Al Jazeera is widely considered independent, accurate, and modern—characteristics considered antithetical to the propaganda empires of the twentieth century. Indeed, Mohamed 144 Gueves (2008), a Kuwaiti media scholar, describes Al Jazeera’s coverage of Middle East politics “as simple, unbiased truth. It represents what we Arabs are seeing on the ground.” Yet, historically, “propaganda does not often come marching towards us waving swastikas and chanting ‘Seig heil’; its real power lies in its capacity to conceal itself, to appear natural, to coalesce completely and indivisibly with the values and accepted power symbols of a given society” (Foulkes 1983, 7). Indeed, the most powerful propagandistic messages have been precisely those which don’t seem like propaganda at all, but rather fit neatly into the existing social mores and expectations of an audience: “Propaganda is not brainwashing—or the introduction of new ideas, attitudes and beliefs—contrary to the individuals’ cognitive structure. Rather propaganda is a resonance strategy, the discovery of culturally shared beliefs and the deliberate reinforcement and ultimately aggrandizement of those beliefs” (Johnson-Cartee and Copeland 2004, 4). As is noted at the beginning of this chapter, Arab media culture is steeped in a history of anti-colonialism. Fear and defensiveness from foreign intervention is the predominant narrative present throughout Arab generations, albeit based in perceptions of Persian, Ottoman, British, American, or Jewish imperialism. And it is from within this narrative that Al Jazeera’s coverage of regional conflicts has been able to capitalize and mobilize Arab audiences. It is precisely this strategy of presenting the news within a meta-narrative of Arab nationalism and anti-colonialism that is at the heart of Al Jazeera’s success. As Mohamed Zayani (2005, 8) outlines, by “tapping into the Arab 145 identity during times marked by Arab disunity, Al Jazeera has emerged as a key opinion maker.” Critics of Al Jazeera are relentless in their attacks on the Network’s programming. Fouad Ajami (2001) argues that at Al Jazeera the “Hollywoodization of news is indulged with an abandon that would make the Fox News Channel blush.” Ajami’s lengthy piece in the New York Times Sunday magazine, published soon after 9/11, depicted Al Jazeera as a promoter of Osama bin Laden and anti-Americanism, arguments that have profoundly framed the debate surrounding Al Jazeera here in the US since. Ajami (2001) wrote, “Al Jazeera’s reporters see themselves as ‘anti-imperialists.’ These men and women are convinced that the rulers of the Arab world have given in to American might; these are broadcasters who play to an Arab gallery whose political bitterness they share— and feed.” In his examination of the Arab news media, Fandy (2000, 388) agrees, arguing, “Al Jazeera represented a new kind of alliance between nationalists and Islamists.” Ajoumi’s (2001) concern is that Al Jazeera, via its inflammatory reporting, is actually fueling a clash of civilizations. He claims that the type of programming aired deliberately “fans the flames of Muslim outrage and insidiously reinforces existing prejudices.” Even Al-Jazeera’s supporters voice concern, suggesting that “its success with audiences has caused a strident and highly politicized tone to creep into some of its programming” (Zayani 2005, 22). According to Zev Chafets, “its occasional interviews 146 with Western statesmen are designed to provide it with a fig leaf of objectivity” (cited in Zayani 2005, 23). Ali Bayramoglu, an Islamic Turkish writer, agrees: “The secret and power of Al Jazeera lie in a vision structured around a context of international Islamic identity. Al Jazeera reflects the ongoing process of the politicization of an Islamic identity” (cited in Zayani 2005, 31). According to the Suleiman Al Shammari (1999, 45), Al Jazeera plays off and feeds into Arab nationalist trends among its viewers and “the channel promotes an Arab nationalist discourse wrapped in a democratic style which makes it easy for viewers to palate” (cited in Zayani 2005, 7). Zayani (2005, 7-8) explains that the message is similar to Nasser’s Voice of the Arabs, but more “subtle and less contrived…Al Jazeera has reinvigorated a sense of common destiny in the Arab world and is even encouraging Arab unity, so much so that pan-Arabism is being reinvented on this channel.” Salameh Nematt, a Jordanian reporter for Al-Hayat, takes this criticism a step further, arguing, Al Jazeera as an institution was nothing more than a continuation of Nasser’s radio propaganda machine, Saut al-Arab [Voice of the Arabs]. Just as Saut alArab was created to mobilize the masses but ended up giving them a false expectation of imminent victory in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, so Al-Jazeera was focusing too heavily on pan-Arab causes and had inspired false hopes that Iraq could resist the US invasion (cited in Sakr 2007, 123). By focusing on “dead Palestinians and dead Iraqis,” Nematt argues that Al Jazeera has “sabotaged Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the creation of a stable and united Iraq” (cited in Sakr 2007, 124). 147 Indeed, Al Jazeera has distanced itself from other transnational media organizations by occasionally acknowledging that its coverage and framing of events during the Iraqi war are guided by a particular worldview that resonates with its target audience. Faisal Bodi (2003), senior editor at Al Jazeera, outlined the Network’s approach to covering Iraq as such: “Of all the major global networks, Al Jazeera has been alone in proceeding from the premise that this war should be viewed as an illegal enterprise. It has broadcast the horror of the bombing campaign, the blown-out brains, the blood-spattered pavements, the screaming infants and the corpses.” Similarly, Asaad Taha, an investigative reporter for Al Jazeera, has defended the inflammatory and oftentimes partial nature of his journalism by arguing that he “is adamantly against the notion of neutrality. There is no such thing as a neutral journalist or a neutral media for that matter” (cited in Zayani 2005, 18). Jihad Bailout, former director of public affairs, defended the organization’s portrayal of the war in Iraq by arguing, “Our audience actually expects us to show them blood, because they realize that war kills… If we were not to show it, we would be accused by our viewers...of perhaps hiding the truth or trying to sanitize the war” (cited in Sharke 2004, 19). Al Jazeera’s history of reporting on Iraq is important to note. In 2003, its director general, Mohammed Jassem al-Ali, was abruptly fired. Al-Ali, who had been CEO of Al Jazeera since its inception, was dismissed after the Iraqi National Congress released a report indicating that Al-Ali had assured the Huessin regime that Al Jazeera would favorably cover his regime in the face of potential Western intervention (Sharp 2003). 148 Since, Al Jazeera has continued to frame its coverage against the US-led effort, labeling Iraqi attacks against US forces as “resistance” to an “occupation.” Although Al Jazeera’s reports from Iraq are factual accounts of the latest events, critical statements often follow reports from local Iraqis without providing the perspective of coalition troops. According to a report prepared by the Congressional Research Service, “Al Jazeera’s Iraq coverage is often introduced by a short series of images, depicting US soldiers in a negative light” (Sharp 2003, 8). In Aday et al’s (2005) content analysis of six mainstream news networks’ coverage of the war in Iraq, he found that Al Jazeera was much more likely to be critical of the American-led effort, often focusing on civilian destruction and deaths, and virtually never aired programming considered to be supportive of the war effort. More central to Qatar’s rising influence in the region is Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli-Arab conflict, including Israel’s invasion of Gaza in January of 2009. Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, some media scholars argued that Al Jazeera had placed itself on the media-map through its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lynch (2005, 38) suggests the coverage of the Palestinian al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000 offered an “occasion to broadcast graphic images of intense combat from the ground level—and talk shows full of appeals for Arab action against Israel. That coverage consolidated Al Jazeera’s centrality to Arab political life.” 149 Similar to how Al Jazeera journalists cover the war in Iraq, the concept of objective reporting is not as central to its approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly in times of conflict. As Kai Hafez (2005) observes: Injustices against Arabs are dealt with much more critically and extensively than injustices done to Israelis, whose victims are hardly present on screen. The supremacy of a Pan-Arab agenda evident in programmes broadcast by Al Jazeera becomes clear when the network—justifiably—criticizes, time and again, injustices arising from Israeli or American policy and their militaries, while often downplaying the responsibility of Arab states, regimes and the role of ‘privatized forms of violence’ (terrorism). Similarly, Muhammad Ayish (2002, 150) suggests that, when it comes to its coverage of Arab regional conflicts, “Al Jazeera lacks professional standards of objectivity.” Mohammed el-Nawawy (2004), describes this phenomenon as contextual objectivity, arguing that “Al Jazeera provide[s] news about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from an Arab perspective, i.e. they sympathize with the Palestinian resistance.” Walid Al-Omary, Al Jazeera’s senior correspondent in the West Bank town of Ramallah, touched on the difficulty of maintaining an objective and neutral approach to covering the IsraeliPalestinian conflict: “To be objective in this area is not easy because we live here. We are part of the people here. And this situation belongs to us, and we have our opinions” (cited in el-Nawawy and Iskander 2003, 53). According to Syrian émigré and novelist Qusai Darwish, Al Jazeera has “helped revitalize the anti-Israel current in the Arab world,” adding, “Indeed, it has assisted in the evolution of a strong pan-Arab current of public opinion” (cited in Makovsky 2001). 150 While many point to the fact that Al Jazeera was the first Arab broadcaster to invite an Israeli official to be interviewed on air, and that its talk shows often include opinions or statements from Western leaders, Hafez (2005) notes that “in spite of efforts to integrate American and Israeli voices, most Arab television reporting on regional conflicts represents a techno-compatible, globalized form of populism, rather than a contribution to international dialogue.” In a comparative content analysis of Al Jazeera, a state-run, terrestrial Jordanian television channel, and CNN International, Khalil Rinnawi (2006,108) found that “Al Jazeera covered events with a clear editorial position…that tended to be unbalanced on behalf of the Arab or Islamic side…Al Jazeera offered negative, critical treatment for conflicts involving the US.” Examining Arab satellite media in a period of months after 9/11, a French Panos study found that Al Jazeera was more critical of the United States than many other Arab news media (Lamloum 2003). In another content analysis of Al Jazeera and several of its regional competitors, Muhammed Ayish (2002, 150) found that, in the area of regional conflicts, Al Jazeera lacks professional standards of objectivity: “When it comes to issues enjoying pan-Arab consensus, objectivity in the sense of balanced reporting of conflicting views seems to be virtually nonexistent.” Importantly, Al Jazeera stands out from its regional competitors with its coverage of the ongoing battle between Arabs and Israelis. During the 2006 conflict in Lebanon, Al-Arabiya, Al Jazeera’s main competitor, was in sync with the Saudi foreign policy, 151 focusing its reporting on blaming Hezbollah, thus providing Israel with political cover for its attacks in Southern Lebanon. According to Lynch: That meant they underplayed the story. At the same time, Al Jazeera was flooding the zone and throwing everything they had at covering the story. On the one hand, people were angry; they’re pissed at Israel and pissed at the US and they know Al Jazeera is the place to go when they’re feeling like that. So you have a combination of Al Jazeera covering it really well and Al Arabiya, for political reasons, choosing to take itself out of the game (cited in Rushing 2007, 137). Josh Rushing (2007, 137) adds that while the Lebanese television stations were also covering the conflict in great detail, especially Hezbollah’s Al-Manar, “Al Jazeera was putting it in the context of a wider Arab narrative—something that was not lost on its Arab audience.” Similarly, in 2009, Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli incursion into Gaza outperformed its competitors, largely for the same reasons (Arab Media Shack 2009). Even Al Jazeera’s Journalistic Code of Ethics provides evidence of an institutional slant in favor of the culturally similar. Kai Hafez (2008, 156) writes: In the case of Al Jazeera, community orientations make themselves felt in the modern disguise of audience orientations when the code states that the network gives special attention to the ‘feelings of victims of crime, war persecution and disaster, their relatives and our viewers,’ might be considered to conflict with the aim of objective reporting because what about victims that are not related to Al Jazeera? Thus, in covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Al Jazeera follows a similar approach to its coverage of the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism in general: it uses vivid, violent montages of Palestinian suffering to introduce news segments; it employs language which describes suicide bombings as “martyrdom operations;” and it calls the Israeli army an “occupation force.” This formula for covering regional conflicts—pinning 152 foreign forces against regional, pan-Arab “brothers and sisters”—can be described as “Al Jazeera’s personalization of the news, in which it emphasizes Arab and Muslim victimization, is a template which has been applied in its coverage of Iraq and the IsraeliPalestinian” (Sharp 2003, 10). It is this template that draws viewers to Al Jazeera, especially in times of conflict. And, increasingly, this is a global phenomenon. In January 2009, amidst renewed violence in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli Defense Force and Hamas, Al Jazeera English saw a 600 percent increase in its online viewership, the majority of which came from the US and the UK (Burman 2009). CONCLUSION Al Jazeera, a revolutionary newsmaker in the Arab world, was born of and has operated fundamentally as a hybrid of Arab sensibilities and Western technology. Drawing from Western-trained journalists and journalistic style, its reporters—at least prior to the launching of Al Jazeera English—had one thing in common: their Arab history and heritage. Its news is grounded in an Arab perspective of the world, which is steeped in a history of religion, underdevelopment, colonialism, and oppression. Study after study has found that Al Jazeera’s programming reflects this uniquely Arab vantage point, a fundamental distrust of foreign actors, particularly when it covers issues of regional import, such as the war in Iraq and the ongoing tension between the Palestinians and Israel. As a result, the broadcaster has come to symbolize resistance to Western neocolonialism. Many in the region see its insistence on focusing on the civilian death and 153 destruction in wartime as a collective protest to the region’s long history of colonial violence. According to Adel Iskander, as a result, “They have been consistently a de facto alternative voice in the Arab world for any respective regime of government. In many countries where there is no official opposition party, Al Jazeera became the official opposition party” (cited in Rushing 2008, 135). The ethnic nature of Al Jazeera’s approach to journalism is, of course, not novel. American media outlets are similarly guilty of a cultural bias in their coverage of the US government, especially in times of war. Historically, many credit the success of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to its reliance on political émigrés that fled their home country and joined the broadcaster in order to defeat Communism. The CIA recruited these politically astute defectors, because they would constitute a powerful and culturally resonant message to their former countryman and women behind the Iron Curtain. Their broadcasts were informed by their experiences under oppressive communist regimes, as well as their desire to return home to an improved society (Nelson 1997). Al Jazeera’s regional success, while different from RFE/RL in many ways, relies in part on a carefully crafted meta-narrative that draws on the collective memory of Arabs in order to contextualize contemporary affairs. Its journalists, similar to those who worked for RFE/RL, seek not imply to report the news, but also for political reform. In describing what differentiates Al Jazeera’s approach to news from other broadcasters, Ibrahim Halel (2008), Director of News for the Network said: 154 Al Jazeera started pooling together people from different Arabic nationalities under one ceiling. We all believed in freedom of speech. They all suffered from not giving this freedom of speech in their media before they joined Al Jazeera. Whenever we are covering a story about Algeria or Sudan or about Egypt, we have people coming from these countries. They understand the story. The similarity to émigré journalists working for RFE/RL during the Cold War, with local expertise, fighting for political liberalization, is striking. Along these lines, when asked about the overarching mission of the Al Jazeera Network, Director General Wadah Khanfar (2007) says, “We have to empower the voiceless, rather than to empower the pulpit.” It is the integration of this “Arab” approach—particularly the collective memory of the region’s history—into Western technological news formats and media that is the key to Al Jazeera’s success. Its fusion of pan-Arab identity with sleek, Western-style commercialism has created a news network that the Arab world not only watches but also is proud of. Al Jazeera has become a symbol of the Arab world’s development, a marker of anti-colonialism and an idea driving the future of the region. Indeed, according to Iskander, “Al Jazeera has taken a Western approach to news and adapted it—and is now exporting it to the West,” arguing that the emergence of more opinionated cable news programming was driven in part by the success of Al Jazeera’s heavily opinionated news broadcasts (in Rushing 2007, 139). Or as one Egyptian viewer (2007) remarked, “we finally have something that, on the global stage, we can be proud of. Al Jazeera will fight for us. When we get bullied, Al Jazeera bullies back.” 155 CHAPTER 5: AL JAZEERA GOES GLOBAL “Most people can’t tell Al Jazeera from Al Gore from Al Qaeda.” Scott Ferguson, Director of Programmes, Al Jazeera English, 2008 In 2006, the Al Jazeera Network finally went global. The much-anticipated English language channel was launched on November 15 and hit the ground running. Eager to show off its newly christened broadcasting bureaus in Kuala Lumpur, Doha, London, and Washington, D.C., the broadcaster surveyed the world’s news from each of the studios, with breaks to field reporting from Iran, Sudan, and Zimbabwe, just to name a few. Al Jazeera’s first report from the Americas bureau featured a story not about the US, but rather Brazil, as if to demonstrate that not only was the US not the center of the world’s news, but also that it was not even the center of news in the Americas, at least not that day. Prior to Al Jazeera English’s (AJE) launch, Al Jazeera—the fifth most recognized brand in the world—had been subject to speculation, fantasy, and rumor in non-Arabic speaking societies. AJE’s job was meant to dispel those rumors—to finally give ‘a face to the name’ for viewers outside of the Arab world (Khanfar 2009). Spun-off from its Arabic sister, AJE was also fundamentally a hybrid of identities. The first global news network based in the Arab world, AJE recruited many high-level talents from Western news networks. Tasked with challenging centers of power around the world, the 156 broadcaster hired journalists from precisely the centers of power it was supposed to be calling into question. Moreover, AJE’s mission, while grounded in a Journalistic Code of Ethics modeled after its Western counterparts, is also explicitly political, something its Western counterparts shy away from: to reverse the flow of international news. In addition to challenging existing hierarchies of news and information, AJE’s mission, from its inception, has also been cultural. AJE’s architects created a news organization that hoped to bridge cultural differences, particularly between the Western and Arab worlds. AJE was created to put a more human and accurate face on the Arab and developing worlds. By collecting stories from the globally disenfranchised, focusing on the human side of politics (rather than the government or corporate side), AJE hoped to demonstrate that there are fundamental similarities between people around the world, regardless of religion, color, creed, or nationality (Helal 2008) This chapter looks at the Al Jazeera Network’s global expansion, its mission and objectives, and the means for achieving both. It argues that, to a certain extent, in its brief three years of operation, the Network has been successful. Moreover, as an example of how international news flows can shape international politics, and thus geopolitical calculations, the launching of AJE provides a useful case study for an examination of how new media technologies and platforms have altered the means by which power is controlled, contained, and networked. The chapter begins with an outline of the ideological outlook of AJE, as well as its global media strategy. It then discusses AJE’s 157 difficulty in getting access to the American market, which is followed up a look at how the Network has utilized new media technologies and platforms to circumvent traditional cable and satellite system operators to gain direct access to the American people. Finally, the chapter examines the potential consequence that AJE may have on cross-cultural dialogue and perceptions of a clash of civilizations between the Western and Arab worlds. FROM ARABIC TO ENGLISH The Al Jazeera Network has a troubled history when it comes to its access to the English-speaking world. Al Jazeera’s first venture into English was actually an English language website, introduced in March 2003. The site was launched on the heels of Al Jazeera’s controversial decision to broadcast video of dead and captured American soldiers in Iraq. Within the first 24 hours of the site’s launch, hackers were able to cripple the system, sending anyone who tried to enter the site (http://english.aljazeera.net/) to another page declaring, “God bless our troops,” with the American flag waving in the background. Incidentally, the Arabic-language website was also hacked, sending visitors to a webpage featuring pornographic content. The attack set back the English side a few months. Al Jazeera’s domain name enterprise, Network Solutions, as well as its host, DataPipe, were overwhelmed by the event and stopped working with Al Jazeera thereafter. As a result, the Network moved its servers to France. The English-language 158 website was re-launched several months later on September 1, 2003 (“English Al-Jazeera Website Hacked” 2003). Three years later, coinciding with the tenth anniversary of Al Jazeera, the Network launched AJE. Available in 80 million homes in its first week of broadcasting, AJE doubled its initial audience expectations, despite failing to access critical markets in the United States and Australia. Describing itself as “setting the news agenda,” and suggesting that November 15th was the beginning of a “new era in television news,” AJE did nothing short of declaring war on Western global media outlets CNN and BBC World (“Al Jazeera Launches English-Language Version” 2006). In the United States, AJE was received with hostility, functionally boycotted by every cable and satellite provider, and described as “enemy media” whose intent was to “infiltrate our country” (Stillwell 2006). As was argued in detail in the first chapter of this study, AJE’s shifting broadcast structure allows the Network to “move with the sun,” making it “the first truly global news channel” (Parsons 2008). After watching the first few days of its broadcasts, media critic Alia Malek (2006) argued, The shifting focus of the broadcast…makes the world seem a more connected place. It demonstrates in just seconds how the day’s events are in fact digested, experienced, and viewed differently across the world. Depending on who’s in primetime, that regional broadcast center becomes the network’s headquarters with the other three weighing in more like bureaus. Importantly, at the top of each hour, the broadcasting bureau checks in with the other three in order to survey the top news in each of the different regions. As is discussed in 159 detail in Chapter 1, AJE’s bureau structure, whereby broadcasting responsibilities are handed off between its four broadcasting bureaus around the world, is intentional in that it is meant to emphasize that all of the important news in the world does not originate in Western capitals. Its first day of broadcasts included a debate between Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya and Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, where Peres took a moment at the beginning of the conversation to note, “I am glad to be on Al-Jazeera English and that maybe in English Israelis and Palestinians can better talk peace where they had failed in ‘the other two languages’” (Ibid.). Its first day of broadcasts also featured an address by Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad to the European Parliament, a story that few outside of Qatar would have considered newsworthy (Ibid.). Contrasting it with both CNN and BBC world, Hugh Miles contends that “the news is people focused—not government focused—and it is more representative of the developing world than other channels. Anglo-American political stories…are exchanged for stories from Zimbabwe, Congo, Iran and elsewhere” (cited in Nkrumah 2006). Prior to AJE’s launch, managing director Nigel Parsons suggested that AJE’s mission had both political and cultural objectives: “we will be the first global news channel based in the Middle East looking outwards, we will reverse the flow of information…and therefore be a conduit to greater understanding between different peoples and different cultures” (cited in Pintak 2005). Moreover, Parson’s (2008) argues that the decision to create a global news network was driven in part by Qatar’s desire to further its standing in international politics: 160 Al Jazeera has raised Qatar’s profile diplomatically and politically here in the region. They don’t spend fortunes on F-16s, which are never going to fly anyway. The decision to launch AJE, in my mind, is a high profile investment in the country’s image abroad. We are supposed to be the public face of Qatar in the West. Reversing the flow of communication was always at the heart of AJE’s mission. Also described as giving a voice to the voiceless, or representing the global South in the public sphere, the Network is firmly driven by an ideology that aims to challenge existing meta-narratives in the global news discourse. An essential component to this strategy, according to Parsons (2008), is the diversity and decentralized nature of AJE’s reporting team: The philosophy is very much about decentralizing the news gathering process. We kind of reinvented the news gathering process. It’s to allow people to see events from the eyes of the people of that region, rather than through foreign eyes, which has tended to be the case in the past. And that’s a benefit to both, the viewer inside of the region and the viewer outside of the region. People are tired of seeing themselves through foreign eyes. We want Africans to tell us about Africa. We want Arabs to tell us about the Middle East and Asians to tell us about Asia. This “decentralization of the news” is aided by AJE’s sprinkling of 29 news bureaus, placed largely inside the developing world. Unlike Western international broadcasters that often try to distance themselves from the official public diplomacy apparatus in their country, arguing that they merely report the news and are not part of their government’s efforts to engage foreign audiences, AJE embraces its role as a cultural ambassador between the Arab world and the West: “We do very much see ourselves as a bridge between cultures offering that bridge of understanding” (Parsons 2008). 161 Unlike its Arab sister network, which focuses on Arab political and social affairs, AJE is a global network that seeks to tell the stories of the global disenfranchised, through local eyes, all in high-definition. Its goal of reversing the flow of communication is symbolically aligned with the Arabic broadcaster whose origins lie in combating the dominant media discourse in the region (this argument was more fully developed in Chapter 4). The means of achieving the decentralization of the news is in itself a challenge to the concept of objectivity. The idea that a local native speaker can tell a better and more accurate story is a de facto argument that the emotional and dramatic baggage that a journalist attached to a story actually adds to the reporting. As Malek (2006) noted, “One segment on Sudan that was repeated throughout the day was filed by a correspondent who was an African woman…In one visual frame the monolithic nature with which we see African women was no longer tenable because an African woman was cast as both reporter and subject.” Yet, whereas Al Jazeera Arabic’s target audience is well defined—the Arab world and its European and North American diasporas—AJE’s target audience is the broad and amorphous “English speaking world.” AJE’s ideological mission centers on identifying and challenging existing networks of power in the world. According to Marwan Bashara (2007), AJE’s Senior Political Analyst and one of the few members of the Network that is actively involved in both channels, it is this focus on questions of power in the international system, not its extensive bureau infrastructure or its intensely diverse coalition of journalists that makes the Network truly global: 162 Our aim is to start mobilizing people, as viewers. As they start listening to us… they start understanding that there is a global language, and that there is a global periphery and there are global power centers. People start understanding that the suffering in Mozambique or in Zimbabwe is very similar to what you are suffering from in India or Myanmar…And that’s why we’re global. We’re global not because of our satellites, because we broadcast to everyone…It’s because our themes and our stories are universal. Put another way, part of AJE’s mission is to tell stories of local disenfranchisement in ways that can connect with audiences around the world. Bashara’s comment about trying to mobilize international audiences is of particular note, as most Western broadcasters would be hesitant to acknowledge an overt effort at motivating an audience toward action. Importantly, AJE’s focus on mobilizing audiences to challenge existing systems of power is, again, quite similar to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s (RFE/RL) mandate during the Cold War (this argument was more fully developed in Chapter 2). AJE’s focus on centers and abuses of power is essential. Bashara (2007) argues that while currently there exists a perception of a so-called clash of civilizations, this is because media as a whole have failed in their framing of international news. Rather than focusing on the abuse and manipulation of power—for example, by considering who is benefited when an event is framed as a clash between the West and Islam—media have fed into cultural misperceptions. AJE, on the other hand, by focusing on power, can isolate people, organizations, and countries that are responsible for particular global problems without relying on the clash frame to tell a story. Its commitment to depth— focusing on five or six stories an hour rather than nine or 10—and its extensive network of journalists provides a means for placing a spotlight on stories where power has been 163 exercised in unjust ways, be it a Western corporation in Africa, human rights abuse in Saudi Arabia, or a corrupt mayor in the United States. In a content analysis of news coverage on AJE, the group Media Tenor (2006) found that AJE dedicated 30 percent of its news reports to international conflicts and terrorism, 10 percent more than Al Jazeera Arabic and Al-Manar (Hezbollah’s broadcasting arm), and three times more than the average American news network. Moreover, 45 percent of AJE’s content focused on Islamic countries, with only 25 percent focused on the Western world. That said, George W. Bush and Tony Blair were reported on more frequently than any other political leaders. To help put these figures in perspective, Christian Kolmer (2009), a member of Media Tenor’s team of researchers, found that the “non-Western, non-Islamic world was barely visible” in America, and the Islamic-world based news often was only centered on Iraq. Importantly, in its coverage of the West, AJE’s news of America was seen as exceptional, even compared to the domestic news media. Kolmer states, “despite its layout as a pan-Arab TV channel, AJE dedicates a bigger share of its newscasts to American domestic policy issues and domestic security than ABC, CBS, or NBC” (Ibid.). Moreover, while US TV news report about foreign countries mainly in the context of US interests, AJE deals with the domestic affairs of a larger number of countries. The spread of Al Jazeera English’s average hourly newscast spanned 16 countries, whereas US network news generally covered only eight, with time spent on Iraq more than double than coverage of any other foreign country (Ibid.). Kolmer (2009) concludes, “with regard of the low level of 164 international reporting in US TV news, AJE could be a positive addition to the US broadcasting scene.” However, AJE has faced several challenges. For example, some have called into question its Arab credentials. Its first managing director, Parsons, was a BBC-trained Brit. Its current managing director, Tony Burman, is a product of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). None of its broadcasting bureau heads are from the Arab world. Indeed, the highest-ranking Arab member in AJE’s leadership is Ibrahim Helal who also spent a part of his career at the BBC World Service Trust. According to Ahmed Mansour (2008), one of Al Jazeera Arabic’s most famous on-air personalities, AJE has failed to meet its goal to reversing the flow of communication. He argues, “the channel is currently managed by a Western mentality. They don’t know the Middle East and the South and they haven’t studied it and they will not study it.” Indeed, according to Mansour (2008), there was significant resentment on the Arabic side regarding AJE’s leadership: “They were talking with us as [though] they were the masters. We created and maintained the name of Al Jazeera in the World, not them.” Bashara (2007) puts the criticism another way. He argues that the key to Al Jazeera’s success was a mission of constantly questioning power and authority, regardless of the issue. And while AJE has inherited this same spirit, the Network is populated by Western-trained journalists that have spent their careers at other international networks 165 where power and authority were respected—or, as he argues, marketed—rather than questioned: The absolute majority, especially the leaders, the editorial team, producers and so on, come from other Western networks. And they are used to certain kind of work. They are waiting for the orders to come; the orders don’t come from Al Jazeera. They are waiting for the editorial line to come down, and you know it doesn’t seem to come down. They come from a place where you don’t question authority, you market authority. AJE also faced something of a staffing crisis in early 2008. At the outset, salaries on the English side were higher than on the Arabic side, the facilities were nicer, and their contracts included enticements such as paid private school for children as well as housing and travel subsidies. Of course, as word leaked of the contracts, the Arabic side grew even more resentful, perhaps rightfully so. After all, the Arabic network not only created what was in 2004 described as the fifth most recognized brand in the entire world, they did so in the face of severe opposition from the Arab world and from the West. Colleagues were imprisoned, tortured, and even died covering wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and thus some on the Arabic side viewed the new, over-indulgent English network with some disdain. Partly due to these grumblings from the Arabic side, the Network reviewed some of the contracts that had been used to recruit top-level Western talents to Doha. Salaries were reduced, benefits put on hold, promises not kept. According to insiders, “resignations have occurred across the board, including the director of human resources, the director of operations, producers, senior camera operators and editors” (Holmwood 2008). Thus, in early 2008, AJE lost more than 15 staff members, including 166 Steve Clark, described as a key force behind the initial impetus and mission for the global network (Gibson 2008). Despite these problems and grievances, however, people within the organization remain hopeful that it can achieve its goals of reversing the flow of communication and providing a bridge for cross-cultural dialogue. With AJE’s new managing director at the helm, many see the Network as heading into the right direction. Burman, a Canadian, was able to successfully lobby for AJE’s presence on the Canadian airwaves, an achievement that had eluded his predecessor. Abderrahum Foukara (2008), Managing Editor and Bureau Chief at Al Jazeera Arabic’s Washington, D.C., bureau, is especially optimistic: The idea is phenomenal. I look at it in terms of the political divisions. If you look at where Al Jazeera brought the Arab world today in terms of putting its interests and concerns on the global map and connecting Arab audiences. I think if Al Jazeera English achieves similar success broadcasting to the audiences that it broadcasts to outside the Arab world, we could be looking at a very interesting information revolution; finally, a global village. Significant questions remain, however, particularly regarding the issue of how the public diplomacy values of AJE might be evaluated. How does the Network advance the interests of Qatar, the Arab world more broadly, or other nations around the world? Has the Network changed people’s opinions of Qatar or Arabs more broadly? How have Americans tried to combat “switching” power by keeping AJE’s programming off of major cable packages? How has the Al Jazeera Network fought back, using new and social media technologies to further its reach into the US? 167 COMING TO AMERICA Al Jazeera is no stranger to opposition. Its history is a story of overcoming barriers. Hostile and suspicious governments have closed bureaus in 18 countries and its signal has been blocked in 30 nations. Indeed, the Network’s operating public relations philosophy in the lead up to AJE’s launch was “there is no such thing as bad press” (Khanfar 2007). Although it had been conscious of its criticisms of the Arabic network’s content over the years, the Bush administration’s protests only added to the credibility of the broadcasts in the eyes of most Arabs. ‘If the center of global power—the hegemon— is chastising you, then you must be doing something right,’ or so the logic goes. Yet, its struggle to make its way onto American airwaves is by far the largest hurdle the organization has faced to date. Prior to its global launch, Joanne Levine (2006), AJE’s Executive Producer of Programming for the Americas and self described “New York Jew,” penned an op-ed piece in the Washington Post titled “Al Jazeera, As American as Apple Pie.” In it, she argued that the institutional and cultural resistance that AJE was experiencing in the US reflected poorly on American culture and exposed the intolerance of many Americans when it comes to all things Arab. Citing a story where three AJE reporters, all of whom were American citizens, faced harassment from local police and the US border patrol after visiting Crosby, North Dakota, simply because they worked for Al Jazeera, Levine 168 (2006) argued that, while she and her colleagues worked hard to produce heavy-hitting journalism, “prejudice here persists, and those of us who work for the network find ourselves running, at every turn, into resistance, rejection and racism…As al-Jazeera (English) prepares to open a window onto the world, the doors here are slamming shut.” Citing further harassment of AJE reporters, and shunning by major banks, insurance corporations, and cable and television distributors, Levine (2006) concludes, each incident shrouded in bigotry has served to convince me ever more that the United States needs an outlet like al-Jazeera International, offering a wider panorama of views. These are dangerous times. And they will just get more dangerous if each side continues to retreat. Al-Jazeera doesn't shy away from any side of a story. And Americans should not shy away from al-Jazeera. Meanwhile, Accuracy in Media (AIM), a conservative media watchdog organization led by Cliff Kincaid, was working hard to ensure that AJE would not find its way onto any major American cable system. Before AJE even launched, AIM commissioned a poll and surveyed 1,000 adults in the US in September 2006. The poll asked the participants if they supported Al Jazeera’s launching of an international network inside the US, while also noting, “some U.S. officials have accused it of supporting terrorist causes” (Accuracy in Media 2006). The politically-charged poll found that, before even a single minute of broadcasting, 53 percent of Americans were opposed to the Network’s presence on American airwaves. Only 29 percent of respondents supported the introduction of AJE’s programming in the US AIM (2006) was clear in its message with its press release outlining the results of the survey: “The American people do not want Al Jazeera (English) in their homes and businesses.” 169 In October of 2006, just one month before the Network’s launch, Kincaid (2006) spoke on Capitol Hill to a sizeable crowd—including journalists from AJE—about the threat of letting AJE into the American market. He argued, “When Al-Jazeera sought entry into the Canadian media market, it was accused of providing a platform for hatemongers, terrorists, anti-Semitism, and even Holocaust denial.” Of course, Kincaid was referring to the Arabic network, but blurred the two together and argued that AJE would foster anti-Americanism among English-speaking Muslims around the world. Matthew Hickman (2006), a writer at AIM, took the argument one step further, proclaiming, “if Al Jazeera makes waves on American cable, then the possibility of suicide bombers in America could lurk close behind.” In addition to the poll and town hall meetings, AIM produced and distributed a film, Terror Television: The Rise of Al Jazeera and the Hate America Media, and also launched a website dedicated to smearing AJE, stopaljazeera.org. Incidentally, it is important to note that Al Jazeera’s more controversial Arabic-language network is available throughout the US and subscribed to by 200,000 homes via the Dish Network (El Amrani 2006). AJE was ill prepared for the stream of negative press it received, driven by Kincaid’s AIM, among other groups. Until AJE, the Al Jazeera Network had never hired a public relations firm to combat allegations made against it. Its credibility was well established within the Arab world, and most criticisms of the Network came from unpopular Arab and Western governments, typically boosting the perceived independence of its news. Yet, the situation in the US was different. As Will Stebbins 170 (2008), AJE’s Washington Bureau Chief, acknowledged, “There was a lot of hostility and that's what we entered into—that atmosphere. So we had sort of a legacy thing, the hostilities from Al Jazeera Arabic were being transferred to us. We happened to launch during a difficult period, particularly with this country’s relationship with the Middle East.” American hostility towards the Al Jazeera Network is well documented. In addition to the heated rhetoric used to discredit Al Jazeera’s Arabic language broadcasts (discussed in detail in Chapter 3), the Bush administration at times treated the news organization as a legitimate political enemy, and thus target, in its War on Terrorism. In November 2001, Al Jazeera’s bureau in Kabul was destroyed in the middle of the night during an attack from US forces. Afterwards, The Pentagon asserted, without providing additional detail or evidence, that the office was a “known Al-Qaeda facility.” Washington insider Ron Suskind (2006, 138) later revealed that the attack was intentional and that, “inside the CIA and White House there was satisfaction that a message had been sent to Al-Jazeera.” That same year, Al Jazeera cameraman Sami al-Hajj was arrested in Pakistan and accused of having ties to Al Qaeda. In June 2002, Al-Hajj was transported to Guantanamo Bay, where he was allegedly tortured, and released in 2008 without ever being charged with a crime. According to al-Hajj, throughout his confinement interrogators pressed him for information about the Network, probing for evidence that the Al Jazeera Network was colluding with terrorist groups. Then, in 2003, American missiles hit Al Jazeera’s bureau in Baghdad, killing Tareq Ayyoub. Finally, in 2005, the 171 Daily Mirror published the details of a memo of a meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Blair where Bush, in the aftermath of the Network’s highly critical coverage of American incursion in Fallujah, had allegedly called for a “bombing raid” on Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar (Goodman 2006). Despite the difficulties in gaining access, however, the American market was seen as essential to AJE’s mission. In terms of achieving its goal of bridging cultural divides, access to American public audiences was critical. According to a 2006 study conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, there is no greater perception of a clash of civilizations than between Americans and Arabs. Moreover, Washington, D.C., is the center of geopolitical power, and thus shaping discourse in the district was an essential element of “reversing the flow of communication.” As Stebbins (2008) notes, “the US is important to us in that it’s a place that we’d like to be influential, be part of the conversation.” Or, as Jon Petrovich, head of the broadcast program at Northwestern University’s Medill School for Journalism explains, AJE is not looking to be the most popular news network in the US, but rather, “they're looking for the 3 percent—the decision-makers, the opinion-makers, the power-brokers” (cited in Shister 2006). Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs agrees: “They want to reach out to the power elites that don’t speak Arabic. Clearly, this is a bid for Western legitimacy” (Ibid.). Adding to the complexity of the American situation is the fact that the US is dependent on the Al Udeid Air Base and the largest military pre-positioning facilities in the world— both in Qatar—for its ongoing military operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather 172 than being seen simply as a lackey for American hard power in the region, Qataris are desperate to show the world, and especially Americans, that there is more to their country than its convenient location and natural resources. Its global network, with rich cultural and political content, is meant to show the more sophisticated side of the microstate (Powers and Gilboa 2007). Part of AJE’s strategy to establish credibility with American audiences included hiring former ABC News Nightline journalist, David Marash. As the Network’s only Jewish on-air personality, Marash was well respected among American media, and even described in the press as “Al Jazeera's U.S. Face” (see Farhi 2006). According to Robert Lichter, “having a Jewish anchor on the payroll extolling the virtues of an Arab network is a powerful public-relations tool…it means they’re sincere, or they sound very sincere” (cited in Shister 2006). Marash started out excited to work for the Network, and he was one of its fiercest defenders. At first, he had no problem being the station’s most prominent Jewish face, arguing Al Jazeera “has consistently offered a window of opportunity for Israel and Israeli citizens to speak to the Arab world. There is no contradiction between Judaism and al-Jazeera” (cited in Farhi 2006). Sixteen months later, Marash abruptly quit the Network, citing increased editorial direction from Doha and “an anti-American sensibility creeping into the coverage” (Stelter 2008). Needless to say, Marash’s quitting and the wave of negative press that followed were a huge blow for AJE’s American aspirations. Marash’s accusations that AJE’s 173 programming had become more anti-American were exactly the kind of ammunition the Kincaid and others opposed to the Network needed to further tarnish its reputation in the States. As it turned out, Marash’s decision to quit was a bit more complex and had to do mostly with the internal politics of the Network. Indeed, Marash (2008) and others felt that the Washington bureau had become “the caboose of the broadcasting bureaus” with “very little editorial input into the overall news agenda.” Apparently, the rotating bureau structure was not quite a perfect science. Importantly, Marash (2008) took back the claim that the channel’s programming was anti-American, saying that he had overstated the case and that a more accurate description was that its coverage of America was “reductionist.” When asked why, Marash (2008) notes that this was largely due the British and Australian leadership corps at the top of AJE who “didn’t know anything about America.” For Marash, the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back was when Doha pitched a story on poverty in America the Washington bureau refused to air it arguing that it was one-sided and over simplified (basically selectively featuring the growing economic disparity in parts of the country), without providing sufficient context to the issue. Rather than drawing from its American talents to re-frame the story, AJE’s planning desk snuck a reporting crew into the US from Doha, without informing anyone at the Americas bureau that the story was going forward. When it aired, the leadership in D.C. was furious. As Marash (2008) stated plainly, “so much for your local voices.” It is important to note, though, that Marash is generally complimentary of the channel: 174 You don’t see that [coverage] in Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Asia, on Al Jazeera. You see state-of-the-art, world-class reporting, and south of the equator…Al Jazeera has become the most authoritative news channel on earth….their standard for journalism on Al Jazeera in the United States didn’t seem consistently to be as good as their standards elsewhere (cited in Cunningham 2008). Looking beyond its coverage of America, Marash (2008) does believe that the “AJE’s overall tone has softened, they are less critical” and it is concerned about the future of the Network. Importantly, he argues that the change in tone is related to Qatar’s geopolitical calculations in the region: I think the single event in that change was the visit to the gulf by Vice President Cheney, where he went to line up the allied ducks in a row behind the possibility of action against Iran. And instead of getting acquiescence, the United States got defiance, and instead [of] ducks in a row the ducks basically went off on their own and the first sort of major breakthrough on that was the Mecca agreement, which defied the American foreign policy by letting Hamas into the tent of the governance of the Palestinian territories…And it is around this time, and I think not coincidentally, that you see the state of Qatar and the royal family of Qatar starting to make up their feud with the Saudis, and you start to see on both Al Jazeera Arabic and English a very sort of first-personish, ‘my Haj’ stories that were boosterish of the Haj and of Saudi Arabia. And you start to see stories…where regional experts are noting that Al Jazeera seems to be changing its editorial stance toward Saudi Arabia. I’m suggesting that around that time, a decision was made at the highest levels of Al Jazeera that…it was time, in fact, to get right with the region. And I think part of getting right with the region was slightly changing the editorial ambition of Al Jazeera English, and I think it has subsequently become a more narrowly focused, more univocal channel than was originally conceived (cited in Cunningham 2008) Despite its setbacks, as Parson’s (2008) notes, AJE does have a voice in Washington, D.C.: “We’re watched round the clock in the Pentagon, in the State Department, in every military base where the Americans are, whether it’s Afghanistan or Iraq.” Outside of Washington, Roger Cohen (2007) verifies AJE’s popularity, particularly 175 among the military: “In the gym at the NATO base in Kabul, US soldiers hit the treadmills every morning and gaze at TV screens broadcasting Al Jazeera’s English news channel.” Indeed, Parsons (2008) holds out hope that the Network could find a niche audience in the US and persuade cable operators that adding the channel was in their best interest: “We know there’s an interest in foreign news. If 5% of Americans are interested, then that’s a big number. If it’s the right kind of 5% I mean we know from the internet traffic, 40% of our internet traffic is in the US. 50% of our Youtube downloads are in the US. There is a market.” Parson’s replacement, Tony Burman (2009), agrees, arguing that while AJE was ill-prepared for the American market when it launched, the new Obama administration has helped foster more openness to the idea of AJE, as well as more interest in foreign affairs among the public at large. Wadah Khanfar (2009), the Al Jazeera Network’s Managing Director and Burman’s boss, agrees. In July, Khanfar was able to make his first trip to the US since becoming Managing Director. In previous attempts during the Bush administration, the State Department had simply refused to issue Khanfar a visa. While in Washington, Khanfar met with several members of the Obama administration and at a talk at the New America Foundation argued that Obama’s new style of leadership had created a much more hospitable environment for AJE to expand its reach into the US. Indeed, AJE’s presence on the American cable market is expanding, albeit slowly. At first, AJE was available on two small cable systems, one in Toledo, Ohio (Buckeye Cablesystem), and another in Burlington, Vermont (Burlington Telecom). Globecast, a 176 satellite network that focuses on broadcasting ethnic media from around the world to diasporic communities in Europe and North America, also carried the channel, though it is estimated that less than 10,000 Americans access its programming. More recently, several channels have started using some of AJE’s news programming in their news broadcasts. Worldfocus, a program launched by American Public Television, recently partnered with AJE and other international news organizations in an attempt to respond to the mainstream media’s diminished coverage of international news. Link TV, a channel available on both the Dish Network and Direct TV has also started using AJE’s news reports in two of its most popular programs, the Global News Hour and Mosaic. Moreover, Whitman College and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania subscribed to AJE’s live streaming over the net and rebroadcast it in their respective libraries. Macalester College added AJE’s live feed to its campus-wide cable network. On July 1, 2009, MHz added AJE to its list of free-to-air channels in Washington, D.C., expanding quickly to cities across the country, reaching a potential 18 million American homes (for a summary of AJE’s availability on US cable and satellite networks, see Table 5.1). Thus, through a variety of routes, AJE has managed to connect to American audiences. Yet, nothing has been as important as its use of new media technologies and strategies in “virtually” engaging the West. 177 TABLE 5.1: AJE’S AVAILABILITY IN THE US Network Reach/Subscribers Accessible MHz Network 18,000,000 Washington D.C., Northern Virginia; San Francisco, Denver, Miami, Chicago, Utah LiveStation 10,000,000 Anywhere (Internet) Link TV 5,100,000 Channel available on the Dish Network and Direct TV Worldfocus 252,000 Channel on American Public Media Buckeye Cablesystem 147,000 Toledo, OH Globecast World TV 10,000 Satellite (anywhere) VDC 10,000 Internet (anywhere) Jump TV 5,000 Internet (anywhere) Macalester College 3500 Throughout the campus cable system Whitman College 2200 In the central library on campus University of Pennsylvania 2000 In the Annenberg library Burlington Telecom 1,000 Burlington, VT Washington Cable 500 Washington, D.C. (US Government) Source: Author’s notes. DIGITAL DIALOGUE? Born in the Age of Information, Al-Jazeera English (AJE), similar to its Arabic sister, has truly embraced today’s new media environment. Since its launch in November 2006, AJE has to a certain extent been forced to depend on new media platforms, such as 178 the Internet and cell phones, to reach its target audiences. Unable to secure access to any substantial cable market in North America, AJE has established deals with a number of web-based content providers, including YouTube, Flow TV, and, most recently, Live Station, in order to get its programming into the homes of many in the US. As a result of its early difficulties in securing access to the North American market, AJE invested heavily in its new media team, hoping that a breakthrough online would demonstrate to skeptics that it was indeed producing high-quality journalism that provided a “voice to the voiceless.” And, to date, the approach has been a success, going from being available via satellite and cable TV in 80 million homes in early 2007 to over 140 million homes today. Moreover, AJE is the most popular news channel available on YouTube and its viewership via online sources grew over 600 percent during the conflict in Gaza in January 2009, the majority of which were American Internet viewers. Moreover, its website, which features both video and written content, has also become a huge resource in the US market. According to the Network, of more than 22 million hits on the website every month, over 50 percent are coming from within North America (Burman 2009). While AJE’s early online strategy focused on providing its content via the web, it has since developed a robust web 2.0 effort, embodied in what they call “Al-Jazeera Labs” (http://labs.aljazeera.net/). One pillar of the Labs project focuses on making AJE's content available through as many media as possible. Along these lines, the webpage now features an application for the iPhone, a link to the newly revamped mobile webpage (designed for non-iPhone smart phones), information on how to receive AJE's news via 179 Twitter, how to text or tweet in a question for Riz Khan to ask a guest on his daily interview show, a link to AJE's YouTube page, information on how to receive a RSS feed of AJE's news on your Sony Ericsson phone, a link to all of AJE's pod and videocasts (available through iTunes), information on how to receive AJE's headlines through your Instant Message client, and, of course, AJE's Facebook application. Importantly, LiveStation’s mobile application allows for any smart phone with a broadband or 3G connection to stream the Network’s programming, live and on the move. The second pillar of the Labs project is a bit more innovative. While AJE's coverage of the recent conflict in Gaza drew attention worldwide for its relative depth, it also coincided with several promising Labs initiatives. Outlined briefly in Chapter 1, in November 2008, AJE launched its citizen-journalism upload portal, a webpage devoted to “seeking eyewitness news reports from its vast international audience.” During the conflict on Gaza, the Your Media webpage was flooded with photos and videos from Palestinians in Gaza, much of which made their way to Al Jazeera's webpage and some of which were rebroadcast on the Network's programming. In addition, the Mapping the War in Gaza feature was widely successful and considered by some as the most accurate and comprehensive place for real-time information about the conflict (Townend 2009). Perhaps most interesting was the Network’s decision to release all of its footage from Gaza during the conflict under the Creative Commons 3.0 attribution license (the least restrictive license available), functionally making the footage available for all 180 commercial and non-commercial use free-of-charge (http://cc.aljazeera.net). This means that news outlets (including competitors), filmmakers, and bloggers were able to easily share, remix, subtitle, or reuse the footage in any way they saw fit, as long as they credit the Al Jazeera Network. By giving up the rights to control and profit from the footage (keep in mind that footage was not easy to come by during the conflict since journalists weren't allowed to enter into Gaza), the Network made a bold move, symbolically saying that news and journalism should not be dictated by the market, and that political efforts to suppress AJE's broadcasts in the West and elsewhere would not stop the images from Gaza from getting out of the region. According to Mohamed Nanabhay (2009), Head of New Media at Al Jazeera, the Creative Commons experiment with its Gaza footage was a huge success for the Network, so much so that he and his team are currently developing an archival system whereby they will be able to issue most of their content online with a Creative Common 3.0 attribution license, allowing visitors to search for content based on a number of criteria. Importantly, AJE’s new media strategy is tied to its mission of enhancing a cultural dialogue with the West. When the footage repository was announced, Lawrence Lessig, founder of the Creative Commons organization, said, “By providing a free resource for the world, the network is encouraging wider debate, and a richer understanding…Providing material under a Creative Commons license to allow commercial and amateur use is an enormous contribution to the global dialogue around important events. Al Jazeera has set the example and the standard that we hope others will follow” (cited in Steuer 2009). 181 The 2008-09 Gaza offensive further proved that AJE has a real audience in America. AJE was the only English-language news organization with a presence in Gaza, reporting live for 22 days, their viewership booming as a result. On LiveStation, the company providing round-the-clock online streaming of the channel, viewership of AJE’s channel spiked from three million minutes to 17 million minutes worldwide over a twoweek period, nearly a 600 percent increase in viewership. YouTube views increased by over 150 percent during the conflict, and the channel’s Twitter feed gathered nearly 5,000 followers in one weekend (Cohen 2009). It was also the first time AJE actively advertised in America, featuring both print and online ads in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy, drawing attention to the channel’s Gaza coverage (Guthrie 2009). AJE also launched a new website, IwantAJE.net, which focused on dispelling myths and rumors about the Network’s coverage while also providing an easy means for anyone visiting the site to send a form letter to their local cable or satellite provider’s offices. After the conflict, Burman boasted, “Gaza will probably be for Al Jazeera what the Gulf War was for CNN,” referring to the fact that AJE suddenly became a part of American media culture. Many American networks began running footage from Gaza, including NBC News, crediting the Al Jazeera Network. According to Burman, “Our coverage of Gaza is a reminder to a lot of people that there are a lot of important aspects to a lot of stories, not just in the Middle East, that are being denied them” (cited in Campbell 2009) 182 Yet, simply breaking into the West, or any market for that matter, does not ensure any kind of dialogue of diplomacy will ensue. Nor does it necessarily mean anything for Qatar’s image abroad. In fact, it can be argued that AJE’s ability to expose the extent of the violence in Gaza may even increase anti-American sentiment, because it appeared to some as if Israel’s overwhelming use of violence couldn’t be checked, or was even condoned by an absent American government. Graphic images of humanitarian suffering have been known to spark public outrage, as discussions surrounding the possibility of a CNN effect have outlined. Yet, there is another side of the debate. For example, as Allister Sparks (2006, 174), Founder of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism, argues, AJE can also serve as a critical means of dialogue and understanding between the Arab and Western worlds: Taken together, the combined effect of Al Jazeera’s international English language channel in conveying an Arab perspective of the world to the West, and that of its domestic Arabic language channel in bringing to the Arab world a better understanding of Western perspectives, provides an immensely important bridge of understanding at the frontier of the so-called ‘clash of civilizations.’ Perhaps the only one there is right now. With its proclaimed mission of “promoting a public awareness of local and global issues, Al Jazeera aspires to be a bridge between cultures.” Al Jazeera (2006, 183) most certainly would like to side with the latter argument, particularly in public. Yet, the Network’s reputation, based in large part on its Arabic sister channel, provides plenty of ammunition for those concerned that AJE may actually inflame cross-cultural tensions. 183 A study conducted by el-Nawawy and Powers (2008) found evidence for both arguments—that viewing AJE was both related to inflamed opinions on sensitive topics such as the Israeli-Arab conflict, while simultaneously related to viewers who were more open-minded and less dogmatic in their thinking. The study surveyed 598 AJE viewers in six countries (the US, UK, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia) and asked participants about how often and for how long they had been tuning into AJE, as well as other international news media. In addition, the survey measured the participants’ opinions on several important policy issues, including their feelings toward US foreign policy in Iraq, the Israeli-Arab conflict, among other issues. Moreover, the participants were also asked to answer a series of questions, developed originally by Rokeach (1960), but modified for brevity by Shearman and Levine (2006), to help measure each participant’s level of cognitive dogmatism. Dogmatism, in this case, is defined as “a relatively closed cognitive organization of beliefs and disbeliefs about reality, organized around a central set of beliefs about absolute authority which, in turn, provides a framework for patterns of intolerance and qualified tolerance toward others” (Rokeach and Fruchter 1956, 357). The study found that the longer viewers had been watching AJE, the less dogmatic they were in their thinking. Importantly, previous research has demonstrated a positive correlation between levels of dogmatism and confrontational behavior in conflict situations (Shearman and Levine 2006). This finding was found to be significant among participants who relied heavily on AJE as their primary source for information and 184 political behavior, as well as those who were less dependent on AJE. According to elNawawy and Powers (2008, 53), the dogmatism finding can in some ways be described as a “gateway variable,” controlling the relative impact that new information—especially information provided via the global news media—can have on opinion and behavior formation. Along these lines, according to Davies (1993, 698): The relatively closed nature of high-dogmatic individuals’ cognitive systems leads to the processing of information in a way that ignores, minimizes, or avoids inconsistencies in beliefs and attitudes. Low-dogmatic individuals, however, do not keep inconsistent attitudes and beliefs isolated or separated, and the open nature of their cognitive systems allows them to see connections between belief and disbelief systems. Thus, the lower levels of dogmatism related to AJE viewership may open up audiences to become increasingly capable of navigating issues that have otherwise been seen as irreconcilable. Moreover, lower levels of dogmatism have been found to relate strongly to one’s willingness to engage and listen to competing information claims, an attribute that could be quite helpful in combating perceptions of a “clash of civilizations” (Palmer and Kalain 1985). Yet, el-Nawawy and Powers (2008) also found that viewership habits were related to particular opinions on US foreign policy. More specifically, the study found that the more dependent a participant was on AJE for political information, the more likely he/she was to be highly critical of American policy towards both Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict. In addition, the more often a viewer tuned into AJE on a daily basis also correlated with increased opposition to American policy towards the Arab-Israeli 185 conflict, and the longer a viewer had been tuning into AJE, the more likely he/she was to be critical of American policy towards Iraq. Thus, the study provided evidence that AJE has the potential to further opposition towards American policies in the Middle East, while simultaneously pushing its viewers to be more open to other ideas and opinions and better able to resolve confrontational situations in fair and safe ways. In order to help reconcile seemingly contradictory findings, El-Nawawy and Powers (2008) point to a third finding—that viewers found AJE to be a “conciliatory media,” a term defined by 11 characteristics, including: does AJE’s programming “providing a public place for politically underrepresented groups;” represent “the interests of the international public in general rather than a specific group of people; demonstrate “a desire towards solving rather than escalating conflicts;” and provide “background, contextualizing information that helps viewers fully understand the story?” The study found that viewers across the board found that AJE programming was “conciliatory,” according to the 11-part typology laid out (for a full list of characteristics of a conciliatory media and the study’s related findings, see Table 5.2). Yet, a conciliatory media, no matter how fair to all sides, cannot change existing opinions and attitudes that are based on a long and entrenched history of tensions between Western countries and the Arab world. Indeed, opinions on topics such as the US-led war in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict are likely to be deeply seated opinions drawn from any number of other factors, including the history of the region, social 186 circles, religious beliefs, and of course one’s family. Yet, that doesn’t discount the potential benefit of less dogmatic thinking, particularly when it comes to international and cross-cultural issues. Thus, while there is the potential for AJE to provide an opportunity for more effective cross-cultural dialogue and understanding, there is certainly no guarantee that this will occur. 187 TABLE 5.2: IS AJE A CONCILIATORY MEDIA? Participants were asked: Compared to other televised broadcasting news networks, how does AJE rate in each of the following categories (with 1 being not at all successful and 10 being very successful)? Average Cumulative Responses (where 0 represents 'not at all successful' and 1 represents 'very successful') Standard Deviation Providing a public place for politically underrepresented groups 0.764 2.028 Providing multiple viewpoints on a diversity of controversial issues 0.76 1.941 Representing the interests of the international public in general rather than a specific group of people 0.738 2.034 Providing firsthand observations from eyewitnesses of international events 0.786 1.962 Covering stories of injustice in the world 0.757 1.833 Acknowledging mistakes in journalistic coverage when appropriate 0.664 1.872 Demonstrating a desire towards solving rather than escalating conflicts 0.747 2.026 Avoiding the use of victimizing terms, such as martyr or pathetic, unless they are attributed to a reliable source 0.76 2.03 Avoiding the use of demonizing labels, such as terrorist or extremist, unless they are attributed to reliable sources 0.782 2.068 Abstaining from opinions that are not substantiated by credible evidence 0.789 2.008 Providing background, contextualizing information that helps viewers fully understand the story 0.791 1.794 Source: El-Nawawy and Powers 2010. 188 CONCLUSION The Al Jazeera Network’s global expansion speaks directly to Castells’ (2009) connecting, or network-making, power. According to AJE’s Josh Rushing (2008), the original initiative, “to speak truth to power,” was about altering the flow of news in the global public sphere, and in so doing, changing the discourse of news of the non-Western world. The effort was based on the idea that by broadcasting in English, with the same core principles that helped Al Jazeera become a regional behemoth, AJE’s message could reach new audiences and new networks, and thus be able to shape the global news flow. For better or for worse, there is no doubt that the Network has turned heads since its launch in 2006. On top of a full-scale staffing crisis, which included a change of director, AJE has also managed to win prestigious awards for its news coverage from the Foreign Press Association, (FPA), the Association of International Broadcasters (AIB), Amnesty International, as well as four International Emmy nominations. Outside of North America, to a certain extent, AJE has succeeded in its mission of changing the news media ecology. Its presence on the airwaves has forced other international broadcasters to adjust by expanding their reporting abroad. Since AJE’s launch, for example, CNN International has added a bureau in Abu Dhabi in order to beef up its coverage of the Middle East, and the BBC World Service Trust has added Arabic and Farsi language services. CNN International recently launched a new show, featuring its chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour, in part to combat to cover the growing importance of the Gulf region: “Qatar has a huge reach and the world’s eyes are now 189 focusing on its development, its growth. I will definitely be reaching out to Qatar and the rest of the Gulf countries” (cited in Abano 2009). Moreover, AJE has altered the media landscape in countries where the local media is not entirely free, such as Malaysia (discussed more fully in Chapter 6). And, in America in particular, AJE has faced continued hostility towards its programming and journalists. In 2008, in the run-up to the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado, Rushing, now AJE’s most prominent American face, ran into a widespread hostility in Golden, Colorado, after he started asking patrons at a local bar about their perspectives on the upcoming election. Within minutes of his arrival, which the owner of the bar agreed to and supported, motorcycle protestors had circled the bar and began calling Rushing and his crew “terrorists.” Thus, despite the fact that progress has been made, it is clear that the United States market remains a challenge for AJE’s attempts to secure a global presence. More importantly, AJE has struggled to make its way onto the mainstream cable and satellite systems, networks that have been hesitant to add the channel for fear of backlash from audiences. While, historically, cable and satellite networks have come to constitute important nodes of power in the network society, each holding tremendous “gatekeeping” influence via their ability switch and connect programs and content, AJE’s new media efforts demonstrate the dwindling power that traditional media actors have on media messages. Blocked from the traditional means of communicating news and cultural programming to Americans—mainstream cable television—AJE leaped into the information age, relying heavily on a plethora of new media platforms and technologies to access and engage 190 American audiences. As a result, Americans have tuned in in growing numbers to AJE. Importantly, as established news programs and cable providers have lost viewers to AJE’s online content, they have adjusted and began to integrate AJE’s news into their existing news shows. Link TV consistently relies on AJE’s news reports, as does the American Public Television’s Worldfocus. As a result, major cable operators have begun to reconsider, and now at least one large cable operator—MHz—has added AJE’s programming to its core of news programming. Sooner rather than later, most if not all cable and satellite providers will offer at least AJE, a reality that is due in part to its early and innovative use of new media platforms and technologies. The consequences of increased American access to AJE’s programming are at this point still unclear. While successful, the channel is young and still coming into its own. There is evidence that it may paint a poor picture of some US policies abroad, which could either turn Americans away from the channel, or, alternatively, impact the political discourse that shapes those policies. Its ability to open up the Arab world to the West and act as a window for Arab culture, politics, and people is without question critical. But again, if this portrait of the Arab world is inaccurate or a façade, then AJE’s ability to actually foster greater understanding will be disingenuous, and likely fail. It is certain though that its programming, highlighting and detailing of the stories of the disenfranchised in parts of the world largely ignored by the Western media would be a welcome addition to the American news ecology. 191 CHAPTER 6: QATAR AND THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE NEWS “Power is shifting in the 21st century world, and Al Jazeera is moving with the times.” Al Jazeera Network, 2009 Geopolitics—or the politics of geography—has undergone a significant reconceptualization since the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the Network Society. Geography—the basis for natural resources, people, and culture, all of which have been essential to a country’s international power and prestige—is no longer central to international politics. While geographic space continues to be important, it has been overshadowed by the rise of transnational regimes, flows of information and capital, and nodes connecting networks of power. Transnational communication networks in fact reshape the value of each of the other variable’s contributions to a country’s international standing. Communication networks are used to locate and exchange resources and create wealth, and in the process they have fundamentally altered how citizenship and culture are constituted. Thus, as Castells (2009, 428) suggests, today a study of geopolitical power should focus its investigation on “find[ing] the specific network configuration of actors, interests, and values who engage in their power-making strategies by connecting their networks of power to the mass communication networks, the source of the construction of meaning in the public mind.” This chapter outlines how Qatar, largely 192 through its operation and influence over the Al Jazeera Network, has become a critical “node,” connecting different networks and actors that otherwise would unlikely be connected (switching power) and, at times, exercising influence via carefully crafted news messages (programming power). Then, to explain what differentiates Al Jazeera and Qatar from other networks of global newsflows, this chapter argues that it is the embodiment of the digitization of information and norms promoting the free flow of information—all in an effort to circumvent existing geopolitical barriers to its global expansion—that places its networking power above and beyond its regional and global competitors. To conclude, this chapter outlines several limitations that the study encountered and proposes a few areas for future research. Finally, it summarizes the key findings of the project. QATAR: REALPOLITIK OR KANT’S PERPETUAL PEACE Before proceeding, it is useful to revisit the unique political issues that shaped the country of Qatar and that influenced the development of Al Jazeera. In Chapter 3, the study outlined the role that Al Jazeera played in Qatar’s rise to regional power. By employing cutting-edge technologies in a stylistic and impressive fashion, and by emphasizing sharp, clear, and sometimes even revolutionary messages, Al Jazeera not only quickly captured a substantial audience of Arabs from across the Middle East, it also became a strong source of pride and cultural identification. The rapid success of the new 193 network also impacted public images of Qatar, which went from being a small somewhat isolated outpost of petro-dollars to a forward-looking and modern Arab state unchained by the region’s history of internal religious and political tensions. Because Al Jazeera has aired programs that have managed to upset every government in the region, it seemed that Qatar was not taking sides in regional politics, but was rather on the side of the Arab people. Today, as a more mature country, it is important to revisit Qatar’s broad foreign policy goals, and to look at what ideological and political considerations drive them. Any argument for the use of the news to further geopolitical influence or interests necessarily begs the question: To what end, or for what purpose? From one point of view, Qatar’s foreign policy is grounded in a neo-liberal conception of international politics very close to that outlined out by Immanuel Kant in his 1795 treatise, Perpetual Peace.1 Needless to say, for a country based in the conservative Middle East, dominated by realpolitik thinking for so long, this is an anomaly. Qatar’s official foreign policy denounces all use of force and escalation of conflicts while placing a strong emphasis on people’s rights of freedom and selfdetermination: Qatar has always been a staunch supporter of liberation movements…Qatar adopts a set of principles as a basis for peace and security in the Middle East and the world at large. At the top of those principles comes the abstention from using or threatening to use force against territorial integrity of other countries, and seeking to resolve disputes by peaceful means such as regional or international arbitration, and dialogue (www.qatarembassy.net/foreign_policy.asp). 194 Expanding on its commitment to non-violent solutions to international tensions, Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad (2007) argues that it is time to move beyond the idea of a clash of civilizations, stating, “the choice for all of us should be the ‘dialogue between civilizations’ so as to isolate every theoretical or material inclination to provoke a conflict between the peoples on the platform of separating them along illusory lines of civilizations.” He adds, We think that the international community has finally reached an understanding of the basics of peaceful coexistence, a condition that gives answers to the problems facing the nations and societies of the world. Such understanding is based on dialogue and cooperation in service of the common best interests of all parties. One year later, channeling Kant’s argument that a perpetual peace is an inevitable result of ongoing human tragedy, Sheikh Hamad (2008) said, “it is inevitable that we understand one another, respect different viewpoints and earnestly seek to settle our differences by peaceful means.” It is along these lines that Qatar has tried to play the role of the grand negotiator within the region, reaching out as an impartial party willing and able to help mediate conflicts ranging from the internal strife in Lebanon and Sudan to the ongoing battle between Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinian Authority (PA). On a more practical level, Qatar’s current foreign policy may be best summed up as creating and maintaining alliances with a range of dissimilar governments and political leaders deemed important to the Qatari government. And, to a certain extent, there is evidence that it has succeeded. Qatar has established good relationships with a number of countries and organizations not known for mutual fondness. In addition to its ties to the 195 US via its military cooperation and hosting of high-level American officials, Qatar also has courted Iran and called for open and free trade and foreign engagement with the heavily sanctioned country. While a firm supporter and financial backer of Hamas, Qatar was the first Arab state to establish formal ties with Israel, and it routinely offers aid to the PA. In the aftermath of the third Gulf War, the Qatari royal family offered political asylum to Saddam Hussein’s wife, Sajida Khayrallah Tilfa, who is on the Iraqi and American most wanted list for allegedly providing financial support to insurgents inside Iraq. Prior to 9/11, Qatar’s Minister of the Interior provided sanctuary to several highlevel Al Qaeda leaders, including Khaled Shaikh Muhammad, and hosted Osama bin Laden on at least two occasions (Blanchard 2008). For many countries, pursuing open and engaging ties with such a diverse group of countries that are often at odds with one another, is difficult if not impossible, largely due to demands for consistency and coherence (from your allies, members of the royal family, lobby groups, or the legislature). Yet, Qatar has managed to reach out in multiple and contradictory directions, seemingly without too much domestic fracas (see reference to the 2002 coup attempt below). It appears willing to overlook political and ideological differences in the hope of creating a lasting peace in the region. Qatar also maintains strong relations with countries outside of the region. In addition to its military ties with the US, American hydrocarbon firms are heavily invested in the development of Qatar’s oil and natural gas resources. Moreover, Qatar has good relations with much of Europe and Japan, in particular. In Asia, Qatar is expanding its 196 reach, opening up an embassy in Vietnam in 2009. Importantly, through its hodge-podge of international ties, connecting countries where there is typically little diplomatic congruence, Qatar has established significant switching power. Moreover, since 2005, Qatar has launched several high-level investment teams in order to diversify its wealth. In the past four years, Qatar has invested over $60 billion in real estate, private equity, and investment funds in Europe. It now owns a 20 percent stake in the London Stock Exchange, has the largest stake in Barclay’s (UK) and Credit Suisse (Switzerland), and outright owns BLC Bank (France). The Qatari Investment Authority (QIA), the umbrella organization that manages the government’s investments abroad, is likely to double in size from $60 billion to $120 billion by 2010 (SWF Institute 2009). For Castells (2009, 32), this convergence of financial and communication networks is of particular note, and thus Qatar’s massive launch into global investment financing, particularly amidst the global financial crisis, is further evidence of its expanding geopolitical influence. Castells reminds us that “in the network economy, the dominant layer is the global financial market, the mother of all valuations.” Two other investments are of significant note: QIA owns substantial stakes in the German auto manufacture Porsche-VW and the European Aeronautic, Defence and Space Company (EADS). Back in the Middle East, QIA’s subsidiary Qatari Diar has committed over $1 billion to the development of the first self-sufficient town in the West Bank, able to provide housing for over 40,000 Palestinians (Gulf Times 2008). To help put these figures in perspective, in 2009 Qatar was ranked as the twenty-second most competitive 197 country in the world, beating out Israel, China, Italy, Ireland, Iceland, and Brazil, just to name a few. Until 2006, Qatar was not even considered eligible for the ranking of the world’s 130 most competitive economies (Schwab 2009). Despite good relations with many countries outside of the Arab world, Qatar’s official foreign policy is partial to promoting a pan-Gulf and Arab agenda. According to the embassy, “Qatar…places increasing emphasis on supporting the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and spares no effort to bring about solidarity and strengthen ties of mutual trust and communication between Arab countries.” Yet, despite Qatar’s goal of promoting unity within Arab countries and a pro-GCC agenda more broadly, Al Jazeera has often been responsible for destabilizing relations between GCC governments and Qatar, especially Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Since 2002, however, Al Jazeera has not caused any diplomatic bouts within the GCC. Qatar is an anomaly, particularly in the Arab world, in that it maintains good relations with both major Palestinian rival factions, Hamas and Fatah, enabling it to mediate between the two more successfully than other Arab country. Moreover, Doha is almost the only Arab capital visited by leaders of both Palestinian and Israeli leaders. It has a history of supporting Palestinian political leaders of all stripes. For example, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA, lived in Qatar and worked for the Ministry of Education while in exile. Similarly, Khaled Meshal, head of the political affairs office for Hamas, lived in Qatar while in exile, along with four other Hamas leaders, in 1999. Both 198 Abbas and Meshal continue to visit Doha frequently to meet with Qatari leaders (Sabra 2008). More broadly, Qatar’s treatment of Palestinians is of particular note. Whereas many Arab countries worry about inviting large flows of Palestinian refugees into their country, Qatar welcomes them with open arms. Doha is considered a safe haven and homeland for tens of thousands of Palestinian families who are allowed to own private property in exclusive residential areas and participate in large-scale investment projects, opportunities unavailable to other migrant workers. Palestinians are also granted permanent residencies and visas without time limits, regardless of employment, an extreme rarity for a Gulf country (Sabra 2008). Beginning in 2006, after the US and European Union (EU) discontinued their humanitarian aid to Palestine following Hamas’ electoral victory, Qatar’s aid to the government increased dramatically. Citing the humanitarian crisis caused by international financial isolation, Qatar gives Hamas and the PA over $10 million each month in aid (Henderson and Levitt 2009). At the same time, Qatar also maintains ties with Israel. In 2007, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres visited Doha, where he debated with local students, met the Emir, toured the Iranian market, and even got his Israeli passport stamped at the airport. It was the first visit from an Israeli to a Gulf country in over a decade (Harman 2007). Prior to Al Jazeera, the Arab media was not just state-run, but the content was also often strictly controlled. The press reports, as a result, tended to reflect the 199 viewpoints that individual governments wanted to communicate to their own citizens and to external audiences. Political leaders were at the center of the news, and news stories were reported mostly through their voices, opinions, and communiqués. Al Jazeera, clearly, is quite different. Its independence, however, is not total independence from the Emir of Qatar and his ruling family. As was examined in detail in Chapter 3, the news network has at times been utilized as a tool of the state. Yet, its reporting of the news is, most of the time, conducted independent of the official policy or opinion of the Emir, which differentiates it greatly from previous state-backed international broadcasters in the region. Al Jazeera’s coverage of the war in Iraq provides an example. Whereas the official policy of the government of Qatar was de facto support of the war effort through its leasing of its two bases and a command center—most of which were built with Qatari Riyals—to the Pentagon, Al Jazeera’s coverage of Iraq proceeded from the assumption that the war effort was a violation of international law (Khanfar 2007). Although public knowledge of Qatar’s acquiescence to the war effort is widespread, it was not formally acknowledged in the Qatari press until 2007. Far from the Kantian ideal of peace via international norms, here the Qatari Prime Minister demonstrates a very real understanding of realist geopolitical calculations, justifying the military presence in terms of regime security: “We should be prepared for the worst. The energy reserves in Qatar have made it essential for the leadership to take such a difficult 200 decision,” He adds, “We should remember how the American base came to Qatar…it was the result of the Kuwaiti invasion by Iraq in 1990” (World Tribune 2007). While some see this as evidence of Qatar’s dependence on the United States for its security, there is another side to the coin. In 2007, as pressure was mounting on the Bush administration to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, Sheikh Hamad came forward and denounced the possibility of an attack, stating unequivocally, “We will not participate in any military attack against Iran,” and noting, “the United States…recognizes full Qatari sovereignty inside the bases” (Ibid.). In 2002, in the lead up to the war in Iraq, Qatar wouldn’t officially say if it would be willing to allow the US to use its bases for an attack, simply saying that “the United States has not asked us up until now for any support or any permission for an attack from Qatar to Iraq. If they ask us we will look at this seriously” (Hamad 2002). The difference in approaches is important. Whereas Qatar was open to the attack on Iraq, something they knew was likely when they invited the US troops into Qatar, an attack on Iran was off the table. Thus, the arrangement is not simply a power play by the United States. Rather, it seams that by hosting the US Central Command and retaining sovereign control over the bases leased to the Department of Defense, Qatar actually wields significant influence over US military options in the region. According to Muhammad Sabra (2008), the most important way Al Jazeera has played a role in Qatar’s foreign policy is exemplified by how “Qatar has occasionally used the satellite channel in putting pressure on some governments by hosting members of opposition groups and shedding light on their activities, and by providing a channel for 201 oppressed voices to express themselves.” Thus, unlike traditional international broadcasters that have projected the image and message of its host government, Al Jazeera is different. With its mission of providing “the other opinion,” the Network is able to air dissident and even hostile opinions from exiled political leaders and groups, which at times have been used intentionally to amp up pressure on a particular government. It is no wonder why Doha is home to a number of high-level political dissidents, including: Mauritanian ex-President, Mou'awyah Weld al-Tay'; Iraqi exMinister of Foreign Affairs, Naji Sabri; founder of the Algerian Islamic Front, Sheikh Abbas Madani; Egypt’s leading human rights and democracy activist, Saad Eddin Ibrahim; a prominent figure in the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, who also has his own show on Al Jazeera, Yusuf al-Qaradawi; and Chechen ex-President, Saleem Yanderbaiv. AL JAZEERA AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS In Chapter 1, this study reviewed seven ways in which the news media influence international politics and geopolitical calculations: (1) the mobilization of alternative (i.e. non-ruling) political groups, particularly dissident groups, inside other countries/regions; (2) influencing other government’s policies by way of encouraging military and humanitarian intervention and/or aid; (3) influencing other government’s policies by way of encouraging the withdrawal or resources and/or support for another government or group; (4) by framing the news in ways that reflect the opinion and/or official stance of 202 the government funding the news broadcaster, thus potentially shaping international public opinion on important issues; (5) by functioning as an important conduit of communication and negotiation between governments and/or political groups; (6) by playing an active role in brokering diplomatic solutions between disagreeing international actors; and (7) by shaping perceptions of one’s own and other cultures in ways that either create an environment more hospitable to cultural cooperation or, alternatively, cultural conflict. The Al Jazeera Network has, at different times, functioned in each of these seven capacities. Yet, while it is helpful to theorize the influence of contemporary news media in international politics in terms of discrete categories, each with distinct features and consequences, in practice this task is much more complex. For example, today, as public opinion is increasingly able to shape governmental policy, even in the Middle East, a broadcaster’s ability to mobilize foreign publics may very well be related to policy changes enacted by other governments. Similarly, when a broadcaster’s framing of the news is aligned with its financier’s political opinions and goals, other countries may respond with policy changes, such as the removal of an ambassador from the country broadcasting controversial news, or a ban on conducting business with its private sector. Thus, rather than isolate Al Jazeera’s influence in each category separately, this section summarizes and charts how the Network has functioned throughout the categories, pointing to the numerous overlaps between each. In so doing, this section addresses in detail two research questions outlined in Chapter 1: How has the Al Jazeera Network 203 influenced geopolitical calculations, particularly for Qatar, and how has Qatar used the Al Jazeera Network for geopolitical gain? Within the Arab world, Al Jazeera has effectively galvanized pan-Arab consciousness, particularly in regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as opposition to the US-led war in Iraq. Outlined in detail in Chapter 4, Al Jazeera’s anti-colonial metanarrative, deployed in its coverage of both conflicts, has truly solidified opposition to Coalition forces in Iraq and Israeli treatment of Palestinians. Importantly, as Lynch (2006, 155) notes, America was seen as the linchpin to both: “the Arab people insisted on the intimate linkage between the suffering of the two people’s, with the United States being the key actor in each.” An example of Al Jazeera’s ability to mobilize the Arab street was first seen in 1998 amidst growing tensions between the US-led coalition and Iraq. In February 1998, when Iraq refused to allow weapons inspectors the access called for by the United Nations, the US and UK threatened air strikes. Yet, due to Al Jazeera’s continued coverage of suffering in Iraq, of which the UN-imposed sanctions were partly responsible, the Arab world erupted in protest to the possibility of strikes that could cause further civilian destruction. As Lynch (2006, 159) notes: The open arguments on al-Jazeera could not be restricted to just the television screen, and soon began to spill out into political mobilization in almost every Arab country. These protestors used a common language and employed similar imagery, with their actions in turn rebroadcast on the Arab media—providing inspiration for others in a virtuous circle of activism. As a result of the protests, Arab governments, even Kuwait’s, refused to support the attacks. Each of the GCC countries declined requests to use their airspace, making a 204 strike logistically challenging. More broadly, Arab governments had been put on notice moving forward: “When crisis hit in Iraq Arab states had little choice but to take into account the very real presence of a mobilized and angry Arab street” (Lynch 2006, 160). Here, we see how media mobilization can very easily impact policy calculations of foreign governments. Similarly, Al Jazeera played a central role in how the 2000 Al-Aqsa intifada played out and was critical in shaping its geopolitical import for the region for years to come. Al Jazeera’s Ramallah bureau chief, Walid Al-Omary, became a central figure in the conflict (constituting an example of media diplomacy). Born in a small Israeli village near Nazareth, Al-Omary studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and later at Tel Aviv University. Post graduation, Al-Omary worked for a variety of Western and Palestinian organizations, including the Palestinian Press Office in East Jerusalem and NBC. AlOmary was a rare commodity in that he was well-connected and well-respected by both Israelis and Palestinians. During the Al-Aqsa intifada, which was a defining moment for Al Jazeera’s rise as the region’s leader in news, Al-Omary became personally involved in negotiating the conflict. He and his bureau in Ramallah were the target of an Israeli blockade for seven days that resulted in an outpouring of sympathy among viewers. AlOmary recounts, as he and his crew were running low on water and food, their cameras continued to roll, and local Palestinians felt so strongly for the team of reporters that they broke the Israeli-enforced curfew in order to try and bring the journalists whatever food and water they had left. Days later, as tensions continued to escalate, Al-Omary filmed 205 Israeli helicopters entering into Ramallah launching rockets into local neighborhoods. While his cameraman ran for cover, Al-Omary picked up the camera and, drawing upon his own familiarity with the area, began to identify the neighborhoods and even households that were being attacked. Then, all of a sudden, as an Israeli missile struck a new home, Al-Omary fell silent, saying only that it looked as if his family’s building had just been struck. Al Jazeera’s airwaves remained mainly silent for the next 15 minutes until Al-Omary returned, broken up, announcing that while his home had been hit, his wife and child had survived (el-Nawawy and Iskandar 2003). In the days that followed, violence continued to escalate, and the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) turned to Al-Omary as a means of communicating with Palestinians and the PA. In response to the lynching of two Israeli soldiers in a police station in Ramallah, the Israeli military contacted Al-Omary and asked that he inform the PA that they should evacuate their offices and police stations immediately. Soon after Al-Omary announced the communiqué on Al Jazeera, he and his crew filmed Israeli helicopters descend on Ramallah, targeting the PA’s facilities (Miles 2005). The mobilized Arab publics also enhanced Al Jazeera’s importance as a platform for media diplomacy. Similar to how, during the first Gulf War, CNN became the de facto medium for communication between Saddam Hussein and the Western world, Al Jazeera became the de facto medium for negotiating the meaning and reaction to the Israeli use of force and the Arab and Palestinian uprisings. In the first week of the 206 intifada, Ali Abdullah Saleh, the President of Yemen, used Al Jazeera to call for a regional approach to the crisis: “All Arabs are urged to support the Palestinian intifada through various political and economic means …What has been taken by force can only be retaken by force,” adding that all Arab leaders should break off all diplomatic ties with Israel (cited in Miles 2006, 81). That same week, in response to a question from Al Jazeera’s Cairo bureau chief regarding whether Egypt would consider going to war with Israel, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak responded, acknowledging how important Al Jazeera’s coverage of his statements and the crisis was, “You want me to take Al Jazeera to war? Let Al Jazeera go to war. We are not going” (Ibid.). According to Miles (2006, 81), as opposed to Mubarak, Saleh had used Al Jazeera’s populist message and platform to score political points. Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah and Iran’s Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi soon followed Saleh’s lead, using Al Jazeera as a microphone to call for war against Israel. In each case, Al Jazeera was the medium through which the conflict was negotiated among heads of state, at least in public. Needless to say, the intifada was a boon for Al Jazeera. According to the Pan Arab Research Center (2002), during the crisis half of all Arab viewers deserted their local state news networks in favor of Al Jazeera. This is partly due to Israel’s closing of several local radio stations within the Palestinian territories, leaving Al Jazeera as one of only credible sources reporting from inside the conflict zone (Miles 2006). Jordanian officials reported that 30,000 satellite dishes were purchased in Jordan during the beginning days of the intifada, on which viewers tuned into Al Jazeera for updates on the 207 situation on the ground in Palestine. During the conflict, 78 percent of Palestinians reported that Al Jazeera was their network of choice (Pan Arab Research Center 2002). Al Jazeera’s ability to mobilize Arab publics, combined with its centrality to the political negotiations surrounding the conflict, helped it influence the policy-making process by increasing pressure for humanitarian aid and diplomatic intervention. As attempts to quell the violence continued to fail, the region was recoiling with political activism and increased concern for the continued plight of the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia initiated a large-scale fund-raising campaign for humanitarian aid to Palestine, kicked off with a $7 million contribution from King Fahd’s personal resources. Egypt called for an emergency Arab summit in Cairo. As Arab leaders met, the anti-Israel and Western tone, lead by Saddam Hussein, as well as Iranian and Libyan leaders made it difficult for the group to come to any concrete consensus on how to move forward. During the summit, the Arab public’s mood was fierce. According to Miles (2006, 83), “there was widespread hope that Arab leaders would take this opportunity to break off diplomatic relations with Israel.” Whereas Oman and Morocco had already done so, Egypt had restrained from severing diplomatic ties with Israel, fearing a return to increased tensions similar to that experienced prior to the peace process. As Miles (2006, 83) argues, “the recurrent appearances of radical spokesman on Al Jazeera, such as Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah, made it increasingly difficult for Egypt to stick to a moderate course.” 208 Adding to the pressure, just days before the summit, Libyan leader Colonel Qadhafi lampooned the event by reading live on Al Jazeera the pre-planned resolutions that the summit was supposed to achieve, making it seem as though the Egyptian hosts had tried to fix the outcome of the summit in advance of soliciting input from other Arab leaders. “To all the world it looked like the Arab leaders had connived to stitch up the Palestinians,” and, as a result, “the summit became a fiasco” (Miles 2006, 84). Egypt, furious at the being made a fool in the eyes of the Arab world, targeted its anger towards Al Jazeera. Egyptian political leaders lambasted Al Jazeera in the region’s newspapers, arguing that the Network was simply a tool of the Qatari government, controlled by Islamists, and that it was “distorting the case for war and leading the Arabs—and specifically Egypt—into a trap” (Miles 2006, 85). As a result, the Arab summit produced little of substance on to how to proceed with Israel. On the bright side, the summit did help raise money for food and medicine for Palestinians. According to Miles (2006, 85), “public pressure, shepherded largely by Al Jazeera, was an important factor in raising such a substantial sum.” In the following months, Al Jazeera continued to highlight the plight of the Palestinians, the strength of the Al-Aqsa intifada, and targeted Egypt in its criticisms of the status quo. As anger towards President Mubarak mounted, particularly in Egypt, Al Jazeera fed the flames of war. According to Miles (2006, 87), “guests on Al Jazeera routinely denounced the Egyptian government for failing the Arabs and there is no doubt 209 these voices added to the destabilization of the country.” Al Jazeera’s coverage of the intifada was felt throughout the Middle East as well, including the region’s most politically and socially conservative country, Saudi Arabia. Citing the largest public protests in the Kingdom’s history, Miles (2006, 91) suggests: Masses of disaffected youth in Saudi Arabia, where half the population is aged under fifteen, were brought to a new level of media consciousness by watching the intifada on Al Jazeera. Its powerful messages politicized young Saudis and prompted them to interrogate their government about its relationship with America. It was during this time when relations between Qatar and the rest of the Gulf countries seriously deteriorated. Saudi Arabia, upset with Al Jazeera’s sensational coverage of Palestine, as well as its criticisms of the Saudi peace plan, withdrew its ambassador from Qatar, marking the first time a member of the GCC had severed diplomatic ties with another. The rest of the GCC sided with Saudi Arabia and boycotted a GCC meeting in Doha later that year (See Table 3.1 for a history of actions taken against Al Jazeera and Qatar). In the following months, Sheikh Hamad was threatened with yet another coup attempt, led by Pakistani and Yemeni parts of Qatar’s armed forces and aided by several members of the Qatari royal family. Intelligence sources speculate that Saudi Arabia was also behind the effort, helping organize communications and promising support throughout. Importantly, US military forces stationed in Qatar helped to end the coup effort (STRATFOR 2002). 210 According to Mohammed Jasim al-Ali (2009), former General Manager of Al Jazeera, “we made a revolution in Arab media.” Miles (2006, 91) concurs, arguing that the intifada was a moment of sea change for politics in the region: A new Arab political awareness was forged. For the first time Arabs made their autocratic leaders defend their decisions and policies. The television pictures of the intifada transcended national boundaries, reaching into homes, offices and cafes beyond the Middle East and North Africa…Some media critics have since compared Al Jazeera’s role in the intifada to that of the reporters who had covered the Vietnam War thirty years earlier. Notably, Qatar benefited from Al Jazeera’s popularity and success: “Qatar suddenly found itself famous for something other than pumping gas. It began to take a more pronounced role in regional and even global affairs. The Qatari foreign minister…visited Washington [and] the Emir began to take to the world stage” (Miles 2006, 104). More broadly, according to Lynch (2004, 129), in the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, due to “the narrative that developed and hardened over the course of the 1990s, American arguments were automatically discounted and nefarious motivations ascribed.” Yet, while Al Jazeera was essential to the emergence of this narrative through its extensive coverage of the civilian suffering in Iraq and the al-Aqsa intifada in Palestine, by 2002 most Arab media, including state-run media, had joined the chorus. Thus, whereas during the first Gulf war when Arab governments were able to coalesce with Western forces without too much concern of backlash from domestic constituencies, by 2003 the situation on the ground had changed radically. Compared to 1991 when Saudi Arabia was able to temporarily cover up that an attack on Kuwait had even occurred, in 211 2003 almost no Arab regime was able to pledge its support to the war effort due to fear of domestic repercussions. According to Lynch (2004, 156), this is due to a mobilized Arab citizenry that was in good part emboldened by Al Jazeera’s coverage of Iraqi and Palestinian suffering: “In an almost unprecedented acknowledgement of the new power of public opinion, even pro-American Arab leaders made clear that they could not be asked to publicly support a war against Iraq…Even Saudi Arabia and Kuwait demurred from supporting an attack at that time.” Again, the media’s ability to mobilize the Arab public had tangible consequences for the policies of Arab governments, in this case, causing them to withdraw their support from the American-led war effort. Lynch’s account of how Al Jazeera mobilized the Arab street to oppose the American war effort, and thus the refusal of most Arab governments to cooperate with the 2003 invasion of Iraq begs an important question: If Al Jazeera’s coverage—which sparked largely critical coverage of the US war effort throughout the region—dissuaded almost all Arab governments from cooperating with the war effort, why didn’t it impact Qatar’s decision to host US forces and military assets vital to the mission? Indeed, in 2002, on the heels of the American led- invasion of Iraq, Qatar’s Foreign Minister, Sheikh Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabr Al Thani, declared that Qatar’s relationship with America was his country’s “first consideration” (cited in Miles 2006, 10). There must have been fears in government circles that, by fanning pan-Arab anger towards the war effort, Qatar could also become a target of Arab anger given its cooperation with US military. In terms of public diplomacy, Qatar’s hosting of American forces as well as a 212 news network that was among the most critical and outspoken in its coverage of the war effort was a very risky strategy. Another example of Al Jazeera’s role in international politics came after 9/11, when Al Jazeera became the primary means by which Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden communicated with the outside world. In 2000, the Taliban had invited both Al Jazeera and CNN to establish bureaus in Kabul, but only Al Jazeera accepted. Thus, when Operation Enduring Freedom began on October 7, 2001, Al Jazeera had the only news bureau in Kabul. In the weeks that followed, only a handful of Western journalists were inside Afghanistan, and Al Jazeera was the only established news network with cameras rolling inside the capital city. Importantly, as a result of its establishment of a bureau there a year earlier, Al Jazeera had ready-made connections with the Taliban and was able to operate and report on the war effort in great detail. Also, as a result of its ties with Taliban officials, some of which were also associated with Al Qaeda, Al Jazeera was the chosen outlet for the official communiqués of Osama bin Laden. All told, in the six months following the attacks on 9/11, Al Jazeera received over 10 videotapes and letters from bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and featured four of them in detail on air (Miles 2006). The Network’s role as a mediator between bin Laden and the West was clear. After receiving the second letter from bin Laden after 9/11, Al Jazeera invited the Bush administration to have someone offer a live and immediate rebuttal. The State Department was so short on fluent and articulate Arabic speakers that it asked retired 213 former ambassador to Syria, Christopher Ross, to serve as its liaison with Al Jazeera. Thereafter, the Bush administration relied on the Network to communicate with the Arab world. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice each gave interviews with the Network, typically offering rebuttals to the images of widespread civilian devastation that viewers were seeing on Al Jazeera, as well as emphasizing that the war effort was not targeted against Muslims, but rather an extreme and politicized sect, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. British Prime Minister Tony Blair also acknowledged the Network’s pivotal importance to communicating with the Arab world, offering Al Jazeera an exclusive interview in 2003 explaining why the UK was so strongly supporting the war effort (el-Nawawy and Iskander 2003). In October 2001, Al Jazeera’s Kabul-based correspondent, Taysir Alluni, scored the first interview with Osama bin Laden since the attacks on 9/11. According to the Network, Alluni had been chosen by Al Qaeda leaders for the interview and did not know he was going to meet bin Laden when he was picked up and escorted to the location of the interview by Al Qaeda. During the interview, Alluni asked a number of questions that were fed to him by Al Qaeda, including weather bin Laden was responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Bin Laden responded, “We kill the kings of the infidels, kings of the crusaders and civilian infidels in exchange for those of our children they kill. This is permissible in Islamic law and logically.” Interestingly, while Al Jazeera decided not to air the interview, a leaked copy was aired by CNN three months later. The video was 214 seen by many in the West as further evidence of bin Laden’s involvement in the attacks on 9/11 (Dupuy 2008). Al Jazeera has also served as a means for exchanging messages between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders. In 2002, when Ariel Sharon threatened to exile Yasser Arafat once and for all, Arafat took to the airwaves via Al Jazeera to declare that he would rather “die than leave his homeland” (cited in Miles 2006, 192). Outside of the occasional summit, Al Jazeera is one of the few places where Palestinian and Israeli leaders meet—albeit electronically—and conduct political negotiations. Qatari Prime Minister used the broadcaster in 2003 to call for “long talks with the Israelis” in order to “put an end to the killing between Palestinians and Israelis,” negotiations that are widely held as unpopular by many in the region (Baatout 2003). Given that Al Jazeera was the first Arab broadcaster to invite an Israeli to speak on air, some argue that its continued inclusion of Israelis in their programming, despite widespread protest from Arabs, is part of a larger effort of fostering reconciliation between the Arabs and the Israelis. According to Miles (2005, 380), by 9/11, “Al Jazeera had already become the de facto platform for announcing new policy initiatives in the Middle East, for regional leaders from Libya to Israel.” After the Coalition takeover of Iraq, once Saddam Hussein was in hiding, his primary means of communicating with Iraqis and the Arab world was through letters sent and phone calls placed to Al Jazeera’s studios in Doha. 215 Outside of the Arab world, AJE has been involved in mobilizing political opposition through its coverage of local politics in Malaysia. In November 2007, protests broke out in downtown Kuala Lumpur. Organized by BERSIH, a coalition of Malaysian opposition political parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with the stated aim of reforming the electoral process, an estimated 40,000 protestors came out in force to draw attention to complaints of government discrimination against minority communities and to call for an end to government corruption and for electoral reform. While the protests began as a peaceful endeavor, Malaysian police quickly tried to quash the protestors and to dissuade people from joining the demonstrations by using fire hoses and tear gas. The images were stunning, not only for international audiences, but especially for Malaysians. While the Malaysian broadcast and print media failed to cover the protests as anything more than a blip, AJE covered the protests live and in detail. Widespread public awareness of the protests, and the police violence that followed, would not have been acknowledged in but a few elite circles had AJE correspondents not been there on the ground to film the events (Carter 2008). AJE’s coverage of the protests was significant for several reasons. Internationally, it exposed just how delicate the Malaysian political and social systems are, a fragility that the government had been working to mask for the sake of promoting itself as a safe haven for international economic investment. Domestically, the coverage shattered the credibility of a ruling party that had assured its citizenry that its handling of the protesters had been with the utmost restraint. The large-scale discrepancy between AJE’s ample 216 coverage of the protests and the sparser coverage of the Malaysian—largely stateinfluenced—media resulted in the Malaysian mainstream media’s “largest credibility crisis to date” (Netto 2007). Dato Manja Ismail (2008), director of Malay publications for Media Prima, the state-run media conglomerate, put it another way: “AJE’s coverage of the protests changed how we cover sensitive political issues here. Before, we could not show such images, or tell such tales of government abuse. Now, if we don’t we will lose our audience to AJE. I’ve told the minister of information that, and he understands that things must change.” AJE’s Veronica Pedrosa (2008) concurs saying, “In Malaysia and Indonesia, our coverage seems to have galvanized local television newsrooms.” AJE’s overall coverage of the events—starting with the rising ethnic tensions within Malaysia, to the police violence, all the way to the final protests—constituted a new type of journalism for Malaysians. AJE did not merely cover the events as they took place, but rather provided background, context, and at times opinions that narrativized the events in a way that helped mobilize opinion against the government (for example, Hamish MacDonald’s coverage in 2008). Put simply, AJE became an actor on behalf of the oppositional and nongovernmental forces in Kuala Lumpur, a performance that was instrumental in coalescing diverse groups against the ruling coalition (Pedrosa 2008). Just four months later, despite widespread predictions to the contrary, Malaysian voters chose dramatic change in the country’s March 2008 elections. The ruling coalition lost its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time since independence, as well as 217 a number of significant state and local elections. The National Justice Party, established in 2003 and organized around the goals of social justice and a non-ethnic approach to promoting growth, went from having one representative in parliament to controlling 31 seats. A close ally, the Democratic Action Party, under the banner of promoting a secular, multiracial, and social democratic state, went from controlling 12 seats to 28. As Michael Leigh (2008), former director of the Asia Institute at Melbourne University notes: Malaysia has entered a new era of competitive party politics, moving on from five decades of government that has faced down fragmented and impotent opposition by using the power of the state and media manipulation to maintain the myth that voters should support the Government, or risk societal breakdown. The Government’s ethnicized formula of retaining political power has been put on notice and, as such, politics in Malaysia is unlikely to be the same again. Al Jazeera has also at times played the role of a traditional, state-funded international broadcaster, operating in line with the broad foreign policy goals of its financing government. Al Jazeera depends on funding from the Qatari government for its survival. Recent figures indicate that the Network only generates between 35-40 percent of its operating costs. In addition to its annual support, the Emir invested over $1billion into the launch of Al Jazeera English (Blanchard 2008). Chapter 3 outlined how at times the broadcaster has framed the news in an effort to further the foreign policy goals of the microstate, especially with regard to its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the region’s traditional religious and political leaders. Moreover, in 2003, in response to pressure from the Bush administration, the Emir stepped in to appoint a new managing director and a new board of directors in order to “enhance the station’s capabilities and 218 ensure the standards of professionalism” (Baatout 2003). A Qatari adviser to the Emir even suggests that the launching of AJE, first discussed as early as 1998, was delayed due to pressure from the Bush administration (Miles 2005). During the Israeli incursion into Gaza in early 2009, Egyptian policymakers argued that Al Jazeera was overly critical of Egypt’s role in the crisis, basically painting Egypt as an ally of Israel rather than the Palestinian people. Many in the Egyptian press argued that Al Jazeera’s negative portrayal of Egypt was part of a larger effort by the Qatari Emir to be seen as a reputable and honest negotiator between the Israelis and different Palestinian groups, rather than, for example, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (Lynch 2009). Turning to Al Jazeera’s role in fostering cultural conflict and/or cooperation, the evidence to date is anecdotal and difficult to discern in terms of its ability to shape international tensions or cooperation. Certainly, Al Jazeera’s coverage has at times been sensationalized and resulted in inflamed cultural conflict between the Arab world and the United States. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, as was noted previously, Al Jazeera’s coverage painted a poor picture of American policies in the region. In his otherwise supportive examination of the rise of Al Jazeera, Miles (2005, 366) concluded that, despite its professionalism and heavy-hitting journalism, “it is probably true that AlJazeera propagates hate…Unquestionably, many of the voices heard on Al-Jazeera are deeply illiberal and often express strong anti-Western or anti-Semitic sentiment and the Islamist slogan ‘Islam is the solution’ is frequently heard.” According to Miles (2005, 368), it is not simply the talk shows that often get out of hand, but also the core of Al 219 Jazeera’s news agenda that has raised anxiety levels of its viewers: “Its truthful reports from the West Bank and Gaza have probably made peace and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis more elusive too. By graphically showing Palestinian suffering, Al-Jazeera may well have contributed to a hardening of the Arab position against Israel.” Despite this, Al Jazeera is far from being guilty of spreading an anti-Western message, especially when one considers topics outside the traditional realm of politics. For example, a Gallup poll (2002) found that Al Jazeera viewers were more likely to appreciate Western culture—including its films and music—than were those who get their news elsewhere. Also, in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, Al Jazeera viewers also expressed more concern than other news viewers about the issue of improved relations between Western and Islamic cultures. At the same time, Al Jazeera viewers tended to be more critical of the policies the Western powers have pursued in the region than are viewers of other stations, especially in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. Further examining the data from the 2002 Gallup poll, Gentzkow and Shapiro (2004) found that viewers that tuned into Al Jazeera as their primary source of information were more likely to believe that Arabs were responsible for 9/11, but also were significantly less likely to believe that the attacks on 9/11 were unjustifiable. Moreover, as the Al Jazeera Network continues to expand its reporting operations in the West, and in the US in particular, its reporting of American culture and political developments may be more nuanced and balanced, thus fostering a more human picture of the United States. 220 There is, of course, another direction to consider. According to an anonymous Jordanian politician, AJE has the potential to fundamentally alter Western—especially American—perceptions of the Arab world. By offering a realistic portrayal of the destruction that has taken place in the West Bank and Gaza, AJE could encourage Americans to call for a change in policy. Commenting on AJE’s presence on the Western airwaves, the Jordanian politician said, “it is exactly like having an Arabic army invading the United Kingdom or the United States” (cited in Miles 2005, 415). According to Walid al-Omary, Al Jazeera’s Washington bureau chief, “I hope that Al-Jazeera in English has an important effect. We need to change the Arab image. We don’t hate American people” (cited in Miles 2005, 416). Jihad Ballout, formerly the Network’s head of public affairs, argues that AJE is important to combat negative stereotypes about Muslims and the Arab world that are pervasive throughout the Western hemisphere: Islam is being portrayed not in its proper essence…The West does not appreciate the real value of [Islam]. So perhaps we can redress the balance in terms of exchange of information…I am hoping that people perhaps will start appreciating the cultural difference-and there is a cultural difference, let’s not kid ourselves— that is what makes different people unique. Politically speaking, it must have an effect if societies start changing their minds and start accepting other cultures (cited in Miles 2005, 416). Naturally, AJE is likely to offer a more accurate portrayal of news and politics in the region than American and European-based networks. As Faisal al-Qasim (2008) exclaims, “you need Arabs who aren’t afraid of their governments to tell you about the Arab world, and most of them work with me at Al Jazeera!” Yet, at the same time, most of the Arabs al-Qasim refers to work on the Arabic side of the Network, some of which 221 have openly called into question the “Arab” credentials of its younger global broadcaster. Al-Ali (2009), the former managing director of Al Jazeera that was forced to step aside due to rumors of his close connections with Saddam Hussein, agrees that AJE has lost the “Arab edge,” and even risks hurting the overall brand of the Network. At the same time, many on the English side don’t even see themselves as being an “Arab” broadcaster, but rather “a voice to the global voiceless” (Burman 2009). Indeed, the diversity of its staff is supposed to ensure that it is not an Arab or a Western news broadcaster, but rather a hybrid of both. According to its Journalistic Code of Ethics (2009), “The channel [sets] the news agenda, bridging cultures and providing a unique grassroots perspective from underreported regions around the world to a potential global audience of over one billion English speakers.” By focusing on identifying, mobilizing, and connecting people from different parts of the world, regardless of politics or government, AJE’s mission is different from its Arabic sister, and thus may not necessarily reflect the “Arab” perspective of events, but rather, a people-centered perspective of events. The difference between the two broadcasters was made starkly clear in the aftermath of the violence in Gaza in 2009. Whereas AJE had in-depth but mainstream stories reported from Gaza, the Arabic side once again sensationalized the violence in overtly political ways (Lynch 2009). According to AJE’s Managing Director Tony Burman (2009), “we have different audiences with different sensibilities, and that is reflected in the difference in our coverage of Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” 222 It is perhaps this “sensibility” that is at the heart of the question of cultural cooperation and conflict. According to Castells (2009, 37), one consequence of the emergence of global networks is the creation of “communes of autonomy” whereby local cultures reject globalization and gather in enclaves of opposition. For Castells, this process of fragmentation is at the root of contemporary violence. “Thus, protocols of communication between different cultures are the critical issue for the network society, since without them there is no society, just dominant networks and resisting communes” Castells (2009, 37). Protocols of communication, in this sense, are the norms that allow for the free flow of communication across borders in ways that meet the needs of civil society while at the same time do not offend local sensibilities. As it is looking forward rather than analyzing past events, this conversation is continued below. To summarize, Table 6.1 offers an overview of the seven different functions of international media in international politics and a description of the role played by the Al Jazeera Network in each. 223 TABLE 6.1: THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE AL JAZEERA NETWORK Function The Al Jazeera Network Mobilization Pan-Arab support for Palestinians, panArab opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq, promotion of ethnic minorities into the mainstream Malaysian political process. Policy forcing—intervention/aid Humanitarian aid to Palestine Policy forcing—withdrawal Arab government refusal to cooperate with the US-led war in Iraq Government policy framing Highly critical of Egyptian and Saudi roles in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Media diplomacy Critical conduit of communication between the West, Arab Governments and Osama bin Laden/Al Qaeda in the aftermath of 9/11; Arab governments used Al Jazeera for political gain during the Al-Aqsa intifada Media-brokered diplomacy Israeli and Palestinian officials routinely face-off on Al Jazeera; American officials use Al Jazeera and AJE to communicate with the Arab and developing world Cultural cooperation or conflict Al Jazeera viewers are more likely to be hostile to American foreign policy; Al Jazeera English viewers are less dogmatic 224 MOVING FORWARD The third research question this project addresses—What is it about Al Jazeera’s approach to the news that resonates so well with its Arab audiences, and how does that approach translate into its global broadcasting operations?—is addressed here with a discussion of which type of “model” of broadcasting that it has followed. Some scholars have compared Al Jazeera to President Nasser’s Voice of the Arabs, a propagandistic mission par excellence (see Chapter 2), while others have dubbed the Network as the CNN of the Middle East (see Chapter 3). Neither is an accurate portrayal of the Network. A careful reading of its mission, mandate, and operations reveals that it is much closer to the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) model of broadcasting. The Voice of the Arabs was popular, but also hugely discredited after it was made clear that it had broadcast disinformation in an attempt to deceive the Arab public. Al Jazeera’s reporting, as much as any Western news network’s, is grounded in facts, backed with highly graphic and emotive videos. In its coverage of Palestine and Iraq—two places where the established ruling powers are facing significant political opposition, similar to communist governments during the Cold War—Al Jazeera is admittedly partial, referring to opposition groups as “resistance,” a term with positive and legitimate connotations. RFE/RL similarly reported a rosy picture of resistance movements behind the Iron Curtain, typically based in fact, but clearly politically motivated (Nelson 1998). And, just like RFE/RL, the ethnic identity of the broadcasting journalists is an essential element of its credibility and authority. The past two managing directors for Al Jazeera are of 225 Palestinian blood, and one of its most popular talk show hosts, Sheikh Yusuf alQaradawi, is widely recognized as a member of the leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, the most prominent political resistance group in the region after Hamas and Hezbollah. “Arab dissidents living in the West who appeared on Al Jazeera still presented themselves as refugees in exile from nightmare regimes” (Miles 2006, 194). Importantly, this comparison need not be read as a negative one. In the case of Al Jazeera, the drive behind airing dissident views is to provide multiple perspectives on current affairs, perspectives that are lacking in many parts of the world. Moreover, it is not at the expense of official opinions either. In fact, representatives from governments routinely square off with reporters and talk show hosts on both Al Jazeera and AJE. Just as RFE/RL’s reporting was not necessarily in alignment with the immediate foreign policy goals of the United States, Al Jazeera’s reporting is not always aligned with the foreign policy of Qatar (see Chapter 2’s discussion of RFE’s role in the Hungarian uprising of 1956). Miles reports (2005, 356), after interviewing more than 30 of Al Jazeera’s journalists, “they rarely think of Al-Jazeera even as a Qatari network— they shoot and edit packages in the field, uplink them and they are broadcast a few hours later. They do not stop to think for even a second about the nationality of their station or its financier.” In this project’s interviews with members from both the Arabic and English broadcasters, the interests of Qatar were rarely discussed. Yet, that does not mean that Qatar doesn’t benefit from the Network’s news culture—focused on airing dissident opinions and the voices of the voiceless—which is at the center of the Network’s 226 mission. Importantly, this is not as revolutionary as it may first appear. In fact, the motto of “giving a voice to the voiceless” was first used in reference to the Voice of America’s (VOA) broadcasting efforts throughout the developing world. According to Heil (2003, 378), “around the world, VOA and its correspondence—by reporting humanitarian issues candidly and comprehensively—focused on the need for reforms of potential benefit to thousands of people.” How does that differ from the mission of the Al Jazeera Network, which also looks toward humanitarian issues as a means to coalesce and mobilize global publics towards reform? Finally, it is important to remember that Al Jazeera was born out of the collapse of the BBC Arabic effort, and thus also has roots—in its talent and training—in yet another traditional, Western international broadcaster. The final research question this study addresses asks: What lessons does the case of the Al Jazeera Network provide for the future of international broadcasting and public diplomacy? It is important to focus in on two elements of Al Jazeera—its “hybrid” identity and its use of new communications tools, as they are both emphasized as critical parts of Castells’ theory of networking power. Part of Al Jazeera’s success can be attributed to the fact that its news agenda is seen as audience-driven rather than programmer-driven. While the news agenda is certainly controlled by the Network’s executives and editorial team, it does report with a very populist message, exposing corruption and political violence. Arabs are typically portrayed as victims of poor governance or the foreign policies of the West, thus creating the impression that Al Jazeera is the voice of the people. In some ways, Al Jazeera was able to tap into the 227 emerging participatory culture that Jenkins (2006), among others, has argued is the direction of the future of mediated communication. Born in the Age of Information, the Network was able to build new technologies and audience contributions into its programming with more ease than other news organizations steeped in tradition and bureaucracy. This is indeed part of the news culture at Al Jazeera, and is yet another example of how its hybrid approach to news—using both old and new journalistic endeavors—is critical to its success across some very different audiences. Yet, what makes the Network’s current efforts truly stand out from previous broadcasters is the culture of openness and sharing at the heart of its current reporting. According to Castells (2009), part of understanding the nature of communication power today requires an understanding of the impacts that the processes of digitization have on one’s ability to control the message. Whereas in previous eras, organizations producing information—news networks, governments, etc.—were able to package their messages and thus tailor them for particular audiences, digitization means that anyone can repackage and redistribute any message, typically virally. For the most part, established centers of power are struggling with this reality, scared of losing control of their message. The Al Jazeera Network, on the other hand, seems to have embraced it. Al Jazeera’s networking power is well documented. It has sharing agreements with CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox News, the BBC, the Japanese NHK, the German ZDF, Africa24, Venezuela’s Telesur, US-based MHz and Link TV, and UK-based The Guardian. Its Creative Commons initiative, whereby it released all of its footage from both the Arabic and 228 English bureaus in Gaza to the public using the most liberal creative commons sharing license, is the type of move that may be described as a savvy exercise of networking power: Networking power consists of the capacity of letting a medium or a message enter the network through gatekeeping procedures. Those in charge of the operations of each communication network are the gatekeepers, and so they exercise networking power by blocking or allowing access to media outlets and/or to messages that are conveyed to the network (Castells 2009, 416). The Creative Commons move, and its plan for expansion outlined by the Network’s head of new media in chapters 1 and 5, touch on an additional, and perhaps more important aspect of Castells’ theory of communication power in the network society. For Castells, a primary concern moving forward is the possibility of enhanced cultural conflict based upon the fragmentation of identities. As communities retreat to preserve what remains of their cultural traditions and mores that help maintain a sense of stability amidst today’s otherwise turbulent world, different cultures will find it more difficult to establish collective norms of communication, an essential link for relationships to form and, in Castells’ mind, violence to be avoided. Rather than speculate about the types of stories or conversational norms capable of bridging the widespread cultural divides society faces, Castells (2009, 38) argues that is not a question of content, but process: The common culture of the global network society is a culture of protocols of communication enabling communication between different cultures on the basis not of shared values but of the sharing of the value of communication. This is to say: the new culture is not made of content but of process, as the constitutional democratic culture is based on procedure, not on substantive programs. Global 229 culture is a culture of communication for the sake of communication. It is an open-ended network of cultural meanings that can not only coexist, but also interact and modify each other on the basis of this exchange. The culture of the network society is a culture of protocols of communication between all cultures in the world, developed on the basis of the common belief in the power of networking and of the synergy obtained by giving to others and receiving from others. There is no international broadcaster today that has embraced this culture of openness and sharing more than the Al Jazeera Network. In large part due to American opposition to the launching of AJE, the Network invested heavily in online distribution schemes that proved effective at reaching audiences in the West during the violence in Gaza in 2009. More importantly, by placing all of its footage online for free and fair use by the masses via creative commons, Al Jazeera is leaping well beyond the likes of the BBC, CNN, and the VOA, each of which continues to be hampered with legal and financial paradoxes when it comes to operating in today’s networked world. As the BBC struggles to determine which of its broadcasts should be proprietary within the UK, the VOA remains hampered by the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act restricting its ability to disseminate its broadcasts ubiquitously, and CNN struggles to monetize its content in order to maintain shareholder confidence, Al Jazeera soldiers on, opening bureaus and broadcasting to new markets. In the end, it may be precisely Al Jazeera’s connections to the Qatari royal family, a critical node in today’s networked society, that is its core strength. Whereas in the US and UK where broadcasting efforts are intentionally placed outside of the official purview of the State Department and Foreign Office, Qatar’s Al Jazeera Network doesn’t 230 have as significant a firewall between the government policy and the newsroom operations. The former Deputy Minister of Information and cousin to the Emir serves as the head of the Network’s Board, and it is said that if a reporter needs extra resources while in the field, all they need to do is ring him and the money will be wired in a matter of minutes (Zayani and Sahraoui 2008). Qatar is seen as a relatively benign power with peaceful intentions; thus viewers are less suspicious of its influence on the broadcaster’s editorial slant. The perennial underdog, overshadowed by its religious and politically pushy neighbors Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Qatar is seen as friendly and willing to forge forward in the international system with a new type of politics. As Doha has come to be seen as a place where ideologically opposed leaders and groups can meet, negotiate, and move forward—again touching of Castells’ theory of openness as the norm for the future of cross-cultural cooperation—the Al Jazeera Network embodies a similar openness to the diversity of ideas. The combined switching power afforded to Al Jazeera by the resources of the Qatari government, alongside the massive programming power that comes with running two international news channels, both of which are well received in most of the world, all of which packaged within the cultural norm of a universal right to the free flow of communication, collectively constitute an impressive geopolitical force. 231 CONCLUSION This study, of course, has its limits. The exact relationship between the Al Jazeera Network and the government of Qatar is difficult to pin down and has changed over time. As Qatar is still in the early stages of political reform, research on the internal policies and politics of the country is necessarily constrained by the lack of transparency on behalf of the Qatari government. There is no Qatari equivalent of the Freedom of Information Act. Al Jazeera benefits from controlling the public’s knowledge of the Network, and thus research on the organization is necessarily limited. That said, this study was fortunate to have substantial access to the news network and interview subjects were typically forthright in their opinions. Moreover, many of the examples of Al Jazeera’s impact on international politics are speculative. Though grounded in thorough analysis and examples, there are always numerous factors that shape geopolitical decision-making. While media are important in shaping public opinions, it is typically at the margins, and news media rarely are able to truly dictate the opinions and attitudes to any public. It is important to note that Al Jazeera’s ability to influence or impact public discourse in favor of Qatari interests is always contingent on other factors and pre-existing values, including religious and nationalistic beliefs, and is thus limited. Future research should look at how Al Jazeera’s Arabic channel has changed over time, and if its critical coverage of other Gulf countries has recently softened in lieu of improved Qatari-GCC ties. Moreover, one of the principle 232 goals of AJE—to provide a cultural bridge between “civilizations”—needs further attention. While this study points to the potential for the Network to act as a bridge, through its commitment to creating a global norm of the right to communicate and inform, further work is required to see if this possibility will, in practice, impact crosscultural impressions and conversations. To conclude, this study provides an expansive analysis of the creation and growth of the Al Jazeera Network and its role in geopolitical calculations in the Middle East and around the world. With the limitations noted above in mind, the study’s key findings are four-fold: • Al Jazeera’s success in the Middle East is based, at least partially, on its ability to tap into the collective memory of viewers by framing events—particularly conflicts—into narratives emphasizing anti-imperial and pro-Arab stories. In framing its coverage of Israeli-Palestinian tensions and the ongoing conflict between the West and Iraq in this light, the Network became the go-to place for news in a region that has been continuously dominated by these two conflicts for almost 20 years. Moreover, it is through its coverage of these ongoing conflicts that the Arab Network has been able to influence public opinion the most, and thus government policies. • Al Jazeera was created not simply in the hopes of establishing the first relatively free and independent news network in the region, but also as a tool by which the Qatari ruling family could deflect criticism from other regional news organizations as well as re-center criticism on unpopular autocratic Arab regimes. In doing so, it was a critical geopolitical tool that helped foster the growth of Qatar’s regional influence. Yet, the mission of the Arabic-language network—to provide an alternative opinion—serves the dual roles of airing criticism of Arab governments while also fostering more robust political discourse throughout the region. This emerging Arab public sphere is an important development in the growth of civil society and liberal reforms, both of which are also emphasized in Qatar’s domestic policy of modernization. Thus, there is an important synergy 233 between Qatar’s broad domestic policy of modernization and reform and the goals of its international broadcaster, the Al Jazeera Network. • Al Jazeera’s hybrid identity is essential to its strength and provides a model for effective international broadcasting in the Network Society. Its “hybridity” comes in many forms, but central is its mix of programming produced with global technologies and expertise but reported by local footage and sensibilities. The diversity of its staff—45 ethnicities and 50 nationalities represented—is also critical as it ensures that local knowledge can be used to contextualize reporting done from around the world. Its mix of traditional news programming, documentaries and talk shows with new technologies that allow for real citizen input and interactivity is yet another example of its hybrid approach to international broadcasting. Even its dual identity as both an independent news network yet funded and overseen by the Qatari government is part of its hybrid nature as it allows for the Network to, at times, air programming that is helpful to the geopolitical agenda of the Qatari government while, at other times, argue that the Network operates entirely independent of the Emir’s interests. • The Al Jazeera Network, combined with the Qatari government, is a compelling example of what Castells’ (2009) describes as “networking power.” Al Jazeera, via its multiple news and documentary channels, contains tremendous programming power, which speaks to its ability to controlling the narration of the news. The Network’s “program”—the ideological schematic guiding its production of information—is to provide a voice to the voiceless, a compelling message capable of resonating with audiences anywhere. As Ibrahim Helal (2008), AJE’s deputy director of news notes, “the global south is everywhere. It is here in the Middle East, in the slums of Cairo, but also in the streets of Sacramento.” Moreover, using resources given to it via the Qatari government, the Network has substantial “switching” power, and is able to broadcast its programming on networks throughout the world. Qatar’s impressive economic growth, recently ranked the twenty-second most competitive economy in the world, along with its growing investment in critical financial networks in Europe and Asia is another example of the convergence of global media and financial networks that Castells argues is an important element of any actor’s networking power. Finally, Al Jazeera’s mission, its continued commitment to airing views that are unpopular among much of its audiences—its inviting Israeli officials to discuss the situation in Palestine, for example—as well as its decision to release its video archives under a creative commons license are all evidence of the Network’s commitment to the right to communicate and have access to information. It is these norms that Castells’ argues have the potential to transcend cultural divides and provide an alternative to cultural fragmentation that risks 234 violence in the international system. Thus, the Al Jazeera Network is an important part of Qatar’s goal of establishing a “perpetual peace.” 235 CHAPTER 6 ENDNOTES 1 Immanuel Kant's 1795 essay, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,” outlined model for how states should behave in order to produce an international system where war and violence were no longer appropriate tools of statecraft. In it, he outlines six preliminary steps, such as the abolition of armies, and the end of all forms of dominion by one country over another. He also forwarded three definitive articles that would be the foundation of perpetual peace: that all governments should be republican, that international law should be developed via a federation of free and independent countries, and that countries should extend universal hospitality to all citizens of the free world. As this section argues, Qatar’s foreign policy is Kantian in its outlook. 236 BIBLIOGRAPHY Accuracy in Media. “New Poll Says American People Oppose U.S. Launch of Al-Jazeera International.” Sept. 13, 2006, http://www.aim.org/press-release/new-poll-saysamerican-people-oppose-us-launch-of-al-jazeera-international/. 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Zogby, James. “What do Arabs Think.” Media Monitors Network, Nov 6, 2002, <http://www.mediamonitors.net/zogby73.html> 255 APPENDIX: LIST OF INTERVIEW SUBJECTS TABLE A.1: INTERVIEW SUBJECTS Interview with Qualification Location Length (Minutes) Sue Philips AJE, Network London 40 Tim Cunningham AJE London 47 Claudio Laganda AJE London 37 Barbara Serra AJE London 26 Mark Seddon AJE London 28 Richard Ginzburg AJE London 47 Richard Dove AJE London 38 Marwan Bashara AJ Network London 42 Emma Bonor AJE London 18 Waddah Khanfar AJ Network London 33 Stephanie Vassen AJE Jakarta 45 Veronica Pedrosa AJE Kuala Lumpur 23 Kate Mayberry AJE Kuala Lumpur 30 Mick Bunworth AJE Kuala Lumpur 28 Scott Ferguson AJE Doha 35 Ibrahim Helal AJ Network Doha 43 Nigel Parsons AJE Doha 38 Faisal al-Qasim AJ Arabic Doha 22 Aref Hijjawi AJE Doha 31 Tony Burman AJE Doha 1:13 Ahmed Sheik AJ Arabic Doha 40 256 TABLE A.1 CONTINUED Ahmed Monsour AJ Arabic Doha 37 Mohammed Nanabhay AJ Network Doha 46 Director of Global Communication AJ Network Doha 22 Phil Lawrie AJ Network Doha 35 Will Stebbins AJE Washington, DC 34 Alessandro Rampietti AJE Washington, DC 14 James Wright AJE Washington, DC 13 Kimeran Daley AJ Network Washington, DC 19 Abderrahim foukra AJ Arabic Washington, DC 29 Josh Rushing AJE Washington, DC 31 Nahedah Zayed AJE Washington, DC 13 Ghida Fakhry AJE Washington, DC 40 Hamid Basyaib AJE Jakarta 1:04 Gita Wirsati AJE Jakarta 11 Hary Tonoesoedibjo AJE Jakarta 21 Des Alwi Independent, activist Jakarta 55 Goenawan Hohamed Local media Jakarta 42 Sumantri Slamet Local media Jakarta 37 Norizan Bin Shariff Local media Kuala Lumpur 45 Harjit S. Hullon Local media Kuala Lumpur 17 Dato Manj Ismail Local media Kuala Lumpur 23 Saad Edin Ibrahim Independent, activist Doha 33 Deborah Cambell Journalist Telephone 1:05 257 TABLE A.1 CONTINUED Mohammed Zayani Middle East expert Email N/A David Marash Former AJE employee Washington, DC 58 Faisal Bodi Former AJE employee London 30 258

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