Lounsbury: Throwing SAWA a bone, or it is harder than one might think

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October 13, 2004

Throwing SAWA a bone, or it is harder than one might think

SAWA was an easy thing to get right
(Anonymous)
2004-10-13 09:39 (link) Select
When you broadcast an alternative into a society where the media is rigidly state-controlled you don't really have to be that good to attract an audience, just relatively neutral and objective.

VOA had a very good rep at one time because they hired talented expats to broadcast back home and if they showed signs of wigging out on the air with strange agendas they were pulled and replaced. VOA and Radio Free Europe were once so effective that despots like Todor Zhivkov and Ceaucescu felt compelled to try and whack some of the broadcasters.

SAWA just needed some neutral news, the music, some conversational talk programs that dealt with social issues that were relevant among educated middle-class Arabs. That's it, at least to get started.Wrong model.

First, the media is not rigidly state controlled in most of the Arab world. There are various private media outlets, onshore under various degrees of censorship, offshore (satellite) with relative freedom.

Second, to attract an audience, it has to appeal to the audience. Although there is distrust for state media organs, in most Arab countries there is enough private media that whatever its faults (and they are legion, yellow press being the main), merely being "neutral" from a Western perspective is not enough.

Third, the areas of most concern to Arabs and to Americans in re Arabs are often those areas where the US view has the least credibility - fairer reporting on Israeli-Palestinian issues runs into the knowledge of the US position and perception of complete unfairness at present. But those the ones which the US is most ideologically bound up in knots over.

In short, the Cold War model utterly misconceives the nature of the problem. The Arab world is not devoid of private media (in gross), it is not locked up controlled as in Eastern Europe and it is not utterly unfree.

Rather the problems posed are much more complex and have as much to do with market immaturity, education levels and the like as with politics.

As such, the VoA model is too simple, and mis-specifies the issues. SAWA in some ways had some right ideas (i.e. attracting audience) but when it comes right down to it, the issues (on a regional basis) that SAWA wants to address are either in the realm of (a) regional news, in which case private venues already do the job SAWA ostensibly is trying to get at (regionally), (b) country specific (Syria? Egypt?), in which case a country specific broadcaster is needed, (c) US Image, which requires another venue or approach - transparent agitprop is not going to work.

For regional news, there is already BBC (well entrenched and respected), various private broadcasters regionally, and the TV Sats, which are not bad.

For local, that of course is harder.

Short then: SAWA is addressing the wrong problem the wrong way at the wrong time.

October 13, 2004

Throwing SAWA a bone, or it is harder than one might think

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