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Transnational Journalism, Public Diplomacy, and Virtual States

Philip Seib

Director, USC Center on Public Diplomacy

University of Southern California

Journalism in the 21st

Century:

Between Globalization and National Identity

University of Melbourne

July 16-17, 2009

Abstract

As a public diplomacy tool, transnational broadcasting has long had appeal to

governments. It is a relatively efficient and inexpensive way to reach potentially vast audiences

throughout the world with messages that presumably possess added credibility when wrapped

in the trappings of journalism. Non-state actors, including media organizations themselves,

may conduct their own versions of public diplomacy. New communication technologies have

led to an expanded number of players in this field and to an even larger audience, which has

gradually become more sophisticated and less credulous. Broadcasters are no longer just

broadcasters. The most creative among them use Internet-based media to enhance their reach

and influence. Today, Arabic- and English-speaking publics are the principal targeted recipients

of these ventures, and this paper will examine the spectrum of these efforts, with particular

emphasis on the Al Jazeera channels as exemplars of the marriage between journalism and



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public diplomacy. These channels also may be paradigms of a public diplomacy that transcends

specific national interests and instead serve supranational and cultural purposes.

Evolution of the craft

Transnational broadcasting’s political effects first became noteworthy during the late

1930s, when Great Britain and Germany used radio in efforts to influence public opinion,

particularly in the United States.1

By September 1940, the BBC was offering more than 70 news

broadcasts each day -- more than 200,000 words -- to audiences outside the United Kingdom.

Among the themes was that America had a stake in the war’s outcome and that the British

were “a first line of defense for the other side of the Atlantic.” BBC commentator J. B. Priestley

criticized the U.S. isolationists, saying, “All this patter about non-belligerence is like sitting down

and doing crossword puzzles in front of a pack of ravening wolves.”2

CBS London correspondent Edward R. Murrow knew that radio enhanced the impact of

propaganda: “If you believe that this war will be decided on the home front, then you must

believe that radio used as an instrument of war is one of the most powerful weapons a nation

possesses. If you believe, as I do, that this war is being fought for the control of men’s minds, it

is clear that radio will be a deciding factor.”3

Murrow was shrewd enough to know, as a

corollary to this, that news reports such as his, which praised Britain’s resilience while under

German attack, were serving British diplomatic interests.

In May 1940, the BBC began broadcasting “Britain Speaks,” which was designed for U.S.

listeners, and in September a “new and enlarged North American transmission” lasting six



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hours was inaugurated. The news, described as “a really reliable word picture of the very latest

world events,” was read with an American accent.4

Americans were also hearing from Germany. A German radio service for North America

had been started in 1933, and as Adolf Hitler embarked on his course toward war the

broadcasts praised isolationism, criticized Britain, and portrayed the new Germany in the best

light, claiming, for example, that Hitler was simply trying “to straighten out some of the political

and economic confusion with which Central and Eastern Europe were plagued.”5

Once the war

began in 1939, this radio service sent America more than 11 hours of programming each day,

including nine news programs and five commentaries. Among the broadcasters was Iowa

native Fred Kaltenbach, who each week delivered an “open letter” that began, “Dear Harry and

the folks back home in Iowa. . . .” In one of these letters, he warned his listeners about British

propaganda: “The American people are to be led to believe that England and France are the last

hopes of democracy, and that Germany is seeking to beat them only because they are

democratic. Stuff and nonsense!” On another occasion, Kaltenbach said, “Let it be said, once

and for all, a German victory in this war is no threat to democracy -- and certainly not to

American democracy.”6

The broadcasts attempted to justify German policy to Americans by

comparing the seizure of the Polish Corridor with the U.S. annexation of Texas, and likened

Hitler’s concept of Lebensraum -- ensuring “living space” by controlling Central Europe -- to the

Monroe Doctrine.

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On any given day in early 1941, the American audience for the German broadcasts was

estimated at about 150,000, but there is no evidence that the German radio efforts

accomplished anything beyond feeding the gospel according to Goebbels to the small number



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of Nazi sympathizers in America.8 If the Nazis’ programs created any drag on the pro-British

drift in American opinion, it didn’t amount to much.

Meanwhile, the British enhanced their own efforts with what might be called “public

diplomacy by proxy.” From Prime Minister Winston Churchill on down through the ranks of

government, courting of American journalists was relentless. The British had made a wise

decision: despite the upgraded BBC efforts, American public opinion would most likely be

shaped by Americans, and so influencing the content of U.S. news coverage emanating from

Britain was crucial.

Reports from Murrow and many other American journalists dovetailed nicely with

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s effort to chip away at isolationism. U.S. public opinion began

to shift, and the British public diplomacy effort – aimed at bringing America into the war –

finally proved successful.

This bit of history is useful in considering today’s media-based public diplomacy because

it underscores the value of creative flexibility in designing public diplomacy undertakings. The

alternative to this – following a conventional formula – might result in having an acceptable

product, but it certainly does not ensure reaching a substantial audience.

The crowded field

For major world players, international broadcasting can be an essential element of

public diplomacy. But whether the results are worth the effort varies significantly from case to

case.9



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French journalist Ulysse Gosset, who helped develop France’s entry into this field,

France 24, said: “Today news channels are part of the global battle in the world. It’s as

important as traditional diplomacy and economic strength.” He added, “If we have a real desire

to communicate around the world, we need to do it with the right medium, and that’s

English.”10

Just about everywhere in the world, there are people -- particularly among the political

and economic elite -- who speak English and are part of the far-flung audience for the American

and British broadcasting giants. For governments that want to participate in the global

conversation about important issues, English-language media are essential. France 24, born in

2006, is an example of this.

France 24, referred to by some as “CNN a la Française,” was constructed as a joint

venture between TF1, France’s largest independent network, and state-run France Télévisions.

News is presented in French, English, and Arabic. Its creation was spurred by the Iraq war.

Alain de Pouzilhac, the French channel’s CEO, argued that CNN’s coverage of the war was not

objective, but reflected an American view that the invading forces were trying to “bring

freedom” to Iraq. He said: “This channel will not be anti-American. But this channel has to

discover international news with French eyes, like CNN discovers international news with

American eyes.” The eyes that see the news before it is reported make a difference, he

contended: “Objectivity doesn’t exist in the world. Honesty exists. Impartiality exists. But

objectivity doesn’t exist.” France 24 devotes more airtime to French positions than other

channels do. Mark Owen, an anchor who moved from Britain’s ITV to the French channel, said

that during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the BBC paid little attention to French president



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Jacques Chirac’s calls for a halt to Israeli attacks within Lebanon, while instead highlighting

British prime minister Tony Blair’s support of the U.S. position of letting Israel proceed.11

Ensuring that the French/Chirac position received adequate international exposure in

this case was the kind of task that is part of larger public diplomacy strategy. France 24 was

designed to help spread what it defines as French political values: paying more attention to the

less well-covered parts of the world, encouraging debate, and emphasizing cultural as well as

economic development. De Pouzilhac said: “It’s the opposite of what the U.S. does. The vision

from Washington tries to show that the world is unified, whereas we will try to demonstrate

the opposite: that the world has a lot of diversity. Diversity of culture, diversity of religion, and

diversity of opinion.”12

Chirac’s spokesman Jerome Bonnafont said that Chirac’s interest in creating France 24

developed during the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The president believed that France and

other nations had to step forward to correct misunderstandings among cultures and had to do

so with their individual voices, rather than succumbing to “the trend toward uniformity”

created by globalization. Chirac was determined that French views would be heard. Bonnafont

said: “If you don’t try to be present in the world in a dynamic way, then the world will ignore

you. You have to show that you are somebody.”13

In times past, “showing that you are somebody” often meant flexing your military

muscle, so relying on television rather than armies can be considered progress. The significance

of that change is clear when considering Russia’s effort to use the airwaves rather than its

traditional means to assert itself. English-language channel Russia Today was created in 2005

to reshape Russia’s image. Critics immediately branded the channel a tool of the government.



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Political commentator Boris Kagarlitsky said: “Russia Today is very much a continuation of the

old Soviet propaganda services. They want good news and they want a positive vision of

Russia.” But Svetlana Mironyuk, general director of the news agency Novosti, said this was not

the case: “It is almost impossible to impose your own point of view among other opinions

because the information space is too huge. There are literally scores of alternatives. But the

idea is to provide an international audience with an understanding of what is going on in Russia

from Russia’s point of view.”14

The truth lies somewhere between the critics and the defenders. There was more

behind the creation of Russia Today than counteracting obsolete images of the frigid and

bellicose Soviet Union. President Vladimir Putin was reportedly angry about the consistently

negative tone of international coverage of Russian policies, such as allegations about human

rights abuses by Russian forces during the fighting in Chechnya, a conflict that Putin considered

to be part of the global war on terror.15

Mironyuk was correct, however, when she pointed out

that heavy-handed propaganda will be quickly and frequently challenged today. Because the

information marketplace is crowded with everything from large news organizations to

individual bloggers, Soviet-style information management cannot work, at least not for long.

Like Jacques Chirac, Putin recognizes the new levels of competition for world opinion.

Like France 24, Russia Today provides news with a spin that favors the interests of its

proprietors. Many news consumers presumably recognize how the game is played and judge

the information they receive accordingly. Such alertness is important because the English-

language news arena is becoming even more crowded. CNN was created in 1980, BBC World



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arrived in 1991, Deutsche Welle began its television broadcasts in English in 1992, China’s CCTV

International was launched in 2000, and the list goes on, with further additions in the works.

The fate of emerging channels depends largely on the economic model they adopt. The

CNN startup approach of a privately funded corporation has not been copied by today’s major

satellite channels. Most rely heavily on government subsidies, which are sometimes

accompanied by a full government partnership in the channel’s operation. For all the prestige

and influence that these channels may have, the market is too crowded for profits to be likely.

The best-known channel, Al Jazeera, has always required large amounts of money from Qatar’s

emir. BBC World, the BBC’s commercially funded international venue, claims a weekly

audience of 65 million viewers and reported in 2006 that its advertising revenues had grown 20

percent every year since 2001. Nevertheless, channel executives conceded that it would not

break even until 2010.16

Despite the financial challenges, English-language broadcasting will continue to grow.

Deutsche Welle is a good example of a channel that has established a foothold in the market.

Its television broadcasts are primarily in English and German, with Spanish and Arabic

programs, as well, and -- as of 2002 -- some Dari and Pashto programming that is provided for

broadcast by RTA, Afghanistan’s television service. The channel’s managing director, Cristoph

Lanz, said: “There are more viewers watching it in the English language than German. And that

doesn’t have to do with a small amount of Germans watching. It just has to do with the fact

that the world is six billion people and there are just 80 million Germans and there are maybe

150 million German speakers. If you have a mission statement to reach out to the world, then

you have to reach across the language gap.”17



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Deutsche Welle is funded by the German government and its statutory mandate is “to

make Germany understood as a European-grown cultural nation and democratic constitutional

state founded on the rule of law.” The company’s mission statement adds that its broadcasts

are designed partly to enhance “Germany’s external media image” and their “most important

target groups are international opinion leaders with an interest in Germany and Europe.” The

television channel’s daily audience is estimated at 28 million people.18

Since its first German-

language radio broadcasts in 1953, Deutsche Welle has developed as a model for broadcasting

enterprises that are created primarily to serve governments’ international political purposes.

The other principal model is CNN’s global arm, CNN International. It is private and for-

profit, and although free from formal connections to government still plays a significant de

facto political role in the world. Born in 1985 as CNN Europe, CNN International competed

primarily with BBC World News during the 1990s and over the years has seen its reach extend

into more than 200 countries. An aging star, the entire CNN enterprise has lost some of its

luster; in the United States, it trails the acerbic and conservative Fox News Channel and the

resolutely liberal MSNBC. Internationally it is overshadowed by younger, zippier channels such

as Al Jazeera. Nevertheless, the CNN product continues to reach audiences throughout the

world, and despite its insistence that it is truly an “international” channel, it is an American

product and through its content it sometimes plays a de facto role in U.S. public diplomacy.

France 24, Russia Today, Deutsche Welle, and CCTV are more clearly part of their home

nations’ public diplomacy. How effective they are is open to question. All have tried to build a

Middle East constituency by broadcasting in Arabic. Although reliable audience research in the

region is spotty, available evidence suggests that their audiences are small. This makes sense;



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why, on a day-to-day basis, would an Arab viewer care about the French, Russian, German, or

Chinese view of the world, particularly now that several far-reaching Arab channels are trusted

and popular? As instruments of public diplomacy in the Middle East, the European and Chinese

channels (and the American Al Hurra) may not be worth the money and effort that go into

them.

The Cold War model that assumes an intellectually needy audience should now be

recognized as largely obsolete. During the Cold War, American radio broadcasts in particular

were successful because the target audience welcomed them. Many listeners, primarily in

Eastern Europe, desperately wanted an alternative to Radio Moscow and the like. They did not

trust what they were receiving from the Soviets and certainly did not consider the viewpoints

being presented to be their own.

This is a crucial element in understanding transnational broadcasting today. Arab

audiences do not need or want to get their news from outsiders. The issue is not whether a

broadcaster meets Western standards of “objectivity” (which is more elusive than most

Western broadcasters would admit). Rather, the key is “credibility” – presenting “our” news

through “our” eyes.

People today take an ownership interest in the providers of news. And that leads us to

Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s channels

Al Jazeera was born in 1996. The details of its founding are available elsewhere and do

not much matter here, except one important element: a principal reason for the channel’s



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creation was that it is to serve as a public diplomacy vehicle for the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh

Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. He wanted a signature asset that would help his emirate stand out

from the other countries in the Persian Gulf region and within the greater Arab world.

He certainly succeeded. Al Jazeera’s public diplomacy success is particularly significant

because a case can be made that the channel represents not just Qatar, but also serves as a

pan-Arab and perhaps pan-Islamist public diplomacy tool.

Al Jazeera’s popularity took hold during its coverage in 2000 of the second intifada,

when its intensive reporting from a clearly Arab perspective distinguished it from Western

broadcasters and the staid channels – mostly state-run – that had long dominated television in

the Middle East. In 2001, as the sole broadcaster allowed by the Taliban to remain in

Afghanistan during the American invasion, Al Jazeera further burnished its reputation as a

dominant news source. Its coverage from Afghanistan was also noteworthy for the ire it caused

within the U.S. government, an attitude that has persisted.

Beyond its coverage of any single event, Al Jazeera has been a forceful Arab voice while

Arab countries (and their broadcast outlets) have been plagued by disunity. Mohamed Zayani

has observed that “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.”19

As such, Al Jazeera has become a political actor. Shawn Powers and Eytan Gilboa have

noted that a transnational news organization playing this role does not “fit neatly into any of

the categories of nontraditional actors identified by international relations scholars.”20

Regardless of categorization, Al Jazeera’s impact on political discourse is undeniable. Its



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criticism of Arab governments for matters ranging from corruption to inadequate support of

the Palestinians has often provoked angry responses. Hugh Miles reported that “Arab

ambassadors in Doha said they spent so much time complaining about Al Jazeera that they felt

more like ambassadors to a TV channel than ambassadors to a country.”21

When an Al Jazeera

reporter asked Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak during the second intifada if Egypt would go to

war against Israel, Mubarak responded, “Let Al Jazeera go to war. We are not going.”22

In

2001, during a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) meeting, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Abdullah

accused Al Jazeera 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 of encouraging

terrorism.”23

Al Jazeera endures public criticism and periodically being expelled from various

countries. The publicity on such occasions doesn’t do the channel any harm. News

organizations are supposed to be provocative, but given the inchoate nature of many elements

of political systems in the Middle East, Al Jazeera’s coverage has special bite. After years of

enjoying soft news reporting, many political figures have been slow to determine how best to

deal with a media company that is not docile. Although some political leaders react angrily and

their governments threaten Qatar with reprisals (which the Emir mostly ignores), others

respond more temperately, recognizing that Al Jazeera may serve a safety valve function,

allowing viewers to vicariously work out their frustrations while watching the channel’s

newscasts and talk shows.

Al Jazeera’s coverage of certain events illustrates its role as a pan-Arab political force.

During the Gaza conflict of late 2008 and early 2009, Al Jazeera delivered vivid reporting.



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Civilian casualties were highlighted graphically and the channel forcefully pointed out that Arab

governments were failing to support the Palestinian residents of Gaza. Demonstrations in the

region supporting the Palestinians and protesting Arab regimes’ inaction were fueled by the Al

Jazeera reports.

For the global news audience, the work of Al Jazeera English was particularly significant,

as its two news crews in Gaza provided the only on-scene reporting from an English-language

channel. (These reporters had already been in Gaza when Israel began restricting journalists’

access.) Al Jazeera English can be seen in more than 100 countries worldwide, although a

notable exception is the United States, where most cable and satellite carriers have apparently

decided it would be politically unwise to offer the channel. This has begun to change (in mid-

2009) as “MHz Worldview,” a noncommercial broadcaster, announced it would begin carry Al

Jazeera English in its Washington, D.C. and other markets.

The Gaza coverage was a breakthrough occasion for Al Jazeera English in that it had

unique reporting and was able to deliver to a non-Arabic-speaking audience the news as seen

through an Arab station’s eyes. This was a significant new perspective and it challenged the

hegemony long enjoyed by Western broadcasters, which in this instance reported events in

Gaza with far less passion and far fewer graphic visuals than were seen on the Qatar-based

channel. To reach the largest possible audience, including viewers in the United States, Al

Jazeera posted Gaza-related video material through Creative Commons, a nonprofit

corporation that licenses material for easy public access on line. Through this service, Al

Jazeera made all its Gaza coverage available free of charge to anyone – from individual bloggers

to rival broadcasters – with the only condition that Al Jazeera be credited.24



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Al Jazeera English has relied on the Internet in other ways, as well, particularly as a

means of reaching the American audience. It uses YouTube, Livestation, Twitter, and its own

Web site. The channel reported that during the first two weeks of the Gaza war its number of

Livestation viewers increased by 500 percent and views of its videos on YouTube increased

more than 150 percent.25

This is an important lesson about the potential pervasiveness that

public diplomacy efforts might aspire to.

Through all these venues, Al Jazeera has become truly global in its reach, presenting on

its Arab channel its distinctively Arab view of events, and on its English channel delivering

reporting that might not be categorized as “pro-Arab,” but that emanates from an Arab news

organization and champions those who rarely receive sympathetic coverage.

For the Arabic channel, among its most important audiences are diasporic populations

of Arabic-speakers around the world. Mohamed Zayani has observed that Al Jazeera “helps

nurture a sense of community among the Arab diaspora,” and “has enhanced the cultural

connection between its Arab viewers overseas and Arab culture.”26 For Al Jazeera English,

English-speaking Muslims, in their home countries or elsewhere, who may be sympathetic to

the fellow Muslims whose often unhappy circumstances are depicted in the channel’s coverage.

This is an often overlooked facet of public diplomacy.

This leads to the issue of Al Jazeera’s pan-Islamic public diplomacy. This topic requires

more speculation than does the pan-Arab role, which the channel’s executives publicly

embrace. Mohammed El Oifi has written that the channel’s “Arab nationalism has in some

ways become the basis of a sharp critique of Arab rulers who have come to favor the

fragmentation of the Arab public sphere, sacrificing thereby the ideal of Arab unity.”27

Al



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Jazeera pits its influence and commitment to pan-Arabism against the “every country for itself”

approach that has become common in the Arab world. A pan-Islamic public diplomacy is an

outgrowth of Al Jazeera’s transnational identity and its ability to supersede conventional Arab

politics.

Al Jazeera’s influence in this regard may be enhanced by the dissatisfaction some

Muslims feel toward secular leadership in their home countries. Olivier Roy asked, “What is a

true Muslim land in a time when many radical Muslims consider that all the regimes ruling

Muslim countries are illegitimate?”28

The channel in some ways fills the vacuum created by

secular politics. Al Jazeera’s approach to certain news stories illustrates how globalized

journalism can affect globalized Islam. Sam Cherribi wrote that Al Jazeera used its coverage of

the banning of the hijab, a veil, from French schools “to build a global Muslim identity *and+

mobilize a shared public opinion.” According to Cherribi, Al Jazeera framed the veil story in its

reporting from 2002-2005 as “not only a problem for girls and women in public schools in

France; it is a problem for Muslim women and men around the world.” The veil coverage, he

wrote, was part of a “civilization message” delivered by Al Jazeera, in this case because “the veil

gives the immediate recognition of otherness: non-Muslims do not wear it.”29

Cherribi also argued that Al Jazeera is a religious channel, more CBN (Christian

Broadcasting Network) than CNN, with an agenda that focuses on Islam even above pan-

Arabism. Al Jazeera certainly does not shy away from providing substantial religious content.

The influential Muslim cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi appears frequently on the channel and has

proved adept at shaping his message to meet the demands of television. As Jon W. Anderson

noted, he is “wholly orthodox in theology but expressing it in a more modern idiom that



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attracts a transnational audience among professional middle classes.”30

Modern does not

mean moderate. Al-Qaradawi has endorsed suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians as a

legitimate tactic in the effort to reclaim Muslim territory.31

He also, however, issued a fatwa

that defends democracy not as a form of unbelief but as a system that properly gives people

the right to choose their leaders without compulsion and to question and remove them. On

another occasion, he denounced Abu Musab al Zarqawi, leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, as a

murderer.32

Despite the appearances of Al-Qaradawi and other religious figures on Al Jazeera, some

observers contend that the channel’s content is relatively balanced when it addresses religious

topics, reflecting the intricate spider web of Islamism and pan-Arabism that is part of the

mindset of many of the people who live in the Arab world and watch that channel.

Beyond the Arab world, if Al Jazeera English were to adopt a more pronounced

emphasis on Islam, its effects could transcend those of its parent channel. In the worldwide

Islamic population, more Muslims speak English than Arabic. In many areas where watching Al

Jazeera Arabic is not feasible because of the language barrier, Al Jazeera English can play an

important political role. Muslims of South Asian descent living in the United Kingdom, for

example, might watch the channel because they know its religious roots. On a larger scale, the

combined Al Jazeera channels, along with Internet sources (discussed below) could contribute

to unprecedented intellectual cohesion among the 1.4 billion Muslims of the ummah.

It is clear that the Al Jazeera channels have become more than public diplomacy

avenues for Qatar. The organization’s assertive journalism has found a strong audience in

much of the Arab world, and its English-language channel has brought non-Western viewpoints



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to a global audience. If one function of the public diplomacy of non-state as well as state actors

is to reach international publics with convincing messages, the Al Jazeera channels are

significant actors in this political realm.

To take this a step further, a case can be made that Al Jazeera should be regarded as a

virtual state in itself – and Arab and perhaps Islamic state that cannot be found on conventional

maps but that is nonetheless real in a virtual sense. If that is accepted, even tentatively, it adds

a new dimension to the consideration of political effects of transnational broadcasting.

Further, the Al Jazeera channels – Arabic and English today, perhaps Urdu, Turkish, and

more in the future – could be a platform for fostering a virtual ummah by providing an

unprecedented level of connectivity among Muslims worldwide. The conventional wisdom has

always been that the Muslim in Djakarta, the Muslim in Cairo, the Muslim in Dakar, the Muslim

in Islamabad, and the Muslim in Melbourne have nothing to say to each other because they are

separated not just by geography but also by politics, culture, language, and other factors that

collectively outweighed religious commonality. But transnational media might change that.

This is also very speculative, but it raises intriguing possibilities for public diplomacy.

When Barack Obama spoke in Cairo in June 2009, the world watched. More specifically, the

Muslim world watched – an audience pulled together by the topic of the speech. The

technology exists to reach out in additional ways to this virtual community, and the challenge

for public diplomats will be to decide what to do with this opportunity.



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The digital imperative

Hardly a day goes by without a news story about how the Internet is supplementing or

superseding some element of traditional media. This transition is also occurring in public

diplomacy as broadcasting is nudged aside by Internet-based communication. Al Jazeera

English offers a good example of how this works. It relies on its own Web site, plus YouTube,

Livestation, and other Web video providers to reach people who do not have access to the

channel through regular television offerings. The channel used a Twitter feed titled “War on

Gaza” that provided short messages about the latest material on the Web site. The site also

has a “Your Media” section where “citizen journalists” can offer comments and submit their

own video and reports to the channel.33

For the Internet to be a truly effective public diplomacy tool, the digital divide must be

narrowed. That is happening, but only slowly in many parts of the world. Already, however,

governments, news organizations, and others promoting political positions use the Web to

extend their reach to global audiences. But the Internet, like all other media, can sometimes be

a mixed blessing. Thomas Friedman wrote that “at its best, the Internet can educate more

people faster than any media tool we’ve ever had. At its worst, it can make people dumber

than any media tool we’ve ever had. The lie that four thousand Jews were warned not to go

into the World Trade Center on September 11 was spread entirely over the Internet and is now

thoroughly believed in the Muslim world. Because the Internet has the aura of ‘technology’

surrounding it, the uneducated believe information from it even more. They don’t realize that

the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered

information.”34



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Governments and others conducting public diplomacy must recognize that much greater

communication parity exists in the world today. A disseminated message can instantly be met

by a counter-message. The viral nature of online communication can be difficult to deal with,

and the Danish cartoon controversy of 2006 illustrated how the Internet can be a rage enabler.

For public diplomacy practitioners, the speed and pervasiveness of online media pose

challenges that are probably best met by using those same media.

As is the case with broadcasting, online media from Middle Eastern state and non-state

actors may feature pan-Arab or pan-Islamic content. To some extent, the communities these

media serve are abstract or, to use Benedict Anderson’s term, imagined communities. While

satellite television is transterritorial, the Internet may be considered supraterritorial because

boundaries within and among states are not merely inconsequential, they need not, in the

cyberworld, be acknowledged at all.35

An example of how this theory takes shape in practice

can be seen in the success of Islam Online (www.islamonline.net), which provides news, general

information about Islam, “shari’ah corner” featuring “live fatwa”, and much more, all available

in Arabic and English. (The Arabic and English sites have different staff members, content, and

audiences, and one rarely translates material from the other.) The site lists among its goals:

“To strengthen the ties of unity and affiliation between the members of the Islamic community

and support informational and cultural exchange. To expand awareness of important events in

the Arab, Islamic and larger worlds. To build confidence and a spirit of hope among Muslims.”

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Policy makers should consider the influence wielded by such non-state public diplomacy

ventures that exist solely on the Internet. To some extent, this requires recognizing an

expanded definition of public diplomacy to include not just conventional non-state actors but



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also non-state virtual actors. Although Islam Online, for example has a staff of about 300

persons working in Cairo, the product itself exists solely on the Web. It reported 159 million

page views in 2006.

These virtual entities are part of geopolitical reality. Their essence is connectivity rather

than conventional physical presence. The non-state actors taking advantage of the virtual

world range from the benign, such as most of the religious outreach organizations, to the

malignant, such as al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. A case can be made, for

instance, that through the Internet al Qaeda conducts its own public diplomacy.

Conclusions

Emerging from the consideration of the issues discussed above is recognition that a

broad definition is appropriate for exponents of public diplomacy. The non-state actors include

not only conventional players, ranging from NGOs to religious proselytizers to terrorist

organizations, but also transnational media organizations. (Along these lines, although outside

the scope of this paper, it might be argued that Rupert Murdoch has his own public diplomacy.)

The media are no longer just the media. At least in some cases, they are not only the

tools of public diplomacy but also political forces in their own right with their own points of

view that they present to international publics. Scholars, government officials, and others

might contemplate this broadened media role when defining the evolving craft of public

diplomacy and when devising public diplomacy strategies.



21

1 Philip Seib, Broadcasts from the Blitz: How Edward R. Murrow Helped Lead America into War (Dulles, VA:Potomac, 2006), 7-47.2 Harold N. Graves, Jr., “Propaganda by Short Wave: London Calling America,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 5, No. 1,

38, 45, 47.3 Edward R. Murrow, This Is London (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1941), 76.4 Harold N. Graves, Jr., “European Radio and the War,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social

Science, vol. 213, January 1941, 79.5 Graves, “European Radio and the War,” 80. 6 Harold N. Graves, Jr., “Propaganda by Short Wave: Berlin Calling America,” The Public Opinion Quarterly, vol. 4,

no. 4 (December 1940), 601, 602, 605, 606.7 Charles J. Rolo, Radio Goes to War (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1942), 112. 8 Rolo, Radio Goes to War, 121.9 Philip Seib, The Al Jazeera Effect (Dulles, VA: Potomac, 2008), 34-41.10 Doreen Carvajal, “All-News Television Spreading Its Wings,” International Herald Tribune, January 8, 2006.11 “Everybody Wants One Now,” Economist, November 30, 2006; John Ward Anderson, “All News All the Time, andNow in French,” Washington Post, December 7, 2006, C 7.12 Caroline Wyatt, “World News To Get a French Flavor,” BBC News, December 6, 2006. 13 Anderson, “All the News All the Time.” 14 “Journalism Mixes with Spin on Russia Today: Critics,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, March 10, 2006; KimMurphy, “Russia Will Air Its View of the World,” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 2005.15 Murphy, “Russia Will Air Its View of the World.” 16 “News of the World,” Economist, November 1, 2006.17

Carvajal, “All-News Television Spreading Its Wings.” 18 www.dw-world.de.19 Mohamed Zayani, “Introduction – Al Jazeera and the Vicissitudes of the New Arab Mediascape,” in MohamedZayani (ed.), The Al Jazeera Phenomenon (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2005), 8.20 Shawn Powers and Eytan Gilboa, “The Public Diplomacy of Al Jazeera,” in Philip Seib (ed.), New Media and theNew Middle East (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 63.21 Hugh Miles, Al-Jazeera (New York: Grove, 2005), 57.22 Miles, Al-Jazeera, 81.23 Olivier Da Lage, “The Politics of Al Jazeera or the Diplomacy of Doha,” in Zayani, The Al Jazeera Phenomenon,56.24 Noam Cohen, “Few in U.S. See Jazeera’s Coverage of Gaza War,” New York Times, January 12, 2009.25 Cohen, “Few in U.S.” 26 Zayani, “Introduction,” 8. 27 Mohammed El Oifi, “Influence Without Power: Al Jazeera and the Arab Public Sphere,” in Zayani, The Al JazeeraPhenomenon, 72.28 Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004), 112.29 Sam Cherribi, “From Baghdad to Paris: Al Jazeera and the Veil,” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics,vol. 11, no. 2, Spring 2006, 122, 124, 128.30 Jon W. Anderson, “New Media, New Publics: Reconfiguring the Public Sphere of Islam,” Social Research, vol. 70,

no. 3 (Fall 2003), 898.31 Gilles Kepel, The War for Muslim Minds (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006), 19.32 Anthony Shadid, Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats, and the New Politics of Islam (Boulder, CO:

Westview, 2002), 68; Marc Lynch, “Al Qaeda’s Media Strategies,” The National Interest, Spring 2006.33 Cohen, “Few in U.S.” 34 Thomas L. Friedman, Longitudes and Attitudes (New York: Anchor, 2003), 169.35 Philip Seib, The Al Jazeera Effect, 80.36 www.islamonline.net/english/aboutus.

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