U.S. public diplomacy should embrace Al Jazeera

To win the “war on terror,” it is imperative that the United States wins the hearts and minds of the people who are sympathetic to the cause of terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda.

Those people don’t get their news information from Western media. They watch Arab satellite channels including Al Arabiya, Al Hayat, and especially Al Jazeera. During the invasion of Iraq, the Arab media framed the news much differently than Western media outlets with polarizing worldviews being portrayed.

In her chapter “War and Peace in the Information Age,” Elizabeth Hanson writes, “The ambiguity of the [reasons for going to war] left it open for a framing contest, in which American imperialism, Arab humiliation, and variations on these themes had more cultural resonance in Arab countries than themes of liberation and international security.”

In a study by Powers and el-Nawawy, they found that people tend to watch news channels that reaffirm what they already believe. The global media system doesn’t provide a global public sphere with this clashing of narratives.

The U.S. should adapt its diplomacy to meet viewers where they are. Hanson said, “In the broadest sense diplomacy is the communication process through which the official representatives of states try to advance their national interests and reconcile conflicting interests by words rather than force.”

In order to influence people’s perceptions of the U.S., government officials need to at least be in the news frame. In the Frontline documentary we watched in class, there were two military spokespeople who regularly appeared on Al Jazeera English to get the U.S. perspective out to the audiences. Another step forward was the state department official who spoke fluent Arabic and went on Al Jazeera.

A recent article on the Yemen Post’s website described an interview that Al Jazeera did with John Brennan, the assistant to the U.S. President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Brennan talked about how the U.S. provides funding, equipment, and training for Yemen’s national counterterrorism forces. He also made the following statement:

“The U.S. doest not plan to open new warfronts because many Americans have been killed while trying to protect others such as in Iraq and Afghanistan. But our country is committed to assisting others to live in peace and security and protect them from terrorist slaughters. Yemen was a victim of the cancer of Al-Qaeda, hence, we are doing all we can to ensure that we help this country deal with security and economic problems. We can't allow Al-Qaeda to spread in Yemen because it is undermining the country's economy and basic systems, which receive our support. The Yemeni people are good and I am confident they don't want Al-Qaeda to live in their country, however, they want to bring up their children well and help them go to school.”

Brennan’s appearance on Al Jazeera signals to Arab audiences that the U.S. sees Yemen as a partner in its fight against terrorism. It’s not a narrative they hear very often. This is a step in the right direction for U.S. diplomacy and they should step up their efforts at utilizing Al Jazeera.

Yemen Post article:
http://yemenpost.net/Detail123456789.aspx?ID=3&SubID=2763

Hanson, Elizabeth C. (2008) “War and Peace in the Information Age.” The Information Revolution and World Politics. (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield). Pages 97-138.