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Subject:
Hollywood Goes to Work
Phoenix Rising
12/17/2001 9:09:56 AM
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From StrategyPage's Information Warfare section (which doesn't have its own message board yet) more than a month ago, but I only found it recently:
November 13, 2001; Taking a technique widely used in American politics,
the U.S. government is preparing paid ads to run in Arab television stations
(in particular the independent cable news Al Jazeera). The ads will put
forth the American position about the War on Terrorism using all the splash
and dash that makes U.S. movies and television so popular in Arab
countries. Al Jazeera is a commercial operation that, while doing much
better because of the war coverage, has yet to make a profit. So the ads
will probably be accepted. The results should be interested. The American
government has also enlisted the help of the film industry, which includes
many of the people who make commercials. Many movie directors got
their start directing commercials and music videos. The results of all this
should be quite interesting.
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Does anyone know if these ads have actually started running on Al Jazeera or other Arabic news stations? Is there someplace on the Web where I could find sample clips (or entire commercials)? If they're still in production, does anyone know how long it might be before they're ready to go on the air?
Does anyone know if Al Jazeera has even agreed to run the ads yet? If nothing has been said on the matter yet, do you think they will agree later?
I think this might turn out to be one of the best steps America could take, especially if American media is really as popular in the Arab world as the article implies. I've repeatedly said that I was dismayed by the lack of pro-U.S. propaganda at home, but it never even occurred to me that we could take the propaganda war abroad (shows I still have a lot to learn, I guess).
StrategyPage ran another article recently detailing how differently 9-11 was portrayed in Arabic media than American, and how much of the Arab world really did see coverage of how Israel had masterminded the attack and how the U.S. was preparing to wage a war on Islam, not on terrorism. I think getting American messages in Arabic on Arabic screens would be one of the best counters to that we could use; certainly much more effective than harsher economic, political, or military measures. Hopefully, the media can do as much for public opinion abroad as it can at home; it would be nice to remove the "America-is-the-Great-Satan" indoctrination from the Arabic airwaves, or at least neutralize its message. Actually removing that image from the Arabic world will take much longer, since it's fairly firmly ingrained in much of the populace, but the first step in curing a wound is stopping the bleeding.
--Phoenix Rising |
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