AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: AN EXAMPLE OF MEDIA DIPLOMACY IN A BROADCASTING 2.0 ERA

International broadcasting and new media technologies have always played a key role in the public democracy and the development of events around the globe. Thus, the Cold War led to an increasing international broadcasting system, as both communist and non-communist states attempted to influence each other's domestic population.

More recently, the standards set by CNN in 1991 for the Gulf War television reporting with its global news-flow and its live coverage triggered a booming “fight” between major broadcasting companies to take over the flow of worldwide events, furthermore during times of conflict.

This prevailing one-way (North to South) model of information and the exposure to the main English-language TV channels dominating the international broadcasting system has resulted not only in a poor cross-cultural communication, but also in the creation of hard-line cultural and social stereotypes about the commonly referred to “the others”.

At the same time, how to bridge the existing gap between news-gathering and the audience has also become a main issue in the era of the so called “citizen journalism”. If this breakthrough happens to provide a new direction in the global discourse through the new media platforms, we will be in front of a riveting test case.

Al Jazeera English (AJE) represents this challenge.

“Giving voice to the voiceless” through media diplomacy
“Giving voice to the voiceless” reflects AJE's news agenda. This motto is also part of a large criticism aimed towards western news organizations and the North to South direction they have approached the news-gathering in the 20th century.

AJE´s reporting follows the principle that it is time for there to be a media fostering the cross-culture dialogue, for Africans to speak in Asia, for Arabs to talk to the west and for Asians to communicate with Africans. This represents a new dimension of global media and a challenge to the way news worldwide organizations have been addressing their information.

AJE has filled a gap becoming a vehicle for public and cultural diplomacy, offering other nations-states to project their voice, their policies and their representations of events in the global sphere, or shall we say “Anglo-sphere”.

Since the broadcast language is English, AJE has also allowed migrants, who find it hard to maintain the mother tongue after a few generations, to create a sense of nationhood in the distance.

At the same time, there is also a diplomatic aspect in it. The launch of Al Jazeera Arabic (AJA) in 1996, funded by a Qatari emir, put this small country on the map and part of the credibility it has as a regional diplomatic leader comes from the visibility AJA provides it with. In the same way, AJE could be argued as trying to reach the same objective on a global scale. Let's take as an example its apply for an Olympic bid in 2020 or to host the FIFA World Cup in 2022.

This demonstrates a more ambitious international agenda portraying the image of a country can come alongside a big investment in the news sector.

Bridging the gap between audience and news-gathering
Reporting is getting tougher and more dangerous, especially during a conflict or in a war zone. However it has been in the last decade when the media attention on this issue has seriously increased.

Coming up with a good story does not only depend on the professional skills of the reporter. It should not be very surprising to see how the traditional journalists are embracing potential citizen journalists to avoid censorship, intimidation or the restrictions imposed by the authorities of the country they are reporting from.

Hence when the pressure on professional reporters becomes so hard to deal with, there is an important role for public participation. Although difficult and complicated in many cases, relying on normal citizens has become the only way of getting around the lack of sources. As long as the broadcaster is completely transparent about where the material comes from we should not see any problem with it.

To make the audience participate actively in the communication process made its first appearance on AJA´s stage early on in 1996. At that time they launched the first political newsroom allowing an audience from the Arab world to call and present the Prime Minister of an Arabian country with questions.

This mentality has been in AJA programming since then and has also been featured in AJE. The embracement of this new trend should be deemed as a great chance to foster public interactivity between the audience and its politicians. However we are dealing with societies whose sense of political government is not exactly shared by the west and that have indeed turned democracy into a dynastic or monarchic regime, which in most of cases is handed down. Therefore this new trend of telling the news might not be a genuine attempt to get citizens to contribute to the news as much as it could be a way to make their “popularity” grow.


The Gaza conflict: The beginning of Broadcasting 2.0
The Gaza conflict was a turning point for AJE since they felt it could be their “cold war”. This is an analogy used to explain how CNN capitalized in 1991 the Golf War to become a global network among the eyes of everyone else.

During the Gaza squabble AJE has come to show how empowering a channel´s participatory culture will become a big challenge for news organizations in the future and how crucial is the role of multimedia.

AJE was one of the very few western English news speaking organizations to have their journalists and cameras rolling round the clock inside Gaza. In terms of credibility, it was also the moment when the American audience tuned into this channel, with an audience increase of over 600%. Whether this big jump will result in a consistent and loyal audience in the future, it is yet to be revealed.

Never before have citizens in Palestine and Gaza been so involved in the communication process like they have been in this conflict. AJE actively asked them to contribute to the news-gathering using their mobile phones, their Flip cameras, internet or twitter to integrate them into the mainstream reporting on the issue.

Events in Gaza were also the starting point for AJ Network to make some of its Arabic and English quality video footage freely available online for sharing and reuse by viewers and TV stations across the world.
The film clips were licensed under Creative Commons, the non-profit sharing system designed to protect creators' work online, and posted for use on the Al Jazeera Creative Commons Repository site.
It was the very first time a broadcaster news network had ever released quality video under a very permissive licence. Since AJE was one of the few news channel in Gaza with English speaking journalists capturing all that was going on, they could have made some profit of it selling it to other news organizations. However, they made a profound statement where the market rules took a second place and the importance of information prevailed.

AJE´s new blogging network is another step that demonstrates this news channel has come further. Written by an extensive network of correspondents The Al Jazeera Blogs provide real information also licensed under one of Creative Common´s licences. This strong emphasis on field journalism cannot but provide the reader with a real sense of insight and in depth coverage.
These are only but a few pushes to make their content more accessible and to get it out there through all existing channels. Without any kind of doubt, these are important steps that could be drawn by future broadcasting networks.

Leaps and Bounds
AJE has come on leaps and bounds since it first started.
Thanks to an ambitious online strategy, it has won over new audiences in America and elsewhere. Despite the post-9/11 criticism AJA received for showing al Qaeda videos and the Bush administration’s calling in the early days of the “War On Terror”, the use of multimedia is convincing more people, although slowly, that it is a credible news organization.
The Gaza conflict showed how new technology can be deployed to inform with the participation of the public, but why were they not so interactive during the elections in Iran or in Egypt? These questions should be better answered before we can celebrate completely the organization news media effort.
For this reason, this author considers too risky to make the statement that AJE is all about distribution, although it cannot be argued whoever wants to reach them can do it indeed.
Whether it will beat in the future consolidated international TV channels like CNN or BBC World is yet to be seen. Nevertheless their statement that news matters everywhere, not only in the Anglo-sphere, it could not have been a better way to kick off.


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Google searches for balance in China

Google was never able to overcome Baidu to take the lead in the search engine realm in China. The American giant has been unable to significantly increase its profit margins as a result of expanding into the People’s Republic of China. But its likely retreat from China

may help the Internet giant regain some credibility lost among Western users unhappy about Google’s compliance with Chinese censorship. Does this withdrawal, though, leave Chinese human rights activists in the lurch?

Isaac Mao was proud when he created his first blog post six years ago. “From tonight I am stepping out into the blogosphere,” announced China’s first blogger in August, 2002. Certainly it must have been a real challenge for a Chinese citizen to swim against mainstream local sentiment and start to blog.

It was not long until Chinese authorities censored Mao’s blog. He posted an article explaining the Chinese censorship system, also know as “Great Firewall.” Concerned about a lack of freedom of speech, Isaac wrote an open letter on his blog to the founders of Google. He argued that the giant search engine was making compromises to censorship by filtering content considered sensitive or immoral from search results. In some cases, Google removed some people’s names from its index database.

Mao saw it coming. Nearly three years after his imploring missive, Google has threatened to pull out of China in protest of government censorship. On 12 January, Google announced that it will stop censoring search results on its Chinese site, Google.cn, thus violating Chinese law in response to what the company calls “highly sophisticated” hacking of its website from within China and compromised access of the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists and other nationalities.

No longer, it says, will Google censor web pages deemed by the Chinese authorities to be injurious to the Chinese state.

... the Chinese market is only 1 percent of Google’s $4.8bn annual net profit. ...

By departing from China, Google may have gained integrity and honour as an international brand. But, at the end of the day, is there so much to lose in China?

Figures say it all

Google launched google.cn in 2006. As required by the Chinese government, it agreed to censor some search results - such as information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests or Tibetan independence, among other topics.

China has more Internet users than any other country in the world. For an international and rapidly growing Internet company like Google, China is a perfect market. At the end of 2009, China’s Internet users totalled 384 million, equivalent to one third of its population of 1.3 billion people. At that time, other Western search companies were already operating there, a sign China was a market no multinational company could afford to miss.

But does moving into China betray Google’s company motto: “Don’t be evil.”? Google described its decision to enter China as a way to improve the access to information, although censored. Google said it sought to provide a fast search engine to the Chinese people, and to promote civil liberties. But four years of self-censorship is a long time for any kind of justification.

Before it declaring “game over” in the Chinese online search battle it is worth noting the US company is only second to Baidu, its largest rival in China, and shares a third of the Chinese

market. An amusing example illustrating Baidu´s popularity is the fact the term “Baidu” is the most searched word among Google users in mainland China.

With very little recognition outside its borders, the Chinese brand has a great presence in its own country; its market share is almost 60 percent. If Google pulls out from the Chinese search space, Baidu’s share will increase substantially.

Figures don’t lie; it’s important to note that the Chinese market is only 1 percent of Google’s $4.8bn annual net profit. Most financial analysts agree that Google’s decision will only have little short-term impact on the company’s financial condition.

Google might not be withdrawing if it wasn’t losing ground. Just a few foreign companies could dream of having 30 percent of any Chinese market. Yahoo! has less than 10 percent; Microsoft owns only a tiny market share. Google used to taking a much higher portion of local markets. Nevertheless, Google’s decision to leave China may reveal a realisation that Google can’t beat Baidu, which has close ties with the government.

Google is not a charity. A for-profit company, it is in China to make money. If the international search engine had only stood for ethical and humanitarians values, it would not have entered the Chinese market in the first place. Google’s “no evil” policy is one to respect and admire. However, why did it not stick to this mantra from the beginning?

Too naïve…

When considering the politics of the largest public company in the US, which operates on a massive scale online, it must be noted that sometimes Google must put its principles aside to please the governments with which it does business. Nevertheless, did Google really think it could stay away from Chinese censorship and still do business? Was it not clear to Google that few, if any, companies can successfully challenge the Chinese government?

Google may have thought it could do good while making a profit in China without having to battle with Chinese authorities. Didn’t they foresee entering the Chinese market as a venture that involves compromising on specific political and economic conditions?

These problems are endemic to doing business in China; companies should be wary. Google´s management team is surely aware of China’s supreme geopolitical importance. Recent events paint Google as an organisation that does not handle politics as well as it develops technology.

Will China be provoked by Google’s retreat?

Google fans have applauded its threats to leave China. Many see this attempt as a way to engage in a constructive defence of human rights. Nevertheless, China does not seem to be fazed despite the hacking accusations.

It is very unlikely Google can provoke China by refusing to censor its search results.

Google has already stated that it will hold talks with the government in the following weeks to renegotiate their agreement and to examine the possibility of operating an uncensored search engine within the Chinese law. Even if China was willing to accept Google’s terms, which does not seem to be the case, it is very uncertain as to whether the Chinese government will allows a Western company to change their policies. Chinese authority was already echoed last summer when it decided to block citizens from accessing foreign web services like Facebook and Twitter after riots in its western province of Xinjiang.

Still, Google’s gesture does not give many options to the Chinese authorities beyond shutting down its operations.

At the end of the day…..a clever decision

With this gesture Google has drawn a line in the sand. It is difficult to foresee a different ending than Google retiring from China. If it does not pull out now and stick to its principles, Google now risks humiliation. If a company cannot prevent its customers from falling victim to hackers, pulling out might be the only way to restore consumer confidence.

So far, Google’s presence in China has not motivated openness or raised any kind of pressure on the Chinese government to reduce the degree of control and censorship. Furthermore, Google’s “stand” for human rights could in fact give it more credibility.

Google’s gesture has shown, unlike most blue-chip companies, it does business in a different way. Until now, no other multinationals have waged war against the giant Asian power. However one cannot help but wonder whether Google’s management team would still agree to leave China if it had taken 70 or 80 percent of China’s search market.

Most unsettling is not Google or the effects that its retreat from the Chinese market will have on its future expanding business. The big debate here is China’s imposing manners and its unilateral policy and conditions towards other countries. That is the real concern.

The EU journalist’s guide to the Spanish presidency

The first six months of 2010 will show whether the affable and modern 49-year-old Spanish socialist and non-nationalist President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero can hold his own in a wresting match with the serene and very religious 63-year-old Belgian conservative and nationalist Herman Van Rompuy within a new European architecture in which the chain of command seems quite obscure.

Although the presence of a fulltime president of the European Council will diminish the stature of the rotating Council of the European Union presidency, the Spanish EU’s chairmanship will certainly set precedents when it comes to the Lisbon Treaty implementation.

The priorities for the Spanish EU chairmanship, rather than trying to set up too many undefined goals, should initially focus on the specific task of bringing into operation the new EU political architecture and fostering a new political system. The kickoff of the Lisbon Treaty will be a challenging objective in light of the period of institutional instability the EU has just left behind. If the Spanish presidency manages to do that, it will have already taken a big step forward.

Peers, not rivals

A main uncertainty about the Lisbon Treaty is how the six-month rotating presidencies, in this case the Spanish one, will work alongside the permanent president of the European Council.

The EU has an undefined hierarchy, which will only lead to domain confrontations. Therefore the Spanish transition presidency will have to face the challenge of setting up the terms for how successive countries manage the relationship between national leaders and the permanent EU president.

Some skeptical voices suggest plenty of hustle will be needed to determine the role and relation between Zapatero and the Belgian Van Rompuy. Could they be wrong?

The new EU president, Herman Van Rompuy, is not the celebrity politician many would have wanted. In fact, his nomination has been seen as a reflection of limited EU ambitions. Prime Minister of Belgium by coincidence, Van Rompuy, a

master used to making consensus, will not have a personal or a political interest in having President Zapatero as a rival. The Spanish president himself is known for his open-mindedness, fairness and tolerance. President Zapatero is aware political ideology does not play a crucial role at a European level, (he was one of the first European leaders to support Barroso´s candidacy to chair the European Commission). Hence Zapatero’s belief in European integration will prevail over his political manner of thinking, as a Spanish correspondent in Brussels has commented. For all these reasons, these political figures should fit together well.

Economic challenges: national and EU interest to clash?

Another challenge for the Spanish presidency will be to fight the financial and economic crisis. Recovering from the crisis and the creation of jobs remains at the top of the Spanish agenda.

Recently published figures reveal the cost of the Spanish EU presidency will be around 55m euro, a third of what was spent on the French chairmanship. Certainly good news for the Spanish public.



Spain had one of the fastest-growing economies of the past few years, which made the impact of the economic crisis much more significant than in any other country in the EU. The latest official figures reveal that Spain’s unemployment rate has reached 19.3 percent, which translates into 3.9 million people in between work. This is second only to Latvia, where unemployment stands at 20.9 percent. However, taking into consideration Latvia’s population of about 2.3 million inhabitants, Spain is by far the European country with the highest amount of unemployed people. These figures represent more than double the 9.2 percent rate for the EU as a whole.

Bearing that in mind, Zapatero will have to be able to act on an EU and a national level at the same time — without causing any distortion in the European sphere. In times of economic turmoil, European integration has been threatened by protectionism and nationalism. The principle of free movement of goods and workers was challenged a few months ago by British workers striking against Italian staff hired at the Lindey refinery. In Spain itself, the minister for industry, Miguel Sebastian, urged people last January to buy Spanish products to avoid the loss of some 120,000 jobs.

In addition, during the Spanish presidency the European Council will have to make a decision on the successor of the so-called Lisbon Strategy. Launched in 2000, it aimed at making the EU the most competitive economy in the world and achieving full employment by 2010. It can be now stated without any fear the Lisbon Strategy has not fulfilled its goals. For that reason the Spanish presidency’s efforts to foster and encourage a post-Lisbon agenda are essential.

President Zapatero will have to work toward the new EU 2020 deal expected to be adopted in March, 2010. This new strategy should trigger a full EU recovery from the current economic crisis and boost a smarter and greener economy based on innovation. The new agreement would probably be in tune with the new Spanish Sustainable Economy Law, one mainly pointed to the promotion of renewable energy, quality education, reform of the financial system, investment in research and development in both the public and private sectors.

Empowering the European citizenship, right to decide

EU institutions are still deemed very faraway entities.

Europeans citizens feel somehow alienated from the EU institutions. In addition, the EU has not had the ability to make itself appear clear and concise, which reinforces the lack of interest.

Among its benefits for citizens, the newly ratified Lisbon Treaty includes the application of the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI). It will enable 1 million Europeans to come up with a legislative proposal to the Commission in any of the EU areas of responsibility. At the moment it is not possible to present the ECI on a legal basis, but the mechanism to make it function is already on its way. Within its efforts to bridge the gap between Europe and its citizenship, Spain should try its best for to implement this transnational tool of democracy to be passed on during its presidency.

It is about time EU institutions were under pressure toward a more motivated citizenry.

Trying to speak with a single voice

Development of a real external European policy is among the top priorities of the Spanish EU presidency. The Spanish agenda will have to give the Council president and the High Representative maximum visibility so that the EU can speak as one in the international scene. Europe’s credibility and efficiency will only come after it implements a strong and solid foreign affairs policy.

Having a president of the Council, representing the EU abroad; the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security, who stands for the EU as a real foreign minister; and the European External Action Service (EEAA), is likely to cause confusion not only in the public opinion but with international counterparts.

Focused on relations with Latin American countries and the first ever held EU-Morocco summit, the EU foreign policy lead by Spain will reflect its geographical location and its colonial past. Spain will not necessarily seek the interests of most European countries, which may lead into harsh critics from its compeers.

A chance to shine in Spain?

True, Zapatero might be elbowed out of the political scenario by the president of the Council. Nevertheless: has anyone wondered if he would mind? Spain has made clear it will not get in Van Rompuy’s way. What opinion would the public perceive if the first rotatory presidency under the Lisbon Treaty was to twist it?

On the other hand, Spanish public opinion should not be affected if Zapatero does not shine at a European level. According to a Spanish journalist, the Spanish government has already foreseen that its EU presidency wont necessarily benefit Zapatero in terms of neither winning nor losing popularity in the national domain. Spaniards are very pro European, per se.

Spanish colour after all

Spanish priorities have been described as ambitious, but also as unfocused. For those who know president Zapatero, that should not be surprising.

Zapatero, just like other Western leaders (Barack Obama in the US) has been able to master a discourse lavished with beautiful-sounding words that capture many of his listeners. But in the final analysis, he does not say as many things as he means, thanks to to his imprecise rhetoric. Let’s take as an example the so-called “alliance of civilizations” proposed by the Spanish president in 2004 to inspire international, intercultural and inter-religious cooperation between the Western and the Islamic world. Five years after its creation, this initiative, except for delivering a kind and harmonious speech about peace, it has not intervened to avoid the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Iran.

Having said that, there are a number of matters that will bring along a bit of color to the Spanish agenda. Although the Lisbon Treaty obliges Spain to chair its EU’s presidency, it will still have a bit of its national colour mainly because of the specific Spanish reality and its geographical priorities. With a new debate on social policy, including gender equality and the fight against domestic violence, and EU relations with Latin America and south of the Mediterranean Sea as some of its top priorities, the Spanish chairmanship should make an outstanding and different performance from the ones made by previous EU’s presidencies.

Despite the fact the Lisbon Treaty attempts to avoid blunt changes in the priorities, which has in the past resulted ina discontinuous political performance, the incoming Spanish EU presidency suggests the next six-month European agenda will follow the trend of bringing a national taste to the European arena.

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