America’s Voice as it could have been

Abstract

Since the first broadcasts of Radio Sawa in 2002 and Alhurra Television in 2004, much has been written to either justify or question their existence and their role in the mission of US international broadcasting. If one believes the literature of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees all US international broadcasting, the Middle East networks, with their bland programming and popular Arabic and Western music, have been an unqualified success and the major US public diplomacy accomplishment since 9/11. But Middle East pollsters and regional experts both in the United States and the Middle East question this assessment. In fact, surveys from the region suggest that regard for the United States is at an all time low; even Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Ladin are held in higher regard than President George Bush. A survey conducted by Mohammed el-Nawawy and published in the August 2006 edition of Global Media and Communication found that Arab students’ perceptions of United States foreign policy declined after listening to broadcasts from Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. And it is not only foreign policy, other recent polls, including the 2006 Zogby International survey on Arabic attitudes toward the United States, suggest that there is even concern American popular culture is threatening to overwhelm traditional values and ways of life. Obviously something is not going right. Granted, we cannot lay all the blame on Radio Sawa and Alhurra Television. The main culprits are the Bush Administration’s ill conceived war in Iraq and its official outreach which many have called “arrogant, aggressive and bullying.” However, the inability of Sawa and Alhurra to speak with critical populations in the Middle East and their emphasis on the most trivial of American pop culture have marginalized the United States and prevented a reasoned and substantive conversation between the United States and the Arab world. The United States is capable of doing better.