Thanks to my colleague Robin Brown for drawing this excellent article to my attention.
http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/01/04/chinas_war_against_harry_potter
I agree with Robin's comments on this piece (http://pdnetworks.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/hu-jintao-and-cultural-construction-in-china/#comment-491). Creativity has always been a problem for China, and there is a wonderful collection of essays addressing this issue - Culture in the Contemporary PRC, edited by Julia Strauss and Michel Hockx (CUP 2005). The contributors address the problems facing China's burgeoning creative industries and offer some interesting perspectives on why the Chinese tend to imitate rather than innovate. Hunan TV's Super Girl (or to give it its full title, Mongolian Cow Yoghurt Super Girl Competition) was a milestone; not only did it bring X-Factor-style reality TV to China, but it also depended on the audience participating and voting to save their favoured singer. It has since been pulled from the airwaves ...
I had some experience of this Chinese penchant for imitation when I lived in Ningbo. At a time when only four or five Harry Potter books had been published, hawkers were selling Harry Potter 7,8,9 and even 10. (The Harry Potter I saw at the cinema was censored - Harry's first kiss was deleted.) Moreover, I saw a Chinese version of Who Wants to Be a Millionnaire, but with contestants playing for prizes instead of cash. Instead of buying formats like other countries (so we have Indonesian Idol, Indian Idol, American Idol etc - all looking exactly the same), China takes the original concept and Sinifies it, something that we should not criticise (after all, this is what Mao did with Marxism-Leninism).
Robin and the author of the article, Stephen Walt, are correct; you can't legislate to make a population more creative. As Walt says: 'Government leaders don't create new and innovative art; it springs up from unfettered human beings, and often from fringe elements in society. And as Hu surely knows, some of the most creative artists are dissidents.' Certainly the most creativity in China is found on the internet and is subversive, satirising the party, its fiats and its way of working - see http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/06/chinese-bloggers-riff-off-worst-ever-doctored-propaganda-photo/241295/. Such creativity is inspired and inspiring, and is a serious challenge to all those inside and outside China who see only staid, controlled and censored media and communications platforms.
The problem is with a new directive that Chinese television should broadcast fewer 'vulgar' programmes and more news and programmes with virtuous moral content. But who decides which is which? And authoritarian regimes pull popular entertainment programmes from the schedules at their peril. One of the reasons the Romanian people turned against Nicolae Ceausescu at the end of the 1980s was because he pulled from the airwaves a popular British serial from the 1970s, The Onedin Line, and replaced it with North Korean-inspired propaganda. The Romanians turned to Hungarian TV via illegal satellite dishes for entertainment (Hungarian TV was far more liberal and even satirised the Hungarian regime and its Soviet masters). When Romanians saw on Hungarian TV the revolutions sweeping through Eastern Europe, well ....
The Chinese Communist Party needs to be careful. By removing popular entertainment programmes, the regime may actually be driving the people to seek out the kind of foreign programmes that Hu Jintao's new rant against 'cultural imperialism' opposes. Be careful what you wish for ...
Tuesday, 10 January 2012
Saturday, 7 January 2012
Conference in memory of Professor Philip M. Taylor
Philip (Phil) Taylor was an intellectual powerhouse in International Communications. He was the first Chair of the subject in the UK, and helped to create the Institute of Communications Studies at the University of Leeds. I am proud to have been his PhD student (1991-94) and, since my return to Leeds in 2007, his colleague and friend. His histories of public and cultural diplomacy and propaganda are outstanding and remain the seminal works in the field today. His 1981 book, The Projection of Britain: British Overseas Publicity and Propaganda, 1919-1939, first published in 1981 and reissued in 2007, is by far his most enduring work. Based on careful archival research, The Projection of Britain is as relevant today as it ever was and should be read by every student of international communications, and should inspire every PhD student wanting to know how to research and write on historical subject matter. Phil later branched into more contemporary scholarship and was in constant demand by militaries around the world who sought his advice on communications and information strategy in the so-called 'war on terror'. His work, always informed by his all-round historical perspective, was devoted to demonstrating how communications can save lives, and he took each death of members of the US or UK psyops teams in Iraq and Afghanistan very personally.
I was honoured to organise a conference in his memory on 16th and 17th December 2011 in the University of Leeds to coincide with the first anniversary of his untimely passing. 'Organised' is used here loosely: in fact the organisation of the conference was really down to one of our star PhD students, Molly Sisson, who writes her own blog on her research on student exchanges and public diplomacy (http://americanstudentsinbritain.blogspot.com/). Many, many thanks to Molly for all her hard work on this conference.
So many of Phil's colleagues, collaborators and former students from all over the world gathered in Leeds to talk about their own research in three key areas - the history of propaganda, contemporary strategic communications, and war journalism - and to reflect on Phil's impact and legacy. The list of participants is too long for this blog, but I was delighted that journalist Paul Moorcraft, Davids Culbert and Ellwood, Nick Cull, Michael Nelson from Reuters, Stephen Badsey, Kate Utting, James Chapman, Jeffrey Richards and Piers Robinson all attended. Junior scholars, always very important to Phil, were represented by many of his former PhD students - Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Cristina Archetti, Elina Bardach-Yalov, and of course Molly Sisson - and Edward Corse who has just completed his PhD thesis on the British Council between the wars, thus bringing us full circle to Phil's intellectual origins. The highlight of the conference was undoubtedly the talk delivered by the BBC's Kate Adie on her experiences as a war correspondent. Phil always told a story about how Kate had saved his life in Beirut, though we are sure the story got bigger and bigger every time he told it.
I should take this opportunity to thank Professor David Welch of the University of Kent at Canterbury for providing some much needed funding for the conference. David is editing a festschrift for Phil that will include many of the papers presented at the conference.
Phil helped to design the interior of the Institute's new home on the Leeds University campus. He was particularly proud of the cinema, and so it seemed appropriate to organise a ceremony at the conference to name this room The Philip M. Taylor Cinema. The plaque was unveiled by the Vice Chancellor of Leeds University, Professor Michael Arthur and Phil's widow, Sue Heward.
We will all continue to miss Phil. He was such a commanding presence in many people's lives, but the work goes on. His website - a 'one stop shop' for resources relating to international communciations, propaganda and public diplomacy - is available at http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/index.cfm?outfit=pmt
I was honoured to organise a conference in his memory on 16th and 17th December 2011 in the University of Leeds to coincide with the first anniversary of his untimely passing. 'Organised' is used here loosely: in fact the organisation of the conference was really down to one of our star PhD students, Molly Sisson, who writes her own blog on her research on student exchanges and public diplomacy (http://americanstudentsinbritain.blogspot.com/). Many, many thanks to Molly for all her hard work on this conference.
So many of Phil's colleagues, collaborators and former students from all over the world gathered in Leeds to talk about their own research in three key areas - the history of propaganda, contemporary strategic communications, and war journalism - and to reflect on Phil's impact and legacy. The list of participants is too long for this blog, but I was delighted that journalist Paul Moorcraft, Davids Culbert and Ellwood, Nick Cull, Michael Nelson from Reuters, Stephen Badsey, Kate Utting, James Chapman, Jeffrey Richards and Piers Robinson all attended. Junior scholars, always very important to Phil, were represented by many of his former PhD students - Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Cristina Archetti, Elina Bardach-Yalov, and of course Molly Sisson - and Edward Corse who has just completed his PhD thesis on the British Council between the wars, thus bringing us full circle to Phil's intellectual origins. The highlight of the conference was undoubtedly the talk delivered by the BBC's Kate Adie on her experiences as a war correspondent. Phil always told a story about how Kate had saved his life in Beirut, though we are sure the story got bigger and bigger every time he told it.
Dr Cristina Archetti and Paul Moorcraft
Kate Adie and Gary Rawnsley with some of the current MA students in ICS
Molly Sisson, Professor Nick Cull, Dr Jacob Udo-Udo Jacob, Dr Elina Bardach-Yalov
Professors Gary Rawnsley, Nick Cull, David Culbert and David Ellwood
Professor Ed Spiers, Professor David Culbert, Dr Kate Utting, Professor Stephen Badsey
I should take this opportunity to thank Professor David Welch of the University of Kent at Canterbury for providing some much needed funding for the conference. David is editing a festschrift for Phil that will include many of the papers presented at the conference.
Phil helped to design the interior of the Institute's new home on the Leeds University campus. He was particularly proud of the cinema, and so it seemed appropriate to organise a ceremony at the conference to name this room The Philip M. Taylor Cinema. The plaque was unveiled by the Vice Chancellor of Leeds University, Professor Michael Arthur and Phil's widow, Sue Heward.
Professor Michael Arthur, Sue Heward, Professor Gary Rawnsley, and Judith Stamper (Acting Head of ICS) outside the Philip M. Taylor Cinema at the University of Leeds
We will all continue to miss Phil. He was such a commanding presence in many people's lives, but the work goes on. His website - a 'one stop shop' for resources relating to international communciations, propaganda and public diplomacy - is available at http://ics.leeds.ac.uk/papers/index.cfm?outfit=pmt
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
China's soft power - an interview with China Radio International
Just before Christmas I was interviewed by China Radio International about China's soft power. You can listen to the interview here:
http://english.cri.cn/7146/2011/12/31/1942s674081.htm
I am very pleased that they broadcast most of what I said, even the more critical parts. This is an honour for me as I remember as a young teenager listening regularly to Radio China International on my Vega Selena 215 shortwave radio.
http://english.cri.cn/7146/2011/12/31/1942s674081.htm
I am very pleased that they broadcast most of what I said, even the more critical parts. This is an honour for me as I remember as a young teenager listening regularly to Radio China International on my Vega Selena 215 shortwave radio.
Wednesday, 21 December 2011
Propaganda Leaflets Surviving
I am trying desperately to catch up at least a little on my reading of all the feeds and blogs to which I subscribe. Naturally, the most valuable and often the most entertaining are the posts by John Brown. These always contain a considerable amount of information and insights which reveal the diverse approaches to the study and practice of public diplomacy and international communications.
Going back to November I have identified an interesting pattern developing in the Korean Peninsula, and I will be interested to follow how this thread evolves in the wake of North Korea’s current power transition. These reports describe how North Korea has entered the 'Twitter Era' for its propaganda, despite the internet being strictly off-limits to ordinary North Koreans. The propaganda website, Uriminzokkiri, has added Facebook and Twitter tags but the 'share' function is restricted to posts criticising South Korea and the US. Meanwhile, the propaganda regime also posts propaganda footage to Youtube. This suggests that new communications technologies are available in the North and that someone within a government agency has the technological understanding of how to use them. This is quite revealing for a society we are told is somehow hermetically sealed from the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, South Korean propagandists are still using the old Cold War technique of distributing to North Korea leaflets attached to helium balloons. A military source in November noted the decision to suspend this campaign 'was partly made because the wind currently blows in the wrong direction.' It is understandable why South Korea would resort to such ancient and unreliable techniques given the proximity of the target audience and the inability of North Koreans to access other means of communications. But it is fascinating to think that as Pyongyang finally embraces the information revolution - albeit in a limited way - South Korea is forced to depend on balloons and leaflets.
All of this reminds me of a visit to Jinmen in 2010. Jinmen is an island that belongs to Taiwan but is actually closer to the People’s Republic of China. Jinmen was at the centre of military action between China and Taiwan in the 1950s and was subject to periodic shelling of propaganda leaflets until the 1970s (Taiwan reciprocated in kind). Jinmen was the focus of Taiwan's propaganda activity and remains a military garrison to this day.
In one of the many museums dedicated to the outbreak of war between the two sides in the 1950s, there is a fascinating exhibition of propaganda which includes descriptions of Taiwan’s leaflet campaign in China. A map showed just how far balloons sent from Jinmen penetrated the Chinese mainland (I attach a photo to this blog). I was very suspicious of this map; given the size and terrain of the PRC, could balloons really reach so far inland? And how did Taiwan's psyops teams know where they went and what happened to them? I asked my contacts at Taiwan's Political Warfare College about this and they assured me that balloons could travel that far depending on the gas used to fill them, while Nationalist agents in the mainland could verify their reach. I am not convinced, and I remain suspicious that this is an example of propaganda about propaganda. But the Cold War historian in me is smiling in a self-satisfied way that in the age of blogs, twitter and Facebook, balloons and leaflets are still being used.
Monday, 19 December 2011
Al-Shabaab, Twitter and propaganda in the new information age
Last week I read a report that Al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group in Kenya, has launched its very own Twitter account. It is the latest in the long line of terrorist organisations with links to Al-Qaeda, that understands how new communications technologies are essential to fight the war of ideas. It posts in English, suggesting that its intended audience is global and that its objective is international propaganda (one tweet asked, 'How can one lay down his arms when his enemies are grinding their swords to terminate him? No to negotiations undr [sic] invasion'). The tweets also provide a detailed account of its military operations and regularly uses photos to reinforce the narrative. The Kenyan military has responded with its own Twitter feed, and so the propaganda war in Africa enters a new phase of claim and counter claim.
Reading these reports reminded me of what I have said in a chapter in a forthcoming book, edited by Rachel Utley, reflecting on international relations ten years after 9/11. Asked to comment on the information landscape, I noted that the power of information in the asymmetrical war of ideas has not been overlooked by political elites at the highest levels in Washington, and that there are a number of distrubing admissions: In 2007 US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, noted ‘It is just plain embarrassing that Al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing US strategic communications’. In one of the most famous quotations of the war on terror Gates recalled how one US diplomat had asked him, ‘How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?’ Four years later, Washington’s political elite were still pondering the US’s incapacity to compete in the communications landscape: In March 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in testimony to the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee that ‘We are in an information war and we are losing that war.’
The coalition has spent ten years playing catch-up. The initial communications response to the terrorist information networks after 9/11 was the creation of the Al-Hurrah (‘The Free One’) Arabic language television channel at a cost of $60 million per year (it is now officially the least watched station in the Middle East). The US also created Radio Free Afghanistan, Radio Farda for Iran and Radio Sawa (‘Together’), the latter broadcasting a diet of popular music and some news in a deliberate effort to target younger audiences. Yet, these stations, clearly created by Americans, had little or no credibility and could compete with neither the media the terrorists were using (the internet) nor the message (which identified themes which resonate with disaffected Muslim audiences). One former director of the Voice of America, Robert Reilly, was particularly scathing about such programming on US-created stations: ‘We do not teach civics to American teenagers by asking them to listen to pop music so why should we expect Arabs and Persians to learn about America or democracy this way? The condescension implicit in this nearly all-music format is not lost on the audience that we should wish to influence most – those who think.’ Similarly Al-Hurrah has been criticised by US diplomat William Rugh (2005) for ‘looking much more like the old-style TV channels that were totally controlled by authoritarian governments and that served primarily as propaganda arms of those governments’. Whenever possible, Arab audiences will turn to Arab media, like Al-Jazeera, providing news and information by Arabs and for Arabs.
In the age of new media, understanding and distinguishing fact from fiction, propaganda from information, verified from unconfirmed news is more difficult than ever before. Moreover, in the age of the internet, where does ‘domestic’ end and ‘international’ begin? Is a government sufficiently appreciative of the fact that it can now speak to multiple constituencies across the world simultaneously, amplifying the need to make sure that all its voices speak with consistency? In Iraq, we are told, insurgents ‘often had a cameraman at the site of a car-bombing, and within minutes of the explosion, the images appeared on the internet without having to be vetted in any approval process and with little regard for the distinction between news and propaganda. Countering this type of instant “news” … was almost impossible’ (Wright & Reese, 2010: 288).
I would suggest that part of the problem of the US's failure is a refusal to appreciate how today’s communications environment in so fundamentally different from that of yesterday. In some ways the recognition that it is useful to combine both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media is encouraging, as when Hillary Clinton told the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2011, ‘… while we’re being active in online new media, we have to be active in the old media as well’ (quoted in Pincus, 2011). In parts of Afghanistan where illiteracy levels still reach almost 95% and where there is low internet penetration, it is appropriate to develop information strategies centred on television and radio broadcasting.
However, this demonstrates that, ten years after 9/11, we are still persuaded to label communications technologies as ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, when rather the reality is that platforms have converged. It is now possible to watch TV, listen to the radio and read newspapers anywhere in the world and from anywhere in the world, on a computer; just as TV news encourages its viewers to engage with them via Facebook and Twitter, and send them photos of news stories happening in their locale. Moreover, the ‘new’ media are ‘new’ only for a generation born before the end of the 1980s; the principal targets of information, public diplomacy and propaganda in the War on Terror have grown up in a world of Google and Youtube and have no recollections of a time before email and the pressure to be ‘online’ dominated our daily lives. Until this is recognised and the supposed dichotomy between old and new media disappears, progress in communication will be limited. The situation is certainly not helped by stories that a Crown Court judge in the UK who, presiding over a trial of three young Muslims accused of distributing propaganda over the internet in support of Al-Qaeda, confessed during the proceedings: ‘The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a website is.’
New communications technologies blur the traditional boundaries between source, producer and consumer, and this is the frontier of a new information space in which governments and militaries must work and combat their enemies. The information sphere is a battleground that militaries ignore today at their peril. Official communications must compete with an ever proliferating range of new voices, and to succeed, they will only do so by being credible; image and reality must be consistent. Moreover, believing that how you are perceived is more important than what you do is the biggest mistake of all. The issue is not about presentation. It is about policy. Perhaps any measured reflection on information operations ten years after 9/11 would do well to begin with this admission.
References
Pincus, W. (2011), ‘New and old information operations in Afghanistan: What works?’, The Washington Post, 28 March.
Rugh, W. (2005), ‘Broadcasting and American Public Diplomacy,’ Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal 14 (Spring).
Wright, D.P. & T.R. Reese (2010), On Point II. Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005 (Milton Keynes: Books Express).
Reading these reports reminded me of what I have said in a chapter in a forthcoming book, edited by Rachel Utley, reflecting on international relations ten years after 9/11. Asked to comment on the information landscape, I noted that the power of information in the asymmetrical war of ideas has not been overlooked by political elites at the highest levels in Washington, and that there are a number of distrubing admissions: In 2007 US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, noted ‘It is just plain embarrassing that Al-Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America. Speed, agility, and cultural relevance are not terms that come readily to mind when discussing US strategic communications’. In one of the most famous quotations of the war on terror Gates recalled how one US diplomat had asked him, ‘How has one man in a cave managed to out-communicate the world’s greatest communication society?’ Four years later, Washington’s political elite were still pondering the US’s incapacity to compete in the communications landscape: In March 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted in testimony to the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee that ‘We are in an information war and we are losing that war.’
The coalition has spent ten years playing catch-up. The initial communications response to the terrorist information networks after 9/11 was the creation of the Al-Hurrah (‘The Free One’) Arabic language television channel at a cost of $60 million per year (it is now officially the least watched station in the Middle East). The US also created Radio Free Afghanistan, Radio Farda for Iran and Radio Sawa (‘Together’), the latter broadcasting a diet of popular music and some news in a deliberate effort to target younger audiences. Yet, these stations, clearly created by Americans, had little or no credibility and could compete with neither the media the terrorists were using (the internet) nor the message (which identified themes which resonate with disaffected Muslim audiences). One former director of the Voice of America, Robert Reilly, was particularly scathing about such programming on US-created stations: ‘We do not teach civics to American teenagers by asking them to listen to pop music so why should we expect Arabs and Persians to learn about America or democracy this way? The condescension implicit in this nearly all-music format is not lost on the audience that we should wish to influence most – those who think.’ Similarly Al-Hurrah has been criticised by US diplomat William Rugh (2005) for ‘looking much more like the old-style TV channels that were totally controlled by authoritarian governments and that served primarily as propaganda arms of those governments’. Whenever possible, Arab audiences will turn to Arab media, like Al-Jazeera, providing news and information by Arabs and for Arabs.
In the age of new media, understanding and distinguishing fact from fiction, propaganda from information, verified from unconfirmed news is more difficult than ever before. Moreover, in the age of the internet, where does ‘domestic’ end and ‘international’ begin? Is a government sufficiently appreciative of the fact that it can now speak to multiple constituencies across the world simultaneously, amplifying the need to make sure that all its voices speak with consistency? In Iraq, we are told, insurgents ‘often had a cameraman at the site of a car-bombing, and within minutes of the explosion, the images appeared on the internet without having to be vetted in any approval process and with little regard for the distinction between news and propaganda. Countering this type of instant “news” … was almost impossible’ (Wright & Reese, 2010: 288).
I would suggest that part of the problem of the US's failure is a refusal to appreciate how today’s communications environment in so fundamentally different from that of yesterday. In some ways the recognition that it is useful to combine both ‘old’ and ‘new’ media is encouraging, as when Hillary Clinton told the Senate’s Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2011, ‘… while we’re being active in online new media, we have to be active in the old media as well’ (quoted in Pincus, 2011). In parts of Afghanistan where illiteracy levels still reach almost 95% and where there is low internet penetration, it is appropriate to develop information strategies centred on television and radio broadcasting.
However, this demonstrates that, ten years after 9/11, we are still persuaded to label communications technologies as ‘old’ and ‘new’ media, when rather the reality is that platforms have converged. It is now possible to watch TV, listen to the radio and read newspapers anywhere in the world and from anywhere in the world, on a computer; just as TV news encourages its viewers to engage with them via Facebook and Twitter, and send them photos of news stories happening in their locale. Moreover, the ‘new’ media are ‘new’ only for a generation born before the end of the 1980s; the principal targets of information, public diplomacy and propaganda in the War on Terror have grown up in a world of Google and Youtube and have no recollections of a time before email and the pressure to be ‘online’ dominated our daily lives. Until this is recognised and the supposed dichotomy between old and new media disappears, progress in communication will be limited. The situation is certainly not helped by stories that a Crown Court judge in the UK who, presiding over a trial of three young Muslims accused of distributing propaganda over the internet in support of Al-Qaeda, confessed during the proceedings: ‘The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a website is.’
New communications technologies blur the traditional boundaries between source, producer and consumer, and this is the frontier of a new information space in which governments and militaries must work and combat their enemies. The information sphere is a battleground that militaries ignore today at their peril. Official communications must compete with an ever proliferating range of new voices, and to succeed, they will only do so by being credible; image and reality must be consistent. Moreover, believing that how you are perceived is more important than what you do is the biggest mistake of all. The issue is not about presentation. It is about policy. Perhaps any measured reflection on information operations ten years after 9/11 would do well to begin with this admission.
References
Pincus, W. (2011), ‘New and old information operations in Afghanistan: What works?’, The Washington Post, 28 March.
Rugh, W. (2005), ‘Broadcasting and American Public Diplomacy,’ Transnational Broadcasting Studies Journal 14 (Spring).
Wright, D.P. & T.R. Reese (2010), On Point II. Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003-January 2005 (Milton Keynes: Books Express).
Thursday, 8 December 2011
More on Sesame Street
Regular visitors to this blog will know that I am a huge fan of Sesame Street, the long-running American television show which teaches children literacy, numeracy and life-skills such as kindness, tolerance and friendship.
On 11 April I commented on the launch of a version of Sesame Street in Pakistan. Now, Big Bird and his friends have made the trek to Afghanistan in a version of the programme called Baghch-e-Simisn. This is a co-production between the non-profit Sesame Workshop and Moby Media, an Afghan company that has made a big impact on the flow of international cultural products into the country, having been responsible for importing such western formats as Idol and Deal or No Deal. The US State Department has also provided some funding.
As expected, Baghch-e-Simisn will be modified for the specific cultural context Sesame Street will encounter in Afghanistan. So scenes in which Ernie is barking like a dog and encouraging his friend, Bert, to copy him will not be shown, as a dog is considered unclean. Moreover, in trying to impart the fundamentals of health and safety, the production team had difficulty finding a building site on which the workers wore the kind of protective clothing one would see in New York.
This is the beauty of Sesame Street; it is not afraid to take risks, to change for local audiences and use entertainment for education. In Afghanistan, where the education infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired, such initiatives are welcomed. There will always be the nay-sayers who proclaim 'cultural imperialism', but Sesame Street's success and its genuine apolitical agenda demonstrate that international communications and American media products may actually do some good after all. Long may it continue!
On 11 April I commented on the launch of a version of Sesame Street in Pakistan. Now, Big Bird and his friends have made the trek to Afghanistan in a version of the programme called Baghch-e-Simisn. This is a co-production between the non-profit Sesame Workshop and Moby Media, an Afghan company that has made a big impact on the flow of international cultural products into the country, having been responsible for importing such western formats as Idol and Deal or No Deal. The US State Department has also provided some funding.
As expected, Baghch-e-Simisn will be modified for the specific cultural context Sesame Street will encounter in Afghanistan. So scenes in which Ernie is barking like a dog and encouraging his friend, Bert, to copy him will not be shown, as a dog is considered unclean. Moreover, in trying to impart the fundamentals of health and safety, the production team had difficulty finding a building site on which the workers wore the kind of protective clothing one would see in New York.
This is the beauty of Sesame Street; it is not afraid to take risks, to change for local audiences and use entertainment for education. In Afghanistan, where the education infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired, such initiatives are welcomed. There will always be the nay-sayers who proclaim 'cultural imperialism', but Sesame Street's success and its genuine apolitical agenda demonstrate that international communications and American media products may actually do some good after all. Long may it continue!
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