How Al Jazeera shapes an Arab identity

A study shows how arab speaking TV network is shaping a transnational Arab identity among its viewers. How media change the way one perceive himself…

Because networks like Al Jazeera are transnational – focusing on events of interest across the region rather than those in any one country – they may encourage viewers to see themselves in broader terms than simply residents of a particular nation, the researchers said.

“The goal of these relatively new networks is not to represent specific national interests, but to appeal to audiences across the region,” said Erik Nisbet, lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

“They tap into the idea that all viewers are connected through a Muslim or Arab identity.”

The findings have important implications for the United States as it develops its foreign policy related to the Middle East, Nisbet said.

It is particularly significant because other research suggests that Arabs who identify themselves primarily as Muslim have a more unfavorable view of the United States than are those who see themselves chiefly as citizens of their country.

“Arabs who define themselves first and foremost as Muslims don’t necessarily have the same interests, preferences and perceptions as do those who adopt a national identity,” he said. “They might view the United States differently.”

Nisbet conducted the study with Teresa Myers, a postdoctoral researcher in communication at Ohio State. Their results appear in the November 2010 issue of the journal Political Communication.

The researchers used data collected between 2004 and 2008 by Zogby International and Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland. Telhami and his colleagues conducted surveys of 14,949 residents across six Arab countries: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates.

For this study, Nisbet and Myers focused on survey questions involving Arabs’ use of transnational media, political identity (Muslim, Arab or national), and demographic controls, including education.

For television use, the researchers examined how many days per week participants viewed various transnational channels, and which ones they chose as their favorites. Their emphasis was on Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, the two dominant networks in the region that presented an Arab perspective on the news.

The findings showed that, the more days a week that participants said they viewed Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya, the more likely they were to claim “Muslim” as their main political identity, rather than their national identity. (The strongest effects in the study involved a “Muslim” identity rather than an “Arab” identity.)

The researchers also found interesting effects of education in the study, particularly as it interacted with media use.

All else being equal, people with higher levels of education were more likely to claim a national identity – to say they were Saudi Arabian rather than Muslim, for example.

That makes sense, Nisbet said, because “education is one of the primary means of political socialization.

“When you go to government-run schools, you learn loyalty to the state.”

However, that changes the more people watched channels like Al Jazeera.

“At the highest levels of media use, there is virtually no difference between the most and least educated participants concerning their political identity – they are all much more likely to claim a Muslim identity,” Myers said.

“Media use overpowers education when it comes to claiming a political identity.”

Nisbet and Myers also considered the possibility that people who had a strong Muslim identity were simply more likely to watch Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, rather than the other way around. But their findings suggest that isn’t the case.

Along with asking how often participants watched various channels, the surveys also asked them to name their two favorite channels to watch. People with a strong Muslim identity may be expected to say Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya were their favorite channels. But the study found that even people who listed other channels as their favorites still were more likely to claim a Muslim identity, if they were heavy viewers of Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya.

“It seems that just being exposed to these channels is associated with a greater chance of a Muslim identity, even if you say you prefer other channels, Myers said.

Nisbet acknowledged that this is not the best way to determine if viewing Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya is likely to lead to claiming a Muslim identity. It would be better if researchers could follow the same people over time to see how their identity changes as a result of their TV viewing choices. But such data is not available, and the survey used in this study is the best available.

In the meantime, these results suggest that the popularity of Al Jazeera may pose challenges for the United States, if the network continues to influence viewers’ political identity.

“If there’s a growing transnational Muslim identity, the United State will have to reevaluate traditional foreign policy strategies that are currently based on dealing with individual countries,” Nisbet said. “It will make diplomacy more complex.”

Benrard Ingham tells how political communication has changed

Bernard Ingham, who used to be former Prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s spin doctor, tells how political communication has changed since the 1980’s.

Working on my new book, A Long Lunch, which is memories and anecdotes from my past, it struck me how enormously spin doctoring has changed over the years. Tom McCaffrey, who worked for Jim Callaghan, would no more have “spun” the hacks than he would have taken lobby meetings naked. Once I implied that Jim had winked at someone as a means of saying that he would prefer one candidate over another to win one of Labour’s manifold elections. Tom wafted over to me. “Prime minister wants you to know he wasn’t actually winking,” he said. Trusting Tom, I immediately offered to correct the error. “Oh, no,” he said, “no need for that …” Perhaps that’s why Jim lost office. Not assertive enough. Things got more aggressive with Margaret Thatcher and her press secretary Bernard Ingham, a former Labour candidate who had all the zeal of an apostate. He understood spin almost instinctively. At a lobby meeting immediately after the Argentinians invaded the Falklands, I asked him if the PM knew how many backbench Tories were deeply uneasy about our response. “So it’s true!” he barked. “She is the only man among them!” Bernard was Margaret Thatcher when being Margaret Thatcher 24/7 was just too much for her. It’s a myth that the dark arts of spin are based on psychological suggestion and subtle insinuation. Thuggish bullying is as effective. I once saw Robert Peston almost reduced to tears by Alastair Campbell’s ferocity (“This is crap, this is … oh, look, here’s the Tory spokesman!”). Peston was stunned not because his feelings were hurt, but because he needed access to Campbell’s information. He was political editor of the FT, and telling the news desk: “No, I didn’t get that story because Campbell doesn’t really like me,” would not have cut it. Now, I’m one of the five Commons sketchwriters, and most of the spinners have abandoned us all as a lost cause. The Tories occasionally tried to spin Times people to write nice stuff about that parade of losers they had for leaders between 1997 and 2005. I remember three Lib Dem spin doctors clustered around my screen, telling me how brilliantly Paddy Ashdown had performed. I found instructing them to fuck off usually had the desired effect.

The Labour’s looking for a new spin doctor

Wanted: an Andy Coulson for Ed Miliband. Must be post-New Labour, tabloid-friendly and able to transform the new leader from Ed the Younger into a credible future PM. No old generation Brownites need apply. Neither need Alastair Campbell.

The new Labour leader is, I gather, on the look out for a new head of communications to prevent Ed’s surprise Labour victory becoming the last win he ever celebrates. No formal advert has been placed but one of the most sought-after jobs in politics, Opposition leader’s spin doctor, is up for grabs.

About time, too. The real risk for the Ed Mili leadership is not that it ends up being too radical but that his early period in office passes without standing for very much at all. “We know what he’s about,” teased Mr Cameron this week. “What on earth is he for?” Now there’s a good question to put to applicants for the post.
The surprise nature of the Ed victory meant that he was left with a campaign team but not a group of people ready to administer the day-to-day grind of reviving a party on the skids.

Camp Miliband isn’t short of talent. Ed has a solid intellectual ally in the former Oxford politics don, Stewart Wood, who helped hone his campaign message and craft killer phrases. The softly spoken former academic oversaw the tactic of undermining David Miliband‘s bid by establishing Ed’s rejection of many sacred cows from Labour’s years in power.

He is, however, more akin to Steve Hilton on the Tory team — extremely close to his boss and an ideas man. “You couldn’t imagine Stewart in charge of the daily grid of media and camera angles,” says a colleague. “It would drive him mad.” Also, he doesn’t want the job.

Given his novice stand, Mr Miliband surprised many by the vigour of his campaign. He was managed (some might say micro-managed) by the redoubtable Polly Billington, whom I once witnessed shouting at her straggling charge: “Just get on the f*****g train.”

But Ms Billington is focusing on Mr Miliband’s Prime Minister’s Questions preparation, an early success area for Mr Miliband. What has not gone so well, I would say, is the task of lifting him swiftly and distinctively into the national consciousness.

Arguably, Mr Miliband missed one chance at Labour conference by looking stunned and using the moment solely to heal the party’s wounds, rather than to address the public. As any number of vanquished Tory leaders could tell him, this is a seductive trap.

The words “long haul” and “settling in” are already being used. Ed is by nature given to weighing things up — the worry is that he won’t be clear enough in coming down on one side or another. “We are having to reassure the Left about its concerns at the same time as taking on the perception of centre-ground critics that he’s too Left-wing,” says an ally.

Well, tough. This quandary is the result of Mr Miliband’s decision to run on issues close to the heart of his party: Iraq, equality, opposition to tuition fees and trimming to the unions. He can’t really complain now if he’s branded as being too close to the Left in these causes: but he does need to build far wider appeal than to the Labour disaffected.

Also, on key decider issues such as education, he needs to define himself as more than just a naysayer on free schools. Education reform in Britain means taking risks and annoying some people. If he hasn’t got the nerve for that, Mr Miliband will end up back in hock to those whose only conviction is that innovation is always bad.

“You can’t blame us if we don’t have an education policy inside 30 days!” a loyalist chides me. But people do decide rather quickly whether a new leadership feels interesting and vital or not. A sense of energy and ideas being communicated is the achievement of the Coulson-Hilton duo in No 10. That’s not yet emanating from the Miliband bunker.

It’s fine to take time deciding what positions to take on key issues, honing the relationship between the leader and his de facto deputy, Alan Johnson — now compared by insiders to Cameron-Osborne in its intensity. But, meantime, life moves on and impressions form.

The early images of the leader dragging his heavily pregnant wife along behind him by the arm at conference might be something he wants to avoid. He can redeem himself by making the most of this upcoming paternity leave: not to be saccharine but just to show that he is not one of those blokes who isn’t quite connected to his home life.

Watch the Camerons on patrol and you realise that one of the first tasks of a leader is to walk the walk, even before you start talking the talk. Alas, stories circulate of nice-but-artless Mr Miliband enquiring of senior people who aren’t married how their wives are.

Mili-Labour needs its conduits to social and cultural London, and the channels feel a bit closed right now.

Trivial stuff, you might say. But if Ed has any doubts about the impact of negative PR, recall the lasting damage of his brother’s banana experience. Embrace children and animals by all means, but beware fruit.

That’s why Mr Cameron is trying to control his image with a home-grown photographer: a luxury, sure, but one he risks because he knows that leadership is an aura, not just a job.

“Be the change” Mr Hilton used to encourage his mate Dave: and, sure enough, Dave cycled and hugged huskies and tried his damnedest to embody the message of a new Tory party.

How will Mr Miliband be his change — and who will be on hand to make sure we see it and take note?
Ed himself is, I am told, extremely wary of what an insider calls “Ed Balls mark 2” — a spin doctor with his or her own powerbase and agenda. But up against tough Mr Coulson he can’t afford to have a Nowhere Man or Woman.

Labour can help to decide whether its wilderness years are tolerably short or absurdly long. How it presents itself to the world will be a major factor.

Let the race commence. Ed’s choice for the job will tell us an awful lot about the kind of leader he really wants to be.