Can ESAT Be Our Al Jazeera?
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They ought to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
by Abiye Teklemariam | 21 Jul 2010
13 Comments
Print this page
The Al Jazeera Effect, a term made famous in academia by USC Political Scientist Philip Seib, is much used and abused. Avid readers of the Weekly Standard may think that it means the role of the Qatar based satellite channel in undermining America’ s war on terror. In Israel, some media define it as the mainstreamization of anti-Semitic propaganda. For the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al Jazeera Effect is no better than the irresponsible secularization of the Arab public sphere. Seib, however, defines it as “ the superseding of the traditional media connections that have brought identity and structure to global politics by connectivity of new media, a rewiring of the world’ s neural system.” His term is primarily about alternative media, not a single satellite channel. Al Jazeera, as the doyen of the new media, represents their nature, characteristics, ethos and self-identification and definition.
Drawing on Seib’ s work, scholars of Arab media have studied the Al Jazeera Effect in the Arab world. Some were limited to the effects of Al Jazeera itself in creating a new era of political diversity in the Arab world. Others focused on the intensification of trends in media and politics in the Arab world that Al Jazeera started. Indeed, in the past few years, one can get a hard time finding any research in politics and media that doesn’ t mention Al Jazeera in one way or another. It is early days to know whether all the academic excitement is justified; the Al Jazeera Effect may prove to be as fleeting as the much touted CNN Effect of the early 1990s. Media effects are usually overhyped. Be it as it may though, there is no denying that Al Jazeera has brought something to the media scene (mainly broadcast) in the Arab world that was not a feature previously: a vast intake basin.
Since the 1950s, most broadcast outlets in the Arab world were controlled by either governments or groups that were too afraid or too acquiesced to criticize them. The very few channels, which were started by opposition groups here and there, were largely propaganda-sque in their approach. When it was launched in 1996, Al Jazeera defied this Arab tradition by acting as a soapbox of very diverse opinions and views in the Middle East. Media scholar Yochai Benkler calls this Universal Intake. “ The basic requirement of a public sphere is that it must in principle be susceptible to perceiving and considering the issues of anyone who believes that their condition is a matter appropriate for political consideration,” Benkler argued in his highly impressive work The Wealth of Networks.
There are parallels between the developments of the public sphere in Ethiopia and the Arab world. Up until the 1990s, both print and broadcast media in both places were largely government owned. The short wave radio channels run by opposition groups- mostly from overseas – were similar in style and approach to the outlets owned by governments. In 1990s, liberalization of the print media in Ethiopia and the shift of the pan-Arab press to London brought relative freedom to newspapers. But most of these newspapers concentrated on the politics rather than the political. What should have constituted as matters plausibly within the domain of political debate and action fell outside the intake basin of these newspapers, resulting in an impoverishment of the public sphere.
The end of the 1990s began the divergence of the two media spaces. Ethiopia’ s has remained almost the same (give and take the extent of political freedom); the Arab media scene has gradually evolved into a genuine sphere of public participation. The Arab media sphere (part of the greater public sphere) is now a feast of breezy, passionate and substantive debates on anything ranging from the rights of minorities to the stagnation of economic growth in the region. What Al Jazeera had started, other TV stations and internet platforms in Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon have intensified. Call that the Al Jazeera Effect.
Will our first independent Satellite channel be able to do what Al Jazeera has done to the Arab media sphere? ESAT’ s battles are harder. While Al jazeera started with lavish funding from an ambitious young emir who just overthrew his father in a bloodless coup, ESAT’ s sources of funding are ordinary Ethiopians living in North America. What John Dewey called the problem of the public – the difference between the public of theory and the public of practice in political science – makes it hard to sustain the media let alone keep its quality high. Putting it in less academic terms, the task of consistently raising enough funds from the public is difficult. The public has slacker members who want to free ride; it has members who demand quantifiable success immediately; it has members who get tired of commitment quite easily; it also has cynical members who think nothing positive can come out of any political act. Another challenge is a determined effort by the government to jam the channel. Although many Arab countries floated the idea of jamming Al Jazeera, they were unable to do it before copycat stations mushroomed and made the jamming of Al Jazeera a useless exercise. This second problem has an effect on the first. The more ESAT staggers under government jamming, the more its funders get worn out – a strategy quite accurately identified by the government.
Yet even working under these challenges, ESAT can still change our public sphere by taking a leaf out of Al Jazeera’ s book. Here are some points:
1.Robert Kaplan said Al Jazeera was endearing because it exuded hustle. Hustle in media means being constantly in the front; getting scoops, interviews, insightful analyses, hard-hitting debates. For ESAT, the shortage of footage can decrease the hustle factor, but it would not totally wipe it out because to some extent “ the medium becomes the message” when there is a message overload. That is not the case in Ethiopia. People will switch on and follow ESAT’ s breaking news even when it has no footage to back the story with.
2. What made Al Jazeera excellent, argued Roger Cohen, was its ability to “ bring the real world home.” Many observers think Al Jazeera is a channel of politics. The truth is quite different: it is a political channel. A channel of politics is obsessed with “ who governs?” The mainstay of its coverage is the duel between the opposition and the ruling party, political parties and politicians. A political channel filters and presents views and concerns that are held by sufficiently large number of people. Its mainstay is behaviours, cultures, institutions and interactions that ultimately become the focal point of the politics. Al Jazeera televises issues ranging from police brutality and gay rights in Egypt to corruption in Saudi Arabia. Sometimes it criticizes Arab governments, but it also knows that you can say a lot about, say, the Egyptian government just by presenting a story of police officers who tortured a minibus driver with impunity.
3.Back to Robert Kaplan. Al Jazeera, he said, excelled at opening one’ s mind because watching Al Jazeera is the “ vicarious equivalent of engaging in the kinds of different conversations” one with a normal life would have. Al Jazeera does not involve in engaging continually in point scoring against one or another group. A TV channel like ESAT that beams to a country led by a fully authoritarian regime might be tempted to be just an anti-government propaganda instrument, but that would not help in getting credibility or relevance. ESAT will be best served if it can be a platform of live conversation among Ethiopians.
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They have to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
Can ESAT Be Our Al Jazeera?
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They ought to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
by Abiye Teklemariam
21 Jul 2010
13 Comments
Print this page
The Al Jazeera Effect, a term made famous in academia by USC Political Scientist Philip Seib, is much used and abused. Avid readers of the Weekly Standard may think that it means the role of the Qatar based satellite channel in undermining America’ s war on terror. In Israel, some media define it as the mainstreamization of anti-Semitic propaganda. For the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al Jazeera Effect is no better than the irresponsible secularization of the Arab public sphere. Seib, however, defines it as “ the superseding of the traditional media connections that have brought identity and structure to global politics by connectivity of new media, a rewiring of the world’ s neural system.” His term is primarily about alternative media, not a single satellite channel. Al Jazeera, as the doyen of the new media, represents their nature, characteristics, ethos and self-identification and definition.
Drawing on Seib’ s work, scholars of Arab media have studied the Al Jazeera Effect in the Arab world. Some were limited to the effects of Al Jazeera itself in creating a new era of political diversity in the Arab world. Others focused on the intensification of trends in media and politics in the Arab world that Al Jazeera started. Indeed, in the past few years, one can get a hard time finding any research in politics and media that doesn’ t mention Al Jazeera in one way or another. It is early days to know whether all the academic excitement is justified; the Al Jazeera Effect may prove to be as fleeting as the much touted CNN Effect of the early 1990s. Media effects are usually overhyped. Be it as it may though, there is no denying that Al Jazeera has brought something to the media scene (mainly broadcast) in the Arab world that was not a feature previously: a vast intake basin.
Since the 1950s, most broadcast outlets in the Arab world were controlled by either governments or groups that were too afraid or too acquiesced to criticize them. The very few channels, which were started by opposition groups here and there, were largely propaganda-sque in their approach. When it was launched in 1996, Al Jazeera defied this Arab tradition by acting as a soapbox of very diverse opinions and views in the Middle East. Media scholar Yochai Benkler calls this Universal Intake. “ The basic requirement of a public sphere is that it must in principle be susceptible to perceiving and considering the issues of anyone who believes that their condition is a matter appropriate for political consideration,” Benkler argued in his highly impressive work The Wealth of Networks.
There are parallels between the developments of the public sphere in Ethiopia and the Arab world. Up until the 1990s, both print and broadcast media in both places were largely government owned. The short wave radio channels run by opposition groups- mostly from overseas – were similar in style and approach to the outlets owned by governments. In 1990s, liberalization of the print media in Ethiopia and the shift of the pan-Arab press to London brought relative freedom to newspapers. But most of these newspapers concentrated on the politics rather than the political. What should have constituted as matters plausibly within the domain of political debate and action fell outside the intake basin of these newspapers, resulting in an impoverishment of the public sphere.
The end of the 1990s began the divergence of the two media spaces. Ethiopia’ s has remained almost the same (give and take the extent of political freedom); the Arab media scene has gradually evolved into a genuine sphere of public participation. The Arab media sphere (part of the greater public sphere) is now a feast of breezy, passionate and substantive debates on anything ranging from the rights of minorities to the stagnation of economic growth in the region. What Al Jazeera had started, other TV stations and internet platforms in Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon have intensified. Call that the Al Jazeera Effect.
Will our first independent Satellite channel be able to do what Al Jazeera has done to the Arab media sphere? ESAT’ s battles are harder. While Al jazeera started with lavish funding from an ambitious young emir who just overthrew his father in a bloodless coup, ESAT’ s sources of funding are ordinary Ethiopians living in North America. What John Dewey called the problem of the public – the difference between the public of theory and the public of practice in political science – makes it hard to sustain the media let alone keep its quality high. Putting it in less academic terms, the task of consistently raising enough funds from the public is difficult. The public has slacker members who want to free ride; it has members who demand quantifiable success immediately; it has members who get tired of commitment quite easily; it also has cynical members who think nothing positive can come out of any political act. Another challenge is a determined effort by the government to jam the channel. Although many Arab countries floated the idea of jamming Al Jazeera, they were unable to do it before copycat stations mushroomed and made the jamming of Al Jazeera a useless exercise. This second problem has an effect on the first. The more ESAT staggers under government jamming, the more its funders get worn out – a strategy quite accurately identified by the government.
Yet even working under these challenges, ESAT can still change our public sphere by taking a leaf out of Al Jazeera’ s book. Here are some points:
1.Robert Kaplan said Al Jazeera was endearing because it exuded hustle. Hustle in media means being constantly in the front; getting scoops, interviews, insightful analyses, hard-hitting debates. For ESAT, the shortage of footage can decrease the hustle factor, but it would not totally wipe it out because to some extent “ the medium becomes the message” when there is a message overload. That is not the case in Ethiopia. People will switch on and follow ESAT’ s breaking news even when it has no footage to back the story with.
2. What made Al Jazeera excellent, argued Roger Cohen, was its ability to “ bring the real world home.” Many observers think Al Jazeera is a channel of politics. The truth is quite different: it is a political channel. A channel of politics is obsessed with “ who governs?” The mainstay of its coverage is the duel between the opposition and the ruling party, political parties and politicians. A political channel filters and presents views and concerns that are held by sufficiently large number of people. Its mainstay is behaviours, cultures, institutions and interactions that ultimately become the focal point of the politics. Al Jazeera televises issues ranging from police brutality and gay rights in Egypt to corruption in Saudi Arabia. Sometimes it criticizes Arab governments, but it also knows that you can say a lot about, say, the Egyptian government just by presenting a story of police officers who tortured a minibus driver with impunity.
3.Back to Robert Kaplan. Al Jazeera, he said, excelled at opening one’ s mind because watching Al Jazeera is the “ vicarious equivalent of engaging in the kinds of different conversations” one with a normal life would have. Al Jazeera does not involve in engaging continually in point scoring against one or another group. A TV channel like ESAT that beams to a country led by a fully authoritarian regime might be tempted to be just an anti-government propaganda instrument, but that would not help in getting credibility or relevance. ESAT will be best served if it can be a platform of live conversation among Ethiopians.
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They have to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
_________________ When we do it right No-one remembers,
When we do it wrong No-one forgets.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
Can ESAT Be Our Al Jazeera?
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They ought to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
by Abiye Teklemariam
21 Jul 2010
13 Comments
Print this page
The Al Jazeera Effect, a term made famous in academia by USC Political Scientist Philip Seib, is much used and abused. Avid readers of the Weekly Standard may think that it means the role of the Qatar based satellite channel in undermining America’ s war on terror. In Israel, some media define it as the mainstreamization of anti-Semitic propaganda. For the rulers of Saudi Arabia, the Al Jazeera Effect is no better than the irresponsible secularization of the Arab public sphere. Seib, however, defines it as “ the superseding of the traditional media connections that have brought identity and structure to global politics by connectivity of new media, a rewiring of the world’ s neural system.” His term is primarily about alternative media, not a single satellite channel. Al Jazeera, as the doyen of the new media, represents their nature, characteristics, ethos and self-identification and definition.
Drawing on Seib’ s work, scholars of Arab media have studied the Al Jazeera Effect in the Arab world. Some were limited to the effects of Al Jazeera itself in creating a new era of political diversity in the Arab world. Others focused on the intensification of trends in media and politics in the Arab world that Al Jazeera started. Indeed, in the past few years, one can get a hard time finding any research in politics and media that doesn’ t mention Al Jazeera in one way or another. It is early days to know whether all the academic excitement is justified; the Al Jazeera Effect may prove to be as fleeting as the much touted CNN Effect of the early 1990s. Media effects are usually overhyped. Be it as it may though, there is no denying that Al Jazeera has brought something to the media scene (mainly broadcast) in the Arab world that was not a feature previously: a vast intake basin.
Since the 1950s, most broadcast outlets in the Arab world were controlled by either governments or groups that were too afraid or too acquiesced to criticize them. The very few channels, which were started by opposition groups here and there, were largely propaganda-sque in their approach. When it was launched in 1996, Al Jazeera defied this Arab tradition by acting as a soapbox of very diverse opinions and views in the Middle East. Media scholar Yochai Benkler calls this Universal Intake. “ The basic requirement of a public sphere is that it must in principle be susceptible to perceiving and considering the issues of anyone who believes that their condition is a matter appropriate for political consideration,” Benkler argued in his highly impressive work The Wealth of Networks.
There are parallels between the developments of the public sphere in Ethiopia and the Arab world. Up until the 1990s, both print and broadcast media in both places were largely government owned. The short wave radio channels run by opposition groups- mostly from overseas – were similar in style and approach to the outlets owned by governments. In 1990s, liberalization of the print media in Ethiopia and the shift of the pan-Arab press to London brought relative freedom to newspapers. But most of these newspapers concentrated on the politics rather than the political. What should have constituted as matters plausibly within the domain of political debate and action fell outside the intake basin of these newspapers, resulting in an impoverishment of the public sphere.
The end of the 1990s began the divergence of the two media spaces. Ethiopia’ s has remained almost the same (give and take the extent of political freedom); the Arab media scene has gradually evolved into a genuine sphere of public participation. The Arab media sphere (part of the greater public sphere) is now a feast of breezy, passionate and substantive debates on anything ranging from the rights of minorities to the stagnation of economic growth in the region. What Al Jazeera had started, other TV stations and internet platforms in Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon have intensified. Call that the Al Jazeera Effect.
Will our first independent Satellite channel be able to do what Al Jazeera has done to the Arab media sphere? ESAT’ s battles are harder. While Al jazeera started with lavish funding from an ambitious young emir who just overthrew his father in a bloodless coup, ESAT’ s sources of funding are ordinary Ethiopians living in North America. What John Dewey called the problem of the public – the difference between the public of theory and the public of practice in political science – makes it hard to sustain the media let alone keep its quality high. Putting it in less academic terms, the task of consistently raising enough funds from the public is difficult. The public has slacker members who want to free ride; it has members who demand quantifiable success immediately; it has members who get tired of commitment quite easily; it also has cynical members who think nothing positive can come out of any political act. Another challenge is a determined effort by the government to jam the channel. Although many Arab countries floated the idea of jamming Al Jazeera, they were unable to do it before copycat stations mushroomed and made the jamming of Al Jazeera a useless exercise. This second problem has an effect on the first. The more ESAT staggers under government jamming, the more its funders get worn out – a strategy quite accurately identified by the government.
Yet even working under these challenges, ESAT can still change our public sphere by taking a leaf out of Al Jazeera’ s book. Here are some points:
1.Robert Kaplan said Al Jazeera was endearing because it exuded hustle. Hustle in media means being constantly in the front; getting scoops, interviews, insightful analyses, hard-hitting debates. For ESAT, the shortage of footage can decrease the hustle factor, but it would not totally wipe it out because to some extent “ the medium becomes the message” when there is a message overload. That is not the case in Ethiopia. People will switch on and follow ESAT’ s breaking news even when it has no footage to back the story with.
2. What made Al Jazeera excellent, argued Roger Cohen, was its ability to “ bring the real world home.” Many observers think Al Jazeera is a channel of politics. The truth is quite different: it is a political channel. A channel of politics is obsessed with “ who governs?” The mainstay of its coverage is the duel between the opposition and the ruling party, political parties and politicians. A political channel filters and presents views and concerns that are held by sufficiently large number of people. Its mainstay is behaviours, cultures, institutions and interactions that ultimately become the focal point of the politics. Al Jazeera televises issues ranging from police brutality and gay rights in Egypt to corruption in Saudi Arabia. Sometimes it criticizes Arab governments, but it also knows that you can say a lot about, say, the Egyptian government just by presenting a story of police officers who tortured a minibus driver with impunity.
3.Back to Robert Kaplan. Al Jazeera, he said, excelled at opening one’ s mind because watching Al Jazeera is the “ vicarious equivalent of engaging in the kinds of different conversations” one with a normal life would have. Al Jazeera does not involve in engaging continually in point scoring against one or another group. A TV channel like ESAT that beams to a country led by a fully authoritarian regime might be tempted to be just an anti-government propaganda instrument, but that would not help in getting credibility or relevance. ESAT will be best served if it can be a platform of live conversation among Ethiopians.
I am sure the owners of ESAT have thought seriously about the fantastic weapon they have built. They have to be thanked by all Ethiopians who are eager to see a robust public sphere and alternative media in Ethiopia. Just before the start of the World Cup, the Spanish sports newspaper Marca had this amazing headline: “ Spain Are the Best in the World; Now Prove It.” ESAT is a great idea; now prove it.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
This message expresses the views and opinions of the author and not necessarily
those of CyberEthiopia, its staff or its affiliates. If you think this message
is inappropriate or violates our rules and regulations , please notify the Administrators by clicking on the report button below.
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