Abstract
This article provides a unique perspective on US–Pakistan and Taliban–Pakistan media relations in the context of the regional war on terror. Based on mediated public diplomacy and news construction literature, the authors explore some of the key challenges and opportunities that both sides face as they aim to influence Pakistani media coverage and win the political support of the Pakistani people. Eighteen online interviews with Pakistani media practitioners explore their perceptions of wartime media relations involving five main categories: US–Pakistani media relations, Taliban–Pakistani media relations, Taliban/extremist groups’ understanding of Pakistani news routines, US officials’ understanding of Pakistani news routines, and social media/internet as sources of information for Pakistani journalists. The study’s key findings are discussed in the context of wartime media relations and mediated public diplomacy.
Keywords
Introduction
For over a decade, the United States has engaged in a war on terror in Afghanistan and some parts of the Pakistan border. The battle between the United States and its regional enemies, namely the Taliban and the al-Qaeda network, is likely to impact the political future of the region as well as America’s global war on terror. It is key for both sides to find a way to shape and influence how the regional media frames the battle between the groups. While Americans aim to promote a ‘war against terror and for democracy’ frame, the Taliban and its affiliates – including al-Qaeda – aim to frame their enemies as foreign occupiers whose values conflict with the people from those regions.
It may be mentioned here that al-Qaeda and the Taliban have a deep-rooted connection in the region. This connection dates back to the 1980s Jihad (holy war) against the former Soviet Union’s intervention in Afghanistan (Rashid, 2008; Strick et al., 2011). ‘Militant Islamists and jihadists came to Pakistan and Afghanistan to support the Afghan jihad from throughout the Middle East, Africa, and beyond; some of these would sign up with and found al-Qaeda’ (Strick et al., 2011: 3). Thus, this study treats the extremist groups, the Taliban and al-Qaeda, in the same context while discussing the war on terror between the United States and its regional enemies. While a physical war takes place in Afghanistan, a news battle takes place in Pakistan, an ally nation whose complex relationship with the United States has been described at times, as both friendly and adversarial (Fair, 2009).
Over the past decade, the United States has invested billions of dollars in public diplomacy programs in Pakistan, yet anti-American sentiments remain high (Epstein and Kronstadt, 2012). While winning the hearts and minds of the people of Pakistan has been a key objective for the US government (see Nye, 2004), America has failed to successfully communicate its story to the people of Pakistan. As noted by Shim et al. (2012), Pakistan has a complex media system that is influenced by ethnic sectarianism and language diversity. Facing barriers of language and culture across dimension, the United States is largely dependent on Pakistani media journalists as key mediators of its message.
The current study provides a unique perspective into US–Pakistan and Taliban–Pakistan media relations in the context of the regional war on terror. Based on mediated public diplomacy and news construction literature, we aim to understand some of the key challenges and opportunities that both sides face as they aim to shape media coverage and win the political support of the Pakistani people.
Literature review
Mediated public diplomacy
Ever since the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, the United States has tried to balance its global war on terror and its soft power approach that has aimed to win hearts and minds amongst key foreign publics (Nye, 2008). Rooted in the soft power approach (Nye, 2004), public diplomacy has attempted to build mutually beneficial relationships with foreign publics through such traditional soft power programs as educational and cultural exchanges (Schneider, 2003; Scott-Smith, 2008; Snow, 2008), aid and development programs (Lancaster, 2007; Zhang and Chinn Swartz, 2009), and language education (Kelley, 2009; Kurlantzick, 2007). So central is the soft power approach to modern American public diplomacy that, in 1999, the Clinton administration replaced the United States Information Agency (USIA) with the office of the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. This move shifted America’s public diplomacy away from the short-termed focus on mass communication and toward the longer-termed government to foreign citizen relationship building (Hayden, 2011).
Recognizing the significant influence of media coverage of international affairs and public opinion and support for foreign policy (Iyengar and Simon, 1993; Maoz, 2006; Wanta et al., 2004), mediated public diplomacy research is gaining much attention from scholars. As defined by Entman (2008: 89), mediated public diplomacy refers to ‘the organized attempts by a president and his foreign policy apparatus to exert as much control as possible over the framing of U.S. policy in foreign media’. Recognizing the global competition over both agenda building and frame setting (Sheafer and Gabay, 2009), governments have resorted to a variety of tactics aimed at influencing foreign media coverage of its foreign policy and global engagement programs. These include the hiring of public relations firms (Kiousis and Wu, 2008; Zhang and Cameron, 2003), the production of information subsidies (Zoch and Molleda, 2006), official visits (Wang and Chang, 2003), op-ed diplomacy (Golan, 2013; Golan and Carroll, 2012), and international broadcasting (Samuel-Azran, 2010; Youmans and Powers, 2012). Overall, the research findings suggest that mediated public diplomacy efforts may produce favorable media coverage abroad (Manheim and Albritton, 1984; Zhang and Cameron, 2003). Recognizing the potential brought forward by the diffusion of social media platforms, public diplomats have expanded their international engagement and mediated public diplomacy efforts towards digital diplomacy (Hayden et al., 2013; Zhang, 2013). Of particular interest to public diplomacy scholars is the potential role of social media platforms in government to foreign media relationship building (Himelboim et al., in press) as well as the potential to promote favorable framing of foreign policy (Golan and Himelboim, 2014).
Wartime public diplomacy
One particular area of mediated public diplomacy that is somewhat underdeveloped is the way governments attempt to shape foreign media coverage during times of war. Since governments are often able to shape domestic media coverage of foreign wars through the embedding of journalists (Aday et al., 2005; Fahmy and Johnson, 2005, 2007; Pfau et al., 2005) or by sheer government–journalists power dynamics (Bennett, 1990; Bennett et al., 2007), the ability to shape and influence foreign media coverage of American foreign military engagement can prove much more complex.
Unlike the domestic media that is likely to adopt the US government’s framing perspective (Entman, 1991; Harp et al., 2010), the lack of a cultural and political proximity with foreign media undermines American efforts to make use of them for public diplomacy (Entman, 2008; Pan and Kosicki, 2001; Sheafer and Gabay, 2009; Wolfsfeld, 1997). It is because of this limitation that an understanding of local news routines is fundamental to international players in their attempt to shape foreign media framing of global conflicts.
News construction
One of the core concepts in the scholarship of media sociology revolves around the notion of news construction. Unlike the journalistic point of view which sees news as something in the world that a reporter must discover, media sociologists view news as something that is constructed through journalistic norms, attitudes, practices, and routines (Fishman, 1980). Gans (1979) wrote that news construction is a complex interplay of journalists’ attitudes and practices, and organizational goals and constraints. The traditional structure and production schedules of newsrooms in terms of daily deadlines, both for print and broadcast media, led Gans to conclude that the news construction process is routinized to the point that journalism organizations can begin to feel like assembly lines. As such, any government’s mediated public diplomacy efforts are contingent on their understanding of their target media stakeholders’ news construction process.
In many ways, the construction of news combines the actions of journalists and sources. Wolfsfeld and Sheafer (2006) describe their political-contest model, in which news construction is almost a cooperative effort between sources that create events or supply information to journalists and the journalists who turn that raw material into news.
News routines and sources
A key emphasis in the literature pertaining to news construction focuses on the understanding of news routines, which have been defined as ‘those patterned, routinized, repeated practices and forms that media workers use to do their jobs’ (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996: 105). Routines are the way reporters construct news (Tuchman, 1978). Fishman (1980: 14) wrote that routines are ‘the crucial factor which determines how newsworkers construe the world of activities they confront’. Reese (2001) defined journalists’ routines as a natural structure within which the creative work of journalism is done.
Previous scholarship identified factors as newsworthiness, which include traditional measures such as timeliness, proximity, and deviance (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996); the notion of objectivity (Schudson, 1981; Soloski, 1989; Tuchman, 1978); organizational structures like the beat system (Fishman, 1980); and production considerations such as the daily deadline (Tuchman, 1978) as important news routines elements. Another key factor to news routines is the use of sources. Gans (1979: 80) defined sources as ‘the actors whom journalists observe or interview, including interviewees who appear on the air or who are quoted in magazine articles, and those who supply background information or story suggestion’. Put plainly, a source is someone who provides information about an event to a journalist. This is a critical role in news production, perhaps the most critical role. News itself has been called ‘a product of transactions between journalists and their sources (Ericson et al., 1989), and Gans (1979) referred to the journalist–source relationship as both a game of tug-of-war and a dance.
Since journalists rarely see news events as they happen (Shoemaker and Reese, 1996), they are reliant upon sources for the information needed to produce their stories. Previous research indicates that journalists are most reliant on so-called official sources, including government officials and information. Sigal (1973) noted that journalists at The New York Times and the Washington Post rely on what he called routine channels of information and include official proceedings, press releases, press conferences and staged events. Schudson (2003: 137) wrote that ‘most news comes to the news media through ordinary, scheduled, government initiated events.’ The media’s reliance on information subsidies often allows such organizations as corporations and governments to shape the media agenda by reducing news organizations’ cost of gathering information (Berkowitz and Adams, 1990; Zoch and Molleda, 2006).
Sources in wartime
During times of war, the news media tend to rely even more upon official channels (Wolfsfeld, 1997). This occurs for several reasons. For example, governments often restrict media access to the actual battles, meaning reporters are forced to rely upon pool reports and press briefing for information. Shoemaker and Reese (1996) detailed some of the limits that the US military has placed on media coverage of military engagements since the end of the Vietnam War, from denying access to the front lines of the 1983 US invasion of Grenada to the pool reports used during the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, in which reporters were almost completely reliant upon information subsidies. ‘These military-imposed restrictions constituted a powerful kind of source-oriented routine, and journalists were obliged to adapt themselves accordingly’ (p. 130).
The US military changed their course for the second Gulf War in the early 2000s. During that conflict, reporters were embedded within military units. While this allowed greater media access to the war, it raised questions as to whether reporters would be able to be objective in their reporting about a military they counted on for their daily safety (Pfau et al., 2004). Studies showed that stories from embedded reporters tended to be more favorable toward the military than those from non-embedded reporters (Pfau et al., 2005). Reporters who were embedded during the second Gulf War said they enjoyed their experiences and felt it allowed them to report accurately, although they did admit that being embedded allowed them cover the war from an extremely narrow and fragmented perspective (Fahmy and Johnson, 2005). As noted by Sheafer and Shenhav (2009), wartime mediated public diplomacy typically involves more than one international player who attempts to shape and influence foreign media’s coverage of war and, by doing so, to influence international public opinion and government policy. As such, foreign media dependence on information provided by one side or another may result in the success or failure of both agenda and frame promotion.
The current study aims to advance the understanding of wartime mediated public diplomacy efforts by testing Pakistani journalists’ perceptions of both American and the Taliban’s understanding of their news routines. As the two opposing parties attempt to influence the Pakistani media’s interpretation of America’s regional war on terror, understanding Pakistan’s news routines can be key to America’s public diplomacy efforts. As such, America’s mediated public diplomacy efforts go beyond mere press agentry and can be seen as a part of modern day warfare (Kauppi and Viotti, 1999; Sheafer and Shenhav, 2009).
We present the following research questions surrounding wartime mediated public diplomacy in Pakistan:
RQ1: Do Pakistani journalists perceive their interactions with the US government and the Taliban/Al Qaeda differently?
RQ2: Within those interactions, do Pakistani journalists perceive information subsidies differently from social media in terms of their news production value?
RQ3: How do Pakistani journalists perceive differences between the US government and the Taliban/Al Qaeda in their understanding of the journalists’ news routines?
Method
In order to understand wartime media relations in Pakistan, the current study conducted a series of online interviews with Pakistani journalists (Altheide, 1996; Bertaux, 1981; Charmaz and Belgrave, 2002). Only experienced journalists, from print and electronic media, were selected for interviews. Selection criteria were based on the experience of journalists who covered military and domestic affairs and therefore were highly familiar with the US–Pakistani, Taliban–Pakistani and national media news routines. A total of 35 journalists were contacted for the interviews, and 20 journalists agreed to participate; 10 out of 15 journalists who did not participate in the research thought the matter was too sensitive. Five journalists said they were very busy with their work and did not have time to participate, and the other two journalists (out of the 20 who agreed to participate) never responded to the inquiry.
It is important to note that one of the investigators in the current study is a former Pakistani journalist who has professional connections with most of the 18 respondents. This factor of ‘personal connection’ served the purpose of mutual trust (Charmaz and Belgrave, 2002; Holstein and Gubrium, 1995; Rudestam and Newton, 2001) that likely produced more extensive data. Since the online interviews dealt with highly sensitive subject matter, one could argue that the data collection was made possible thanks to the investigator’s first-hand connection with the interview subject matters.
Out of the 18 respondents, 12 were serving as editors/bureau chiefs or chief reporters and were involved in decision-making processes in their particular newsrooms. The other six respondents worked as senior reporters for their news organizations. The researchers decided not to disclose real names and organizations of the respondents because of the sensitivity of the matter. The online interviews were aimed at understanding the dynamics of the existing relationship of Pakistani journalists with both US and Taliban officials. Online interviews with Pakistani journalists were also helpful for understanding the role and effectiveness of US diplomatic efforts in Pakistan to improve the relations between the two countries, as Pakistan is a critical ally of the United States in the ongoing war on terror alongside the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Furthermore, online interviews were selected as an appropriate methodology since ‘interviewing is a powerful way to gain insight into educational and other important social issues through understanding the experience of the individuals whose lives reflect those issues’ (Seidman, 2006). The key focus of the interviews was the attempt to understand wartime media relations in the Pakistani media.
The questionnaire included questions in five main categories: US–Pakistani media relations; Taliban–Pakistani media relations; Taliban/extremist groups’ understanding of Pakistani news routines; US officials’ understanding of Pakistani news routines; and social media/the internet as sources of information for Pakistani journalists.
To provide a record, the email responses were kept in an organized manner, and relevant information was used for data analysis (Ryan and Bernard, 2000). For this study, we used a standardized open-ended interview questionnaire to make sure that every respondent was asked the same set of questions to avoid confusion and deviation from the main topic (Hammersley, 2008; King et al., 1994). We also asked follow-up questions whenever clarification was needed. The researchers kept a record of all the emails being sent and received during the course of the interviews (Bradburn et al., 2004; Holstein and Gubrium, 1995; Rudestam and Newton, 2001).
Analysis
For this study, we interviewed 18 Pakistani journalists. A qualitative thematic analysis was used to analyze their responses. The qualitative thematic analysis is helpful to identify, analyze and report patterns and significant themes emerging within data (Braun and Clarke, 2006). Furthermore, ‘thematic analyses move beyond counting explicit words or phrases and focus on identifying and describing both implicit and explicit ideas within the data, that is, themes’ (Guest et al., 2012: 10). For this investigation, we read and reread the interview responses to search for themes and to generate initial codes (Braun and Clarke, 2006). After reviewing the emerging themes, we defined and named those patterns (themes), which are discussed below.
A thematic analysis of our qualitative data identified three main themes regarding wartime media relations and news routines: Taliban-developed media relations versus US officials-developed media relations; the internet/social media as a main source of information; and US officials’ level of understanding of Pakistani news routines. All these emerging themes complement the previously mentioned five main categories on which we had based our questionnaire.
In addition, we asked a question regarding the use of information subsidies provided by American sources such as State Department press releases, backgrounders and position papers in everyday reporting about the United States. Although we did not select any particular theme for this question, we still counted the average number of respondents who had been using these sources of information in their reporting about the United States. A majority of responses indicated that they do not ‘treat’ the State Department’s information subsidies as their primary source for information because they portray a biased point of view. Several journalists identified such information subsidies as mere tools of propaganda that were meant to hide facts, particularly when it comes to drone attacks in Pakistan.
1. Taliban-developed media relations versus US-developed media relations (RQ1)
In order to understand and compare the nature of US-developed media relations with the Taliban’s media relations, we asked two questions: (i) How would you rate media relations between Pakistani journalists and Taliban/al Qaeda officials? How well do they understand Pakistani news routines and news environments? and (ii) What is your overall opinion of Taliban/al Qaeda media relations and activities in Pakistan and why?
Thirteen respondents viewed Taliban’s relationship with Pakistani media as positive in nature. Most of them assessed Taliban understanding of Pakistani media’s news routines as very familiar, and reported that they developed good relations with the media professionals. As one respondent explained: Journalists covering security issues and militant organizations have access to the members of Taliban groups and the Al Qaida affiliated organizations in Pakistan – usually the telephonic contact. I believe they [Taliban] are pretty smart in understanding news routines and environment of Pakistani journalism. Based on my experience, I can say that Taliban or any other extremist elements are well aware which media outlet has liberal views and which one has conservative ideologies. Plus, sometimes news from Taliban/Al-Qaeda comes right before the deadline and easily makes a headline story the next day on the paper.
Furthermore, a majority of the respondents pointed out the fact that it is easier to access Taliban spokesmen whenever journalists need their version for a news story. On the contrary, it is almost impossible to reach the US officials in case a journalist needs a comment from them. Highlighting the convenience of accessing the Taliban, one respondent explained: Relations between some Taliban leaders and some Pakistani journalists, who are assigned to cover the organization, are good for the purpose of getting their viewpoint. It mostly happens that whenever some major development takes place or is about to take place, the Taliban approach the Pakistani journalists to tell their side of the story. One may be surprised that some of such journalists might have contact numbers of the Taliban spokesmen to call them when they feel it is necessary to get their views on a specific matter or a developing issue.
Another respondent added, ‘I have no knowledge about al-Qaeda for its cloak and dagger activities but the organization, too, is well aware of the news routines and news environments not only in Pakistan but in some other countries.’ One respondent, however, pointed out that the Taliban use tactics of violence to pressurize journalists in order to get the desired media coverage about them, ‘They [the Taliban] have their friends in almost all media organizations and they also use violent means to influence journalists. If you compare their understanding with American officials, I think Taliban and al-Qaeda’s understanding is relatively better.’ Another respondent expressed similar concerns by saying: The journalists working on terrorism-related stuff discharge their duties in a climate of fear. Those [who] dare to disregard [the] Taliban/al-Qaeda version, land themselves in trouble. The latest example is a journalist, Atif Mukarram, who was killed by the extremists, and [the] Taliban claimed committing the murder, saying he was not giving them desired coverage. Taliban/al-Qaeda’s media wings are very vibrant. They’re fast learners of [the] changing media landscape. But they don’t need to understand the news operation for getting space; they manage coverage through coercion and intimidation.
On the other hand, four respondents criticized the Taliban’s tactics of exploiting Pakistani journalists by using threats as a tool to get media attention and coverage. As one respondent put it: ‘I think the relations between Pakistani media and Taliban are not very good. Taliban media management is as bad as is US management.’ Another respondent added: The Taliban relations with Pakistani media are pretty bad … not really much different to its relations with the US officials. But militants have more influence on Pakistani media than the US – sometimes through terror and sometimes through shared ideology.
We also asked another question regarding the existence of any advocacy groups/organizations involved in determining the media relations between Pakistani journalists and American officials. However, there wasn’t a single respondent who had any knowledge regarding the existence of such an organization. As one respondent said: I don’t think there is any such thing at this point in time. But it would be great if we have such an organization or a group working for the purpose of determining media relations between Pakistani journalists and American officials.
In summary, the respondents believed that Taliban/extremist groups were more successful at cultivating direct/personal relations with the media community besides being accessible to journalists. In other words, Taliban and/or religious extremist groups in Pakistan better understand Pakistani journalism practices, which helps them to get desired coverage in the media. On the contrary, US sources have a limited outreach to Pakistani media practitioners.
2. Internet/social media as a source of information (RQ2)
In order to understand the overall choice of journalists between traditional sources and the internet/social media while covering US-related issues, we asked: ‘Where do you get most of the information about the United States?’ All the respondents were given choices between online and offline sources of information while responding to this question. A majority of respondents said they use the internet with other traditional sources, such as published reports, newspaper articles, etc. As one respondent said: ‘I get information about the USA from media, social media and official press releases.’ Another respondent added that he gets US-related information from ‘news websites, from US embassy emails, from US movies, print newspapers, social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, etc.’
Another respondent pointed to the US newspapers as an important source of information about the US: As a journalist, over the years I am used to read [sic] New York Times and Washington Post almost on daily basis. Occasionally, I do touch other news websites and media outlets if they break some important story but basically, these newspapers I use as my basic source of information on the US.
It is pertinent to mention here that most of the US-related news/press releases are issued by the US officials in electronic form, mostly emails to the journalistic community. Based on the analysis of responses for this theme, the researchers observed that a majority of Pakistani journalists favored the internet/social media as a secondary source in terms of their news production value. A majority of respondents seemed to favor traditional Western media sources such as The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC as their primary sources of information to fulfill their journalistic roles while covering issues related to US–Pakistan relations.
In addition to that, not a single respondent mentioned that the Taliban rely on internet sources to disseminate their news/info to the journalistic community. However, looking back at the theme of internet/social media use, we observed that Pakistani journalists believe that most of the US-related information flows through electronic sources (including emails), which, according to the respondents, may not be an effective way to target the journalistic community in Pakistan.
3. Understanding of Pakistani media professionals’ news routines (RQ3)
In order to find out the level of mutual understanding and nature of relationship between US officials and Pakistani journalists, we asked, ‘How would you rate media relations between Pakistani journalists and American officials? How well do they understand Pakistani news routines and news environments?’ Based on the responses we received, we divided the theme in two sub-themes: US–Pak media relations, and US officials’ level of understanding about Pakistani news routines. Each of these sub-themes are discussed individually below:
(i) US–Pak media relations
All but four respondents had a negative perception about US officials and their relationship with Pakistani journalists. The responses ranged from US officials being too careless to being naïve about how to deal with Pakistani media. As one respondent puts it: To me, there always remains a missing link between Pakistani journalists and American officials. US diplomatic officials located in Pakistan have a very limited interaction to journalists. Only a small group of journalists who are considered as ‘friendly’ toward the US have the opportunity to interact with US officials. This needs to be changed if the US officials want to be able to get to real depth of some issues. Media persons in Pakistan, who are known for their close contacts in the US embassy, would never provide them [US officials] a fair and impartial analysis of any given situation.
One respondent stressed the need for a long-term interaction between the US officials and Pakistani journalists in order to bridge this existing gap: According to my information, the US embassy, Islamabad does not appoint officers at the public affairs section for more than six to eight months. It means that constant changing in the US embassy’s public affairs department does not allow journalists to carry their relations in the same department for more than a year, and the same is the case for the media officers working in the same section. Another problem is with the unnecessary security arrangements for meeting with the media officers at the US embassy here in Islamabad, which are understandable but a mutually agreed way out could be worked out.
Some of the respondents criticized the exclusivity of relationship that the US officials keep with some Pakistani journalists while ignoring others. ‘A majority of journalists feel like media relations between Pakistan and Americans are elite-oriented and only a few who are near and dear of the high ups, have a chance to get access to them’, a respondent observed. Another respondent expressed very similar concerns: American officials in Pakistan interact with very few selected journalists. I covered [the] Foreign Office for a leading news channel, Geo News for almost a year and never really interacted with the American officials. It was always difficult to confirm even a news story from [a] US Embassy official.
On the other hand, a few respondents had positive views about the US officials’ relationship with media professionals: ‘The US officials have good relations with journalists and I have found them well aware of even intricate developments about Pakistan’, a respondent said. Another respondent added: ‘I see US officials have good contacts with Pakistani media organizations and journalists. There are regular E [email] contacts [between Pakistani journalists and the US officials] along with telephonic communication.’ One respondent viewed US officials as being very careful when issuing any statement to the media professionals: ‘I do not have direct link or contact with American officials. However, I do think … that they are quite cognizant of the media environment of Pakistan and this is why they are careful in giving any statement in Pakistan.’
(ii) Level of understanding about Pakistani news routines
During the interviews, respondents were of the view that US diplomatic officials in Pakistan have a limited or no knowledge about Pakistani news routines, and that is why a huge gap exists between the expectations of the US officials and Pakistani journalists. As one respondent adds: Very little they [US officials] know about having relations with [the] journalist community. They mostly depend upon the list of media contacts the predecessor hands over to them. Interaction with media by [the] Embassy’s media managers is minimal. Mostly, they are present during [the] media’s interaction with [the] Ambassador. They hardly see individually to media persons.
Some respondents blamed the US officials for not wanting to learn about how journalism works in Pakistan: ‘I don’t think American officials have done any effort to understand Pakistani news routines and environment. I feel a huge gap in this area’, a respondent noted. Other respondents suggested that US officials based in Pakistan need to cultivate personal connections with the journalistic community there in order to understand Pakistani news routines more comprehensively. Respondents were of the view that, unlike Western societies, Pakistani journalistic culture is based on personal connections, and the US officials need to cultivate personal connections with the journalistic community so as to overcome the existing trust deficit.
Discussion
The current study provides a unique insight into Pakistani journalists’ perceptions of wartime media relations. As both the US government and the Taliban attempt to influence Pakistani media coverage of the conflict between them, they are largely dependent on their ability to promote their agenda and their desired framing of the conflict between them. While many previous studies examined the relationship between domestic journalists and governments in times of war, few studies have examined global media relationships between competing international players and the news media.
Based on our interviews with Pakistani journalists, we identified four key findings. The most consistent finding is that the Taliban proved more successful in cultivating wartime media relations with Pakistani journalists than the US government. It is entirely possible that the Taliban and affiliated groups enjoy a natural advantage in the cultivation of such media relations based on their cultural congruence, which includes not only shared language but also shared social and political culture. Previous scholarship indicates that cultural congruency is a key predictor of successful mediated public diplomacy campaigns (Sheafer and Gabay, 2009; Sheafer et al., 2014). As explained by Entman (2008), mediated public diplomacy efforts are the most likely to succeed when two nations share political and cultural congruence. While many in the US government view American military activities in Pakistan as a part of a larger war against terror, the political and social elites in Pakistan do not necessarily share that view (Fair et al., 2013). As such, there is a low level of political congruency between the two nations, thus undermining the mediate public diplomacy efforts of the US in Pakistan. In addition, the interviews point to a perceptual gap between the expectations of Pakistani journalists regarding media relations and the actual behavior of American officials.
Second, a stronger element of distrust exists between the US official sources and the Pakistani media. While some will argue that this inherent distrust may be a function of differences in culture, our interviews indicated that the distrust may be a function of the behavior of the American officials, who at times restrict access to information and often limit their interpersonal communication to a select number of Pakistani journalists.
The third key finding of our study is that while Pakistani journalists use the internet as their secondary source of information, US officials rely mostly on the internet as a means of disseminating their information subsidies (such as press releases and backgrounders). The US government’s heavy dependence on online and social media platforms may be motivated by potential security concerns for its employees or by the State Department’s heavy emphasis on 21st-century statecraft (Cull, 2013; Hayden, 2013; Ross, 2011). The Pakistani case study highlights the limitations of overdependence on social media and online communications and a basic lack of a global understanding of news environments in traditional societies where information is often delivered through interpersonal means as opposed to mass mediated or social media platforms.
The final key finding of our study indicates that when compared to the US officials, the Taliban have a better understanding of Pakistani media news routines and news culture. Our findings also show how access to and use of official government sources remain an important element of news construction and news routines. Pakistani journalists cited their ability to get access to key Taliban officials and their inability to access American diplomats as one of the primary differences between the two groups. This finding demonstrates that even in a new media age with online information subsidies and social media platforms, access to sources remains an important news routine. As indicated by previous scholarship, an understanding of news routines is key to the news construction process (Hanska-Ahy and Shapour, 2013; Wolfsfeld, 1997).
As such, our findings provide a potential explanation of the consistent lack of success of American mediated public diplomacy in Pakistan.
When synthesized, our findings point to a failed media relations effort by American officials in Pakistan. Whereas successful media relations should be based on a mutually beneficial two-way communication between organizations and their stakeholders (Grunig and Grunig, 1992; Ledingham, 2003; Ki and Hon, 2007), our study indicates that American media relations in Pakistan are mostly asymmetrical and therefore are not likely to yield successful outcomes.
The key implication of this study on wartime mediated public diplomacy is the need to emphasize an understanding of news environments and news routines as a key requirement for successful foreign media relations. While hindered by security concerns, government officials operating in foreign countries must establish mutually beneficial media relations based on openness and trust. They must also understand that lack of a shared cultural congruence increases their dependence on media professionals as mediators between their government and ordinary citizens. It is because of this role that mediated public diplomacy efforts should not only focus on the message delivered but also on those media professionals who will ultimately shape and deliver the message.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.