Creating Credibility Not A Vanity Project

Michael Hedges April 3, 2014 Follow on Twitter

Nobody doubts the soft power value of international media. Words and pictures can frame any message. Soft power effectiveness depends on credibility far more than technology. Desired outcomes, however, must be clear.

Unnoticed by its 200 million listeners the BBC World Service (BBC WS) this week formally became part of domestic UK public broadcaster BBC, funding shifted from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). The world’s best-known international broadcaster is not, necessarily, changing role but changing all the same. The shift from direct government funding and control was part of 2010 BBC license fee negotiations.

Over the last decade several language-specific services have been curtailed or reduced, some for strategic reasons and some financial. Several programs in the hallmark English language service have been dropped, shortwave and medium-wave transmissions cut and integration with the domestic BBC news operation moved forward. Under the current arrangement, the FCO must approve service changes. The BBC World Service – on radio, TV and now the web – consistently ranks highest for credibility of all international news broadcasters.

Several voices raised concerns, as the new funding scheme took effect, about both the future and the present of BBC WS. In a report issued as the change took place, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee expressed somewhat vague concerns that BBC WS might get lost within the domestic operation. “What is really needed is longer-term protection at institutional level,” said committee chairman Richard Ottaway in a statement. “The World Service does an outstanding job in projecting the UK’s values abroad. It is an essential part of the country’s soft power. We have yet to see whether the BBC will be the custodian that the country needs.”

BBC WS could become a “bargaining chip” in the next BBC Royal Charter negotiations,” said the Economist (March 29), as a tangible benefit for domestic license fee payers becomes hard to explain. “While the World Service remains a national treasure, it is also a valuable ransom.”

Journalist objectivity notwithstanding, the BBC WS wields a far mightier sword: the English language. Its newsreaders and journalists are schooled in standard English, pronunciations and syntax. Not only is this the primary language of diplomacy, science and business it communicates aspiration.

The soft power of government financed international broadcasting is both highly regarded and deeply debated within the foreign policy realm. Governments, large and otherwise, have long turned to international media platforms in pursuit of message determination. Shortwave radio broadcasting may be on the wane but local FM retransmission and, without doubt, the internet are the new alternatives.

Platforms are important in soft power diplomacy but the message is critical. In the run-up to its Crimea incursion and thereafter, the Russian Federation directed through its highly consolidated international media apparatus a steady stream of fit-for-purpose news attempting to degrade critics and dislodge adversaries, classic propaganda. It didn’t work. Though Russia Today has technical parity with the broad contingent of international broadcasters – from the BBC World Service to Al-Jazeera and CNN – the conspiracy-enhanced message never hit home with the international audience.

The soft power art and science of international broadcasting remains a key component of foreign relations. Most governments invest strategically; France in Africa, China in Africa and Asia, the US in the Middle East, Australia in the Asia/Pacific region. Efforts of aspiring powers – from Iran to Kazakhstan – blend the idiosyncratic with vanity. "Soft power is not a form of idealism or liberalism,” said Harvard University professor Joseph Nye, who introduced the term in 1990.”It is simply a form of power, one way of getting desired outcomes.”

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