Transcripts For CSPAN2 William Youmans An Unlikely Audience 20171125

To investigate the inner workings and foster a strategic alliance. And build the identity in the u. S. They argue that understanding this. They actually require looking in through and through the lens of location. The appeal to american audiences. And their primary locale here in washington in new york. The media politics. It is hinged on the location. The place is critical to the formation and despite the rise of Communication Technologies and assistant professor at George Washington University School of media and Public Affairs the areas of research in International Broadcasting middle east politics in the air of american studies. They wrote a regular column but has also been published in the Washington Post. His articles had appeared in the president ial quarterly. In the International Journal of communication. In 2013 he received the best award. For his research. After the event copies of the book will be available for purchase. Please grab it on your way out. He will speak for 30 to 40 minutes afterwards we will have a q a session and again we ask you please to wait until you get the mike to ask any questions so the people online can hear you. In the online audience can tweet their questions to our twitter. Without further ado thank you very much for the nice introduction and for hosting me. This is a place that is very close to my heart. I was in turn here in 2002 so its nice to have this had to thank the staff are doing all of the work. Im very much appreciative. This book like most books that come out feel the same work dash make the same way about the book. We spent so much time pouring our hearts and soul into these books. Until we put the words to the page that we really get to know how and what we are talking about. Many ways of defining experience. I wanted to set the stage for this presentation by reading a little bit out of the process and where the study began which was in 2010 that was my introduction to this news network. It is a much expanded version of it. There is a lot of new developments that happened. I just wanted to read to you why i think this matters. When i received my first gate pass in 2010 i could not anticipate where it would eventually take me. I was a graduate student just beginning my dissertation research. As the viewer. It was a experiment with editorial perspective. Especially by staking out an interest in parts of the world. Namely the bbc and cnn. It would be a direct challenge. Producing news from the Global Global those of the global north. Concerned with that relation this was an alluring promise. I just want to bill on the last point that they were getting too. For how we or anybody in the world especially as americans how we learn about what is happening in the rest of the world. Where we get our information from i thought the english was doing something fastening it by trying to perfect the alternative. And this was a concern that not just i have but the scholars of International Communication around the world had been talking about for decades. It was a direct test of how strong the patterns are. Most powerful countries it was directly traveling against that with its own brand of journalism. There are many critiques you can make of the networks. I dress a lot of those in the books as well. From what i was seen as the viewer was the First News Network to cover all corners of the earth. And to get into the kind of stories that were just not getting told by the mainstream. In and the most powerful News Networks in the country. For me it was a barometer. It was a test of our public sphere of our openness to learning about the rest of the world to our willingness to engage in perspectives that were seen as adversarial. And so my interest in my study about that anybody can get access. That many voices were timpani they should have no problems exporting the media content. That was being sold to us as the gateway for the world and exchange of information they could be at your fingertips. With the rapid circulation into the west. On the other hand let me add one more thing. The largest sort of route world view which would be about free speech and the public sphere. We understand that american democracy thrives in information and ideas and that we have a very robust public. Therefore we would expect with the external news network they would have no problem coming into the nazis. To oppose that critics might say a lot of people that were doubtful. They would point out. It is a real powerful political culture force and that they would interpret that as without giving an open mind to try because of the power and that was something that would only be heightened during the time when they first made the mark. After the war on iraq. You can see how there would be a reason for optimism and reason for pessimism. The network itself have a more optimistic view. When it decided to expand into the United States. This is a quick sort of history to set you up with what i focused on in the book. It really defined the brand in the popular associations that americans have. Especially about that. And then the secretary of state basically associated with the public statements. A lot of americans felt like they were aiding the enemy. Is what it was doing. And what was happening in the actual war. The battle losses they gave air to taliban spokesman. It was seen as controversial as something that they are trying to do. The other perspective is that they are doing really responsible robust journalism. It is something that the debate sort of went on for many years. The Bush Administration have a lovehate relationship. For most americans the perception was that the brand was something to be feared and hated and despised. Within the antiwar movement. They began to thing think about how can we globalize us. It took about two years of planning unlike the original channel it would be in english aimed at international audiences. And decide on that availability. We never had that debate. They do not had the regulators. For Media Companies that want to do business. It is the gatekeeper to our media environment at the time when Cable Television was king. They struggled to get any kind of cable deals. It was largely kept off of American Television at the time it was the main way that they got their news then no such luck. When they try to do analysis to figure why they were having such a hard time for any Media Company they determined a couple of different things. I referenced this earlier. You can think about the political context has been important. What they did not recognize as much was americans were not that interested in International News. And that became the conventional wisdom of News Reporters around the world as the mainstream american outlets were cutting back on international reporting. You might say there is anti muslim hostility that leads them there. It is just a lack of interest in International News reporting. I dont know if they appreciated that so much. Their problem was that the Cable Companies really dont answer to anybody. They are the ultimate deciders of what they want to carry. That is because of the particular economy of the Cable Companies. They did not find any great successes in getting into that market. And this included the time when after the arab spring the brand was totally revitalized with the egypt uprising. And president barack obama was tuning in. In that all the political elite had to go to see what was really happening. I would argue that there was a shift they were quoting that. But do they gain widespread Cable Television distribution as a result. It did not. Even though the lunch Political Campaign trying to drum up demand from the Public People were submitting the letters through the website. Still the Cable Companies were not interested because of that news event and the popularity of the news source for this event would translate into an actual sustained Television Watching audience. It is disappointing but they might have been right. At that point the real audience was moving online yet they continued to continue to aspire to Cable Television as a Gold Standard because that was a scene as a way to have influence with the American News sphere. After struggling after the arab spring. That it was neck and it translate into greater market share. Some of the executives there got the idea of launching a specific american channel and may maybe if we de internationalize that and made a channel that spoke really to americans in their vernacular they kind of washed the accent there and a lot of present errors have. After a few short years it ended up being a financial failure. Buying current tv which is owned by Vice President al gore to get the preexisting television deals. That got them into about 50 million homes. However it did not mean that it would be enough to generate an audience. With the real problem i think is that most of the potential audience was out watching Cable Television. We all sort of moved online. They invested heavily into those that might not had gone there. At the same time they have a side bet this is a strictly digital channel. It is distributed through social media and the digital only pat platform. Compared to the massive expenditures that went to that. A clearly defined demographic audience. More progressive multicultural. And so they defined a space within the American News sphere. And part of that is a story of distribution and part of that is also not actually actually in the brand name. For a while they avoided some of the cultural politics. That is a larger story of the networks and birds in the United States. Now you turn on the television set. You will not see that. Everything is online. Television is not there. It is not as influential within the sort of official and washington dc policy community as it was in 2012 however they have really havent really given a strong presence on social media. And how the media moves in the world. Whether its a pop in the western global north bias. Its a very complex question. Partially because as i got into line learning about these channels and i studied them and i went to the sites in which they are being produced. I started to realize that the channel was not the implements that were simply exported into the u. S. Market. And they were arab or muslim in any sort of meaningful way. They are extremely diverse. Multi notable. Any sort of identities at play. With in each particular network. Lurking in the background that we can talk about that. Thinking about specific cities that each place was doing its work. And how they actually influence the identities of each of the different channels so that you could see within the workplace of each channel how much the city and it took place in terms of the american operations. It was in new york city instead of think just globally or internationally or that arab relations could wheat thing about neighborhoods and the cities as affecting what we think about as being a global media outlet. This is a neighborhood that it is in. It has establishment media. It was on k street. We know being in washington dc what k streets to notes. Its all about being within the beltway. On how they inflected or changed or modified the work that they were doing and washington dc. It was not just a interception. And actually the hybridized work environment. In new york city down there. It was in the heart of American Television. They are all sort of located in the neighborhood. And then here is aj plus in San Francisco in a new capital for the tech industry. For the technology industry. The red dots are Media Companies. But really happened in the past 20 years or so that San Francisco became a destination for all of the Silicon Valley companies. They moved offices there. To what extent does that neighborhood tell us about how aj plus became aj plus. Now the rationale that new york city. Can you think about industry and the Different Industries as being expressions how much of these Industries Come to bear what i saw quite often was at the network was trying to justify itself through political validation. And in flouting their approval as a way to signal to the rest of the country hate we are okay. It was being driven out of washington. With the executives to go to congress. They thought the opposition started with the Bush Administration. There are a couple of different defining moments. The role in the arab spring. With nancy pelosi and then senator mccain. Both of them went to this event and did not use that. How is a force in the region. And it was such an Important News source. It came around came around the same time. They were speaking before the senate and she said that they are doing important things. That was something that the network really championed. Were not a danger where very useful and beneficial. It ran in the Washington Post and this is just different kind of endorsements. Like Seema Donaldson for example. In the report from business insider. Even the president of the nancys is watching that. What i think is that trying to argue with that. The prejudice and thinking if we got political approval this is the way into the country. The filter and that they imagined was that political neutrality of washington dc. Kate obrien who came over from one of the networks and was president of Al Jazeera America this is an american channel. How will they americanize themselves. It would be by attaching themselves to the broadcasting in inventory it would be the Advertising Campaign that ran in the italian square. So even the marketing identity reflected the new york nest of them as a brand. They look at executives. And where they worked previously and i think some 5 of them were hired directly from new york city. Showing that the industrial logix carry through these individuals. Looking at debates happen. When you had people that are used to working in the United States what happens when they are debating with people who are trained there. And there are a lot of fascinating debates. One of the powerful things about that. In the coverage at different times is that it has a very close press proximity and the narrative from the ground. That is not something that American News incentives had. This created something of a crisis within the newsroom about how are we americans. It was really interesting to study because it reflected place more than anything else. The distance of San Francisco and the number of time zones meant that the manager our sleeping when those working in San Francisco are working. Time zones and geography in San Francisco it lived and breathed San Francisco this image here is from a promotional video. They actually scanned through the workplace and it was converted into a news studio. In the this love and they hang up on the wall. You can see here. One of the employees on the ground drying out her story board this is the Creative Work of a tech startup. You never see this kind of imagery in the new york office. They have beanbags and foosball tables. Afterwards. In terms of hiring a lot of this. They came directly from the Berkeley School of journalism. One could not say is reflected this is not the Foreign Policy when it has its earliest reports. Or the environmentalism. Physicists specifically aj does have a more progressive bent in terms of politics. This of course doesnt lead to some stress in strife and i write a little bit about that in the book. But for the most part you cant see its simply an arab thing. There is no simple answer. Is it globalization. Is it completely excluded know, was it completely embraced. In the politics of the brand. And they prevented it from being so. But all in line with social media. Having a specific audience. It is reaching a lot more people i think that what ive learned from that is that first of all there was not a blackout. We can think about how much be in a particular place and how we think thats important. There is not simple entities that just reflect where they are produced. It takes a lot of inner users in the workplace to make these kind of observations. 99 percent of the analysis is over simplistic. It is simply foreignpolicy. But when you actually go and look at whats happening behind the scenes the way the sausage gets made is very comp located. A lot of the analysis. So i would love to hear what kind of questions that you have and what they are their own experiences are. If you just hang on one second. The microphone will come around here. There is a question here in the front row. Just so that everybody gets a chance make sure you just ask one question. Im sorry about this. They are asking the contacts to drop them. How likely is that to happen. Strangely about addressing this. It really goes back to the coup in the mid 90s where they were basically out of the country and his son who was more of a modernist actually staged a coup against his father. The Regional Media sort of blasting that. He have a really think i need my own horse in this race. So there was that political interest and actually trying to stoke out some independence from the fear of control but at the same time there was a failed Media Venture that the saudis were exploring and actually got close to launching the channel. There was bcc channel. They got cold feet and put the editorial restrictions on it. It left this pool of journalists that had no place to go. I dont know the exact details of how it came about. But it formed the journalist al jazeera in the most recent controversy has a long history to it and in many ways it is an expression. And they own sort of journalism. Does that mean that al jazeera already reports the perspective. That is not a static question. There are very specific times where they are doing their own thing. You see al jazeera being more of a mouthpiece. English has a little bit more of a comp located history because that regional journalists politics. There is definitely the longer story that both of them hint at. And truly make sense of what happened recently. You have to understand the origins of it. A very interesting presentation. I was interested in learning more about the role of the Cable Companies and what they network to error. Quite a few channels that cannot possibly demand more audience than al jazeera does. How does that work. Thats a great question. For one thing the Cable Companies have seen a number of channels that they have as real estate and so if you offer it to one channel you have to include another channel. Arent there some terrible channels that nobody watches that are so unpopular that al jazeera might be an improvement on that. There was a great article in 2012 that actually looked at what are the lowest rated television channels. The current tv was among the lowest at that time. They head about 25,000 a night when actually bought the channel. So you thought this is an easy economic decision. There is a couple problems the Cable Companies use the revenues. And then they sell advertising. The subscription and then also has the feed that comes out of what the fee is that they actually pay. Its a same thing the same thing as subscription. If they thought it would cost them subscribers or he will be able to sell advertising on programs run by al jazeera they would take an economic hit even if they were getting a larger audience. Cable Companies Care about the ratings but if they are going to lose subscriptions because of protesters where they will not be able to sell local advertising no one wants their ads there and running on this controversial channel. The economic calculus is that there is low reward and there is high risk even if you could probably get a larger audience than you could for the pet food channel or whatever. The economic calculus is really interesting. They are risk adverse. The Larger Companies especially they dont want to anger viewers who might be a check offended. 5 of the population really hates them. It would be a significant risk for Cable Companies. Thank you for the good talk. And congratulations on the book. You mention the millennial and im on the very old end of this. I was streaming it in english constantly when it was available. And then they cut off that streaming access when they launched Al Jazeera America that was right when people unplugged for their cable. I was wondering if you might think that was a severe miscalculation on their part. That is a terrific point. It was such a bad decision on the outside. I had two answers to this. The Cable Company contracts obviously would restrict that because of the Cable Companies are allowing programmers to stream too much online then and why are people going to subscribe. That is one explanation. And i did find some support that that was the case. Its for all channels. At that time they were trying to prevent online streaming from happening. The Cable Companies are not interested in caring not. With the non product in the Cable Companies. They said well, what i got was we think if we cut off the english stream than that would push people to subscribe to cable and i said i wouldnt do that. Im back in a pay 70 a month to get all of these channels just so i can also get Al Jazeera America. I subscribed through my workplace. It seemed like a severe miscalculation. They did not do a survey where they ask how many of you are willing to pay extra to watch Al Jazeera America. It was a lack of understanding of the audience. Thank you for your talk i really enjoyed your position. I worked for al jazeera for a time and i do think that to a certain degree there is a very strong ideological factor here. With respect to islam a phobia i know that it is too deterministic to think of these things in one way and maybe in your book the plan you are trying to make is that it does play a part but its not as huge as it is. To what extent do you think that this issue is a very ideologically view. In the cringing moment where they were like i dont know. Or even when the news network was suffering from that. And painting the big picture of the patriotic goal matters and harassing women in the workplace. To a certain degree i do think it was a very central list. I do write about that a lot. I even write about orientalism and the terms of branding. I cite it in the book. I showed american audiences the same report. To see how they respond. When they sought with the cnn report they thought it was a much more credible piece of reporting. What predicted that as i also tested for prejudice towards arab americans as a proxy and it correlated extremely highly for me it was fairly obvious that they were driving a lot of the audience bias. We talk a lot about media bias. They are not willing to watch with open minds. It is because it has one logo on it and we all fall victim to that in some sense. The brand becomes the shorthand for how we know what we want to watch. Where there is so much coming at us. I am sympathetic not for the islamic for the interpretation of it. Brands do help us make quick decisions. In the book i say that this is a real thing. That really matters. When i focus on the locality of it is not to downplay it is just a larger analysis that it is one sort of allegation. They set it up to think that its likely to fail. And for the most part it was right the other interesting thing that is if you look at the class of civilizations its very much opposed. The class of civilization is a same expectation. That those will be oppositional to something that comes out. You can get them to agree on something. Thank you for the question. I am a great fan which i watch on youtube. When you comment on the tax and supporting terrorism where i see fullpage ads in the newspapers saying the same thing not a very good question. Because of the geopolitics of it there are a lot of money interests who are very intent on attacking through the lens of them attacking that. There is a sort of geopolitics to it. It clouds the real critique that we could make. And it is politicized because these are so detached from whats actually going on. I see ads that are linking that. Are we idiots to think that it is behind the regime. It is sort of desperate pr. Maybe for some people it works. And despising everything. But if you really watch it. With an open mind and open eyes it is very hard to detect the company by us. Its obviously in very subtle ways. It is not report as vigorously on those in the world. It is not report on the lack of rights or civil rights. In the non residence. Even in the corruption scandal. These are all very real solid critiques that should be put forward as a viewer i would like to hold its feet to the fire with these critiques. But the hold dash like the whole pr aspect between the uae and the saudis is absurd. It is so distracting from the real problems with people that getting killed over that. That actual real interest unfortunately. It is a state of affairs in the region because of it. In my opinion. That campaign is not just funded by the geo political adversaries but it had have been american conservatives groups that we spent a lot of money and energy attacking them early on trying to say that its corrupt or its a reflection of al qaedas voice and i dont know if it was ever based on real research. Sometimes they can point out and cherry pick examples. And they do something awful in terms of the coverage. If it was really defining you would have a lot more examples. You would not had to pick an example every three or four years. Im not an overt fan of the network i think you should hold it responsible. You ask about our experiences. Since i dont get cable i have never seen the station but i go to the Democratic Convention every four years. Ive seen it there. But it was not there at the last 2006 conference. Previously they have a big press box. I think it says al jazeera. And i have a couple of photographs. Which one was it. At the time i did not know that there were so many different ones. Secondly, at the risk of sounding naive what was he trying to do a measure about 2016. He reported on the conventions regularly. Both of the republican convention. It was interesting. There are several episodes in the history with the controversies at the Democratic National convention i wrote automatic antidotes that the 2008 Democratic National convention. The Party Convention chair was making the rounds to appear on various media. They relayed that he walked into the booth with the Network Shared with fox. But when he realized it was al jazeera he reeled out of there and fairly rudely. There was another episode where the english was covering the convention. They have to put a banner up. And some people from the Democratic National convention fee freaked out and order them to take the banner down. I have originally broke up that at the beginning of the introduction. I dont think the banner straight made the cut. Is not without controversy that they were doing simple reporting and i think that the impression is something that the political elite could fix for them. They would both generally send reporters. [indiscernible] it might have been both. They would be sent very separately. Sometimes they would be separate and sometimes they would be together. [indiscernible] they carry out regular journalistic duties. They would cover it for the middle eastern audience. They would do it for the englishspeaking audience. I was wondering if you know if there was every ever any conversation about the decision to come to the American Market around, changing the name of the network before going on air and why it was that they decided against that. One of the reasons i think about this is because when you look at other subsidiaries of the Media Network they made the decision when going into the European Market to change from the sports network. And when you watch there is no direct way. I am wondering what changed. When we know very will what kind of challenges exist in the American Market when it comes to the phobia anti arab racism. That is a great question. Even they switch to rt. Under the direction of tony bourbon. The second managing director. To examine how to attract that in the United States. They brainstormed ideas about what hindered the company and he drafted a memo and raised the chief can discern the branding program. In the nine seats there is confusion about the relationship between al jazeera and al jazeera english. The commentators in the public frequently pose this question as a coded means of finding out whether they would assume a similar editorial outlook. With that rebellious or antiamerican. Two disincentive eyes the channel to distinguish itself it presented the ag eat with the contrary. The independents to independence to appear more political it would appear the misperceptions of the content. Internally this is a very sensitive issue. Stressing that inferences or treat gene the brand would insult the channel and the personnel. Some of them were arrested killed and reporting for that network to build the brand. They sacrificed to build the very brand. It was more than a symbolic problem. To interfere with the distribution efforts. As a memo related one result is a distributor. With the risk of carrying the channel. So at some point there was an internal strife over this very issue and the integrity of the brand. The unity around the news issue in the brand one of the day. The idea was that that branch can stand for a certain kind of journalism no matter the language. With the outside of the news company. It was very easily a part of that consideration. It was really to protect the investment. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the log leaguer rights. As a good question. They said you did an experiment. Did you had one that was a random made up part of the example. And to see if was the Brand Recognition or if it was that specifically. Did you have a true control group is what youre asking actually. No comment. It is published. I dont think we have a control which wouldve been no branding i think. That was actually a deep mythological flaw. It is not a good thing for hosted to do. Do you have any more questions . You ask for our impressions of al jazeera english. He have it for a very few very few years here on broadcast tv. It became available through the hd programming. It was a great and pleasant surprise to have a news channel that was not u. S. Oriented. And see different parts of the world. I saw one or two programs that were very islam specific in terms of documentaries or a personality piece and they were very interesting as well. I was quite unhappy when it stopped being aired on that megahertz network. It was aired through megahertz. It is an independent company that redistributes content from international sources. And so they actually have a deal with megahertz. They have to deal with the Cable Companies so when people say i used to watch that in english in washington dc so they are not excluded by the Cable Companies. I tell them it only got in. When actually got into new york. They actually had to deal with cable. Youre absolutely right. Most of the viewership. In the largest market for it was washington dc it was also within the beltway in terms of the audience that it really influenced and spoke too. I heard it was only into major media markets. Actually, the buckeye cable in toledo ohio because the owner just said i like it im going to show it. It is not comcast or time warner. Burlington telecom has a very interesting story about it. It was actually started in part by Bernie Sanders when he was the mayor of burlington vermont. It have a fascinating local debate about what was that municipally funded it municipally funded and backed telecom and whether they should offer al jazeera english. In the new england town hall way where they brought people together and they have a discussion in the debate. I wrote a paper analyzing what the actual debate was. It showed how a different kind of system and political economy around media might produce a more democratic media. They actually started arguing about whether it was journalism or propaganda. And those who wanted to see it argued so much. They are saying this is freedom of choice. Let us decide. This is something that would never happen with the dominant private sector cable industries. They came to determine what was really available in most communities without them ever getting a chance to see what the fuss was all about. Some mac [indiscernible] [applause]. Thank you. Here is a look at some authors recently featured on book tv afterwards our weekly Author Interview program. The fbi agent details his experiences with a muslim american. The former face the nation host examined the role of the media today. And the former fox news anchor Gretchen Carlson talked about that challenges for women who have been sexually harassed in the workplace. In the coming weeks on afterwards the bestselling author will report on the work of her grandfather the project scientist and the goldstar father recall his to United States and offered his thoughts on what it means to be an american. Weekend the color News Foundation Christopher Bedford explores the leadership skills of president trump. He was executive the same on stage as offstage. He left the room wherever he went. In the early story of this that was interesting as i always ask on the campaign trail. You can be as nice or as rude as you want to be and those wonderful women will help you anyway. I thought it was interesting. He was genuinely nice. He was authentic. He did none of that. He did not hire pollsters as he strangely bragged at one point. That came true. It airs on book tv. Will, good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Westport Library my name is bill harmer im the executive director of the library and is so good to see all of you. Thank you for coming out and supporting us this evening. Please take a moment to silence here cell phones as a tell ybo