Comments on: Secretary Gates: “Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America”

By: Entropy

Entropy — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 07:30:13 +0000

Joerg, Here's another good read. Don, this is for you.

By: Don Quijote

Don Quijote — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 03:57:31 +0000

What the rest of the world gets to see on a regular basis is the consequences of American actions. We get to see the F-16 taking off from some military base, the target upon which they intend to drop their load and that’s it.

Al-Arabia, El-Jazeera & the rest of the foreign media then get the privilege of showing the rest of the world the results of our actions: dead women, wounded children, dead babies, etc…

And then you wonder why they hate you?

By: Joerg Wolf

Joerg Wolf — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:08:08 +0000

@ Entropy

Thanks for the links. They look very interesting. I have bookmarked them and subscribed to Mountainrunner’s RSS feed. Very fascinating.

By: Joerg Wolf

Joerg Wolf — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:43:26 +0000

@ domajot

“Uniting to send a message abroad, could (maybe, possibly, hopefully) unite us at home.”

Yeah. Indeed!

That would be great!

By: Entropy

Entropy — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 07:09:52 +0000

We will never beat AQ at it's game through PR, bloggers or any other medium until our actions are more in line with our rhetoric and we quit shooting ourselves in the foot with things like Abu Ghraib. An organization like AQ will always be more nimble than our government, but we certainly can do more to counter al sahab and the other insurgent media arms. The biggest problem IMO is mirror-imaging and ethnocentrism. We talk about freedom and democracy as if the Islamic world not only understands those concepts the same as us, but we also assume they want our notions of freedom and democracy. The first order of business is to understand the audience, particularly their motivations. Frankly, we're not too good at that. A lot has actually been written about this topic, known in the business as "strategic influence." For some "light" reading on the topic, check out this and this and this (all pdf files). Additionally, Mountainrunner is a good source on the topic of public diplomacy.

By: domajot

domajot — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:08:56 +0000

Before worrying about the how, we’d first need to define the what. What should the message be?

Democracy as a message theme rings hollow if it’s not demonstrated,, and it’s demonstrated most often by self-criticim, critcims of our own government and society. It takes a pretty sophisticated exchange of ideas to be able to transform self-criticism into a selling point.
I wonder if sophisticated repartee can compete with AlQaeda’s appeal to base instincts: revenge and dominance with a heavenly reward.

I’m not conversant with marketing techniques, but in this case, I suspect that simple person to perso, getting to know you contacts might be a necessary prelude to bringing out the serious messages.
American bloggers seeking information about arab music and offering information about jazz to ME residents?

This is a bad time to ask Americans to reach out to others. This is a time when even getting a Republican and Democratic politician to have dinner together would take a miracle.
But maybe I’m wrong, Uniting to send a message abroad, could (maybe, possibly, hopefully) unite us at home.