Recently in Media Category

This is a guest post by Manas Shaikh.

One of the major factors leading to the collapse of the Soviets was their bad handling of the media. Few are worse off than those whose minds are images of others- even where they are distinct in their needs. The Americans have mastered the art of engaging in media wars.They can convince you to walk over the cliff.

Like it or not, every form of media has a message. Starting from entertainment to op-eds. It is often the message contained in the entertainment sector that's more honest, revealing and also powerful (in gaining followers) than dry opinion pieces such as this one.

In spite of their political rhetoric, the Russians were (and still are) dependent on outsiders for entertainment. That meant that their identities will be formed by media that originates elsewhere. It gave others immense power over what they will want and what they will aspire to be. What they will think is noble and what is not.

There is another example in the present. Pakistan and India. Pakistani identity is doomed to fail unless they can fix the void of their entertainment business, where they are utterly and completely dependent on Indian media. And needless to say Bollywood is a load of communalism, racism, nationalism, sexism and all other good things in life. Rumors say that Pakistan used to have a media of it's own, but perhaps a good telescope can find the rubbles.

Don't get me wrong. I am not saying- boycott Bollywood, or Hollywood, or any such thing. I am saying both sides should talk. That makes a conversation.

Point being, in this context, that Pakistan has to have it's own entertainment sector that can cater to the taste and indeed (more importantly) the needs of the Pakistani society. Without it, the Pakistani society is headed for troubled identities. And identities are half of everything human. Dawn has it's place, but the power of images is unparalleled. The publication of an alternative point of view through popular media (movies etc.) can actually defuse tension between India and Pakistan rather than building it as the news outlets often end up doing.

A significant occupation of my early blogging life was to deconstruct the news articles from what I used to call "media" and show how unreal, agenda driven they are. It is still an educating excercise, but it only barely mitigates the damage that they do. Worse, such analyses makes them the status quo, the standard- therefore the legitimate. No matter how much we hate to admit it, we humans like to get along with the status quo. Many of us wish that the powerful is the one that's just, because otherwise it becomes our moral obligation to oppose it, which is risky.

In spite of knowing it's untrue, people will believe in the false story for the want of an alternative. Sounds funny, but that's what happens. (Human) nature abhors vacuum. We'll rather be wrong than confused. That's why merely deconstructing news does not help. The truth has to come out.

Also because in starting to write, I become part of the media- albeit irrelevant one. Nevertheless, my job should be to promote the real story, not so much trying to deconstruct the accepted version. That makes me a reactionary. With nothing to offer.

So the quest for alternative news led me to various sources- the CounterCurrents (CC), the CounterPunch (CP), Democracy Now (DN, I became disenchanted with it soon but can't remember very well why) and then later to Al-Jazeera English (AJE, which even now many a ignorant folks believe is bin-Laden's channel. The reactionary (not so much as the previous BJP one, but still) government of India still has it banned). In our (Indian Muslims') context, there's a TwoCircles.net which is run by brother Kashif. It doesn't look very good, nor is it very mature yet. But it is important as it provides the place for the voice that has no place in the mainstream media.

But that is not of much use unless the mass media is representative of different classes of Indian society. At the moment, the decisionmakers of Bollywood, and all major news outlets, TV channels and so on come from one background- Hindu Brahmin. And that really distorts reality beyond recognition. Even if somebody were drop dead honest (rare as a unicorn) in his/her professsion, it's impossible to walk into the skin of another and tell their story.

Guess what, mass media won't represent the underrepresented unless they have a share in business. Participation in business will invariably lead to greater participation in politics. Education is an important factor- as it demarcates what's important and what's not.

Let's pray for a better future by working on it.

Manas Shaikh blogs at Reflections, an Indian Muslim's Perspective., and is a contributing editor to Ijtema.net, a congregation of muslim bloggers.

I rarely catch late night television, so it was a bit of a surprise to me that President Obama was on Dave Letterman's show last night. I much prefer the Letterman format of keeping a guest around instead of shooing them away after a couple of segments, though maybe that's the norm for Letterman too and Obama was the exception. It was a really good appearance, with some truly funny moments (the highlight being the heart-shaped potato), personal ones (Obama talking in depth about the struggle for normality for his daughters), and policy issues - Obama essentially summed up his rationale and policy objectives for the economic crisis, health care reform, and Afghanistan in the space of thirty minutes. All between commercial breaks.

There's no transcript yet that I can see but I wanted to note that Obama made a special effort to assert that he would not send more troops to Afghaistan unless there was a compelling argument for how the additional manpower would be used for success. Like social problems, military ones can't always be solved by simply throwing more resources at them (a lesson learnt well in Vietnam). Given my post yesterday I am really much more soothed that Obama will indeed assert his command and not be pressured by the military to send more troops. I'm not against more troops per se, but I am against sending them on an ill-defined mission and without any real strategy for success. Obama spoke clearly to that responsibility, mentioning that he has to write a letter to parents of soldiers who don't come back, and wants to be able to tell the families that their children's sacrifice was worth something.

All in all, I think Obama achieved more in terms of explaining his policies than he ever did during his televised formal addresses to the nation. Though it helped, as Leterman pointed out in monologue, that all Republican Congressmen has been removed from the building prior to Obama's arrival :)

Also, I do expect we will see that heart-shaped potato in the Smithsonian. Obama, you promised.

Here's the full video from CBS.com of the Obama episode.

Ramadan is pan-Arab television's holy land - a month-long sweeps, where the post-fasting masses hunger for entertainment. As a result, there is intense pressure to compete and innovate for new programming. One of the recent hits is Freej, the first 3D animated TV series for the region, about four diminutive veiled grandmothers. The show is the brainchild of 31-year-old Mohammed Saeed Harib, a Dubai native who studied at Boston's Northeastern University, where he was inspired by South Park and the Simpsons to create homegrown characters rooted in his own culture and identity.

The show finds humor along the dominant fault line of this city: the tension between old and new. Set in Dubai, where camel races are conducted mere miles from the base of the world's tallest building, the series focuses on four secluded and sometimes stubborn grandmothers.

[...] At Northeastern Mr. Harib started to sketch his first character, later named Um Saeed, a wise, stubby lady in red who often leads the grandmas' conversations. The cartoon he envisioned would extol grandmas as role models. Mr. Harib said that he imagined that the veil that partly covered a woman's face would be the "costume of the superhero."

[...] Before long Mr. Harib was being praised as the Matt Groening and the Seth MacFarlane of the Middle East. These references to the creators of "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" are not lost on Mr. Harib, who noted that he was named to a local business publication's list of the world's 100 most influential Arabs.

But the show never attempts the risqué humor of American cartoon sitcoms. Instead it tackles hot topics like wedding traditions and bribery in a distinctly Arab way, sometimes merely hinting at issues.

Motioning straight ahead, Mr. Harib said, "You can't go like this." He made a curve with his hand and said, "You have to go like this." He joked that he could compare sexual behavior to the eating of an apple, but said that he hadn't written an episode about that yet.

"Freej" stoked controversy in its first season with an episode that alluded to Islamic extremism. The episode was pulled from repeat broadcasts but still appeared on the DVD of that season.

Sarah Al Jarman, the programming and acquisition manager for the English-language channel Dubai One, introduced a subtitled edition of "Freej" to give non-Arab viewers a glimpse at a locally created animated series.

She said the episodes "actually reflect many local old ladies" in the Emirates, featuring their traditional dress, language and habits.

The show is a phenomenon, with Simpsons-esque merchandise, dreams of a theme park (on hold, though, due to the recession), and enough cultural penetration that the crown prince of Dubai himself is a fan, and who sent in a plot idea for an episode (set to air during the fourth season). It's even possible that Freej might have legs beyond the Gulf:

As for exposure in the United States, Mr. Harib said he had met with executives from Cartoon Network and Universal this summer.

If "animation exports the cultural values of the nation," as Mr. Harib put it, then he said he wanted "Freej" to continue to represent his native Gulf state, even abroad.

If the Arab cultural references can survive the dubbing process, then it might very well succeed. Maybe we will be watching Freej in the US next Ramadan?

This is an interesting development - Yahoo has bought the Arabic-language portal Maktoob.com:

The global internet giant said on Tuesday it has entered into a definitive agreement with Jordan-based Maktoob Group to acquire Maktoob.com for an undisclosed fee. Maktoob Business is a part of Maktoob.com.

[..] The acquisition will allow Yahoo! to offer Arabic-language content for the first time as well as Arabic versions of its products and services, such as instant messaging and email.

[...] Maktoob.com, founded in 2000, is among the top 10 internet sites in almost all Arabic-speaking countries, according to U.S.-based research firm Alexa.

"With the combination of the Yahoo and the Maktoob brands … and the breadth of content and services that we have, we expect to be one of the strongest players in the region," Keith Nilsson, Senior Vice President, Emerging Markets, Yahoo!, told Maktoob Business.

[...] Internet penetration across the Middle East stands at around 23.3 percent, compared to more than 70 percent in the UK and U.S., according to InternetWorldStats.com.

In Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, internet penetration stands at just 12.9 percent, while in the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia penetration is only 22.7 percent.

Ahmed Nassef, General Manager, Maktoob.com, said: "In most part of the Arab world we are just at the start of internet penetration.
"Yahoo! Maktoob will create the products to bring the Arab world online, and then offer Middle East businesses the opportunity to talk to that audience."
For Maktoob.com the takeover will likely bring significant investment and access to Yahoo !technology with which to optimise its current offering.

The deal will also boost the English-language side of Maktoob.com as Yahoo! is already the number two website in many Arab countries without Arabic support or a regionally-focused content.

There's a related article about why this deal is so important, and also lambasting the Arab media for utterly failing to recognize or report on this landmark deal. In a number of ways, this deal highlights the disconnect between Arab leaders and the next generation:

It finally puts us Arabs on the global Internet map. It will get people to pay attention to this region's knowledge-based industry, where there is an impressive number of technology entrepreneurs.

It is the ultimate success story in a region long used to failure. For our younger generations, it is a wonderful example of how a dream can turn into a brilliant achievement through a combination of boundless creativity and down-to-earth business sense.

For our leaders, it is hopefully a painful reminder of the distance between their priorities and the ambitions of an increasingly wired younger generation (16.5 million of whom are unique visitors of Maktoob's) eager to move away from a state-driven, oil-dominated future.

For our wealthy Arab investors, it is a wakeup call that true value lies in our youth rather than in real estate, and that talent is closer to home than they could have ever imagined.

For the Arab world, it is proof that money may count for something but, in the final analysis, an education, smarts and determination count for much more, because the two entrepreneurial gentlemen who made Maktoob started out in Jordan - their home and, it just so happens, one of our area's more resource-poor countries - and, even when their company reached way beyond it, never left.

In all of this, I find reason for genuine optimism - the Internet is indeed the liberalizing, democratic force that we have believed it to be, and the very fact that Maktoob's success is incomprehensible to the Arab elite suggests that the next generation of leaders is poised to remake their society when it is their turn.

For more information, see coverage of the Yahoo-Maktoob deal from Techcrunch. Also, Yahoo has confirmed the deal on their own blog.

Walter Cronkite's passing away is an occassion for remembrance of a storied career and a true giant of journalism. It is not, however, the end of an era - the era of men like Cronkite ended a long time ago. While the media is engaged in a (well-deserved) hagiography about Cronkite's career and influence, it should be noted that conservatives are saying good riddance. Conservatives still blame him for his comment about the Vietnam War, which famously caused President Johnson to remark, "If we've lost Walter Cronkite, we've lost America" in the bid to maintain public support. Their argument against Cronkite and his peers was that they held the keys to public opinion; but what conservatives fail to understand is that Cronkite did not dictate opinion, he reflected it.

Cronkite was not an elite sitting upon Olympus but rather an ordinary person whom the average man could relate to, and his opinion and perspective carried weight because he was in many ways the surrogate for the average man. Cronkite went to Vietnam in person and came back and talked about what he saw, and it was the perspective not of a President or a General but rather that of a citizen, to whom we could all relate. The idea of journalists as trusted purveyors of fact is largely over, with the rise of the professional pundit class and news channels like Fox or MSNBC that blend bias and agenda into reporting with an eye on ratings rather than social responsibility.

The irony of this is that the pundit class - who peddle opinion rather than factual, edited reporting - actually think of themselves as doing a public service on par with what Cronkite's generation performed. This conceit was ruthlessly punctured by Jon Stewart, on his now-infamous appearance a few years ago on CNN's Crossfire. If you haven't see the clip, it's below (transcript). It's important to realize however that we can't go back - the age of new media is here and from now on, each of us has the responsibility to beour own personal Cronkite. And maybe it is better that way.

Crossfire featuring Jon Stewart:

UPDATE - TIME magazine ran an online poll about which newscaster America trusted most n the post-Cronkite era. Stewart dominates, which I suspect may be discomfitting to him, since he doesnt want to be a "newscaster". In some ways his protestations are futile, in much the same way that Rush Limbaugh's claims to just be an "entertainer" rather than in actuality the Republican Don are meaningless.