April 25, 2005
Sudan
The American media is absolutely famous for its overrepresentation of violent crime. It is truthfully shocking when the daily newspapers or news broadcasts do not have at least one story of a young man shot, a woman raped, a jogger mugged, most likely at the hands of a young black male, with description and sketch to follow. There is no real concern for the life lost or harmed, only the frightening story. A story so frightening that it scares you into watching; and when the news is over, all we are left with are the images of blood, yellow tape, chalk outlines, and that sketch.
The media admittedly focuses on such stories first, because despite the fact that an actual life is involved, the stories are cheap to produce, and second, because they know that we will watch. Our hunger for fear does not stop on our own streets, though. We long for stories of death and violence around the world. Our captivation with terrorism and the war in Iraq alone serve as evidence of this. We watch night after night of hummers exploding, planes shot down, innocent people beheaded, and for what? So we can feel more informed about what is going on in the world. The truth is that we have reason as well as every right to be concerned with such stories if nothing else for humanitarian reasons alone or the fact that it is sometimes our own troops who are dying. And of course, the most important concern is for “our own” in a war proclaimed to be fought for the liberation and of others. The truth is that our concern for others is often only a reflection of United States interests. With all of our concerns about the violence that plagues this oh-so-crazy world and the people who suffer as a result of it, why is it that the media includes particular stories over and over, yet excludes other stories, just as gruesome and therefore interesting to the viewer, altogether?
Specifically cited here is the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. It is argued here that when we consider the ways in which the media influences our perception of what issues are important, the framing of the civil conflict in Darfur has likely been crippling to efforts to influence and improve United States policy treatment of the matter. In regards to Darfur, it is first noted that despite the persistence of this civil war for over 18 months, which has been estimated as resulting in almost 500,000 deaths from disease, malnutrition, and violence, you would be lucky to hear about it on your nightly news or read about it in your local newspaper. A visit to the international section of websites for ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX will yield the same results. Even CNN, as global as it is, seems to have buried this story behind debatably less important ones. We read about every “blast” in Iraq that kills ten, so why don’t we care about the tens of thousands dying in Sudan monthly, or the women raped, or the children kidnapped, despite the supposed arrival of “peace” in this region? My belief: Darfur, a region in an African country, is simply not at the top of the U.S. agenda when it comes to foreign policy. This despite the fact that the Bush Administration went through the trouble of defining the conflict as a genocide even before the U.N. would do so.
So how does the U.S. fit into this picture? In the few, in retrospect, articles that have been written on Darfur, many of those involving the U.S. treatment of the matter are framed in such a way that the flaws of the country’s policy are downplayed if mentioned at all. While stories – documenting the history of the conflict or telling the story to Americans of the displacement of millions and the suffering of hundreds of thousands who have lost loved ones – have been informative to those who follow them, they will have little effect on the situation in Darfur if we reduce the conflict to 1 minute on a news broadcast never to be revisited, or if we must conduct an in-depth web search to find them. Citizens cannot be mobilized to influence policy in this way, and sadly enough, given the power of the media to control that which we view as important, more U.S. citizens will not unite on this issue unless the media makes it a priority. While the U.S. government has claimed to view the situation in Darfur as an important one, policy has proven otherwise.
Recently, Robert B. Zoellick was appointed by Condoleezza Rice to serve as Deputy Secretary of State. Articles have reported that Zoellick traveled to a conference in Oslo on April 12th, 2005 where many countries and organizations discussed the response by the international community to the crisis in Sudan. The members of the conference agreed to pour $4.5 billion into Sudan in an effort toward the postwar rebuilding process, a significant portion of the $7.9 billion believed to be needed for reconstructive efforts. The U.S. alone committed to spending $1-2 billion in the endeavor, with the major stipulation being an immediate end to the violence in Darfur. And in this story, the U.S. appears to be the hero, leading the way in providing monetary support for reconstruction while encouraging Sudan to find peace. As suggested in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, however, this is a diplomatic move that may not be the best response for such a situation.
The peace agreement signed by Sudan at the turn of the year, has yet to be honored despite a number of sanctions and threats handed to the Sudanese government, so it is possible that the withholding of funds may just work to prolong the conflict. With the way in which the word “peace” is thrown around in stories on the conflict in Darfur, a less informed reader might actually think that peace had been reached. Sadly, this is not the case. U.N. and WHO reports indicate that the killing and humanitarian atrocities continue. How can the U.S. talk of rebuilding when we have yet to bring an end to the violence? Furthermore, given that the conflict in Darfur has been described as state-sanctioned violence (ironically similar to that which we are so adamantly fighting against in Iraq) how can we expect the Sudanese government to stop the violence? Like other countries quick to wash their hands of African conflict, the U.S. has suggested that the African Union step in to help resolve the conflict.
While it is not suggested here that the U.S. itself should necessarily deploy troops in Sudan, the question is raised as to why more serious action has not been taken toward helping to end the violence. It has been suggested that funneling funds toward the creation of the proposed centralized government that would unite both the present government with rebel forces in southern Sudan could be much more promising in terms of bringing peace (Given the nature of the conflict, that is its ties to both ethnicity as well as politics, it is important that this process be monitored or a situation like that which arose in Angola following their civil war may ensue). Critics of this approach suggest that it may be a way for the U.S., as it has been accused in the past, of committing funds without having to really commit funds.
Given the failure of the international community to respond to the genocide in Rwanda, one would think that the media would embrace its role as a tool of communicating the importance of such a humanitarian disaster to the world. While efforts toward this precisely have been initiated in other parts of the world, it is devastating that a world superpower like the United States has been only a pseudo-advocate for peace. Perhaps if the media was more honest in its portrayal of the U.S.’ handling of the matter, more citizens would demand that our government take real steps toward ending the suffering in Sudan. If more parallels were drawn between Darfur and Rwanda, a conflict which although much too late, the world is much better informed, perhaps this would move our government to action. Given the failure of the international community to maintain interest in the prosecuting of criminals and rebuilding of Rwanda longer than a month after there was no more blood to show on the news, it is hoped that we will not settle for history repeating itself in Sudan. Sadly, I can count on my fingers the number of criminals tried in the International Crimes Court for their part in the Rwandan genocide, and recent articles show that even ten years after the conflict, rebuilding is still not quite underway. The U.S. has been a strong advocate for prosecuting criminal leaders in Sudan as well as the effort to rebuild, but as we have seen from Rwanda, advocacy and action are two completely different things.
Posted by dmliu at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2005
Edutainment
At a time when there appears to be so much going on in the world that is newsworthy, why is Black Entertainment Television (BET) canceling their nightly news program? Anchored by Jacque Reid, the BET Nightly News broadcast is the only daily program offering both national and international news specifically designed for an African-American audience. Despite this fact, BET has decided to cancel the nightly news program and replace it with periodic news briefs throughout the day, specials, and “The Cousin Jeff Chronicles?, a new program to be aired on a quarterly basis that will deal with contemporary urban issues. Quarterly basis!?! Specials!?! News “briefs?!?! The question is, are these shows going to be able to provide that which will be lost by killing the nightly news.
There are a couple of reasons that have been cited for canceling the news. First, it airs at 11pm. Debra Lee, President and COO of BET remarked, “With 24-hour networks and everyone getting news off the internet, our audience doesn’t want to wait until 11 p.m. to find out what the news is”. And she is right. Why should viewers wait until 11 at night to know what’s going on in the world? So one might wonder why BET would not just move the program up in the day to accommodate viewers. The now Viacom owned network has recently announced the roll-out of several new projects for the 2005 season. It seems that the priority for the network has slowly shifted from developing television that is responsive and representative of the black perspective and issues important to the black community to one that wants to be the African-American version of television programs that already exist. The new season will bring back “College Hill”, the reality television show based on the lives of students at black colleges; it will also launch several new shows such as the aforementioned “The Cousin Jeff Chronicles”, a made for television movie on relationships entitled “Book of Love – the Definitive Reason Why Men are Dogs”, “Rip the Runway” where hip-hop meets high fashion, and a “The Apprentice”-like reality show where Roc-a-Fella record guru Damon Dash will play the role of Donald Trump.
While I’m sure these programs are all new, fresh, and guaranteed to increase viewership, what about all the programs of substance that have slowly but surely been disappearing from the BET lineup. Public affairs programming like “Lead Story” and “BET Tonight” as well as youth programming like “Teen Summit” have all been cancelled in recent years. Instead of replacing these positive and informative programs with other programs of substance, we’ve only seen more music videos; and now, we are taking away some of those videos for more pointless programming. To be fair, pointless programming is to some extent necessary. After all, it’s about what’s hot in television now and what we think people want to see, right? However, that does not mean that programs like BET Nightly News have to end, especially when there is not much else on BET worth watching in the form of serous programming. It is hoped that the replacements for this program are at least informative despite their limited airtime. BET’s target audience is black and Latino viewers age 18-34. One can make the argument that this audience may not be as interested in the news, however, when we consider the degree to which the media helps to determine what is interesting and important to viewers, we may begin to understand why a program like the nightly news is so important to black programming.
While it appears that the commitment to current affairs is dwindling away on one network, we can look across the globe to find just the opposite. South Africa’s SABC TV network provides some examples, perhaps that BET could learn from, of black programming that is educational as well as entertaining. This media form, termed edutainment, was actually first developed in the 1970s in Mexico by Miguel Sabido. Sabido sought to impart knowledge and values on viewers without being overbearing, obvious, or too preachy. Sabido’s model was adopted by SABC. In 1999, SABC launched a drama called “Yizo Yizo”, meaning “The Way it Is”. Now about to air it’s third and final season, the show was extremely controversial when first aired. “Yizo Yizo” is based on high school life for children in South African townships. It seeks to deal with important issues such as the importance of education, teen sex, gangs, violence against women, among others. Much debate centered around the issues in the program as critics suggested they may be inflammatory instead of informative. However, “Yizo Yizo” has enjoyed much success and actually sparked the creation of several edusoaps, or educational soap opera-like dramas on SABC Education. These include Tsha Tsha and Soul City, two dramas based on the issue of AIDS as well as Isidingo, a soap that deals with issues like AIDS, race relations, sexuality, cultural identity, etc.
Like the Sabido model, these programs use attractive elements from soap operas, such as the interwoven character plots and the protagonist/antagonist relationships, but are different in their push to deliver a message to the viewers about a real issue that is faced by South Africans. Some programs even feature issue-synopsis monologues performed by famous South African entertainers at the end of the episode as well as hotlines or programs where viewers facing any issues discussed in an episode may get help. It is amazing how popular and successful these programs have been given what they seek to accomplish. The result though, is hopefully a South African audience that is much more informed on important current issues, specifically those faced by black South Africans. The lesson for BET, education and entertainment can work together, for the benefit of networks, advertisers, and most importantly viewers, if we give them a chance.
Posted by skgreene at 06:04 PM | Comments (0)