Copyright

by

Lisa Anne Hartenberger

2005

The Dissertation Committee for Lisa Anne Hartenberger Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation:

Mediating Transition in Afghanistan, 2001-2004

Committee:

Joseph Straubhaar, Supervisor

John Downing

Don Heider

Monika Mehta

America Rodriguez

Karin Wilkins Mediating Transition in Afghanistan, 2001-2004

by

Lisa Anne Hartenberger, B.A.; M.A.

Dissertation

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of

The University of Texas at Austin

in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

The University of Texas at Austin August, 2005

Dedication

To my parents, for their unwavering support

Mediating Transition in Afghanistan, 2001-2004

Publication No.______

Lisa Anne Hartenberger, Ph.D.

The University of Texas at Austin, 2005

Supervisor: Joseph Straubhaar

This dissertation examines international aid in support of Afghan media from fall

2001 to fall 2004 as a case study to interrogate the notion of “media transition” and its underlying assumptions. It examines how development organizations such as the United

Nations, bilateral aid agencies such as the U.S. Agency for International Development, and non-governmental agencies created the institutional structures that define and support the practice of media transition. It analyzes how the nascent Afghan state media institutions and non-governmental organizations dedicated to media reconstruction negotiated and mobilized the discourse of media transition to further their own aims. It also analyzes how changing political considerations, media production and dissemination outlets, and media producers’ own sense of mission affected the production of a series of radio programs designed to promote Afghan political transition. This dissertation argues that democracy should not be treated as a self-evident goal for media transitions, but

v should be viewed as a discursive process that shares many of the same concerns as development communications, and that mobilizes a transnational public sphere.

vi Table of Contents

Introduction...... 1 Media as a Part of International Reconstruction Efforts...... 3 A Brief History of Nation-building in Afghanistan...... 7 Explaining the Divisiveness of Afghan Nation-building...... 7 An Outline of Afghan Political History in Global Context ...... 10 A Roadmap of the Study...... 16

Chapter One: Theorizing Media Transitions ...... 20 Media Transitions: Defining the Field...... 22 The Prevailing Paradigm: Freedom of the Press...... 24 Capturing Media Transition in the Freedom of the Press Paradigm....34 New Propaganda Models and Developmental Journalism Critiques...37 Researching Media Transitions in Developmental Journalism Approaches ...... 42 Mining Development Communications for the Study of Media Transitions...... 46 The Modernization Paradigm ...... 47 Measuring Effectiveness in the Modernization Paradigm...... 51 Participatory Communication ...... 54 Measuring Development in the Participatory Paradigm...... 61 A Critique of Binary Power Models ...... 64 Merging Literatures: An Approach to the Study of Media Transitions...... 67

Chapter Two: Studying Media Transition in Afghanistan...... 71 The Case Study Approach ...... 72 The Selection of Afghanistan...... 73 My Position as a Practitioner ...... 75 Examining Institutional Constructions ...... 78 Research Methods Used...... 79 Key Data Sources...... 80

vii Analyzing Discursive Formations...... 85 Research Methods Used...... 85 Key Data Sources...... 88 Considering Production Practices...... 89 Selecting the Radio Programs...... 90 Key Data Sources...... 92 Limitations of the Study Methodology...... 96

Chapter Three: The Institutional Construction of Media Transition ...... 100 Media for Development: Advancing State Agendas ...... 103 State Media and Modernization...... 104 Media as a By-product of International Development Projects...... 108 Media for Propaganda: Destabilizing the State ...... 117 International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy ...... 119 Consolidating Agendas in Bilateral Aid ...... 124 The Rise of the Solidarity NGO...... 131 Media for Transition: Addressing Liminal States...... 136 Re-writing the Rules of Engagement in Multilateral Organizations .138 Specialization within US Bilateral Development Organizations...... 140 The Rise of the Media NGO ...... 145

Chapter Four: The Discursive Formation of Media Transition ...... 151 The International Community and Humanitarian Aid...... 154 Media NGO Needs Assessments ...... 155 Privileged Players in the Humanitarian Aid Formation...... 157 The UN and Public Information Needs ...... 159 The Preliminary Needs Assessment...... 160 The Media Working Group and ITAP...... 163 Privileged Players in the Information Needs Formation...... 167 The Afghan State and Cultural Policy ...... 169 The National Development Framework and Budget ...... 170 The Consultative Group and the Technical Annex...... 174

viii Privileged Players in the Cultural Policy Formation ...... 178 Media NGOs, Political Events, and Press Freedom ...... 180 The New Press Law ...... 181 The Seminar on Independent Media and the (Newer) Media Law....184 Presidential Elections and the Media Code of Conduct...... 186 Privileged Players in the Press Freedom Formation...... 190

Chapter Five: The Practice of Media Transition...... 196 Disseminating Knowledge and Modeling Behavior: The ELJ Radio Soap Operas ...... 198 Establishing the Afghan Transitional State Authority...... 199 The Educational Format: Presenting Ideal Solutions...... 202 Limited Distribution Outlets...... 206 A Complex Production Process ...... 209 Structuring the Voice of the People: The CLJ Vox Pops ...... 212 Strengthening the Afghan Transitional State...... 213 The Vox Pop Format: Editing the “Real” Voice of the People ...... 215 The Vox Pop Format: Challenging Authority Figures ...... 222 Appropriate Distribution Outlets ...... 227 Speaking to the World: CLJ and Presidential Elections Vox Pops ...... 229 Focusing on Private Media Prior to the Elections ...... 230 The Vox Pop Format: Addressing National and Transnational Audiences...... 234

Chapter Six: Implications of the Case of Afghan Media Transition ...... 242 A Review of Key Findings ...... 243 Media Transition as a Discursive Process ...... 244 Media Transition as a Development Project...... 247 Media Transition and the Transnational Public Sphere...... 250 When to End Media Transition...... 254 Theoretical Implications and New Areas of Research...... 258 Going Beyond Normative Press Theory...... 258 Engaging with Development Communication Theory ...... 261 ix Understanding Audiences in Media Transition ...... 265 Expanding the Notion of the Public Sphere...... 267 Distinguishing between Democratic Transition and Consolidation ..271

Appendix: Program Themes ...... 274

References...... 275

Vita ...... 294

x Introduction

An Emergency Loya Jirga shall be convened within six months of the establishment of the Interim Authority…The Emergency Loya Jirga shall decide on a Transitional Authority, including a broad-based transitional administration, to lead Afghanistan until such time as a fully representative government can be elected through free and fair elections to be held no later than two years from the date of the convening of the Emergency Loya Jirga…A Constitutional Loya Jirga shall be convened within eighteen months of the establishment of the Transitional Authority, in order to adopt a new constitution for Afghanistan. From the “Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re-establishment of Permanent Government Institutions” signed December 5, 2001 in Bonn, Germany. As was feared—and expected—anarchy reigned supreme. But the first full day of Afghanistan’s loya jirga also looked a lot like the sort of democratic gathering that seemed only a pipe dream during the country’s last 23 years of war...In the land that has been ruled for so long by the gun, no triggers were pulled and no blood was shed. On Wednesday, an old-fashioned town hall meeting somehow broke out amid the rubble of a city laid to ruin by war. Mike Blanchfield, Ottawa Citizen, June 13, 2002.

This is democracy, Afghan style. Enormous white tents cover the campus of the

Kabul Polytechnic Institute. The grounds of the Polytechnic are surrounded by barbed wire and barricades guarded by soldiers from the International Security Assistance Force.

Inside the tents, over 1,500 appointed or elected delegates debate the structure and leadership of the Afghan Transitional Authority. The grand assembly, or loya jirga, lasts from June 11 to June 20, 2002. Delegates agree that Hamid Karzai should lead

Afghanistan for the next two years until general elections are called. International press coverage highlights how the loya jirga is a quintessentially egalitarian and democratic

Afghan political tradition. Journalists often draw upon the imagery of community jirgas 1 where conflicts are settled by consensus, showing images of bearded men in turbans

sitting in circles. This Afghan democracy is portrayed as compatible with international

standards for representative democracy.1 In fact, the Emergency Loya Jirga we are

witnessing is mandated by the terms of the Bonn Agreement, the international agreement

that sets out the terms of Afghan political transition, as the first step to instituting a

proper Afghan government. Thus, the loya jirga simultaneously embodies deep Afghan

tradition as well as modern standards for democratic states.

The image of the loya jirga presented by the international press, however, can be

contested by savvy Afghans. The specific history and practices of Afghan jirgas belie

the myth that there is an easy fit between the loya jirga and the principles of democratic

rule as inclusive and legitimately representative. From the monarchists to Marxists and

mujahideen, Afghan leaders since the 1700s have called loya jirgas to legitimize their

rule (Maley, 1998; Wardak, 2002). Each entering government accuses the former of

manipulating the assembly to maintain an illusion of legitimacy. If the Emergency Loya

Jirga were seen as a rubber stamp of the American-backed Karzai, this government would

have no more legitimacy than the ones that preceded it. The US government was keenly

aware that the Emergency Loya Jirga must not be perceived as manipulation. Prior to the

assembly, they funded a series of radio programs in the main Afghan languages of Dari

and Pashto designed to promote, explain and legitimize the political process to an Afghan

audience. The US sponsored radio programs for distribution within Afghanistan at key

1 Some news articles were skeptical of the process, with headlines like “Claims of manipulation and violence cloud Afghan polls: Most believe the Jirga’s results have already been decided” (Clover, 2002) or, more polemically, “Gangsters, murderers and stooges used to endorse Bush’s vision of ‘democracy’” (Fisk, 2002). But most proclaimed “Afghans freely elect leader” (Kaplow, 2002), “Democracy born again in Kabul” (Steele, 2002) or “Tribal democracy works as chaos reigns” (Rashid, 2002). 2 political milestones outlined in the Bonn Agreement: the June 2002 Emergency Loya

Jirga to elect Karzai as head of the transitional administration, the December 2003

Constitutional Loya Jirga to ratify a new constitution, and the October 2004 national presidential elections.

MEDIA AS A PART OF INTERNATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS

The radio programming was an integral part of the larger international nation-

building project. From the very early stages of planning international “reconstruction”

efforts in Afghanistan, the role of the media had been a primary concern. Reconstructing

the media system was perceived as a short-term need for humanitarian relief efforts as

well as a long-term action to promote and support the post-Taliban government that

would soon be installed. Just as new democracies required a working executive,

legislative and judicial branch, a functioning media system was perceived as necessary

for a robust civil society that could hold the government accountable to its citizenry.

Donors funded media programming and took an active role in building the institutions of

media, from creating a regulatory framework to funding independent commercial media

outlets.

Donors supported a variety of media projects designed to increase the reach and

quality of print, film and video, and later, television. For example, the Open Media Fund,

supported by the Soros Foundation, UNESCO, bilateral donors, and private donors,

funded newspapers and magazines published throughout Afghanistan. A French NGO,

Aïna, obtained funding from various sources to produce and exhibit educational videos

and to train filmmakers. The Japanese government provided the state broadcaster with

3 new equipment for television broadcasting, and later, the US government provided start-

up funding for a private television station.2

However, radio was seen as the key medium to aid political transformation.

According to listener surveys commissioned by international broadcasters in the 1990s,

radio broadcasts had the largest geographic reach of any mass medium (Intermedia,

1998). Also, radio does not depend on the availability of electricity, and is accessible to illiterate populations. Of all the mass media, radio seemed to have the greatest potential to influence the broadest spectrum of Afghan population during the political transition period. With the urging of the Afghan state, one of the first media aid projects of the US government was to provide radio broadcasting equipment for the state broadcaster in order to enable the station to expand its reach nationwide. The US continued this programmatic emphasis on radio broadcasting, initially providing funding for training and programming and later, for a network of commercial radio stations.

The US government funneled much of its aid for Afghan media through the

Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), an office within the US Agency for International

Development (USAID). Established in 1994, the purpose of the office is to allow the US government to respond more quickly and effectively to the dynamic environment of

“transition” countries. With the end of the Cold War, USAID has struggled to define its role in channeling development aid to further US foreign policy goals. How can USAID influence outcomes in situations of rapid political change such as the dissolution of the

Soviet Union or the schisms in the Balkans? OTI is one answer; their stated purpose is to intercede in the short-term in countries undergoing transitions from authoritarian to

4 democratic systems, from violent conflict to peace, or in other situations of political

crisis. Media are a special focus area of OTI.3 From October 2001 to June 2005, OTI

dedicated approximately $22.3 million in support to media (OTI, 2005). OTI funded a

number of initiatives in Afghanistan, including support for state-owned media as well as

NGO productions and private media. The balance between those is one point this

dissertation will examine.

This study explores “media transition” as a function of the international

development system through a case study of Afghanistan. The genesis of the study is

personal. I was employed by a bilateral aid agency, the U.S. Agency for International

Development, as Education Advisor in Kabul, Afghanistan from May 2002 to August

2003. As a participant in the US government’s nation-building agenda, I was highly

aware of the inconsistencies and slippages between policy rhetoric and practice, as well

as the contested nature of funding and program implementation. As a professional

development communications practitioner, I was also fascinated by the overlap between

the practitioners and program models adopted for traditional development

communications areas such as education and health, and those that were produced in

service of political transitions goals such as promoting voting. This personal experience

has influenced my approach to the topic of “media transition” and my overall research

question: How does “media transition” function within the international development

system?

3 See the OTI website at www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/transition_initiatives for USAID’s definition of “transition” and areas of focus. See the link to Afghan country program for information on media at www.usaid.gov/hum_response/oti/country/afghan/media. 5 In the field of political science, the definition of “transition” is contested

(Carothers, 2002; Hyman, 2002; O'Donnell, 2002). The term is so broad and fluid that it

seems to encompass almost any political situation; at any given time there is dynamism

and change in political systems that could be called transitional. The term was

popularized within political science by scholars examining political transitions from

authoritarian regimes to democratic ones in the 1970s and 80s (O'Donnell & Schmitter,

1986). The optimism of this “third wave” of new democracies (Huntington, 1991) has

since been replaced with a new pragmatism as political transitions in the former Soviet

Union, Africa and Asia have resulted in governments displaying both authoritarian and

democratic characteristics. Political scientists are embroiled in definitional dilemmas,

trying to come up with ways to capture the variety of democracies that seem to exist after

“transition” has taken place.4

Although the term itself is contested within scholarly circles, the idea of

“transition” as new form of international intervention and work has spawned a self- perpetuating industry of development professionals. One of the most active groups within this industry are non governmental organizations (NGOs) specializing in media.

While the political science literature does not generally address media specifically

(O'Donnell & Schmitter, 1986), there are embedded assumptions within the notion of

“transition” that mobilize media organizations. The first project of this study is to uncover the underlying theoretical framework used by “media transition” practitioners.

“Transition” in the context of media functions in two ways: media practitioners are

4 For a contemporary discussion of the debate among scholars see the April 2002 issue of the Journal of Democracy. 6 working in political situations that have been defined as “transitional” by the international

community, and they are tasked with transforming the media sphere from one that supported the old, authoritarian regime to one that upholds the new principles of democracy.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF NATION-BUILDING IN AFGHANISTAN

The history of Afghanistan as a nation-state is generally recounted by beginning with Ahmed Shah Durrani, often credited as the “father” of the modern Afghan nation.

In 1748, the Pashtun tribal leader began a series of military campaigns against the

Moghul empire to the south, the Persian empire to the west, and the northern khanates of

Central Asia. By the end of his reign in 1772, the Durrani kingdom stretched from the

Amu Darya river in the north to the Arabian Sea, an area more than twice the size of today’s Afghanistan (Ewans, 2002). It included peoples of different ethnic origins, languages and religions. But the unity of this territory and its people as a coherent political entity was often contested. Over the next two hundred and thirty years, various leaders struggled to establish and maintain the territorial unity of Afghanistan against outside invaders and internal divisions.

Explaining the Divisiveness of Afghan Nation-building

Scholars advance many explanations for the fragmented nature of the Afghan nation-state. Some authors argue that Afghan society is an essentially traditional culture based on “tribal” social structure, where the bonds of kinship and clan supercede modern state structures (Ewans, 2002). When state authority comes into conflict with the

7 patriarchal rule of tribal leaders (Moghadam, 1999) or traditional beliefs based in Islamic

thought (Nawid, 1999), the state, they argue, inevitably loses. These scholars often point

to the tribal code or pushtunwali, the set of rules governing family and tribal honor, as the

most deep-seated Afghan social structure (Dupree, 1973; Nawid, 1999). The

traditional/modern divide is also sometimes presented as an urban/rural split, where

leaders residing in the capital of Kabul are out of touch with the relatively more

conservative, agrarian communities outside the capital (Ewans, 2002).

Other historians focus on Afghanistan’s ethnic and linguistic differences as the

main reason for a divided Afghan nation-state. Scholars have grouped people and

categorized them differently over the years.5 Current discussions of Afghan ethnicity

generally map the population into four major ethno-linguistic groups and approximately

eight smaller ethnic groups, identified with certain geographic areas within Afghanistan.6

Pashtuns, who are arguably the majority group, speak Pashto.7 They are concentrated in

the south and southwest of Afghanistan and share ethnic ties with Pashtuns in the

northern provinces of Pakistan. Tajiks are usually considered the second largest group,

joined by language more than ethnic affiliation. Tajiks speak Dari, a dialect of Farsi.

Hazaras, although they speak Dari, are considered a separate ethnic group descended

from Central Asians. They live in the central highlands, home to the remains of several

5 Compare, for example, early and later anthropological texts. Dupree’s categorizations in 1973 focus on correctly placing people into ethnic groups based on geography, lineage, culture and language. In contrast, Glatzer’s (1998) work highlights how various ethnic categories are constructed and mobilized for particular purposes. 6 For popular guide see Wardak in Girardet and Walter (1998). Although there has been considerable movement of peoples within Afghanistan and members of different ethnic groups live all over the nation, there are areas of the country that are generally associated with particular ethnic groups.

8 large stone Buddahs. The Uzbeks, who live in northern Afghanistan, speak Uzbek.

Smaller ethnic groups include the Turkmen, Aimaq, Baluch, Brahui, Nuristani, Pashai,

Pamiri, and Kirghiz. Finally, the Kuchis, or nomadic herders, are also sometimes treated

as a separate ethnic group. Some scholars and policymakers see divisions within the

Afghan state as a reflection of ethnic antagonisms among the myriad ethno-linguistic

groups. The rulers of Afghanistan have almost exclusively been Pashtun, and some

scholars argue that state-building has been a form of Pashtun expansionism (Ewans,

2002). They point out that Pashtun interests and values, such as pushtunwali, have been

improperly conflated with the Afghan nation (Shahrani, 1998).

Other scholars argue that external factors, more than internal, essentialist

explanations of culture and ethnicity, or even pragmatic notions of constructed identity,

are more useful for understanding Afghan nation-building. These scholars focus on

regional foreign policy and the global political economy to understand the vicissitudes of

the Afghan nation. For these scholars, Afghan state formation is inevitably impacted by

the political interests of her neighbors and the geo-politics of maintaining spheres of influence. They explore how the imperial interests of Russia and Great Britain in the nineteenth century (Hopkirk, 1990), or the interests of global powers like the US and the

Soviet Union, and regional powers such as Pakistan and Iran in the twentieth century influenced different political movements within Afghanistan (Emadi, 1990; Rashid,

2000; Roy, 1994).

7 The actual percentage of members in each ethnic group is highly contentious and disputed. Given that “ethnic balance” in the government is seen as important, the relative numerical strength of any ethnic group could translate into political and economic benefits for members of that group. 9 Some scholars analyze the role of modern global movements such as political

Islam (Roy, 1986, 1994) or the international system of nation-states, patronage and foreign aid (Rubin, 2002) as the key factors that determine Afghanistan’s political trajectory. Afghanistan’s political history, these scholars argue, is a reflection of modern global forces. Therefore, to understand Afghanistan, one must understand its place in the global political economy. My work shares this emphasis. I, too, focus on Afghanistan in the global context of international development. One cannot understand media transition in Afghanistan without a grasp of the concept of “media transition” as it is mobilized internationally, an issue I will address in chapter one, the role of foreign aid in promoting

Afghan media, which I will explore in chapter three, as well as a general knowledge of

Afghanistan’s political history, which I will briefly sketch below.

An Outline of Afghan Political History in Global Context

As a geographic crossroad in Central Asia, Afghanistan has played a role in many of the major global movements of the last two hundred years—imperialism, the Cold War and now the post-Cold War period. In the nineteenth century, the nation was a buffer state between Imperial Russia and the British Empire (Hopkirk, 1990; Noelle, 1997).

The Silk Road from China to India wound partly through Afghanistan, and both Russia and England wished to control the trade route. The British were eager to claim India’s riches and worried that Russia could attack India via Afghanistan. The Russian empire considered the khanates of Central Asia within their sphere of influence and wanted to distance the British. Control of Afghanistan by either power threatened the other.

Successive royal regimes in Afghanistan fought to maintain Afghan independence from

10 both the British and Russian expansionist empires, while using foreign backing to help fund their own political ambitions.

When Ahmad Shah Durrani’s reign ended in 1772, there were grim power struggles for succession within the family. During these battles for the throne, the

Afghan territory secured by Ahmad Shah was chipped away by independent khanates and tribes, particularly those centered in the western town of Herat and the southern town of

Khandahar. Foreign powers like the British supported one would-be ruler over another in the hopes of maintaining or increasing influence in Afghanistan. The first Anglo-Afghan

War (1838-1842) was fought because the British supported Shah Shuja (1803-1809;

1839-1842) over Dost Mohammed (1826-1863; 1843-1863). Dost Mohammad, reinstalled after the British loss, was able to bring both Herat and Khandahar under the central rule of Kabul.

The second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-1880) ended in the massacre of the retreating British, although Britain gained the right to set Afghanistan’s foreign policy.

Under Abdur Rahman (1880-1901), known as the Iron Emir, Afghanistan’s present-day territorial boundaries were negotiated. The 1893 Durand Line established the boundary with India, now Pakistan, denying Pashtun nationalists the dream of a united

Pashtunistan. In 1895, the northeastern Wakhan corridor was established as part of neutral Afghanistan in order to separate the British and Russian territories.

The royal regimes under Habibullah (1901-1919) and Amanullah (1919-1929) wanted to establish Afghanistan’s status as an independent nation able to participate in the modern global system. Under these regimes, the Afghan state began promoting print press and radio broadcasting as modernizing mass media. Afghanistan’s first written 11 constitution was promulgated under Amanullah, and the public education system was expanded. Amanullah also fought the third and final Anglo-Afghan War in 1919 in order to regain Afghanistan’s right to determine its own foreign affairs. Amanullah was overthrown in 1929 by the only Tajik ruler of Afghanistan, Habibullah, also called

Bacha-i-Saqao, who rescinded many of Amanullah’s modern reforms. However, his reign lasted only nine months. The Pashtun royal line was re-established with Nadir

Shah (1929-1933), who was followed by his son Zahir Shah (1933-1973).

The Shah dynasty continued the royal modernizing regime. They promoted the expansion of the state press and broadcast system, establishing a bureaucracy to support them. In 1939, a national news agency was created to provide news stories to provincial presses and allow Afghanistan to exchange news with the major foreign news wire companies. Zahir Shah also periodically allowed private print outlets, and established a department of journalism at Kabul University in 1961. In 1964, a new constitution was promulgated.

As the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union heated up in the 1950s and

60s, Afghanistan used the opportunity to play each side against the other, “lighting

American cigarettes with Soviet lighters,” in the oft-quoted words of then Prime Minister

Mohammed Daoud (Bossin, 2004:79; Galster, 2001). US bilateral aid to Afghanistan had dipped in the 1940s, but it rose in the late 1950s and 60s in response to foreign aid from the Soviet Union and China (Rubin, 2002). As each side fought for influence in

Afghanistan, the state used foreign loans and grants to fund expensive infrastructure projects including expanding the state broadcast system. Between 1957 and 1973, the

12 percentage of Afghan state expenditures derived from foreign aid fluctuated from 23% to

60% of total state expenditures (Rubin, 2002:296,297).

In 1973, Mohammad Daoud deposed his cousin, Zahir Shah, who fled to exile in

Italy. Daoud, who had been Prime Minister under Zahir Shah (1953-1963), instituted a

republic. He continued bilateral relations with both communist and non-communist

countries. In 1965, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, the PDPA, was formed. Daoud initially included some PDPA members in his government. However, as

some branches of the PDPA began espousing revolution, he banned the group and all

other political parties. In 1973, a group of university professors and students formed the

Islamic Society. They too, sought to overthrow Daoud, with the aim of installing an

Islamic government (Rubin, 2002). However, the PDPA acted first, deposing and killing

Daoud in April 1978.

Under the leadership of Hafizullah Amin, the PDPA instituted a radical

secularization program that alienated many Afghans and increased support for the

Islamists. Although Amin depended heavily on Soviet foreign aid, the Soviets were

unable to persuade him to moderate his policies or give up power. So in December 1979,

the Soviets invaded, killing Amin and installing a new Afghan leader, Babrak Karmal

(Rubin, 2002). With the communist revolution of 1978 and Soviet invasion the following

year, all US aid to the state was cut off. Instead, the US began funneling aid to anti-

communist and pro-Islamic groups operating from Pakistan (Galster, 2001).

There were many political and military Islamist groups fighting against the

Soviet-supported client regime in Kabul. Foreign donors like the US and Saudi Arabia,

who each had their own national interest in supporting the Afghan resistance to Soviet 13 rule, found a confusing array of rival mujahideen groups. Further complicating the picture, different nations preferred different mujahideen groups. In order to rationalize efforts, the groups formed the Seven Party Alliance. Any military group who wished to receive funding was required to be affiliated with one of the seven parties. Since the

Alliance operated from Pakistan, the Pakistani government often acted as a funding conduit between donors and the mujahideen (Yousaf & Adkin, 1992). The US, in particular, depended on Pakistan to funnel covert monies and arms to the mujahideen.

In 1985, the US began to act more overtly to overthrow the Afghan communist regime. The US provided material support to the mujahideen through the official foreign aid system as well as via covert channels (Galster, 2001). In 1986, Karmal was replaced by Najibullah. The long Afghan war was draining Soviet resources, and in 1988 the

Geneva Peace Accords were negotiated. The Soviets withdrew their troops in 1989, but continued to fund the Najibullah government, albeit at a lower level. The US, too, continued to fund the mujahideen. The Geneva Accords allowed each side to continue funding the war, as long as the extent of the support was relatively equal. Najibullah’s government continued fighting the mujahideen until 1992, when he stepped down. With

Najibullah’s defeat, US aid to Afghanistan dwindled.

The mujahideen power sharing arrangement agreed upon in 1992 quickly broke down. For the next four years, there was fierce fighting between two main factions for control over Kabul. Other mujahideen leaders established independent control in other regions of Afghanistan, particularly Herat in the west and Mazar-i-Sharif in the north. A series of UN-sponsored peace accords failed. In 1994, a group of Islamic students, the

Taliban, took the southern town of Kandahar. Their goal was to institute a true Islamic 14 government in a united Afghanistan (Rashid, 2000). In 1996, the Taliban marched on

Kabul. Najibullah, who had been living in Kabul under UN protection, was hung. The

mujahideen fled to the north, where they formed an alliance in opposition to the Taliban

rule.

The Taliban government was not officially recognized by most nations, with the

exception of Pakistan from whom they received financial and ideological support.

However, the Taliban were treated as a de-facto government by the US in business

negotiations for a proposed oil pipeline (Rashid, 2000). While not willing to legitimize

the government, particularly in view of the public outcry from US feminists over the

Taliban’s policies toward women (Hirschkind, 2002), the US did not oppose the

relatively stable regime. The UN humanitarian aid system also fluctuated between

condemnation of Taliban policies, particularly those limiting female participation in the

public sphere and enforcing other religious edicts, and negotiating with the government

to implement programming (Costy, 2004). This pragmatic view of the Taliban

government, which allowed for a limited engagement with the international community,

dissolved after the September 2001 attacks in the US.

Afghanistan was once again thrust into the international spotlight as a state that

harbored Al Qaeda, the terrorist organization that carried out the attacks in the US. The

battle against the global spread of terrorism, like the battle against the global spread of

communism, provided the rationale for US and international intervention. The US joined

with the Afghan anti-Taliban alliance, popularly called the Northern Alliance, to defeat the Taliban. In October, the US began bombing Taliban positions; in November,

Northern Alliance ground troops took Kabul. In December 2001, representatives of the 15 Northern Alliance and various Afghan exile groups, including representatives from the

exiled Zahir Shah, met with representatives of the UN and various nations to negotiate

the Bonn Agreement.8

The Bonn Agreement set out the conditions for a transitional Afghan administration leading to national elections. It envisioned a two and a half year timeline,

which was subsequently extended when presidential and parliamentary elections were not

held concurrently. There were several important political milestones outlined in the

Bonn Agreement, including the selection of a two-year transitional administration to take power after an initial six month interim administration, the ratification of a new constitution, and national elections. The Afghan government installed through democratic elections will no longer be considered “transitional.” This study is an in- depth examination of media aid to Afghanistan during the “transitional” time period, beginning with the breakdown of the Taliban government in October 2001 and ending with the first presidential elections in October 2004.

A ROADMAP OF THE STUDY

Chapter one exposes the theoretical roots of media transition in mass communication and development communications theory. The reigning paradigm is the notion of free press which posits an objective and “independent” media. However, media

transitions have an overtly developmental goal, that is, they aim to transform society via

the transformation of the media sphere. Therefore, media transitions also draw upon

development communication theory that aims to explain how media systems should be

8 The full text of the Bonn Agreement can be found at www.unama-afg.org. 16 used to aid national development and promote civic participation. A review of the

scholarly literature in mass communication and development communication is necessary not only to understand how practitioners frame “media transition” but also how scholars can study the phenomenon. By setting aside the issue of media effects with which most practitioners are concerned, this study will present a more nuanced understanding of media transition as a function of specific institutions, discourse and practice.

Chapter two explicates the methodology of the study. The case study is a

common approach to media research because it allows for one particular phenomenon to

be examined in depth. By specifying a location, Afghanistan, and a time period, the

political transition timetable defined by the Bonn Agreement, the scholar can examine

“media transition” from a variety of levels using a multiplicity of methods. This study

investigates the larger context of international interventions in nation-building, the

intermediate level of institutional actors involved in mobilizing the discourse of media

transitions, as well as the production of specific media transitions products created during

the transitions period.

Chapter three examines how media transition has been defined as a distinct

practice by the global institutions involved in Afghan media aid. These include the

United Nations, bilateral aid agencies, NGOs, and the Afghan state itself. Media

transition differs from other instances of media aid to Afghanistan. The purpose of

transition media aid is to create and support a functioning state that can be integrated into

the global system. Previous instances of media aid either served to support specific

development goals as defined by a legitimate state apparatus, or to de-stabilize a state

considered illegitimate by Western donors. In media transitions, the state itself occupies 17 an ambiguous position. It is neither fully legitimate nor illegitimate. During transition, the international community and its multilateral and bilateral aid agencies have a unique and limited time period within which they can legitimately intervene in what would otherwise be considered the affairs of a sovereign state. In the absence of a strong state, media NGOs acquire additional power as both the arbiters of internationally accepted standards for democratic media systems as well as the implementers of media aid interventions.

Chapter four analyzes how different institutional actors mobilize the discourse of

“media transition” in order to benefit themselves and advance their interests. A discursive analysis of media transition elucidates what an institutional analysis cannot— that subtle differences in the definition of transition media are proposed and reinforced by different players. The institutionally defined parameters of transitions media are not as solid and irrefutable as a macro analysis implies. Instead, the nascent Afghan state battles media NGOs and donors for space within which to operate. At stake is not only the considerable funding for media aid that the international community provides, but perhaps more importantly, the moral high ground. At a time when the media sphere is in the foreground of public policy discussions, gaining long-term legitimacy is even more important than short-term monetary gain.

Chapter five focuses on the production of a series of radio programs designed to promote citizen participation in the political process. This chapter analyzes how logistical constraints, changing production and distribution outlets, and the producers’ own sense of purpose resulted in particular transition media products. This level most clearly shows the “developmental” side of media transition. In order to successfully 18 mobilize the discourse of media transition, it is vital to maintain the illusion of objectivity and impartiality. Both the state and media NGOs must prove that they are disinterested parties, acting only as conduits for the public voice. But a production analysis reveals how actively media producers molded the radio programs to meet the transformative goals of media transition.

Chapter six discusses the ways in which the specific case of media transition in

Afghanistan reinforces or disrupts common assumptions of the media transition paradigm. It explains why theoretical concerns drawn from development communications such as a focus on media transition as a discourse, the role of the activist media professional, and the flow of power within a global communication network were most fruitful for this study, indicating that media transition studies more generally may need to take them into account. This final chapter also offers scholars new avenues for research in examining alternative definitions of media transition, the role of interpersonal communication and global networking among key actors, and the varied formats and genres of media transition programming.

19 Chapter One: Theorizing Media Transitions

We know that true peace will only be achieved when we give the Afghan people the means to achieve their own aspirations. Peace -- peace will be achieved by helping Afghanistan develop its own stable government…By helping to build an Afghanistan that is free from this evil [of terrorism] and is a better place in which to live, we are working in the best traditions of George Marshall. Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings…This transformation [of Europe and Japan] is a powerful testimony to the success of Marshall's vision, and a beacon to light the path that we, too, must follow. President Bush’s remarks at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, VA on April 17, 2002.

This study is informed by two major bodies of literature: media transitions and development communications. Both fields were born out of specific practices of media professionals tasked with using media for social and political transformation. They arose at particular historical moments of global realignment, when institutions and states in the global system were searching for new ways to interact. They are closely intertwined with the birth, growth, and dissolution of nation-states. Media transitions and development communications are defined and bounded as fields by their practices; much of the theory in each field emerges as practitioners attempt to evaluate their work and determine what kinds of outcomes are desirable and feasible. Although they may be unaware of all of the assumptions that structure their practices, practitioners still necessarily work within a framework that has assumptions, either explicit or implicit.

This chapter begins with an analysis of the literature on media transitions, much of it written by practitioners. I will make evident the underlying assumptions and

20 worldviews that guide media transitions, by examining the prevailing paradigm that

guides the field and explicating its theoretical roots. I will also examine the main

critiques of that paradigm and how these critiques have modified the kinds of research

questions and methods that scholars can use to study media transitions.

The second major section of this chapter presents an overview of development communications theory. As a newer practice, defined by institutional structures and implemented by a professionalized class of media workers only over the last fifteen

years, media transitions literature and theory is in its infancy. Nonetheless, media transition is a part of the larger international development system. I will examine how development communications theory can expand and deepen the range of research questions and methods used to study media transitions. Development communication theory has come of age since the 1950s along with the growth of the international system and its “development” machinery. The field has a robust theoretical literature through which scholars can understand the process of social and political transformation, the interplay between structure and agency, and the role of the professional development communication practitioner in an international context.

The third and final section of this chapter explicates the theoretical grounding of this study in both media transitions and development communications theory. I outline the theoretical and empirical questions that this study addresses, and identify to what extent these questions are derived from previous literature on media transitions and development communications.

21 MEDIA TRANSITIONS: DEFINING THE FIELD

At the intersection of comparative politics and mass communication theory, there is a small but growing body of literature on the role of media in so-called “transition” nations (Gross, 2002; Price & Thompson, 2002). The notion of “transition,” broadly defined as a time of transformation from one state of being to another, has drawn critical attention within many disciplines. For example, some political scientists argue that the term lacks descriptive value and analytical rigor. Since political systems are never static, aren’t all nations at all times in a process of transition? The term transition, some argue, implies a linear progression from one state of being to another that does not capture the dynamic, non linear nature of political change (Carothers, 2002). In the field of communications studies, Downing (1996) argues that issues of power and social change raised in so-called “transition” situations are actually more reflective of the normal workings of media systems around the world that the commonly-used British or

American media models. Both these views imply that “media transition” is too theoretically vague to be useful to scholars.

But despite scholarly skepticism about notions of transition and media, the practice of media transitions is a booming field. This study focuses on “media transition” as a practice within international development and attempts to infer theory from that practice. Rather than beginning with a theoretical definition of “transition” and exploring how it relates to media, this study begins with practitioners. It aims to uncover how media transitions practitioners themselves conceptualize their work by beginning with

22 literature produced by practitioners and scholars examining case studies of media

transition, and tracing the theoretical roots of this literature.

The growth of media transitions practitioners can be traced to major shifts in the

global political economy after the breakdown of the Soviet Union (Darbishire, 2002).

The “emerging democracies” of Eurasia were flooded with what Ellen Hume calls “the

media missionaries,” media professionals, mostly journalists, who came to spread the ideology and practice of an independent press (Hume, 2002). Media exchanges and

training had always been a part of the US foreign policy agenda, but with the end of the

Cold War, democratic nation-building became a compelling raison d’être for US foreign

assistance and indeed, for the international system created around the United Nations

(Price & Thompson, 2002). Since media systems gained prominence as key protagonists in democratic nation-building and there was increased funding for media transitions, a

host of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) dedicated to media transitions went to

work. Much of the current literature on media transitions emerges from these

practitioners themselves, struggling to define their work, assess its impact, and improve

the practice of media transitions.

Freedom of the press has become the rallying cry and prevailing paradigm within

which media transition scholars and practitioners frame their work (Siebert, Peterson, &

Schramm, 1956). In this paradigm, media function as a “fourth estate” to counterbalance

the power of the government and ensure that citizens have a voice in public policy. This

has led media transitions practitioners to focus on creating independent media as a

counterweight to state-run outlets (Hume, 2003). Critiques that media transitions have

placed too much emphasis on government censorship have caused some scholars to take 23 a closer look at the ways in which economic and political forces influence the content of commercial media (Mickiewicz, 1998; Neumann, 2000; Taylor & Kent, 2000). A minority of scholars, particularly those from developing nations, challenge the fundamental assumption that the primary aim of media transitions should be to create an independent press (Asante, 1997; Shah, 1996). They advocate an activist, reformist media. While this view is widely dismissed within media transitions literature, it raises important questions about whether media in transitions situations should function differently than media in established democracies. It also suggests that media transitions scholars should look to development communications theory to see how that field has conceptualized the role of the activist media professional, an area of study that has emerged from similar debates.

The Prevailing Paradigm: Freedom of the Press

The foundational work in the current political science debate concerning transitions to democratic governance is O’Donnell and Schmitter’s 1986 four volume series on transitions from authoritarian rule. Media transitions scholars do not always refer to O’Donnell and Schmitter, and political scientists do not always refer to the role of media in political transition. However, because media transitions as a practice is part of the larger practice of democracy-building, it is important to understand how the assumptions of political transition interact with and structure the key assumptions of media transition.

O’Donnell and Schmitter led a group of scholars studying political transitions in

Latin America and Southern Europe, focusing on the process that occurred between the

24 initial breakdown of authoritarian rule and the “founding election” to install a democratic

system of governance. It is this period of time that they call the “transition” stage. In the

O’Donnell and Schmitter model, transition occurs in four phases beginning with

challenges to authoritarianism; negotiation among actors and modifying the rules of the political game; the creation or resurgence of organized civil society; and finally,

elections. The authors are careful to say that transitions may not follow a linear path to

democracy and that new democracies may not be stable. In fact, the very messiness of

the process and uncertainty of the outcome, where macro structural factors do not lead to

predictable effects, is what makes transition situations worthy of special study. However,

they do assume that democracy is a desirable goal for all nations.

Scholars of political science have continued to debate the parameters of

democratic transitions, especially given the uncertain results of the “third wave” of

democratic transitions in the 1980s and 90s (Huntington, 1991). Instead of settling in to

democracy as expected, political systems in many nations continue to display both

democratic and authoritarian tendencies (Carothers, 2002). Some scholars, like

Huntington, attempt to further qualify the types of democratic transitions that result from

particular pre-transition regimes. Others focus on the process of “consolidation” that

occurs after the first democratic election (Diamond, 1999; Mainwaring, O'Donnell, &

Valenzuela, 1992). In a January 2002 article in the “Journal of Democracy,” Thomas

Carothers declared “the end of the transition paradigm.” He argued that scholars should

be trying to understand what he called “gray zone” democracies, political systems that

remain in fairly stable, but not fully democractic, configurations. The article generated so

much debate that the journal’s editors dedicated part of the July 2002 issue to responses 25 to Carothers (Hyman, 2002; Nodia, 2002; O'Donnell, 2002; Wollack, 2002). Much of the current debate within political science centers on how to understand and define the

quality of democracy that occurs after transitions (Diamond & Morlino, 2004). None of

these definitional debates, however, challenge the fundamental assumption that mass

media are key institutions of democratic systems and must “transition” along with the

political regime.

Media transitions, as a subset of democratic transitions, draws upon classic

normative press theories to study the transformation of authoritarian media systems into

democratic ones. Siebert, Peterson and Schramm’s 1956 Four Theories of the Press is

the starting point for most normative theories of media. The authors begin by asserting

that “the press always takes on the form and coloration of the social and political

structures within which it operates” (1). They create a typology of political/media

structures into which all nations can generally be categorized: authoritarian, libertarian, social responsibility and Soviet communist. In the authoritarian system, the press disseminates information that the state believes is important for its people to know.

Although there may be private media outlets, they are contingent upon the goodwill of rulers in power who control media through censorship, licensing, or monopolizing production and dissemination. While the authoritarian model presumes that the state is the means by which men and women are civilized, the libertarian model sees people as rational beings making reasoned choices on the basis of available information. The press becomes a “partner in the search for truth” rather than a purveyor of truth (3).

Independent of state as well as market pressures, the press must provide outlets for diverse viewpoints. The social responsibility model, an outgrowth of the libertarian 26 model, emphasizes the importance of diversity. The authors argue that in an era of

increasing concentration of media ownership, media outlets themselves or other

institutions must ensure that all viewpoints are fairly represented in the media. The

Soviet communist model is a version of the authoritarian model where the communist

party maintains a strict monopoly on press. As instruments of the party, media can be

used to create national unity, as well as illuminate and organize the masses.

Scholars have modified and expanded upon the original four theories of the press.

For example, McQuail (1987) has renamed the libertarian model the “free press” model,

which is more descriptive and resonant today. As “free press” is commonly referred to

by media transitions scholars and practitioners, I will also use that terminology.

However, the liberal political philosophy that Siebert et. al. (1956) reference remains the

key theoretical and legal foundation for freedom of the press. In John Locke’s notion of

a social contract, citizens relinquish some personal control in exchange for the guarantee

that the state will protect their natural rights. One of these rights, as defined by John

Stuart Mill, is freedom of the press, a corollary to freedom of expression. In this

framework, the media function as megaphones for individual viewpoints. While the state

can impose some limits to this freedom, such as injunctions against obscenity or libel, in

general the state is not to interfere in the affairs of the media. To do so would impinge

upon a person’s natural right of expression.9

9 Different standards apply to print and broadcast outlets due to notions of public goods. The print press enjoys more liberal definitions of speech rights, as the press is seen as analogous to an individual’s right to speech. Generally, governments do not have the right to license print outlets and outlets have wide latitude in the content they are allowed to print. However, because broadcasting requires the use of public airwaves whose frequencies are apportioned by the government, broadcasters must meet more stringent standards for anti-libel and obscenity regulations. 27 In the international sphere, the liberal notion of freedom of expression is

enshrined in Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Article 19

states that “everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right

includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive, and impart

information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.” By embedding media

freedom within human rights, media transitions scholars and practitioners are able to

point to internationally recognized standards as universal models to which all countries

have subscribed. Article 19 also provides a legal rationale for international intervention

in the media sphere, as state sovereignty does not apply when states are in violation of

universal human rights standards (Krug & Price, 2002). A standard approach to media

transitions is to install a temporary legal structure followed by the reform of national

legal instruments such as the constitution and/or media laws to conform to international

standards. Periodic U.N. regional conferences function as sites in which freedom of the

press proponents can reinscribe international standards within local parameters and bring

regional political pressure to bear on individual regimes.10 Thus, the Almaty Declaration

can be used to “remind” Central Asian states of their obligations to defend free press, or

the Sana’a Declaration can be referenced in discussions of appropriate media regimes in

the Middle East.11

Schramm’s original description of the Soviet communist model (in Seibert et. al.,

1956) also remains quite relevant, given that much of the literature on media transitions

10 In November 1989, soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall, UNESCO adopted a new communications strategy designed to reinforce the principles of freedom of expression and press. They subsequently organized regional conferences on “Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media” in Windhoek, Namibia in 1991; Almaty, Kazakstan in 1992; Santiago, Chile in 1994; and Sana’a, Yemen in 1996. This was replicated in Afghanistan in 2002. 28 examines the new nations created upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union. For example

in Ellen Mickiewicz’s (1998) study of the role of journalists in democratic transitions in

Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, she describes the ways in which the

Communist Party exerted (imperfect) control over the media by issuing press directives, appointing local press officials, and monopolizing printing and distribution. 12 She then

examines the ways that media systems attempted to reform under democratization. Her

baseline analysis echoes Schramm’s description of the Soviet communist media model.

Similarly, Peter Gross (2002) begins by describing the Soviet-style system of control and

Communist “political culture” that determined the form and function of media systems in

Eastern Europe. In their analysis of media transitions in Bosnia, Taylor and Kent (2000)

also begin by describing how Yugoslavia’s media system was modeled on the Soviet

system. The general outlines of Soviet-era media are not questioned, and neither is the

assumption that these are clearly antithetical to democratic governance.

Media transitions scholars generally “know” how authoritarian, pre-transition

media systems worked, and mostly agree on how to transform them into media systems

that promote democracy. The first step is to de-couple media systems from the

government, since government control was the key problem. This can be accomplished

by promoting private media or ensuring the editorial independence of government media.

In either case, the key is to ensure the independence and objectivity of journalists. The

notion of journalistic objectivity, now closely associated with the freedom of the press

paradigm, did not arise in the US until the mid-nineteenth century. Until then, print

11 See www.unesco.org/webworld/com_media/development_rel_policies.htm for full texts.

29 outlets were closely associated with particular political parties. Siebert et. al. link the rise

of journalistic objectivity to the increasing importance of news agencies after 1848 that

distributed their stories to newspapers on both sides of the political divide. Soon it

became standard practice to require objectivity in news stories and confine overt opinions

to the editorial pages. This has now become the norm in libertarian or free press theory,

where maintaining journalistic objectivity is one way that the press can fulfill its primary

function of informing the citizenry.

The focus on “professionalism” within media transitions literature derives from

liberal ideas of journalistic objectivity. Gross (2002) argues that the most effective way

of ensuring that post-transition Eastern European media function to support democratic

governance is to train journalists to be objective. “What is most problematic about the

region’s news media,” he maintains, “is not the nature of their pluralism, diversity,

autonomy, ownership or infrastructure, but their lack of professionalism” (163).

Therefore, journalists must be trained in the proper techniques of objective newsgathering

and presentation. Lin Neumann echoes this view in a case study of media transition in

Cambodia (2000) where he argues that ten years after the 1991 Paris Peace Accords,

Cambodian media still suffer from an appalling lack of professionalism. Although the

author notes that there are continuing incidences of government interference, Neumann

argues that the main problem is the failure of the international community to support

journalism training in Cambodia.

12 She examines Russia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and the former East Germany. 30 Even media transitions practitioners who are skeptical that journalistic objectivity

is attainable still hold it up as an ideal. In Marston’s (2002) analysis of UN media

intervention prior to the first Cambodian elections, he consistently emphasizes the ways

in which journalistic objectivity is constructed. For example, he describes an elections

news magazine format: “..filmed in the style of Western news broadcasts, they

maintained a stance of presenting objective fact…” (188). Marston critiques the UN’s

vaunted “neutrality” in media, noting that “no cultural construction can be truly neutral

and it will always have moral and social costs, which are not neutral to those who

experience them” (195) but he maintains that the deployment of objectivity and neutrality

is a “necessary artifice” (196). Because the UN was tasked with setting media guidelines

and creating programming in preparation for national elections, the perception of

journalistic objectivity was vital to the success or failure of the UN’s media regime.

Again, the emphasis here is in disassociating media outlets from particular political

parties.

A certain amount of partisanship is allowable within the freedom of the press

paradigm if there are enough media outlets to fairly represent major viewpoints. The

diversity argument is implicit in the Siebert et. al. description of social responsibility theory, which arises as a result of concentration of media ownership. McQuail’s updated review of normative press theory makes this explicit by creating a new category called democratic-participant media theory which “has to do with the right to relevant information, the right to answer back, the right to use the means of communication for interaction in small-scale settings of community, interest group, sub-culture” (1987:122).

McQuail’s definition of democratic-participant media theory draws upon Habermas’ 31 notion of the public sphere (1991, 1962) as a mediated space free from both government

and market controls where “rational controversy” (238) allows for public discussion of

important policies. Habermas has been critiqued for universalizing the male, bourgeois

public sphere of the 19th century and ignoring key issues of access and equity (Fraser,

1992). However, if one includes minority groups and what Fraser calls “subaltern

counterpublics,” the notion of a public sphere provides media transitions scholars with a

way to conceptualize media as an instrument of civil society.

An expanded notion of the public sphere that includes previously marginalized

interest groups is particularly relevant in the analysis of media transitions in Africa and

the Balkans. While scholars of media transitions in the former Soviet Union tend to

divide political actors into government and opposition groups, ethnicity and religion are

the dividing lines in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Rwanda. In the former

Yugoslavia, Croats, Serbs and Muslims each had nationalist media outlets that tended to

be the most important source of news for their respective ethnic groups. In order to level

the playing field before elections, donors tried to create alternative, multiethnic media

outlets such as the Open Broadcast Network (Price, 2000; Thompson & Luce, 2002).

Since Albanians were largely excluded from national media under Milosevic, UNESCO

attempted to redress the ethnic imbalance at the national broadcaster in Kosovo by hiring

Albanians and Serbs (Mertus & Thompson, 2002; Sullivan, 2000). In Rwanda, both national and private broadcasting were implicated in the genocide that killed an estimated

75% of the country’s Tutsi population. The international community responded by jamming broadcast signals and then funding new media outlets that disavowed hate speech (Deguine, 2000; Des Forges, 2002). 32 In each of the cases above, media transitions practitioners are striving to include ethnic or religious groups that had previously been excluded from the larger public sphere. By providing rival ethnic groups with means of expressing themselves as well as the opportunity to hear opposing viewpoints, the hope is that feuding groups will be able to reach political understandings rather than resorting to violence to attain social and political goods. Creating a vibrant and inclusive public sphere is particularly important prior to elections, when citizens will be asked to make decisions about their leadership.

The hope is that alternative information sources will weaken ethnic autocracies and lead citizens to choose multi-ethnic democratic governance.

Although O’Donnell and Schmitter do not address media, the freedom of the press paradigm fits with the authors’ description of political transitions from authoritarianism. The breakdown of authoritarian rule can be understood as both a cause and effect of loosening government controls over media. Part of the negotiation between political interest groups may include allowing them into the public sphere, which then results in a flowering of civil society. An active public sphere, where all citizens have a means of voicing their opinions as well as listening to others, is a necessary precursor to the founding election. In order for citizens to make reasoned decisions during the first elections, they must have all the relevant information concerning important public policy issues that can be provided by an independent and diverse media. As the transformation of political and media systems are inextricably linked in the freedom of the press paradigm, there is a political imperative to fund media transitions practitioners.

33 Capturing Media Transition in the Freedom of the Press Paradigm

In the tradition of comparative politics and comparative media studies, the case study is the most common method for scholarly research in media transitions. Case studies allow scholars to investigate the specific circumstances, processes and outcomes of media transitions in a nation and then create a generalizable model. In order to generalize, scholars must ensure that the cases are comparable and can be logically grouped. For example, some scholars argue (Gross, 2002) that Latin American transitions cannot be used as a model for Eastern European transitions because the media market in Europe is saturated, resulting in very different audience expectations and political results. Others (Mickiewicz, 1998; Taylor & Kent, 2000) focus on the nature of the political system that preceded the media transition, arguing that a more nuanced understanding of the nature of the pre-transition regime’s relationship to media will help transitions practitioners plan interventions and predict outcomes.

While case studies are the norm in scholarly circles, policymakers often demand more easily quantifiable means of measuring freedom of the press. One of the most commonly used free press indexes is measured annually by the NGO Freedom House.

Established in 1941, Freedom House published the first Freedom of the Press Survey in

1980 in reaction to the New World Information and Communication debates (Sussman,

2003). The organization began collecting and publishing accounts of journalist harassment and government censorship in order to prove that certain governments were using cultural imperialism arguments as a cover for repressing media. In order to make comparisons and track trends, Freedom House also created the media freedom index.

34 Freedom House rates each nation on the basis of the legal protections afforded media, as

well as the political and economic pressures brought to bear on media. Political influence

is most heavily weighted; it is worth 40 points while legal environment and economic pressures are valued at 30 points each. A nation that scores from zero to thirty is

considered free; thirty one to sixty is partly free; sixty one to one hundred is not free.13

The annual survey compares nations to each other and across time.14 Although there has

been some criticism that the index is subjective and cannot accurately reflect subtle

differences (Islam, 2002), the Freedom House index is widely used.

The relationship between “free” media and good governance has been

institutionalized within the foreign aid community in several indices of good governance.

For example, the World Bank has created a set of five aggregate indicators for good

governance. The indicator for “voice and accountability” includes a variable for press

freedom (as well as measures of other civil liberties) that uses a combination of a press

freedom indexes created by Freedom House and the advocacy NGO Reporters without

Borders as data sources (Kaufmann, Kraay, & Mastruzzi, 2003). In turn, USAID’s new

Millenium Challenge Account, for which eligible nations must meet minimum good

governance standards, uses the World Bank aggregate indicator for voice and

accountability.15

Transitions policymakers tend to focus on media ownership as one of the key

measures of free press. This tendency was reinforced by the World Bank’s 2002 World

13 Based on 2003 methodology. See Freedom House website for changes in index methodology over time. 14 Since 1980, Afghanistan has always been rated “not free.” From 1997 to 1999, at the height of the Taliban regime, Afghanistan was rated 100, and was described as the most repressive media system in the world. The nation’s post-transition score has improved, dropping to 74 in 2002 and 72 in 2003.

35 Development Report focusing on the institutions necessary to build markets. The report devoted an entire chapter to media development where it is argued that there is a correlation between “open” media and economic growth (Islam, 2002). The report defines open media as “independent, accountable, and able to provide relevant information and reflect diverse social views” (182). Higher levels of state media ownership correlated negatively with government effectiveness and quality of regulation, even accounting for differences in income and general state ownership in the economy.

“Generally speaking,” the report argues, “this translates into more corruption, inferior economic governance, less-developed financial markets, fewer political rights for citizens, and poorer social outcomes in education and health” (184). The report notes that in transition countries privatizing media has led to increased coverage of economic and financial news, a necessity in a thriving economy.

Another common quantitative indicator of press freedom is the number of media outlets that exist in a nation. The assumption is that more outlets will contribute to a more diverse marketplace of ideas. This allows media transitions practitioners to advocate for an unlimited number of new media outlets regardless of the size of the media market. Although not all media outlets will be sustainable in the long run, free press advocates may argue, they are still useful in the short-term transition environment because they contribute to a vibrant public sphere in the vital pre-election phase. In practice, this emphasis on increasing the number of outlets implies starting new media, either commercial or NGO-run, that compete with state or public media. This point leads

15 See http://www.mca.gov/countries/selection/methodology_report.pdf. 36 to conflict between free press transition advocates and more traditional media development programs that have traditionally worked with state media.

Audience numbers, expressed as readership, viewership or listenership, are another important quantitative indicator in the freedom of the press paradigm. The goal for elections is for as many citizens as possible to participate. Therefore, the more citizens who have access to mass media outlets and the larger the audiences of these outlets, the more effective policymakers expect mass media to be in creating a vibrant public sphere. The desired public is a mass audience. Audiences, in this paradigm, matter most in the aggregate. That is, regardless of their individual characteristics, policymakers demand proof, in the form of quantitative audience analyses, of substantial numbers of audience members for one or a combination of media outlets. The ideal is to reach the entire nation with one or several outlets, thereby creating a national public sphere.

New Propaganda Models and Developmental Journalism Critiques

The most common scholarly critique of the freedom of the press paradigm is that it over-emphasizes the potentially nefarious influence of government over media and all but ignores the negative effects of commercial constraints. One of the most well-known critiques of the free press paradigm is Herman and Chomsky’s 1988 Manufacturing

Consent, in which they present the thesis that “the media serve, and propagandize on behalf of, the powerful societal interests that control and finance them” (2002:xi). The authors analyze news coverage in several test cases to argue that there are five major

“filters” that determine what news is presented and how. They include media ownership,

37 advertising, using so-called expert sources, promoting popular critique of media content

or ‘flak,’ and the discourse of anti-communism (Herman & Chomsky, 1988, 2002).

Herman and Chomsky borrow the title of their book from Walter Lippmann,

whose 1922 work Public Opinion was a scathing critique of the press and their readers.

Lippmann argued that free press theorists were wrong. Not only did the press present

limited and often ill-considered political views, but readers were highly unreasonable and

betrayed a general unwillingness to hear “facts which would seem to threaten the

established routine of men” (30). Journalists were not necessary as a “fourth estate” in

democratic systems. “My conclusion,” he stated, “is that public opinions must be

organized for the press if they are to be sound, not by the press as is the case today” (32).

Similarly, Herman and Chomsky argue that the press today are so constrained by the five

“news filters” that they cannot be considered independent or objective. Worse still, they

actively work to maintain the status quo and promote the economic interests of the elite.

In a twist on the press freedom paradigm’s concern with government censorship, the

authors call this undue economic influence a “new propaganda model.”

The influence of media economics propaganda models is evident in a general

skepticism within some media transitions literature toward the democratic benefits of

private, commercial media. In many nations, the elite business cadre is likely to overlap

with the political elite. Neumann notes that “most newspapers are dependent on their

existence on a web of patronage that has inextricably enmeshed political interests with the Cambodian media” (2000:20). Russia is often cited as an example of a situation in which a tight oligarchy controls both economics and politics (Mickiewicz, 1998). Given the dependence of private media on advertising income, a lack of overt government 38 control does not necessarily lead to an independent media sector. Taylor and Kent argue

that commercial media “carry the same baggage” as their state-run counterparts

(2000:362). Equating “commercial” with “independent” media obfuscates the ways in which funders and advertisers determine content. They suggest that this slippage is more common among media transitions practitioners than audiences themselves. In a 1998 study of Bosnian media, the authors found that private media were not perceived by the public to be more credible than government media. Bosnia is “an environment where all ideas are equally suspect” (376) and the assumptions of the free press paradigm lack popular currency.

New propaganda critiques make simple determinations of ownership and counting incidences of government censorship insufficient measures of press freedom. Ellen

Mickiewicz (1998) proposes a media transitions model that captures the influence of economics on media content. She identifies three key elements that determine the outcome of media transitions: diffusion of demand (that is, how concentrated are the demands for authority over the press), source of funding, and level of funding. The most free press system is likely to result from high demand diffusion, varied sources of funding, and high levels of funding. Mickiewicz’ formulation removes the bias toward private enterprise that exists in the freedom of the press paradigm. However, despite criticisms that free press advocates underestimate the influence of economic interests, new propaganda models do not fundamentally challenge the precept that an ideal democratic media system should be independent and objective.

The view that a socially conscious and actively partisan press is desirable in a democracy is called the developmental, press responsibility or public journalism model. 39 McQuail (1987) traces the rise of this model in the US context to criticisms of journalistic sensationalism and declining standards. Schudson (1998) argues that a public journalism model, where active, investigative journalists provide information they think the public needs, is necessary for a robust public sphere. Journalists should “re-imagine their work not as informing the public but as opening up political discussion in society” (138).

Schudson does not see journalists as experts, but as community advocates. Their primary role is to bring policymakers’ attention to key issues of importance to the polity. “The reporter in the public journalism mode is then not an expert on the police or crime but on what each constituency in the community with a stake in the issue thinks about it” (134).

In the international context, this model has been ascribed largely to scholars and policymakers from developing nations (Aggarwala, 1977 in Asante, 1997; McQuail,

1987; Shah, 1996) who see media as institutions closely implicated in state modernization, reform movements, and national development. Journalists’ privileged position as interlocutors between the state and the public creates a civic responsibility for them to work in the best interests of the nation. Journalists, some argue, should take a lesson from new social movements and act as “participants in a process of progressive change” (Shah, 1996:144). Although the notion of developmental journalism has been co-opted by repressive regimes to justify state media monopolies, true developmental journalism should be independent of government. The initial justification for developmental journalism was to provide information to communities concerning development projects and act as community advocates. Shah sees developmental journalism as closely aligned with McQuail’s democratic-participant media model. The main difference, he argues, is that developmental journalism dispenses with neutrality 40 and objectivity. It not a simple matter of changing information sources from government policymakers to community leaders. Rather, developmental journalists should use their expertise to craft the news in ways that will mobilize action.

Within the media transitions literature, this viewpoint is rarely represented as positive. For example, Krug and Price (Krug & Price, 2002) critique the UN-imposed media intervention module developed for Kosovo and adapted for Bosnia-Herzegovina for its increasing emphasis on journalistic responsibility. The UN began with injunctions against hate speech and progressed to promoting an active journalistic responsibility to ensure public safety. The UN claimed that journalists had a responsibility “not to infringe the physical rights of individuals or to increase social tension” (155). Where journalists disregarded public safety, the UN could “discipline” media outlets. Here journalistic responsibility is imposed by an exogenous force standing in for the government. They use the same argument that governments of developing nations used in the 1970s, that free press is inappropriate in burgeoning democracies with fragile social systems.

Mickiewicz (1998) is somewhat more positive when she chronicles the impact of activist journalists on political transitions in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

During the transitions years, when journalists had new freedoms and plenty of funding either from old state structures or donor nations, they were consciously involved in setting the political agenda. Media penetration was high and journalists could connect emotionally with audiences. As a result, some became prominent political actors in their own right. The Western model of journalistic objectivity, she argues, privileges government sourcing and was distrusted by publics accustomed to state-run news 41 agencies. Audiences were much more likely to trust journalists who proclaimed their

affiliation with reform movements. But Mickiewicz is ambivalent about the ultimate

legitimacy of developmental journalism. While it may be appropriate during the

transition time, developmental journalism cannot exist without high levels of funding and

demand diffusion—conditions which are unlikely to exist post-transition. She also notes

that elections tend to decrease demand diffusion, that is, journalists may be encouraged to

support particular candidates. For Mickiewicz, this is evidence of developmental

journalism gone too far.

Researching Media Transitions in Developmental Journalism Approaches

New propaganda and developmental journalism critiques of press freedom place a

renewed emphasis on researching media content, as opposed to indices of press

repression or numbers of media outlets. In the context of media transitions, content

analyses are most likely to take place during elections. Content analyses are relatively

complex and expensive undertakings. They often require time-consuming translations of

news reports and/or qualified teams of national researchers able to judge how particular news items should be categorized. Since elections are perceived as the culmination of many transition assistance programs, donors are more likely to fund content analyses

linked to national elections. Content analyses that compare news stories across different

outlets, especially those comparing state-owned and private outlets, are an important

means of measuring the relative independence of various media outlets.

Developmental journalism is also concerned with constructing and defining

specific audiences. Whereas the dominant freedom of the press paradigm focuses on

42 creating a mass national audience, developmental journalism is also interested in reaching niche audiences with targeted messages. Developmental journalists, with their activist

goals, are more likely to have a specific message to impart to a defined audience group

whose ideas or actions they wish to influence. For example, if the intent is encourage

women to come to the polls, media transitions practitioners working within the

developmental paradigm might seek proof, in the form of female listenership figures as

well as surveys among the targeted population of women that this audience has, in fact,

been influenced by their exposure to media messages advocating female suffrage

(IMPACS, 2002).

Developmental journalism, with its grander claims of social transformation,

presents a challenge for media transitions scholars attempting to measure the effects of

media assistance for democratic transitions policymakers. Some scholars have proposed

social mapping as a first step to capturing the total effect of a series of multi-donor

projects in a particular nation (Price, Noll, & Luce, 2002). Mapping the organizational

structure of media assistance, as well as the range of projects and goals, they argue,

would allow policymakers to gauge how media should be used in different phases in

political transition. However, Noah Miller’s (2003) attempt to map Afghan media

transition demonstrates the near impossibility of mapping all the various media-related

projects underway, much less drawing conclusions about their long-term social effects.

First, it is very difficult to capture the entire universe of projects. Miller uses the Afghan

Donor Assistance Database as his main source of information concerning media projects.

However, the database is woefully incomplete; it is compiled using donor self-reporting

and may not reflect NGO-run projects with multiple sources of funding. It is also 43 constantly changing as new projects are funded or on-going projects change their

implementation plans and expand into new areas. Many projects, for example in health

and education, have embedded media components that are not separately categorized as

“media” projects. Miller’s study is highly descriptive. He is unable to offer evidence

concerning the effects of media assistance in social transformation because he is

attempting to capture a system in flux. He concludes that the only way to know whether media assistance works is to see whether Afghans themselves have been empowered to promote social change via the media. He implies that this is a project for the far future.

Once the international assistance has come to an end, the analyst will return to see what

remains of the structure put in place earlier.

Miller’s analysis would have benefited from an understanding of the literature on

development communications. Like media transitions, development communications

theory addresses the issues of how to conceptualize the role of media in societal change,

how media practitioners should develop and implement projects, and how to measure the

effectiveness of communications for development. Media transitions and development

communications practitioners share many of the same underlying assumptions. That is,

that there are nations or populations “to be developed” and that a cadre of professionals

with a set of proven global models can and must assist (Escobar, 1995). The urgency of

media development in a transition context is to create a civil society that can function

within the international system. However, as the World Bank report indicates, media

transitions scholars also expect larger transformations of the economic sphere (Islam,

2002). This concern echoes the modernization and poverty alleviation goals of many development efforts. Notions of civil society that are mobilized in media transitions 44 literature closely parallel participatory development concerns with issues of power and

voice, as well as calls for more activist development research drawn from social

movements theory.

However, within mainstream media transitions literature “development” is

discredited as antithetical to the objective journalism seen as necessary for democracy

(Gross, 2002). As a result, little work has been done in the field of media transitions to

explore the relationship among different actors within the media transitions sphere, such

as international media NGOs and local media outlets, or the processes of mediating social

and political change. Instead, most studies focus on how to obtain media independence.

Although transitions media literature does not necessarily acknowledge development communications literature, practitioners in each of the fields overlap. Many of the institutional actors in media transitions, such as the United Nations, the World Bank, or the US Agency for International Development, have been supporting development communications long before they began divisions dedicated to “transitions” media work.

In some cases, the media professionals involved in media transitions are the same people who work in development communications. In practice, the line between the two fields is blurred. By turning to development communications theory, media transitions may be able to reappropriate the term “development” and reach a better understanding of how to study media during times of concentrated political and social change.

45 MINING DEVELOPMENT COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE STUDY OF MEDIA TRANSITIONS

Both media transitions and development communications were born at moments of global crisis and significant changes in the world political balance of power. The history of development communications as a field is often traced to post-World War II reconstruction efforts and the Marshall Plan (Escobar, 1995; Melkote & Steeves, 2001).

The end of World War II, like the end of the Cold War, radically changed the global political economy. The prevailing orthodoxy of the time was that poverty would cause, or at least exacerbate, political instability. In order to ensure world peace it was necessary for wealthy nations to assist in the economic development of poorer nations.

Economic advancement would lead to democracy. President Bush’s invocation of a

Marshall Plan for Afghanistan demonstrates the persistence of concepts and assumptions concerning development that were born in 1940s and 50s. These ideas still circulate and shape how policymakers conceptualize media development aid.

For the researcher, the history of “development” as a concept and a practical field illuminates how policymakers and development workers view their own role in the larger process of development. But it also raises important questions about how development communications theory can be relevant in today’s media transitions. The researcher’s tools for understanding the role of media in Afghan nation-building in 2002 are much different from the tools available to scholars looking at Japanese and European reconstruction in 1945. Scholars have questioned the tendency to define development as economic advancement and to conceive of communication as message-oriented techniques of persuasion (Freire, 1970, 1983; Melkote & Steeves, 2001; Steeves, 2002).

46 As strong media effect theories lose currency, development communications is focusing

on communications as a process, issues of structure and agency, and concerns with

representation and media texts (Wilkins, 2000). The field has also begun to integrate concepts from globalization theory that offer nuanced theorizations of how to understand

the “global” and the “local,” and how to capture their interaction (Escobar, 2000). The

trajectory of development communications is particularly relevant for media transitions scholars, who still subscribe to fairly modernist assumptions that there is a defined model

“free press” within Western democracies that can and must be “transferred” to local

populations.

The Modernization Paradigm

The notion of modernization structures much of the discourse and practice of

development communications. Modernization theorists see primarily positive changes

associated with the spread of capitalism, and they see mass media as an engine for that

change. Daniel Lerner’s 1958 The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the

Middle East set out a classic paradigm for development communications where mass

media serve to introduce new ideas to traditional societies, and promote rapid, positive

social change. For Lerner, modernization is a linear, upward progression. Although this

model of modernization originates in the West, it can and should be applied all over the

world. The “Western model of modernization” argued Lerner, “exhibits certain

components and sequences whose relevance is global. Everywhere, for example,

increasing urbanization has tended to increase literacy; rising literacy has tended to

increase media exposure; increasing media exposure has “gone with” wider economic

47 participation (per capita income) and political participation (voting)” (46). As members of agrarian societies industrialize, they become literate media consumers who participate in a secular civil society.

Mass media, and by this modernization theorists refer to press and broadcasting, are both a cause and effect of modernization. Creating a nationwide media system requires certain signifiers of modernity such as printing and broadcast technology, a professionalized class of broadcasters, and a marketplace attractive to advertisers (Katz &

Wedell, 1977). Lerner emphasizes how mass media introduce alternative ways of thinking and living that will aid “empathetic” individuals in changing from hide-bound traditionalists to entrepreneurial moderns. For Lerner, modern messages are naturally embedded in any media content from news programming which psychically links villagers to a wider nation and world to entertainment programs that reflect an urban, cosmopolitan worldview.

Mass media can also be conscious promoters of modern ways. Development communications scholars tend to focus on programming intended to spread the benefits of modernity, for example increased literacy, better healthcare or increased agricultural output. Many development projects include mass media components intended to

“multiply the effects” of other interventions. The idea is that mass media can speed up a natural transformation from a traditional to a modern society either through programming intended to effect a desirable social change, or simply by introducing formerly insular agrarian communities to modern, urban life (Schramm, 1963). Media are part of the larger state project of modernization.

48 The focus on media messages for social change has led development

communications practitioners to develop and expand upon persuasive communications

techniques. For example, Singhal and Rogers (1999) argue that an effective way of

conveying development messages is to combine education with entertainment. They

examine the use of television and radio soap operas in promoting changes in attitudes

toward an issue or problem, knowledge about how to solve the problem, and finally,

behavior change. Drawing upon Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1986), they argue that audiences will model their actions upon those of the fictional characters with whom they identify. For Singhal and Rogers, the key issue is how to overcome

“resistance” to the media message or audience misunderstanding of the message developed by the content experts. In the modernization paradigm, the audiences “to be developed” are often rural audiences, who must be taught the correct, modern way of growing crops, preparing food or avoiding illness. If enough individuals adopt modern attitudes and behaviors, then the state progresses on the path to modernity and development.

The actions of the state are closely examined to determine how the state can promote modernization. Katz and Wedell (1977) identify three broadcasting models that they argue have been applied globally with varying degrees of success. In the U.S. model, the state primarily acts as regulator for commercial interests. The state maintains a virtual monopoly on broadcasting in the interest of promoting a unified citizenry in the

French model. In the British model, there is a powerful state broadcaster editorially independent from the state and regulated by an independent board of directors. Not only

49 is each model identified with a particular state, but the models themselves focus on the

appropriate role of the state in broadcasting.

The 1960s and 70s were a time of rapid social transformation, with former

colonies gaining independence. These “new” nations had to make decisions about the purpose and direction of broadcasting. They were dealing with the remnants of

broadcasting systems left behind by former occupiers, as well as offers of development

assistance from other countries. As Katz and Wedell point out, accepting foreign

assistance inevitably implies accepting a whole system of broadcasting from technology

to regulatory bodies and professional standards. The focus of media researchers

interested in development was thus to determine which model, or mix of models, was

most appropriate for a particular state and how to apply the model.

The mass media were closely implicated in the process of modern nation-

building. In the post-colonial period, essentialist understandings of nationhood had been

largely replaced by understandings of nationality as socially constructed (Eley & Suny,

1996). In Benedict Anderson’s influential Imagined Communities (1991), he proposes

that nations, rather than being natural and ahistorical groupings of members inhabiting a

bounded physical space, are a particular feature of modern times facilitated by

communications technology. Hobsbawm’s (1983) notion of “invented traditions” as a

conscious political and cultural project further emphasizes the importance of mass media

in creating and maintaining shared symbols, myths and national histories. Mass media

outlets, particularly press and broadcasting, can reach national audiences and allow them

to simultaneously experience key national events together. Nationality, in the

50 modernization paradigm, is therefore both a set of shared symbols (although these are arbitrary and contested) and a ritual practice enabled by communications technology.

Anderson addresses the use of newspapers in constructing a shared national identity and experience. However, within the development literature, the notion of nation-building via media is more often applied to broadcasting since radio, and to a lesser extent, television, are mass media with higher penetration and larger audiences than print outlets in many nations. Given that the modernization paradigm emphasizes reaching rural audiences, where literacy levels are often low and electricity is non- existent or sporadic, the uses of radio broadcasting for development are often highlighted

(Singhal & Rogers, 1999).

Measuring Effectiveness in the Modernization Paradigm

Researchers working within the modernization paradigm are concerned both with the structure and content of mass media outlets. How many media outlets exist? How far do they reach? What kind of content is printed or broadcast, and does it promote national goals? These are the key questions and axis for comparison by which researchers can quantify a nation’s level of modernization. For example, Katz and Wedell (1977) offer tables that break down the globe by region and nation using common media indicators.

Information on comparative media systems is also available through such sources as the

United Nations, where UNESCO maintains annual records of media outlets, or the CIA factbook.16 Media researchers also periodically produce regional media survey

16 See www.unesco.org and www.cia.gov. 51 handbooks describing a nation’s media system in more detail (Mukherjee, 1990; Razi,

1994; Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978).

Analyzing the effectiveness of media in meeting specific development goals is

another important area of research for development communication scholars. The

assumption of development as a practice is that change can be controlled and improved.

Funding agencies require evidence of positive effects and evaluation components are

always integrated into communications development projects, creating a large data set of

administrative research such as USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse or

EvalWeb. Indicators for individual change are often measured by attitudinal and behavior changes related to specific messages in the programming. For example, a

family planning radio program created to promote increased use of condoms might

measure the number of listeners who identify condoms as a viable family planning

method. In the tradition of Lerner, researchers may also survey media users for general

attitudes associated with modernity.

Indicators for societal change include the number and reach of media outlets;

relative percentages of foreign versus nationally produced programming; and relative

percentages of news, entertainment and educational programming (Katz & Wedell,

1977). Researchers are concerned with the reach of media outlets because a mass

audience is needed in order to maximize the positive effects of development projects.

Media outlets must also reach rural audiences because modernization projects target

lower income, agrarian communities. Broad categories of programming are taken as

evidence of state interest in development. Therefore news and current affairs, or

programming with overt development goals is often more valued than programming 52 categorized as entertainment. National production is highlighted because the ability to

produce programming is evidence of a functional, modern media system. In the

modernization paradigm, a developed nation is thus one that produces its own

programming and distributes it nationwide. If the programming, either intentionally or unintentionally, promotes modern attitudes and behaviors then media will aid the state in

the project of modernization.

Even as scholars explicated media theories linking mass media messages and

national development goals, they pointed out that media never seemed to effect the kinds of positive social changes envisioned by development communications practitioners.

Whiting and Mustamandy lamented that in Afghanistan, “as in so many other countries, the visionary potential of broadcasting for uniting and educating people seems far from fulfillment” (1978:252). The authors blamed institutionalized state censorship and lack

of funding for state broadcasting. In other words, if the state would invest the proper

resources and correctly mobilize the media rather than using state broadcasting as a

means of political propaganda, then its developmental potential might be realized.

Modernization theorists found ways to dismiss the lack of media effects evidence

by pointing to the improper application of the theory or to confounding factors that work

against the naturally modernizing effects of media. For example, Lerner admitted that

both modern media and Islamist sentiments (that clearly do not fit within Lerner’s

definition of the modern secular state) were on the rise in some countries. But he claimed

that this “regressive” stance was a temporary anomaly. Katz and Wedell (1977) were

less optimistic. They suggested that perhaps mass media are not simply vehicles for

specific messages, but work in a more integrated way with other societal structures. 53 Empirical evidence seemed to indicate that development communications messages

simply weren’t as powerful as modernization theorists had expected.

Participatory Communication

The lack of clear effects evidence and changing conceptualizations of development led some scholars to question message-oriented understandings of communication and definitions of development as state-promoted economic advancement through mass media outlets. This coincided with overall changes in mass communications studies, where theorists were beginning to question the so-called “magic bullet” notions of strong media effects (McQuail, 1987). At the same time, world systems and dependency theory (Wallerstein, 1990) pointed out that within the

“community of nations” there were those nations that consistently held the upper hand.

These “core” nations actively worked to maintain “peripheral” nations in subordinant

positions as sources of cheap labor and raw materials. Furthermore, mass media were

implicated in this project. The exchange of cultural products among nations was an

extension of postcolonial imperialism, a way of imposing the values and commercialism

of the Western world, especially the US, on others (Schiller, 1976; Schiller, 1991). For

these scholars, imperialism was masquerading as modernization.

Scholars in development communication argue that the project of state

modernization benefits some groups to the exclusion of others (Rogers, 1976). Instead of

solving the problem of global poverty, modernization development projects can reinforce

class difference and maintain inequities in the global economic system. Modernization

should not be the ultimate goal of development. Rather, development should be

54 reconceptualized as a process of personal and social transformation (Freire, 1970, 1983).

Communication is a two-way process integrated in other societal structures. The focus is

thus not on the effect of messages carried by mass media, but on the process of creating

the messages themselves. Development communications should enable groups to

express their own views, communicate with each other, and take actions to improve their

lives (Melkote & Steeves, 2001). Appropriate development communications can take

place very effectively, they argue, with “small media” such as broadcast outlets with

limited range, pamphlets and posters, cassette tapes, or theatrical performances

(Downing, 2001; Rodriguez, 2000).

Many of the critiques of the modernization paradigm are articulated in Everett

Roger’s seminal article “Communication and Development: The Passing of the Dominant

Paradigm” (1976). Not all nations, Rogers argues, develop according to Western norms.

Scholars of modernization theory have been guilty of ethnocentric and narrow visions

that allow them to place the blame for underdevelopment squarely on the shoulders of the

underdeveloped countries. Drawing on dependency theory, Rogers points out that this

allows developed countries to ignore external factors, such as international trade

imbalances and economic strategies that reify existing imperialist power structures. For

Rogers, there is no inevitable causal link between communications technologies and

social change. In fact, the assumption that actors are rational agents of change is rooted

in Western economic theory. The very means by which development is measured by

gross national product and other economic indicators reflects a bias of Western liberal economists. Rogers points out that focusing on exclusively on economic indicators ignores the unintended negative effects of development projects carried out under the 55 banner of modernization. For example, the Green Revolution may indeed have resulted in higher agricultural yields, but it also caused land displacement for small farmers, increased urban migration, and widened the gap between the rich and the poor.

Rogers argues that communications researchers need to modify their practices to focus more closely on media content over technological diffusion, the role of interpersonal communication, and the social-structural changes needed in development.

Development communications practitioners should be more aware of specific paths to

development and focus on “self-development” at the community level, rather than

proscriptive national plans. For Rogers, the best use of media is not as a conduit for

information, which presumes strong media effects, but rather as stimulant for local

decision-making “providing technical information…in response to local requests” and

“circulating information about the self-development accomplishments of local groups so

that other such groups may profit from others’ experiences and perhaps be challenged to

achieve a similar performance” (233). Rogers’ emphasis on local decision-making points

to a significant change in the conceptualization of development as a grassroots process

rather than a state project.

Perhaps the most influential theorist in reframing the debate concerning

development communication toward grassroots approaches is Paulo Freire. In Pedagogy

of the Oppressed (1983), Freire reoriented the task of development toward a humanistic

goal of liberation rather than the narrow focus of economic gain. In this search for

liberation, a process that will free both the oppressed and the oppressor, the role of the

development worker is no longer as a source of authority and information. Instead of

providing answers for others, development workers should participate in a “dialectical 56 relationship” where communication leads to action. Communication is not simply a

medium for modern ideas; it is a process by which people develop themselves. The end

point of communication for Freire is enlightenment, self actualization, and recognition of

one’s own position as oppressed or oppressor. Scholars (Huesca, 2002; Waters, 2000) have taken Freire’s analysis of the dimensions of power in development communications

to call for practitioners to acknowledge their own subjectivity, focus on how the dialogue

advocated by Freire should be conducted, and examine understandings of what qualifies

as legitimate social change.

Feminist critiques have also helped shift the field of development

communications toward holistic, even spiritual, definitions of development. Ester

Boserup’s 1970 study of women’s contribution to agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa is

often credited as a key work that spurred further study of women in development

(Melkote & Steeves, 2001). Boserup found that development projects conceptualized within the framework of economic theory ignored the contributions of women’s productive work, which took place outside formal economic structures. Echoing Rogers’ analysis of unintended side effects of the Green Revolution, Boserup argued that

agricultural modernization projects often contributed to actually worsening women’s

conditions in life. In order to capture and promote positive social change for women,

development scholars would have to examine areas that had previously been ignored,

such as the domestic sphere or religious life, in which women tend to be active.

For feminist theorists, one of the most important roles for media is to promote and

enlarge communicative networks that allow women to speak to each other, and link them

to the larger public sphere (Steeves, 2000). This is particularly true of later feminists like 57 Steeves who argue for a broader “gender and development” approach to development that

“rightly argues that the central consideration in development is not necessarily women, but gender, that is, a socially constructed division that needs to be understood in each context” (10). Cultural background, economic class and educational levels are key markers of difference, and feminists from one social context cannot presume to speak for all women. Steeves argues that feminist communications scholars from around the world who can analyze lived experiences may be the best source of ideas for how to integrate gender into development. Thus, it is vital to set up networks that enable two-way

communication.

For development workers, the paradigm shift away from modernization has

ushered in the era of participatory development techniques. The goals and strategies for

positive social change are to be derived in part from the people who would be objects of

social change in the modernization paradigm. Acknowledging and enabling the

subjectivity of others requires development workers to focus on the process of

communication as a precursor to and component of self-motivated change. In

participatory approaches, there is an increased emphasis on interpersonal communication

since development workers must have methods of getting groups to articulate their needs

in ways that are intelligible within development discourse. Even in discussions

surrounding uses of media, face-to-face communications are privileged. It is assumed

that the “smaller” the media, the more it can mimic face-to-face interaction and usefully

contribute to dialogue and action.

The shift toward participatory communication can be seen in a 2004 update of

Singhal and Rogers’ original work on entertainment-education techniques. It includes a 58 chapter by Singhal on the use of participatory theater for social change. Singhal begins by explaining how Augusto Boal founded the Theater of the Oppressed in order to implement Freire’s concept of empowerment. The chapter details the participatory theater techniques used by Boal and presents several examples of theater for social change in different countries. Singhal notes that the “one-way nature of mass media interventions” and the desire to reach large audiences makes it difficult for radio and television broadcasters to implement participatory techniques, but he implores them to try

(2004:397).

Melkote and Steeves (2001) offer guidelines for communications professionals to move from “development communications” professionals implementing national policies to “development support communications” facilitators promoting community empowerment. They argue that national and international “big media” such as television, radio and newspapers used by development communications often assumes a

“top-down, authoritarian” relationship between development workers and project beneficiaries, where the goals and strategies of development are introduced from the outside via the media. In contrast, the main purpose of development support communications should be to enable “horizontal knowledge-sharing between participants” so that they can better define and control their own development (349).

Melkote and Steeves argue that groups can participate more meaningfully in the creation of “small media” such as video or traditional media. Media production and consumption can become the means through which communities organize themselves for social action.

Scholars investigating uses of media for civil society (Downing, 2001; Rodríguez,

2000) are also interested in uses of “small media” because they perceive them to be more 59 legitimate and free of political constraints. Rodríguez uses the term “citizens’ media” to

capture the purpose, process and target audience of media in a participatory development

framework. She is searching for ways in which to “give voice” to marginalized

populations and promote their participation in peace-building efforts. In this model, the

act of speaking is more important than the diffusion of specific messages. Rodríguez

does not see mass media outlets as appropriate communicative spaces for citizens, as they

are often controlled by national elites. The legitimacy of citizen participation depends on access to “small media” where production and dissemination can be managed by groups outside the traditional power structure. Rather than focusing on how to integrate marginalized populations into the larger national project, Rodríguez understands the process of nation-building as a discursive exercise that takes place outside the center.

In the modernization paradigm, the state is usually a benign entity. In the participatory paradigm, there is an increased recognition of the ways in which the state, masquerading as a unified force for social good, benefits the elite few. This view of the state coincides with critical theorizations of nationality emphasizing the fragmented nature of the nation. “Whose imagined community?” asks Partha Chatterjee in the title of her 1993 book. Chatterjee’s work on Indian nationality deconstructs the ways in which gender, caste and class have been strategically mobilized in the construction of national identities. Rather than a unified national cultural sphere, Chatterjee sees many cultural expressions based on particular lived experiences, active in separate material and spiritual spheres, and predicated on the expression of difference. The focus on a national voice is displaced by a focus on multiple voices. The nation is perceived as an amalgam of interest groups vying for cultural and material resources. The role of media in nation- 60 building is to assist citizens in creating unique expressions of national identities and exercising their communicative rights. Communication itself becomes a political act.

Measuring Development in the Participatory Paradigm

As the field of development communications embraces process-driven models of communication, it has turned to ethnographic field methods to measure development.

Huesca (2000) advocates experiential and interview-based research methods, structuring questions but focusing on the interviewees’ perception of events and their lived experiences. He argues that an inductive approach allows for patterns to emerge in potentially unexpected ways. For example, his analysis of a Mexican factory worker movement shows how legal structure and gender norms interact and “become animated through human action” (84). Similarly, participatory development techniques stress the use of interviews and participant observation as a means of identifying development goals and indicators (Huesca, 2002).

The Participatory Action Research or PAR method recommends that development workers act as facilitators to collect and/or generate local knowledge about a particular problem, critically debate and evaluate the problem, and then propose solutions (Melkote

& Steeves, 2001). Participatory needs assessment research methods would be replicated in project evaluation, with participants being asked their perceptions of the value of the project. Development indicators should attempt to capture improvements in quality of life, including but not limited to economic factors. For example, a family planning project might measure the extent to which women can exercise their reproductive rights.

This could include how involved women are in policy-making concerning reproductive

61 health; the variety of family planning options available to women; as well as their ability to debate, chose and act upon their options (Greene, 2000). The focus on process has tended to make research more location and situation specific. Because development indicators are generated by participants, there is no guarantee that indicators will be comparable across populations. When national development, as defined by the government in power, is not the ultimate goal it is no longer necessary to rate a nation on a developmental scale. Thus the participatory development paradigm promotes a sub- national level of analysis.

The larger context of development communications is often captured, not through comparative national development indicators, but through discourse analysis. Discourse analysis argues that conceptual categories structure and limit development practices, and specific practices in turn work to maintain discourses of domination. As a critical tool, discourse analysis allows scholars (Escobar, 1995; Rodriguez, 2001; Said, 1979, 1981,

1997; Wilkins, 1999; Wilkins & Waters, 2000) to situate particular development activities within larger social, cultural and institutional practices and projects. One of the most well known discursive critiques is Edward Said’s 1979 Orientalism in which he proposes that the construction of “the Orient” as a coherent, knowable entity serves to justify and maintain structures of domination. Said specifically addresses the role of mainstream journalism in Covering Islam (1981, 1997). He argues that the news media are important interpretive systems through which images of Islam are filtered, and that they participate in political projects as “all discourse on Islam has an interest in some authority or power” (1997:vii).

62 In development studies, Escobar examines development as the discursive

manipulation of actual people into objects of study and improvement. He is concerned

with the historical roots of development not only as an instrument of foreign policy but as

a representational system. Escobar deconstructs how, after World War II, the language of

economics manipulated by a professionalized cadre of development economists sets the

parameters for the kinds of interaction that is possible between the subjects and objects of development. Similarly, he analyzes the how the discourse of hunger is operationalized in an integrated rural development program in Colombia so that the benefits continue to accrue to agricultural business interests rather than the peasant population. Wilkins

(1999) examines how the discourse of “gender and development,” with its integrated understanding of gender, clashes with the dominant modernization paradigm of development discourse. As a result, development projects involving women tend to focus on their roles as reproducers and consumers, a positioning that coincides with a larger privatization trend. Therefore, development practices are implicated in the maintenance of existing economic structures.

The strength of discourse analysis is that it addresses how structures of power are maintained through normalizing the language and procedures of development work and the “bureaucratization of social action” (Escobar, 1995). It also calls into question the idea that participatory development can escape the fundamental constraints of development discourse, as the very process of joint development may reproduce the same scientific discourse of development of projects constructed in the modernization paradigm. For example, Rodríguez’s (2001) study of a Colombian development project finds that local development workers, well versed in the practices of participatory 63 development techniques, still reconstruct existing gender biases. The involvement of so- called “local” development workers (actors whose viewpoints and cultural understandings would be privileged in participatory development approaches) does not result in a project that is free of gender bias. Instead, Latin American constructions of women as “sexualized Eves” merge with development discourses of women as objects rather than active subjects in development. There is no unmediated access to the needs and aspirations of a local population; rather local participants discursively construct themselves and others within known frameworks defined by class and gender.

A Critique of Binary Power Models

Scholars such as Escobar and Rodríguez illuminate a major critique of the participatory development model, as well as the modernization paradigm. In both theories, there is a tendency for scholars to make facile divisions between “global” and

“local” where power necessarily resides in the global, the source of funding and internationally recognized models for action, and not the “local.” This critique coincides with cultural studies concerns with media reception and the social uses of media, especially by marginalized groups. Rather than seeing a strict division between empowered groups and disempowered groups, these scholars argue that there is a more complex process of negotiation taking place. For example, Martín Barbero (1993) argues that modernity in Latin America cannot simply be understood as a process of imperial domination. Rather, he explores the notion of “mediation” as a means for people to reappropriate modernization for their own ends and reinforce unique popular cultures.

64 Escobar argues that scholars should employ a more nuanced understanding of power dynamics as fluid networks rather than binary oppositions between global/national and local, insiders and outsiders, and big versus small media. Notions of networked power are provocative models for researchers to use to interrogate the flows and uses of power in specific contexts (Escobar, 2000). Castells (1996; 1997; 1998, 2000) is perhaps best known for popularizing the idea of the “network society” whose characteristics can best be explained by the configuration of the Internet. Like the Internet, in today’s society power is de-centralized, flexible and dynamic. For example, Castells explores how “fringe” movements such as the Zapatista movement in Mexico have been able to mobilize public opinion through the Internet and build a global support base that allowed them to negotiate specific political concessions from the state. This example of social change highlights that the locus of power is not exclusively centered at the state level or at the global level. But neither can the Zapatista movement be understood as a

“grassroots” social movement, with its power derived from and exercised within a bounded local community. Instead, power flows among various local, national and global actors as they interact with each other.

Recent scholarly work on Internet communities (Downing, 1999; Mandaville,

2002) highlights the difficulties of defining “community” in a village model where group members are physically proximate and maintain close, long-term social ties. Downing outlines seven different kinds of communities: textured, attenuated, historically based, place-based, professional forum, communalist and imagined to show the variety of uses embodied in the metaphor of the community. He also explores different examples of online communities, from fan sites to political groups, to argue that Internet communities 65 have different meanings depending on how they are integrated into other social networks.

Downing points to Granovetter’s work on the importance of “weak ties” in social organization to argue that scholars should not ignore communities that are not long-term and highly textured, as in the “village” model. For development communication scholars, this means moving beyond “local” communities and donor agencies to examine mid-level media production organizations that may only have sporadic contact with development “beneficiaries.”

Both the modernization and participatory paradigms assume that media content will clearly reflect the ideological biases of media owners and producers. Large scale print and broadcasting, dependent on donor, state or commercial funding, will be constrained by the need to meet the goals and expectations of the funding agency. In contrast, community-based media will be free of such constraints and able to more accurately reflect the true needs and aspirations of the community. Yet neither of these models takes into account the multiple ways in which media content is determined by specific organizational structures, generic conventions, audience expectations, and specific conditions of production and consumption. Producer intent is not the only, nor the most important factor, in the production process. Power does not flow unproblematically from central producers to peripheral audiences. Rather than speaking of global and local, international and national, or big and small media, Escobar urges development communications scholars to reconceptualize “the politics of place as a social process” (2000:167). He cautions scholars not to seek universal models, devoid of specific place, or local models, where a bounded community exists in a vacuum. Rather,

66 Escobar wants to investigate the project of specific “practices of difference” within networked societies.

Robertson’s notion of “glocalization” (1995) offers a productive way to think about how local cultures are reconfigured for specific political purposes within global models. In this instance a “model” is not an ideal to be obtained but a normative concept that structures specific iterations and the construction of specific localities. For example,

“glocalization” can account for the way in which generic constraints structure a particular media product at the same time that production and consumption practices modify genre.

Rodríguez (2000) opens an interesting avenue of research in “citizens’ media” when she notes that the television program Bosnian Resolutions was an effective conflict resolution program because it did not follow the generic conventions of the two-sided talk show in which each side presents an extreme viewpoint on a particular subject. She does not pursue this line of inquiry. However, the specific production practices of the show deserve scholarly attention. In rejecting binary understandings of power dynamics, development communications has expanded the field of viable “development” actors to investigate and re-emphasized the importance of studying development processes over outcomes.

MERGING LITERATURES: AN APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF MEDIA TRANSITIONS

This study of media transition in Afghanistan is guided by both media transitions and development communications theory. Media transitions literature offers definitional boundaries that situate the study within the classic “transitions” period, beginning with the dissolution of an authoritarian regime and ending with the foundational election. It is

67 this time period in Afghanistan, from fall 2001 to 2004, that the study isolates. What

marks this time period as “transitional” is not only the theorization of this period as particularly chaotic and dynamic, but the fact that it is institutionally defined as transitional. The Bonn Agreement, the UN-brokered political agreement that was negotiated in December 2001, sets out the terms and conditions for a transitional government in Afghanistan. Once the Afghan government has been democratically elected, the Bonn Agreement will have been fulfilled and Afghanistan will no longer be considered a “transition” nation.17

The role of media in transitions is to support the political and social

transformation of a previously authoritarian state into a democratic one. Whereas

development projects create indicators to measure progress in areas such as agriculture,

health or education, media transitions projects set civil society indicators. The goal of media transitions interventions is to create and sustain a robust political discussion prior to the founding elections. This study examines the institutional structure, discourse, and practice of creating media systems and products for the purpose of democratic transition in Afghanistan. It follows a group of media producers as they create media products intended specifically to advance political goals at each of the main stages of transition set out by the Bonn Agreement: the Emergency Loya Jirga to choose a transitional administration, the Constitutional Loya Jirga to ratify a new constitution, and the first presidential election.

17 The transition period regulated by the Bonn Agreement will not end until parliamentary elections, scheduled for September 2005, are held. These were initially envisioned to be held concurrently with presidential elections in 2004, however, they were postponed. 68 This study differs from many other media transitions studies in that it examines the discursive construction and mobilization of “transition media” in Afghanistan and focuses on the institutional actors and processes of media transition. By treating democratic governance as a self-evident goal, media transitions literature ignores the ways in which the notion of “transition” is defined and mobilized for specific purposes by particular groups of people. This study borrows from development communications a concern with the discursive construction of media development. It examines how the nascent Afghan state, UN agencies, donor agencies and media NGOs participate in the discourse of media transition. While most media transitions literature dismisses the notion of activist media workers as antithetical to democracy, development communications sees activism as necessary for positive social change. The issue is no longer whether or not media workers should be “objective”—a standard that is not relevant to development communications—but how to conceptualize various actors’ roles in the media transitions process.

Building on recent work in development communication, this study does not conceptualize media transitions workers as “locals” and “internationals” but addresses the ways that key actors involved at all levels of policy and practice function as a media transitions network. To fruitfully analyze media transition in Afghanistan, one must take into account that making media is a complex process of adapting global models and mobilizing international resources. Although practitioners of media transitions and development communications are concerned with the effect of their interventions, this study will not determine whether or not particular Afghan media transition projects have

“succeeded” or not. Media effects arguments are a necessary component of the media 69 transitions process in that they justify funding. However, as a media scholar, I have no administrative objective. Rather, my broad goal is to illuminate the process of media transition as a function of international development. Using the specific case of

Afghanistan as a lens, I will examine how “media transition” was defined and maintained institutionally, how it was mobilized discursively, and how it was reconfigured in practice.

70 Chapter Two: Studying Media Transition in Afghanistan

Afghanistan presents a rich case study for scholarly investigation because the

nation has recently been the focus of international attention as a “test case” for transitions

policy and practice. US media coverage often groups Afghanistan and Iraq as the two main instances of recent US democratic nation-building, pointing out that the current US administration’s pre-September 11th distain of “nation-building” has been replaced by a

sense of mission to spread democracy worldwide (Peel, 2002; Washington, 2004).

Whereas US actions in Iraq are widely perceived as a unilateral action masquerading as

an international agenda, Afghanistan is often held up as a “truly” international project

("Failed states?", 2004). Whether or not these perceptions reflect reality, or whose reality

they reflect, Afghanistan is once again a key player and pawn in the global system.

A case study of Afghanistan offers an opportunity to explore media transition as a part of international development efforts while grounding the analysis in empirical data.

How is “media transition” a function of the international development system? Using

Afghanistan as a lens facilitates an examination of how development organizations such as the United Nations, bilateral aid agencies, and non-governmental agencies created the institutional structures that define and support the practice of media transitions. There is a bounded set of actors, events, and texts around which “media transition” was discursively formed, negotiated, and practiced. By examining the specific context of

Afghanistan, media transition can be analyzed as a set of institutions, a discourse, and a

practice.

71 This chapter begins with an examination of the strengths and weaknesses of the

case study approach, and a definition of the transitions time period covered in this study.

I also clarify my own position as a development communications practitioner and

participant in the international development system in Afghanistan during part of the

transitions period. I then explain how each of the three main content chapters addresses a

different analytical level of the construction of media transition in the context of

international development, via the institutional construction, discursive construction and

specific practices of one set of media transition products. In each section, I set out the

main intermediate question, the research methods used, and the data sources with their

relative merits and weaknesses. The chapter concludes with a statement of the key limitations of the study.

THE CASE STUDY APPROACH

The case study is a common approach to research in media transitions and

development communication scholarship. Most often, the case study is used to create a

model that can be generalized to other similar cases, or to examine how a particular case

fits an existing model. It is by studying the specific cases of political transition from

authoritarian rule that O’Donnell, Schmitter, and their fellow scholars (1986) developed

“transitions” theory through a comparison of the similarities among the cases. More

recently, Mickiewicz (1998) compared various cases of media transition in order to

construct a model for media transitions. In development communications, Lerner and

Schramm’s modernization thesis was advanced through a study of various nations in the

Middle East (Lerner, 1958, 1966).

72 The case study can also change the nature of the questions that researchers ask.

Boserup’s case study of sub-Saharan African nations (Melkote & Steeves, 2001)

questioned the prevailing ideas concerning women’s economic contributions to

development and spurred a new area of research. Escobar examined the case of an

integrated rural development project in Colombia to see how development discourse was

mobilized and used to maintain structures of inequality (1995). The case of the

Colombian project was the lens through which Escobar interrogated notions of development. Similarly, I am interested in using the case study to question the assumptions of the media transition paradigm.

The strength of the case study approach is that it allows the researcher a holistic,

empirically grounded view of a particular phenomenon. Patterns emerge by an inductive

process of detailed analysis rather than assigning categories a priori (Cresswell, 1994).

A focused and in-depth look at a particular case can reveal unexpected factors and

processes at work (Huesca, 2000). This makes the case study ideal for questioning

assumptions and theoretical frameworks. However, it also makes the selection of the

particular case crucial. Since it is expected that the case will reveal patterns and highlight

issues that will be applicable outside of the particular case studied, it is important that the

case chosen be representative of a larger set of cases.

The Selection of Afghanistan

I have selected Afghanistan, not because political transition in the nation

replicates classic transitions cases such as those investigated by O’Donnell and Schmitter

or by more recent scholars investigating post Soviet nation-building, but because the

73 nation has been defined as transitional by practitioners. After the US and their Afghan allies ousted the Taliban leadership in November 2001, the international community embarked on a self-defined mission of transitional nation-building. Through the UN and the donor nations present at the negotiations in Bonn, the larger international community agreed upon the terms of Afghan political transition. A two and half year timeline was constructed with various milestones to be achieved during the transition time. The international community is policing the transition by maintaining a military presence in

Afghanistan. It is also funding most of the political transition through multinational organizations and bilateral aid agencies. USAID, the primary US bilateral aid agency, established a mission in Kabul that includes a special division of the agency dedicated specifically to transition nations. The Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) has a mandate to assist the implementation of the Bonn Agreement. Following elections, OTI is scheduled to pull out of Afghanistan and leave long-term developmental work to the regional and sectoral divisions of USAID. The time period, key documents, and key projects I have selected to examine fit within the institutional structure of Afghan transition as defined by the international community.

While the identification of Afghanistan as a “transition” nation is not my own, my particular frame of reference necessarily structures the research questions, access to documents and informants, and modes of analysis used in this study. The questions researchers ask, the way information is recorded and synthesized, and the final data analysis are all structured by a broad theoretical framework (Waters, 2000). The relationship of the researcher to the informants and their mode of communication also affect the nature of the information retrieved. Scholars involved in inductive research 74 must thus examine how their own positions influence the nature of the data, and the

theoretical frameworks that inform their choice of research topic and analysis. My own background and training have clearly influenced my choice of research topic, approach

and method.

My Position as a Practitioner

I have been a development communications practitioner for over ten years. As the daughter of a foreign service officer and an educator, a profession in education- related development work was the natural extension of a childhood spent growing up in

Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. While at graduate school, I have continued to be involved as a short-term consultant in development communications projects. In May

2002, I took a year-long leave of absence to work as Education Advisor to the USAID mission in Afghanistan. I returned to Kabul in July 2004 for six weeks, again as a consultant to USAID. Part of my job was to assess the potential for using media for educational goals. I collected media assessments and available listener surveys, met with officials from Radio-Television Afghanistan, traveled to provincial broadcast stations,

and met with NGOs involved in development communications.

My position as a representative of USAID in Afghanistan opened doors that

would otherwise have been closed, but also limited the kind of information that I was

able to collect. I was never refused an interview or access to production studios.

Therefore, I was able to talk to everyone from the director of a station to technicians and

on-air talent. However, because I represented a potential source of funding for

broadcasters and NGOs, the conversation was usually limited to explaining or showing

75 what the organization was doing and what they needed. Rarely was I privy to anything

beyond the “official” discourse. However, my experience allowed me to understand the

range of players involved in media production and dissemination in Afghanistan as well

as the likely sources for official discourse, from organization documentation to key informants.

In fall 2003, I contacted Media Support Services about the possibility of interviewing staff involved in creating media programming funded by OTI.18 MSS was

generous in providing me with project documents and facilitating interviews with key

staff. Although I had already met many of the MSS staff in my official capacity, I

conducted these interviews as an independent researcher. This position allowed me to

ask detailed questions about processes without fear that informants’ answers would be

colored by their need to prove success and obtain funding. Because I was in Afghanistan

when the programming was produced, I was able to ask questions around shared

understandings of Afghan politics and broadcasting. However since I was not involved

in the production process, it was natural for me to require the details an outsider would

need to understand the situation. I conducted four interviews in the United Kingdom in

January of 2004, when staff members were in-between trips to Afghanistan, and one in

Kabul in July 2004. I have also remained in contact via email. This study was facilitated

by my dual position as a member of the donor community in Afghanistan and my subsequent access to an NGO that agreed to be a subject of research.

18 As per the Office of Research Support and Compliance at The University of Texas, this project does require approval by the Institutional Review Board as it does not meet the definition of Human Subjects Research stated in 45 CFR 46.102(d). 76 I first began this case study by placing it within the tradition of development communications. The literature on development communications suggested that I should focus on how the assumptions embedded in modernization and participatory development guided policy and practice in Afghanistan. However, as my research progressed, it became clear that more than the discourse and practice of development communications, it was the specific notion of transition to which policymakers and practitioners referred.

The institutional structures of development had changed in order to accommodate

“transitions” work, and the discourse of development, while still relevant, was mediated by the dominant paradigm of freedom of the press. Therefore, in the tradition of inductive research, I re-focused my original research question to more clearly address the role of “media transition” within international development.

Refining my broad goal led me to more clearly define the chronological scope of the study and to re-frame my intermediate research questions. In order to capture the

“transitions” period, this study includes discourse and practice up until the presidential elections of October 2004. The initial transition timetable had envisioned simultaneous presidential and parliamentary elections. However, the two were separated for logistical reasons and parliamentary elections were scheduled for fall 2005. The political transition period mandated by the Bonn Agreement will not end until the parliamentary elections have been held. Nonetheless, the presidential elections represent an important watershed in the transition paradigm. Transition media strategies plan for elections as the culmination of media interventions. Therefore, it is important to trace how presidential elections, the first and highly publicized national democratic moment, affect the discourse and practice of media transition. This study examines three levels at which 77 Afghan media transition is understood, mobilized, and reconfigured: institutions, discourse, and practice. What is the role of foreign aid in promoting Afghan media during the transition period? How do different players justify the need for and direction of media aid, and what mechanisms of control do they institute? What key logistical factors influence the production of media transitions projects?

EXAMINING INSTITUTIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS

Although this is a case study of media transition in Afghanistan, I cannot use the nation as the primary unit of analysis. Media transition cannot be understood as a process that is instigated and sustained by a contained group of actors within one nation, or indeed, a group of nations. Rather, it is a network of institutions that are mobilized around a particular nation-building moment which they define as “transitional.” The nascent Afghan state media institutions are key actors, as are the multilateral and bilateral organizations that funnel aid monies for media, as well as the non governmental organizations that promote and practice media transitions projects. The institutional construction of media transitions is the framework which allows for action. How these institutions create the conditions for media transition has real, material effects. Therefore it is imperative to understand how the relevant institutions working in Afghan media transition function as a network. By examining this network of actors, one can address the key intermediate question: What is the role of foreign aid in promoting Afghan media?

78 Research Methods Used

I began examining the institutional construction of media transition by identifying

the key organizations active in Afghan media from 2001 to 2004. These included

Afghan state organizations, multilateral and bilateral aid institutions and NGOs, some of

them specifically dedicated to media and others involved in many development projects.

A current who’s who in Afghan media was the starting point. However, in order to

determine to what extent “transition” media is unique from other notions of media for development, it was necessary to trace the history of media assistance to Afghanistan. I focused on how these same organizations were (or were not) involved in Afghan media at other historical moments. For what purposes did they support media and via what means?

Multiple sources of information are necessary to construct a rich, multilayered narrative that takes into account macro political economic factors such as the structure of

the global system of nation-states and the grand discourses of national development, as

well as micro factors such as the specific political context of Afghanistan and the details

of particular media assistance projects. With such a breadth and depth of information,

how does the scholar decide what aspects are relevant to the analysis at hand? In this, I

was aided by my focus on current Afghan transition media. For example, the US is by

far the largest donor in Afghan media transition assistance. Therefore, it was imperative

to trace previous US involvement in media. The EU, although a large player in other

transitions contexts (Mertus & Thompson, 2002; Thompson & Luce, 2002), played a

relatively small role in Afghan media transition. Therefore, I did not include the history

79 of the EU’s media aid institutions. Similarly, UNESCO played a key role in establishing

the framework for Afghan state media organizations in the transitions context. Therefore,

the trajectory of UNESCO’s involvement in media aid is relevant to this study. The

World Bank, another multilateral funding agency that also participates in media aid, is

not involved in Afghan media transition. Therefore, the history of the World Bank’s

approach to media aid is not discussed. To determine how media transition is

institutionally constructed in the Afghan context, it was necessary to limit the analysis to

institutions directly and significantly involved in Afghan media. Nonetheless, these

institutions, as part of the global development and “transition” network, employ and

embody global norms. Therefore, they are a lens through which to understand the larger,

global construction of media transition.

Key Data Sources

Any historical research is necessarily constrained by the nature of the resources

available to the scholar (Schafer & Bennett, 1980; Schudson, 1991). Histories are written; finding documentary evidence of people and events that took place in the last hundred years is an archeological process of reconstruction. However, one can only reconstruct a history from the bits and pieces of paper that are accessible, not knowing what might remain hidden or unwritten. The best a scholar can do is cast a wide net that enables cross referencing of sources combined with a critical eye for the ways in which the information used is collected, selected and presented. My study was facilitated by its emphasis on US government aid organizations. US government information is legally mandated to be publicly available. I made use of the US Congressional Record for

80 relevant policy documents as well as USAID’s extensive archive of project papers.

USAID’s Development Experience Clearinghouse is available online, and I was able to order older papers not electronically available.19 The DEC contains reports written by project implementers, usually NGOs, as well as project evaluations written by USAID employees or contractors.

The Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin also holds an archive of papers which is devoted specifically to development communications. This was particularly useful in reconstructing media aid to Afghanistan during the 1960s and

70s. Most of the USAID-funded project papers are also available via the current online

DEC; cross-referencing the two archives was a good way to ensure that my research on

USAID projects was complete. Unlike the current DEC, the Development

Communications Archive also contains project and research papers concerning development communications that were not funded by USAID. Therefore, it was a useful source for projects funded and implemented by multilateral aid agencies from

1960-1994, the years covered by the archive. Often, I was able to cross-reference these sources using UN online archives, although these are less complete and accessible than

US government documents.

Researching US media aid to Afghanistan during the 1980s was slightly more challenging, as much of the US assistance program was covert. However, the National

Security Archive held by George Washington University has an extensive collection of material assembled from various government sources under the US Freedom of

19 See http://www.dec.org. 81 Information Act. This is available online.20 I also went to the archive to search several boxes of documents for the Afghan collection that had not yet been accessioned. The

NSA was a key source of project information for the US Information Agency projects.

Since USIA has been dismantled and folded into the State Department, finding USIA documents requires navigating online State Department archives which are not easily searchable. The NSA archive is a useful alternative source for USIA documents relating to Afghanistan in the 1980s. It contains memoranda and background documentation unlikely to be publicly available via government sources. The NSA collection is also curated; it has been organized so that scholars can see how overarching strategic foreign policy objectives are expressed in particular projects and policies. The curator’s analysis of the collection provides an excellent historical reference source (Galster, 2001) and an accompanying paper synthesizing Soviet policy on Afghanistan provides English- language translations of key policy documents and excerpts from memoirs of Soviet military analysts (Savranskaya, 2001).

One danger of relying exclusively on government data sources is the lack of critical perspective they offer. Government sources rarely advanced an analytical explanation for why particular projects were funded or particular policies were pursued.

In order to construct a critical narrative, I depended on scholarly works on Afghanistan that offered different interpretations of the role of aid to Afghanistan in the global context. Scholarly histories of Afghanistan were useful for an overall picture of global politics (Emadi, 1990; Ewans, 2002; Hopkirk, 1990; Maley, 1998; Roy, 1994; Rubin,

20 See http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv. 82 2002). These historical analyses are necessary in order to understand how specific media

aid projects functioned within the larger international development system.

However, political histories usually made only tangential reference to media systems. There was research conducted on Afghan media in the 1960s and 70s, mostly descriptive accounts published as chapters in handbooks on media systems in Asia or the

Middle East (Mukherjee, 1990; Razi, 1994; Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). There was also scholarly research on donor-supported media created in Pakistan for the Afghan population (Skuse, 2002b). One major limitation on data sources is the relative lack of scholarly research on media systems during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

English-speaking researchers were often limited to examining Afghanistan from the vantage point of Pakistan and within the resistance movement based there.

Journalistic accounts provided a good alternative source of information concerning media projects, especially during the Soviet occupation. Whereas Western scholars had difficulty entering Afghanistan in times of war, reporters were escorted by various factions eager for positive international coverage. Although these accounts are not analytical, they do offer a picture of how international media producers interacted with the Mujahideen and what each side expected to get out of the collaboration (Gall,

1988; Girardet, 1985).

Understanding the point of view of the Afghan state at various times was perhaps the most challenging part of the historical research. During the 1960s and 70s the government did publish descriptive handbooks of state programs and projects; some of these were used by other media scholars. Secondary sources where the scholar had access to Dari and Pashto language documentation or where scholars interviewed 83 government officials were good resources for information on the Afghan state’s use of

media (Rawan, 2002; Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). International forums like

UNESCO conferences provided another good source for state media policy (UNESCO,

1979). During international conferences, Afghan government representatives had to

articulate media policies to their government peers and donor nations. However, given

that the global system was so bifurcated, there were few moments at which communist

and anticommunist nations gathered, especially once the US and Britain left UNESCO in

the mid 1980s. Therefore, much of the information available to me on media policy and

practice in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation is filtered through the ideological

lens of anti-communism (Majrooh & Elmi, 1986). Nonetheless, the perception of what might be going on within Afghanistan structured how anti-communist donors

conceptualized and implemented media aid projects. Therefore, the inaccessibility of

official media policy statements from the Afghan government in the 1980s did not

impede the overall study.

I synthesized and organized historical material into a coherent analytical narrative

by focusing on the major shifts in media aid to Afghanistan. I examined the key factors

that contributed to these shifts, the key institutional players during each phase, and

broadly, the kinds of media aid projects that were implemented. In each of the phases, I

chose specific media projects to explicate in more detail as representative of how the

media aid institutional network constructed and maintained notions of media for

development, propaganda or transition.

84 ANALYZING DISCURSIVE FORMATIONS

The larger institutional network is necessary to contextualize Afghan media

transition within the global political economy. However, a macro view of institutional

mapping cannot capture the dynamic nature and material consequences of media transition. As Foucault (1997) has demonstrated, knowledge, in this case the notion of media transition, is actively constructed and deployed by various interest groups at specific times in order to gain power and resources. Media transition activates foreign aid monies. These funds, how they should be spent and by whom, are at stake in the definition of “media transition.” Also at issue is the legitimacy of different groups and their activities. Media transition is not simply a process of change, where the scholar can describe what has happened, but embodies values and judgments about what is right. The scholar must discern how the idealization of media transition drives action. O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986) argue that internal negotiation among groups is the most determinant factor in political transition. Similarly, in media transition, the scholar must look to the specific conditions that exist in each transition and the interaction among key players to investigate the course of media transition. During Afghan transition, how did different players justify the need for and direction of media aid resources, and what mechanisms of control did they institute?

Research Methods Used

My method of discursive analysis draws upon Foucault’s (1972) archeological method of study. Foucault proposes a textual mapping of discourse, tracing how a concept is understood over time by looking at authoritative texts that emerge, the rules by 85 which texts are constructed, and the relations between them. His ultimate goal is to trace how power is exerted through discourse. Since my interest is in how media transitions discourse interacts with foreign aid funding, I began by searching for key documents within the media aid system: needs assessments and strategy documents. Needs assessments present “the problem” while strategy documents outline the ways in which the problem should be “solved.” Needs assessments are often conducted by “experts” outside the government structure, hired by NGOs or by donors, and ostensibly form the building blocks with which donors and governments construct media aid strategies. All strategy documents present a justification for media aid, state the general principles of media aid, and outline a course of action to be taken. Some strategy documents also include specific project proposals and budgets to address the identified problem. Every major foreign aid organization has one, or several, strategy documents that are supposed to guide specific aid projects. Sometimes, strategies are then “approved” by policymakers, giving them additional institutional legitimacy. In practice, media aid projects are often proposed and approved on a much more ad-hoc basis. Especially in transitions situations, the immediate need for action often outpaces discussions about how to structure media aid policy. Nonetheless, governments and media aid organizations are often called upon to defend on-going projects on the basis of approved strategies.

Therefore, needs assessments and media aid strategies are what Foucault calls

“authoritative” statements that impact practice, either before or after a project is implemented.

The initial mapping of authoritative texts led me to identify particular “fields of emergence” for media transition discourse. In an archeology of knowledge, fields of 86 emergence are the sites upon which discourse is inscribed and manifested. They are moments at which discourse is most likely to be mobilized strategically. It became clear

that key development events such as seminars and donor conferences stimulated

authoritative texts on Afghan media transition. These were occasions at which different

groups had to articulate their plans to others, and where discussion was likely to lead to

concrete actions. For Afghan media transition, this includes events just prior to US

military intervention in the fall of 2001 such as the UNESCO sponsored seminar on

media for humanitarian aid, donor foreign aid conferences such as those held in Tokyo in

January 2002 and in Berlin in March 2004, as well as media-specific events such as the

September 2002 seminar in Kabul on independent media. Strategy documents were often

prepared for key events, or were born of discussions that took place during these events.

Foucault encourages scholars to investigate how power flows in a particular field of emergence by identifying the “authorities of delimitation” or key players who define the parameters of discourse, and the “grid of specification” or system they employ to control discourse. The sites of emergence, authorities of delimitation, and grids of specification make up a “discursive formation.” By identifying a discursive formation, the scholar can analyze who has the power to define knowledge and the techniques of control they employ. In media transition, the coordination structure is the institutionalized mechanism through which control is exerted. Coordination structures

have a hierarchy and set rules of engagement. Each coordination structure has a leader, a

defined groups of participants, and terms under which groups can interact with one

another. In Afghan media transition, coordination began as an informal discussion

among interested parties. It was subsequently formalized into working groups and then 87 consultative groups. Each new coordination structure shifted the balance of power

among media transitions players. In response, groups active in media transition searched for ways to modify and mobilize discourse in their favor. One can identify key events,

players, guiding documents and coordination structures that make distinct discursive

formations for Afghan media transition.

Key Data Sources

The institutional structure of media transitions helps the scholar trace discursive

constructions. Media NGOs are advocacy and implementation organizations; they want

to publicize the reasons for funding media aid and explain which strategies they consider

successful. Most media NGOs maintain updated public websites with downloadable key

documents, and links to websites of other media NGOs and relevant players. The

network of media NGOs forms a fairly closed system, with NGOs alternately

collaborating, competing and spinning off from one another. Because they often refer to

each others’ documents, the scholar can create a fairly complete citation network by

following linked websites, or requesting documents directly from media NGOs. Media

NGOs such as Internews and Media Support Services were generous in providing me

with reports, memoranda, and other relevant documents.

The other key players in media transition, government ministries, multilateral

organizations and bilateral aid agencies, also have an interest in public dissemination of

official statements and strategy documents. Both the UN and the Afghan government

attempted to control discourse by creating electronic repositories of key documents and

databases to which donors and NGOs were exhorted to refer. The electronic accessibility

88 of these documents may be unique in transitions situations, given that the Afghan

government was actively attempting to ensure accountability for aid expenditures via

public systems. Making sure that English-language policy documents were available

online was part of the attempt to regulate discourse.

However, it would be a mistake to imagine that all key documents are available

electronically or that all public databases contain complete and updated information. As

new media coordination structures were put into place, the systems of the old structures

were abandoned. Often, the traces of those systems were erased. For example, the media

working group did not collect and post meeting minutes. The consultative group was

required to maintain meeting agendas and minutes online, but these are not always

available depending on the responsible organizations’ staffing and logistics. The scholar

must be cognizant of these gaps. In some cases, it is possible to obtain meeting notes and

documents from those present at key events. In other cases, one must reconstruct gaps by cross-referencing other documents such as consultants’ reports, evaluations or proposals.

Through these documents, one can trace how specific discourses of media transition interacted and were mobilized in Afghanistan. What assumptions were embedded in particular iterations, by whom were they activated, and to what purposes? Whose

viewpoints did they represent, and which voices were not given a space?

CONSIDERING PRODUCTION PRACTICES

Media transition is a field whose theoretical framework and discourse is

structured by practitioners, and any study of media transitions would be incomplete

without a consideration of actual practice. Most of the media NGOs who participate as

89 advocates for media transition are also project implementers. This study looks at the

production of three sets of radio programs produced by Media Support Services (MSS) to

promote political transition. The first is a radio soap opera series produced to inform

Afghans about the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002. The second and third sets are

edited interviews produced to promote the December 2003 Constitutional Loya Jirga and the October 2004 presidential elections. The projects were funded by USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives as part of their larger media strategy. Through an analysis of the production of these texts, I will address the intermediate research question: What key logistical factors influenced the production of these media transition programs?

Selecting the Radio Programs

In order to conduct an in-depth analysis of production practices, it was necessary to select specific media transition programs to research. I then reconstructed the production process of these particular media products through an analysis of documentation on the overall context of available production and dissemination resources, project papers and evaluations, interviews with key producers, and an examination of the programs produced.

Donors, including US bilateral aid agencies, funded many media projects during the transition period. However, the series of radio programs I examine in this study are particularly relevant because they span the entire transition period and because radio broadcasting held a particularly important place in the donor imagination. In early discussions among donors, media NGOs and UN agencies during the fall of 2001, radio broadcasting was highlighted as the most important mass medium to reconstruct

90 immediately (Girardet, 2001; IMS & Article 19, 2001). Drawing upon listenership

studies conducted by the Voice of America and the British Broadcasting Corporation

(InterMedia, 1998; Skuse, 2002), media organizations argued that radio broadcasting had a long history as being a trusted source of information for large audiences within

Afghanistan. They pointed to low literacy rates and the lack of electricity as logical reasons to privilege radio over print, television, film, or computer-based communication media. There is scholarly skepticism concerning the assertion that radio broadcasting has historically been perceived as reliable by Afghan publics, or even that radio is as widespread a source of information as media organizations claim (Rawan, 2002).

However, armed with listenership studies, and given the prominent role of radio broadcasting in both the freedom of the press and national development discourses, media organizations identified radio as the key medium for media transition.

Donors targeted radio broadcasting from the very beginning of the media reconstruction process and continued to invest in radio throughout the transition period.

Because the production of the radio programs I examine took place over the three year

“transition” time period examined in this study, this offers a unique opportunity to examine how the changing political and media environment in Afghanistan impacted the production process. Political transitions are dynamic and producers are constantly negotiating the changing media sphere. By selecting a series of related projects over time, the scholar can identify the key logistical factors that impinge upon program production and dissemination at different stages within transition period.

MSS is an international NGO specializing in media whose staff has a long history of work in Afghanistan. MSS’s founder is a former BBC journalist who began the 91 developmental soap opera New Home, New Life, Afghanistan’s longest running

development media. For these transitions media projects, he recruited a mix of foreign,

expatriate Afghan and Afghan producers that confound accepted definitions of ‘insiders’

versus ‘outsiders,’ and highlight the importance of transnational production networks.

Some MSS production staff members were trained as journalists and development

communicators by the BBC while others bring their experiences from other “transition”

media situations. Some MSS staff has also spun off new projects and media NGOs to

expand and develop their media interests. The production staff works within accepted

radio formats that structure how they convey the developmental and political purpose of

the programming. The formats, however, are not static. The programming was produced

in three distinct phases that allow us to examine how both the producers’ stated intentions

and the texts themselves reflect changing conditions in Afghanistan.

Key Data Sources

This study uses various sources, from news reports to media assessments and

project papers, to analyze the major changes in the Afghan transition media sphere that

influenced program production. These include changes in OTI’s funding and media strategy, the logistical constraints of various production methods, and the availability of distribution outlets. As a condition of OTI’s funding mechanism, which allows for considerable latitude in deciding whom to fund and how, OTI is required to make monthly public spending reports available. These form the basis for my information on

OTI policy and funded projects. Via these reports, the researcher can track changes in

OTI’s stated intent as well as the media projects they chose to highlight.

92 The media assessments and project reports analyzed as part of the discourse of media transition in the previous chapter also functioned as important sources of information concerning key changes in the media sphere. These documents address the policy environment and logistical constraints of media production and dissemination as they evolve over time. As such, they form the backbone of the empirical data on key changes within the media sphere.

The radio programs were produced in Dari and Pashto, the two main languages of

Afghanistan. I will used written English translations of the audio programs in my analysis. The Constitutional Loya Jirga and some elections programs were translated into

English by the program coordinator, and the text attached as sleeve notes on compact discs of the programs. The translation was a conscious effort by the producer to expand the audience of the programs to include non Afghan policymakers. The translated texts of phases one and two can therefore be analyzed as authorized translations. However, only two Emergency Loya Jirga programs were translated into English by the producers in order to provide a sample for funders. Therefore, I hired a translator in Afghanistan to translate the radio soap opera programs from Pashto into English. This translation, while not an authorized translation by program producers, was sufficient for me to understand how key themes are expressed within the format.

The main source for information on specific production practices, aside from project reports, was self-reporting by key informants involved in the production. I used a snowball convenience sampling technique to identify five key informants, beginning with the founder of MSS. He negotiated the projects and provided an overall picture of how they fit within the NGO’s organizational framework. He facilitated an interview with an 93 international editor who worked on the programs, and pointed me toward two other key informants, the project coordinator and a writing consultant. I interviewed these informants in Scotland and England in January 2004. The writing consultant then facilitated an interview with the main writer for the soap opera programs in Afghanistan in July 2004. Since the production process involved a limited network of players, the snowball sample, where one informant recommends another, was appropriate for analyzing production practices.

It was also important to have organizational approval to assure informants that they would not jeopardize their position within the organization by speaking with me.

Getting introductions to informants from other informants was necessary to emphasize my own legitimacy as a researcher and the appropriateness of answering my questions.

In interviewing various participants in the production process, it became clear that the key informant was the project coordinator. He interacted with donors, selected other team members, and was the primary creative force for the CLJ and elections programs.

He provided the guiding vision for producers, as well as being involved in most technical aspects. Therefore, I conducted the most extensive interviews, several hours over three days as well as periodic email contact, with this key informant.

For the initial semi-structured interviews, I identified three broad areas of discussion: personal biography, production and dissemination practices, and program format. The specific questions I used were situation-dependent. I also tried to let informants follow their own thoughts. At the end of each interview, I wanted to have a clear understanding of the informant’s role in the process and the conceptual frameworks within which he (producers were all men) placed the loya jirga and elections 94 programming. I asked informants to explain the purpose of the programs and describe

the planning, production and dissemination process. I also asked informants to compare

the programming process and format to other work they had done or that was being done

by other media outlets in Afghanistan, focusing on aspects they thought were successful

or unsuccessful. I used the texts to stimulate discussion, asking informants to tell me

details about how they created a particular program and what aspects they thought were

good or bad. I followed up via email with specific questions as they arose during my

analysis.

The radio texts provided examples of how producers translated their perceived

purpose into concrete programs. I was able to analyze how the media context as well as

producers’ own stated intent changed over time by examining changes in the texts. For

example, producers expressed increasing distance from authority figures. Early on,

producers felt that they should be conveying information from central authorities to a mass audience. Later, producers wanted to reverse this flow of information. In both interviews and project reports, they expressed their goal as taking information from a

mass audience to authority figures. One concrete way they expressed this change was by modifying the program format. A quantitative content analysis of the programs demonstrates that, over time, programs lose the “final message” that was used to convey the point of view of authority figures.

I conducted a content analysis of all the programs in order to get an overview of

the themes addressed in different program phases, as well as to track key format changes

such as the use of “final messages.” After an initial review of the programs, I selected

nine overall themes that I felt reflected the producers’ understanding of key themes, as 95 expressed to me in interviews, as well as my own reading of the main message of each

program. Where programs had several messages, I chose one that seemed to be the over-

riding theme. The nine overall themes are: the purpose of the political event (the

Emergency Loya Jirga, the Constitutional Loya Jirga or the elections); details concerning

the process of the political event; key issues to be discussed within the political event;

disarmament; reconstruction; the role of women; the role of Islam; education; as well as a

miscellaneous category for several programs with unique themes. The content analysis

was useful in selecting textual examples that showed how similar themes were addressed

in different formats. See the Appendix for a matrix of program themes.

I had originally envisioned a more rigorous textual analysis. However, this was

not necessary in order to answer my research questions. I am not concerned with effects,

or determining how ideal or actual audiences might or might not have responded to the

programs. Rather, the texts are used to examine how producers themselves conceptualize

their role in media transitions and how they express that purpose through media products.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY METHODOLOGY

This study is necessarily limited by its approach to studying media transition as a

practice within international development through a focused case study of Afghanistan.

In choosing to focus on how media transitions practitioners, defined as a separate group

of development workers in the post Cold War era, theorize their own work, I have deliberately bypassed some theoretical constructs in political science, communications, anthropology, sociology and many other disciplines that might have offered useful conceptual models with which to examine media transition, but for which I did not see a

96 valid conceptual linkage to this situation of transition and these practitioners. Instead, I

have chosen to illuminate the working theory that impacted practice in Afghanistan.

There is ample room for scholars within communications, as well as other disciplines, to

propose alternate theorizations of media transition that may, in turn, influence practice.

Empirically, this study does not offer an overall picture of the myriad media projects undertaken by a range of actors within the transition period. To construct a detailed and accurate map of media activities is an enormous undertaking given the fluid, overlapping nature of media projects. Mapping media activities is a vital aspect of research concerning media effects. Without an overall picture of what projects were

implemented, it is impossible to attempt to attribute specific effects to particular projects.

A media assistance mapping is also useful for comparative studies of the relative

“success” of media transition efforts in different countries. However, this study does not

aim to create a model for media transition, or to evaluate the success or failure of efforts

in Afghanistan. Rather, in chapter five, I am concerned with investigating how the

changing media sphere, influenced by donor activities, impacted specific media transitions practitioners. Therefore, this study does offer an overall picture of key changes within the media sphere over the transition period.

One important gap in this study is the lack of evidence concerning media

audiences. The audience only appears in so far as constructed, imagined audiences

structure the discourse and specific practice of media transition. The study does address

how donors and media transition practitioners often conceptualize audiences, and how

those concepts impacted practice. Actual audiences are only present to some extent

within the radio texts themselves. That is, in one program format, the producers 97 interviewed and edited the words of Afghans who constituted a real audience for the

programs as well as participating in the production of the programs. How these

interviewees chose to express themselves, albeit as edited by program producers, offers

some evidence concerning perceptions of the programs themselves. However, questions

concerning who listened to particular programs and how broader audiences, or specific audience segments, may have interpreted programs are outside the scope of this study.

Finally, this study does not offer comparative data for media transitions in other nations. In order to determine whether or not the conclusions of this study are unique to the case of Afghanistan, further comparative work is required. However, the case of

Afghanistan can suggest larger trends and areas of further research for scholars. It does not appear that the practice of media transition is waning; my hope is that this study will contribute to and spur continuing debate and research concerning media transition.

The three levels of analysis in this study do offer complementary methods of understanding media transition in Afghanistan as a set of institutions, as a discourse, and as a practice. The overall goal of this study, to understand how media transition functions as a part of the international development aid system, is broad. Each chapter in this study addresses a related intermediate question. What is the role of foreign aid in promoting Afghan media during the transition period? How do different players justify the need for and direction of media aid, and what mechanisms of control do they attempt to institute? Finally, what logistical factors influence the production of specific media transition projects? By focusing on a limited time period, from fall 2001 to 2004, and a specific situation, Afghan media transition, this study offers a lens through which scholars can begin to answer the larger question of how media transition functions within 98 the international development system. By analyzing media transition as a function of the international development system, the scholar can begin to de-naturalize the notion of transition media, to understand how it is defined and by whom.

99 Chapter Three: The Institutional Construction of Media Transition

The potential role of the state as a progressive force that promotes social justice and development is overlooked. It is galling to receive lectures on the importance of civil society from NGOs that receive most of their funds from other states. It is even more galling, for an Afghan government official who has worked here for his professional life, to be told by a Western NGO official who has been in the country a few months, and will leave in a few more, how much closer to the grass roots NGOs are…If the state is not seen as inherently oppressive, it is just one more competitor in an already crowded space competing for contracts with Western donors.

From Nicholas Leader and Mohammed Haneef Atmar’s Political projects: Reform, aid, and the state in Afghanistan, p. 180-181.

This chapter examines the role of foreign aid in promoting Afghan media. The international media aid system is predominantly a state system; it is funded largely by states for other states. How does this system, then, accommodate a “transition” situation like Afghanistan? What is the role of the liminal state, created by the international community yet not fully accepted as legitimate by either the international community or its own citizens? In fall 2001, there was a broad consensus that the international community should be involved in installing, supporting and molding a transitional

Afghan government, and that media played a key role in the process. So media aid was envisioned as an integral part of the transition aid package. However, in order to understand how foreign aid was used to promote media during the transition period, it is important to understand the long history of foreign aid to Afghan media. International involvement in Afghanistan is not a new phenomenon. Afghanistan’s media history, like the nation’s political trajectory, is deeply intertwined with global events and actors. The

100 shape of international media assistance in late 2001 was determined by this long history

of interaction as well as changes in the global political economy. How did this instance

of transition media aid to Afghanistan differ from other media aid in other times? In each

era of media aid to Afghanistan, who were the main institutional actors? How was media

aid channeled and for what purposes? How does the international development aid

system work to produce and reproduce accepted notions of media transition?

Rather than comparing Afghanistan’s political and media systems before and after

transition, this chapter takes a long historical view of media aid, beginning with the first

international interventions in the early 1900s. The purpose is not to see what changes

media transition has wrought in Afghanistan, but to see how changes in the global

political economy have created the current practice of media transition in Afghanistan.

By analyzing media transition as a function of the international development system, the scholar can begin to de-naturalize the notion of transition media, to understand how it is defined and by whom.

Through an analysis of project documents from international aid organizations as

well as histories of Afghanistan that address media, I examine the role of foreign aid in

promoting Afghan media in three distinct phases. The first phase begins at the turn of the

century and ends with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. During this phase,

international interventions were designed to assist the Afghan state in consolidating the

nation through modern mass media. Development NGOs, broadcasters and scholarly

media experts worked with state organizations to replicate successful models from

elsewhere. The emphasis was on technology itself as a precursor and marker of

modernity, as well as messages for social good. 101 During the second phase, from 1979 to 2001, media assistance was used primarily as propaganda against both the Communist and the Taliban states. The final decades of the Cold War created a severe disjuncture, to use Appadurai’s term, in the Afghan media terrain (Appadurai, 1996). With the Soviet-installed Afghan state discredited, non state actors were the recipients of media assistance. Journalists, the new experts in media reconstruction, created structures to capture and channel international media assistance.

Institutional changes within the foreign aid community broke down some of the old distinctions between media for development and media for public diplomacy. During the mujahideen governments and the Taliban era, the foreign aid community largely by- passed state organs and strengthened NGO media capacity. Afghan groups protesting against the mujahideen and Taliban governments, particularly feminist groups, used international media outlets to try and keep Afghanistan in the international public eye.

The third phase coincides with the transition period. Beginning in fall 2001, international foreign aid organizations began once more to address how to use media to promote Afghan nation-building. However, after the Cold War, the foreign aid system had shifted to accommodate new actors and strategies for media aid. Following the fall of the Soviet Union, there was an explosive growth in media NGOs who began to take an active role in defining the parameters of media aid as well as implementing media projects. Bilateral and multilateral aid organizations began to prioritize media aid for

“transition” nations. But in the transition period, the state itself occupied an ambiguous position, neither fully legitimate nor fully illegitimate. While the international community was supporting the reconstruction of the state itself, state media were not seen

102 as the only, or best, avenue for nation-building. Instead, foreign aid was largely funneled to non-state media outlets.

MEDIA FOR DEVELOPMENT: ADVANCING STATE AGENDAS

From the turn of the century until the Soviet invasion in 1979, successive Afghan governments used state revenues and foreign aid monies to develop the state mass media system. The mass media system was perceived as a tool of statecraft and its development was pursued as a national modernization strategy. However, national investment in media, particularly broadcast media, was expensive. Whenever possible, the Afghan government turned to foreign donors to fund equipment and training through bilateral agreements or multilateral funding agencies like the UN. For donors, media development was a by-product of larger development projects.

The donors’ goal was not to extend the reach of the central government or create a sense of nationhood, but to produce measurable improvements in the quality of people’s lives through infrastructure, agriculture, health, or education programs. The mass media were a means to this end, a way of multiplying the positive effects of particular projects.

If print and broadcast facilities were needed for a particular project, these would be supplied. Although most donor governments had national as well as international media systems designed to further their own state interests, their interest in Afghan media was tangential to their primary development goals. Fortuitously, the modernization agenda of the Afghan state coincided with the donors’ modernization agenda. Donors hired development agencies to provide technical assistance or buy equipment for the Afghan state organs with whom they collaborated.

103 State Media and Modernization

From their inception, mass media in Afghanistan have been linked with notions of

modernity and nationhood. Mahmud Ber Tarzi, considered the “father of Afghan press,”

began publishing the bi-weekly newspaper Luminary of Afghan News in 1911 after

returning from exile in Europe and Turkey. Tarzi viewed the press as a means of beating

the British colonialists at their own propaganda game. The Luminary advocated the

independence of Afghanistan from British colonial rule by uniting under the banner of

Islam. The only way for Afghanistan to throw off the yoke of colonial oppression, in

Tarzi’s view, was to consolidate an Afghan nation strong enough to survive on its own in

the modern world system. This meant using the tools of the modern world, like mass

media, to create an Afghan public of enlightened, Muslim reformers (Ewans, 2002;

Nawid, 1999; Rawan, 2002; Rubin, 2002).

When Afghanistan gained its full independence in 1919, King Amanullah

followed the path laid out by Tarzi by adapting media models from elsewhere, usually the

West, for the state-supported project of modernization. Adapting Western models meant bringing in concepts and structures as well as technology. For example, the idea of “free

speech” was enshrined in Afghanistan’s first Constitution of 1923. A plethora of state

and private newspapers and magazines were published in Kabul and the provinces,

including the first women’s magazine. The magazine, entitled Instructions for Women,

was spearheaded by Amanullah’s reformist wife, Queen Soraya. Soraya had shocked

conservative Afghans by appearing unveiled in public, a practice that she advocated for

all Afghan women. The magazine was a platform for Soraya’s modernizing ideas. The

104 polemic print media of the time was a direct expression of the publisher’s views, intended to educate the masses. By the mid 1970s, there were approximately 70 different publications in the country, 16 of which were daily newspapers (Rawan, 2002:159).

However, as a mass medium, print reached a fairly small, urban literate public already predisposed to agree with its modernizing messages (Rawan, 2002).

Broadcasting, although more expensive than print, offered modernist reformers a means of reaching a wider audience. In 1925, Afghanistan bought its first radio broadcasting system from Germany. Technical difficulties made transmission intermittent for the first few years, but Amanullah and his heirs continued to promote state broadcasting. By 1930, the government had distributed nearly 1,000 radios in Kabul

(Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). The governments of Nadir Shah (1929-1933) and Zahir

Shah (1933-1973) continued the relationship with Germany, getting new transmitters in

1931, 1966 and 1970. By 1940, Radio Kabul could reach nationwide, and in 1964 it was renamed Radio Afghanistan (Rawan, 2002).

A state bureaucracy was created to manage and direct the growth of media. An independent Office for Media Affairs oversaw programming while the Ministry of Postal

Services was in charge of technical aspects (Rawan, 2002:160). In 1940, the responsibility for broadcasting was taken from the Ministry of Interior and given to the newly formed the Department of Information and Culture, which was granted separate status as a Ministry in the 1950s (Rawan, 2002; Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). The

Ministry of Information and Culture (MOIC) was charged with managing the government press and broadcasting, as well as the newly established government news agency. The creation of Bakhtar News Agency in 1939 allowed Afghanistan to participate in the 105 global exchange of news by trading stories with foreign news wires as well as stringers in

the provinces. By 1969, Bakhtar had links with Agence France Presse, Reuters,

Associated Press, Deutsche Presse Agentur, TASS and New China News Agency. In

1961, Kabul University opened a faculty of journalism to train journalists for state and private news outlets. The MOIC managed the national media system, while Kabul

University trained its workers.

The Afghan government maintained a monopoly on broadcasting. However, the

government did allow private press outlets at certain times. The relationship between the

government and private press froze and thawed over time in response to the political

climate. The Press Law of 1950 allowed for a private press to flourish, particularly in

Kabul, but their harsh critiques of government policy led Zahir Shah to ban private presses two years later. In 1966, a new Press Law once again opened the gates for the

private press. From 1966 to 1973, over 24 non government publications existed (Razi,

1994). After former Prime Minister Daoud staged a coup in 1973 and overthrew the

monarchy, one of his first acts was to again ban the private press. Government attempts

to maintain a monopoly on press outlets reflected the politicized nature of print media.

Most newspapers had an overtly political agenda. When the People’s Democratic Party

of Afghanistan (the PDPA, a Communist party formed in 1965), split into two factions in

1967, they were called by the name of their respective newspapers the Khalq, or Masses, and the Parcham, or Banner. Since most publications were mouthpieces for particular political ideologies, the fate of the private press was dependent upon the government’s openness to political dissent at any given time.

106 The government monopoly on broadcasting was rationalized by a broader understanding of the responsibility of the state to inform and educate its citizens. Radio

Afghanistan was used to broadcast government announcements and policy statements, a narrow political use where broadcasting served, like print press, as a loudspeaker for particular individuals within the government. For example, Radio Afghanistan announced the results of coups and changes in government. However, Radio

Afghanistan also broadcast the parliamentary debates in 1969, an event that is often mentioned as a key moment for Afghan nationhood (Dupree, 1971 in Whiting &

Mustamandy, 1978). The debates were broadcast over Ramadan, when fasting Muslims are released early from work. Some scholars argue that bringing national political debate into people’s homes created an opportunity for a mass mediated public sphere and

“contributed to shaping a more unified state with common concerns, allegiances, symbols and identity” (Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978: 236). That politicians themselves valued the medium is evidenced by the increasing length of parliamentary speeches; by 1971 politicians were giving three hour discourses, in contrast to the usual ten minute addresses of 1967 (236).

The bureaucracy at the MOIC was clearly linked to each government in power, and yet they also had a larger mission to inform and educate Afghans in what it meant to be Afghan and promote the “cultural” and educational aspects of nation-building. For example, half of all programming in 1972 consisted of music, mostly produced by musicians employed by the Ministry. The rest of the programming included news, religious programs, and various educational programs for farmers, teachers, and the general public (Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). Some of the educational broadcasting 107 was produced by a separate unit within the Ministry of Education (MOE). The

government viewed broadcasting as a modern educational tool whose potential should

also be harnessed by the formal educational system. Foreign donors, influenced by

global understandings of the proper role of communications technology in development,

promoted the use of broadcasting for national development and worked within the

structures of state media to assist the state in its educational mission. Until the Soviet

invasion in 1979, donors worked with the Afghan state to advance the state agenda.

Media as a By-product of International Development Projects

Multilateral agencies like UNESCO created an international consensus around the

uses of media for development. Ministers from around the region, and sometimes around

the world, would gather for periodic conferences. At these conferences, each nation’s

representatives would present the state of affairs in their sector, such as education,

science, or culture. It was an opportunity for state representatives to exchange ideas about particular development strategies but also to rate themselves against each other in

terms of how advanced and modern each nation was in comparison to others.

Communications technology was a key marker of modernity. UNESCO also supported

studies and research that experts would present at conferences. The conferences were

attended by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well, who presented “best

practices” from around the world. This gathering of experts provided internationally recognized models for development that could then be applied to individual nations.

For example, UNESCO provided Afghanistan with a model and plan for educational broadcasting that fit with global models of media for national development,

108 adapted for Afghanistan as per UNESCO’s needs assessment. In 1967, at the invitation

of the Afghan government, a UNESCO expert in educational broadcasting went to Kabul to determine how the state should be integrating communications media into their Five-

Year Development Plans for education. The plan called for establishing an Educational

Broadcasting directorate within the Ministry of Education, and producing a wide variety of programming for formal and non formal education (UNESCO, 1973). “Where geography is such a formidable barrier to travel, the radio has a unique role in the diffusion of new ideas and educative processes,” claimed the UNESCO experts. “The transistor is ubiquitous and as a subtle catalyst is helping engender social change. When outlooks are undergoing such a metamorphosis, the opportunity for inter-sectoral programme planning (Information, Education, Agriculture, and Health, to name only four ministries assisted by multi-lateral and bi-lateral agencies at the international level) is being seized” (UNESCO, 1971).

The UNESCO framework gave rise to a series of donor projects for “development communications” working with formal government structures to create content in the different topic areas for diffusion through the state broadcasting system. For example, the UNESCO report created the framework for an institutional arrangement between the

UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture for broadcasting targeting farmers. Planning for the project began in 1973, and it was piloted in 1976 and 1977. A series of radio programs entitled “Village, Home and Agriculture” were broadcast weekly by Radio Afghanistan. In addition, the Extension Department of the Ministry of Agriculture sent out extension agents to distribute audio cassettes of the programs and get farmers’ feedback on the timeliness and usefulness of the information 109 disseminated in the programs (1978). Although the project was conceived as a joint

effort of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Information and Culture, FAO’s

foreign consultant reported diplomatically that coordination between the two ministries

was difficult. As a result, the project ended up creating an Information Unit within the

Ministry of Agriculture to produce and edit the programs. The Unit was provided a

recording and editing booth and on-the-job training for one year (Stockley, 1977).

UNESCO’s venture into educational broadcasting for teachers had a similar result

in that it too created a media production unit outside the Ministry of Information and

Culture. In 1967, the Ministry of Education began a comprehensive curriculum review

and reform process, funded largely by USAID. The US government had been involved in

Afghan education since the early 1950s under the precursor to USAID, the Technical

Cooperation Agency. When USAID was created in 1961, education was one area in which the agency continued to invest. From 1954-1977, Columbia University implemented a series of projects designed to improve teacher education and reform the curriculum, including programs for pre-service and in-service teacher training, producing new textbooks and promoting English language teaching (Hunte, 1981).

The UNESCO broadcasts for teachers, first transmitted in 1970, were intended to support the larger process of educational reform led by USAID, focusing on new teaching

methods and content areas. A two-year teacher training course delivered via radio was

designed for primary and middle school teachers. The programs reinforced new methods

for teaching languages (Dari and Pashto), mathematics, and reading. Production facilities

were initially provided by Radio Afghanistan, but by 1972, the Ministry of Education had

created its own educational broadcasting unit (UNESCO, 1973). For both the teacher 110 training and agricultural programming, Radio Afghanistan was the only distribution outlet while production was diffused across government institutions with specific content areas of expertise. Government agronomists and teacher trainers were paired with media experts in order to translate their knowledge into radio-ready broadcasts.

The high cost of educational technology made donor buy-in necessary for the

Afghan government, at the same time that it made each ministry and government institution covet their own broadcast production facilities. The fancier the equipment, the more modern and advanced each institution seemed. Government institutions took advantage of particular projects in order to build up their own production capacity. Often production capacity was not originally envisioned in the project, but was later added as the project increased in scope and the immediate needs of the project—to produce a certain number of media products within a limited time frame—led to investing in production facilities.

USAID did not invest heavily in educational broadcasting, leaving the more

“experimental” approaches to UN agencies. Nonetheless, they shared UNESCO’s view that new broadcast technologies were a resource to be exploited in information dissemination for behavior change. Two of USAID’s largest projects—education reform and irrigation of the Helmand Valley—created audio visual centers with educational books, and sometimes audio cassettes and film strips, for the government institutions participating in the projects. In 1952, a US non-profit book translation organization,

Franklin Books, was established with a grant from the US Information Agency. Franklin

Books translated children’s books, textbooks and other educational reference books and then made agreements with local publishers for the books’ publication in developing 111 countries. At the request of the MOE in Afghanistan, Franklin Books translated and helped the MOE publish Persian language textbooks beginning in 1957.21 In 1967, the

Afghan government requested US reference books for use at the Kabul University library and other institutions of learning. The books included college and primary school textbooks as well as medical reference books. They were to be used in the process of curriculum reform, and as general reference sources (University of Pittsburgh, 1967).

USAID had a particular interest in the Helmand Valley, an area in the southwest

of Afghanistan that was the major recipient of USAID funding. A series of Helmand

Valley projects began in 1960 under the Technical Cooperation Agency and only ended

in 1979 with the Soviet invasion. Between 1960 and 1970, Helmand Valley projects

made up $80 million of approximately $125 million worth of US assistance (Clapp-

Wincek & Baldwin, 1983). The purpose of the projects was to reclaim land and provide

irrigation for new settlers, making the valley productive enough to reduce agricultural

imports. Originally conceived as canal project to harness waters from the Helmand

River, it grew into an integrated rural development project whose main goal was to

provide the proper conditions for settling the nomadic kuchis (Clapp-Wincek & Baldwin,

1983). This involved expanding the project to include social services like health and

education for kuchis, and education for the new farmers. A semi-autonomous

bureaucracy, modeled on the Tennessee Valley Authority, was created to manage the

administrative and social aspects of the project. As agricultural training was a big

component of the project, in 1963 a Helmand Valley Audio Visual Center was

21 Princeton University currently holds the Franklin Books archives. For information see http://infoshare1.princeton.edu/libraries/firestone/rbsc/finding_aids/franklin/#intro. 112 established to collect and disseminate agricultural information (Clapp-Wincek &

Baldwin, 1983). The high school in the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, also received books through a US grant to The Asia Foundation and medical books were provided for the US-supported hospital (University of Pittsburgh, 1967). The focus was on collecting and disseminating information that would lead to increased agricultural production

(Clapp-Wincek & Baldwin, 1983).

The USAID Helmand Valley project reveals a subtle difference in the agendas of the Afghan government and donors vis a vis nation-building. The donors were project- focused; they measured success in terms of numbers of hectares reclaimed and numbers of farmers using particular agricultural techniques. But the project-centered view obscured the larger nation-building goal of the government, expressed in particular policies, to which donor projects contributed. USAID’s Helmand Valley project was part of the government’s national integration plan to disrupt the power of local community leaders by resettling people in mixed clans and ethnic groups. Nomadic kuchis were offered social goods in exchange for trading tribal allegiances for a

“national” allegiance to the central government. Irrigating the Helmand Valley demanded expensive infrastructure—power plants, large canals and dams—only within the budget of the national government. By creating economic dependency on the central government and settling them as farmers, the state aimed to consolidate its power over traditionally nomadic tribes. The government also offered land to experienced farmers, but settled them in ethnically mixed groups so as to limit their previous group loyalties

(Clapp-Wincek & Baldwin, 1983). For the project managers, these were agricultural projects with media components. That they served the state-building goals of the Afghan 113 government was incidental. For the Afghan government, these were projects to increase

the power and reach of the state apparatus, including state media systems. That donors

paid for them was a result of successful politicking and leveraging the neutral Afghan position in the Cold War.

In 1978, the Afghan communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of

Afghanistan, overthrew Mohammad Daoud’s republic (1973-1978). The revolution had

the effect of increasing state interest in media while decreasing Western donor support

for the state. In the rhetoric of the communist state, promoting national media

development was even more important than under the generally modernizing monarchic

and republic regimes. The public required re-education and mass media were a means to

spread the revolution. The Afghan national report at the June 1979 UNESCO Education

Minister’s Conference repudiates the actions of the previous government and lays out the

new revolutionary plans:

The National Ministry of Education, for the purpose of achieving the goals of the Basic Lines of Revolutionary Duties of the Government of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, first of all weeded out from the Ministry of Education’s corrupt administrative machinery, anti-revolutionary, anti-democratic elements and elements opposed to the interest of the people of the country. The Ministry then, as far as possible, appointed as department heads of upper and lower levels of education of the country, those elements that are real servants of the people. By so doing, the old administrative machinery was torn down and within two months the task of reconstructing new machinery was completed (UNESCO, 1979:3).

The new government’s achievements included making better use of the MOE’s

Audio Visual Center that was previously “little more than a name” and giving a workshop on modern teaching in literacy “in order to show them [teachers] ways of inter-

114 linking literacy with revolutionary tasks to awaken and enlighten masses of people” (4,

5). The government also celebrated the beginning of construction on the MOE’s new

education press, funded by Canada, which would be “equipped with the most modern

machinery” and would employ 150 laborers (6). Television and film were also available

to the new regime. In 1975, the Japanese government sent a team of technical advisors to

help the Afghan government plan the television system and train technicians (Whiting &

Mustamandy, 1978). Broadcasting began in March 1978, just one month before the

communist revolution. A year later, the station was broadcasting three hours a week in

the evenings and reaching Kabul and its immediate environs (UNDP, 1979).

The US was wary of the new communist government, but did not want to drive

Afghanistan into the arms of the Soviets. However, the February 1979 kidnapping and

killing of American Ambassador Adolph Dubs created a rift between the US and the new

communist regime. Dubs was killed during a botched rescue attempt by government

forces, and the government refused to conduct an inquiry into the circumstances of his

death. Congress responded by threatening to cut US aid and refusing to appoint a new

ambassador (Galster, 2001). The Soviets, unhappy with the client Afghan government

they had attempted to install, invaded in December 1979. This ended most Western

donor support for the Afghan state. NATO members recalled their ambassadors and

ended bilateral aid. Some UN agencies like FAO, WFP and UNICEF continued to operate in Afghanistan for a time but most Western NGOs were required to leave

(Nicholds, 1994).

The Soviet-funded Afghan government took a heightened interest in broadcast

systems as a vehicle for spreading the revolution. The Communist Party undertook 115 improvements in the print press and increased circulation of various state publications. In

the 1980s, the USSR also donated ten new radio transmitters to Afghanistan, allowing the government to develop state radio stations in the provinces (Rawan, 2002). Soviet advisors were present at all high level meetings of the Ministry of Information and

Culture, and media content was tightly controlled. There was no private ownership of cameras, filming or recording equipment allowed (Girardet, 1985). Documentaries about

the Soviet Union, extolling the virtues of the communist system, were broadcast on

television (Majrooh & Elmi, 1986), but the Soviets also tried to meld traditional Afghan culture with the rhetoric of the communist revolution. In a 1985 book on the Soviet

occupation of Afghanistan, a Western journalist reports that:

As part of government policy to re-embrace Islam publicly and appease the population, special efforts have been made to broadcast Koranic readings or the services from the major mosques in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif and other towns. [However,] news bulletins, interviews and plays on the radio strongly reflect the communist, anti-imperialist line (Girardet, 1985:149).

The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan lasted ten years, but as early as a year after

the invasion Soviet military advisers recognized that military force alone would be

insufficient to pacify and gain the cooperation of the Afghan population. The Soviets had

only entered Kabul after repeated requests for military assistance from the Afghan

government. They were therefore surprised to find that instead of being greeted as anti-

imperialist heroes, they were perceived by most of the population as foreign invaders

(Savranskaya, 2001). With an unending supply of recruits for the Mujahideen, the

Soviets would only be able to declare success if the Afghan population could be won

over to communism. 116 In a memo to the Soviet leadership in 1981, a Pravda correspondent noted that the

Islamic insurgency used guerilla tactics and successful propaganda to convince tribal

leaders to join in anti-Soviet combat:

The war in Afghanistan is really a special case, an undeclared war with massive participation of forces of international reaction from abroad. But at the same time, it is also a civil war, where the counter-revolution has now switched to the new protracted tactics, where there are no big military units openly fighting against the Afghan-Soviet troops anymore…The rebels actively use not only terror, but also propaganda, controlling extensive areas and relying on the old age- proven relations of the tribal and feudal society (Shchedrov, 1981).

In the long wars that followed, from the Soviet occupation of 1979-1989 to the civil wars

of the 1990s and the Taliban takeover in 1996, mass media systems would continue to be

perceived by all sides in the conflicts primarily as vehicles for propaganda.

MEDIA FOR PROPAGANDA: DE-STABILIZING THE STATE

During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the US and other Western donors set their international aid machinery to the task of de-stabilizing the state. Any international organization that was not squarely in the anti-communist camp was perceived as pro-Soviet, including UNESCO. The US pulled out of UNESCO in 1984, taking a quarter of the agency’s budget with them (Preston, Herman, & Schiller, 1989).

There was no longer an international consensus around media for national development in Afghanistan. Instead, the international broadcast system, especially the propaganda instruments of the US and Britain, was reinforced. The US also funneled its media aid through bilateral mechanisms such as the US Information Agency in order to create and support media outlets that reflected the viewpoint of the US-funded Mujahideen

117 resistance movement, starting in 1986. US policymakers felt that it was important to reach not only the local Afghan audience, potential allies in the anti-Soviet fight, but the international one as well. The US hoped to internationalize the Afghan war, thereby legitimating US involvement on ‘humanitarian’ terms rather than as a Cold War struggle between the US and the Soviet Union (Galster, 2001). As a result, the global news and information system became a key tool in the conflict with each side creating systems to tap into its resources.

While the bulk of media aid was directed toward propaganda efforts, either through international broadcasters or Mujahideen outlets, there was some use of media for “development” purposes. In order to counter the communist Afghan state, anti- communist donors tried to create and support an opposition state-in-exile. But the divided Afghan resistance movement functioned less like a state and more like a loose alliance of fiefdoms. This created a space for NGOs to act as proxy government service providers in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan and Mujahideen-controlled areas in

Afghanistan. NGOs provided health, education and other services, sometimes using media to disseminate their educational messages. However, even the “development” media was ideologically driven. The ultimate purpose of all media aid was to oust the

Soviets by convincing Afghans and the world that the communist government was corrupt and that the Mujahideen were the legitimate government.

In 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan; the withdrawal marked the beginning of the end for the USSR. With the Cold War “won,” foreign aid monies to

Afghanistan dwindled. Some of the US international broadcast machinery was dismantled. Although parties within Afghanistan continued warring, the international 118 community was largely content to dismiss the Afghan conflict as an internal matter. UN

agencies and humanitarian NGOs continued to provide services, but at a reduced level.

Afghanistan was largely forgotten until the Taliban took power. Like the Soviets before them, the Taliban became potent symbols of oppression in the global media (Clark,

2004). Afghanistan was kept in the consciousness of US policymakers by a determined group of women’s advocates such as the Revolutionary Association of Women of

Afghanistan and their savvy use of media (Clark, 2004; Moghadam, 1999). Once again, the primary purpose of media was to de-legitimize the Afghan state, this time, the

Taliban-run state.

International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan galvanized Congress to expand the US international broadcasting services. The US international radio service, the Voice of

America (VOA), was born in 1942 as a service of the Office of War Information. After

World War II ended, oversight for the VOA was given to the new US Information

Agency (USIA), whose broad mandate was to promote the “American way” abroad.

While USIA and the VOA were both subject to political pressures from different US administrations, they were generally able to claim that their main mission was to promote the American lifestyle over any short-term policy goal (Heil, 2003). Overt propaganda, with the stated aim of overthrowing communist governments, was the province of the surrogate radio services such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Unlike the VOA, surrogate stations aim more to provide alternative news about the receiving country than promote a generally positive view of the US. Surrogate radio services began in the 1950s

119 as covert CIA operations. But by the 1971, the surrogate services were publicly

acknowledged by the US administration and brought under the management of an

independent governing board (Lord, 1998). So in 1979, when the Soviets invaded

Afghanistan, the US had two models for international broadcasting: the VOA’s public relations approach, and the surrogate service’s ideological and overtly revolutionary approach.

In the 1980s, there was incredible pressure on US international broadcasters, even

VOA, to join in the fight against communism. In September 1980, the US Congress directed the VOA to expand its services to include Dari language programming for

Afghanistan. In 1982, the VOA also added Pashto language services. The Soviets responded by jamming Western broadcasts to Afghanistan (Wood, 1992). Undeterred, in

1985 Congress voted to create Radio Free Afghanistan (RFA). As a surrogate service,

RFA shared the Munich facilities of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, as well as their political goal of aiding in the overthrow of Soviet client regimes (Wood, 1992). The year that Congress apportioned new monies for RFA, they slashed the rest of USIA’s budget drastically (1985). “Soft” public diplomacy was not nearly as valued as ideologically charged public diplomacy. RFA continued to broadcast until 1993 when

Congress disbanded the service. The Soviets had withdrawn in 1989 and the Afghan communist government had fallen to the Mujahideen in 1992. In the eyes of Congress,

RFA’s mission had been accomplished.

The BBC World Service was also an important international broadcaster during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The BBC World Service began in 1927 as a service of the British Empire, a means of bringing a bit of the island nation to her citizens 120 abroad. But it soon expanded its mission to include the education of colonized populations (Wood, 1992). Like the VOA and RFA, the BBC World Service then depended on the legislative branch for funding and direction on what languages to broadcast in and for how many hours. Thus, the BBC World Service was also an instrument of the government in power. However, the BBC World Service, like the

VOA, marketed itself overseas as independent news outlet (Skuse, 2002a). The BBC

World Service had broadcast in Persian since 1940 (Dari is a local dialect of Persian); in

August 1981 they added Pashto language broadcasts for their Afghan audience.

Although broadcasts from other nations (for example, France and Germany) were available throughout the 1980s and 90s in Afghanistan, the US and British international broadcasting services had the highest listenership (InterMedia, 1998) and were influential as a training ground for Afghan media professionals.

The BBC World Service and the VOA were intended to provide an alternative news source for Afghans within Afghanistan, one that counteracted the Afghan state news organs. VOA’s first Pashto language broadcast was aired on the symbolic date of

US freedom, July 4th. The Congressional rhetoric surrounding the creation of RFA was also predictably ideological, to “encourage [the Afghan people] to continue their struggle for freedom (1985). But although the international broadcasters were instruments of their respective governments, they also functioned within the framework of objective newsgathering. Histories of international broadcasting, particularly those written by former staff members, often focus on the ways in which the broadcasters attempted to maintain independence by creating “firewalls” between policymakers and journalists

121 (Heil, 2003). The international broadcasters walked a fine line between promoting government policy while maintaining journalistic independence.

This dual identity of freedom fighter and objective journalist was reflected in

VOA and BBC World Service personnel. The Dari and Pashto language news services were important sources of jobs for Afghan exiles. Afghan employees were educated in the rhetoric, bureaucracy and news routines employed by each broadcaster to maintain changing standards of independence. At the same time, exiles had their own personal stories of persecution and hardship. These stories are included in institutional histories of the broadcasters, and they inform the broadcasters’ sense of mission (Heil, 2003). Many

Afghan reporters were stationed in Pakistan, where the BBC World Service maintained production studios. International journalists also reported on Afghanistan from the

Pakistani border, or began their forays into the country from Pakistan. Both geographically and ideologically, journalists were a part of the Afghan resistance movement based in Pakistan.

During the Taliban era, international broadcasters were more ambivalent about their political mission. The Taliban were by turns wary and anxious to court international broadcasters for positive coverage. Broadcasters themselves were uncertain as to how treat the Taliban—as a legitimate government or a radical movement to be expelled

(Clark, 2004). A former BBC reporter tells how the nature of BBC’s reporting changed once the broadcaster stationed a reporter in Kabul in 1999. In the tradition of Western reporting, she interviewed government officials and included quotes from them in her reports. For the listeners, “it was as though we [the BBC] had changed sides” (G. Adam, personal communication, January 6, 2004). For the BBC journalists as well their 122 listeners, it was clear that the broadcaster, despite its much vaunted neutrality, took a side

in the various Afghan conflicts. Their reputation as partisan yet credible (Skuse, 2002a) made the international broadcasters important instruments of war.

During the Afghan civil war of the 1990s, the BBC World Service and the VOA remained key players in the Afghan media sphere. Although Congress disbanded RFA in

1993, the VOA and BBC World Service continued their Persian/Dari and Pashto language news services. The BBC World Service also became an influential source of development programming. In 1994, the BBC World Service began broadcasting a development soap opera called New Home, New Life. Modeled on the British serial The

Archers, New Home, New Life weaves educational messages into its thrice weekly episodes. The show follows the inhabitants of a fictional Afghan village as they deal with health problems, family problems and social issues. When the Taliban came to power in 1996 and prohibited women’s voices on the radio, New Home, New Life producers argued that a realistic village had to contain women. So the Taliban exempted the show from the ban. Produced in Pakistan and broadcast over BBC air waves, it would have been difficult to enforce a ban on the show. It would also have been a very unpopular move, as New Home, New Life had a large, faithful audience (Brockes, 2001;

Skuse, 2002b).

The development goals of New Home, New Life gained new prominence as the

Taliban government implemented policies to limit women’s access to education and health services. After the Soviet pullout, internal fighting between the communist government and Mujahideen groups followed by fighting among Mujahideen groups prevented successive Afghan governments from providing basic services to most of the 123 Afghan population. As a result, the UN humanitarian aid machinery remained in place.

However, as the Taliban government became increasingly discredited, the international

community once again turned to NGOs to implement services that would have been

government functions in other circumstances. The BBC World Service was a key

resource for the humanitarian aid community since the broadcaster had experience

creating developmental broadcasting, production studios, and a distribution outlet. For example, in August 2001 the BBC World Service was approached by UNICEF to create radio programming for non formal education (Bunting, 2001). The programs were part of UNICEF’s mandate to support alternative secular education programs in the face of

Taliban strictures that prevented girls from going to public schools and focused on religious training for boys. Thus, during the Taliban regime, the international broadcast

system was called to assist the international community in creating systems for health

care, refugee assistance, etc. parallel to those of the state structure.

Consolidating Agendas in Bilateral Aid

During the 1980s and 90s, the line between public diplomacy and development

work in Afghanistan became more and more blurred. While the BBC World Service

created an institutional space for development work, the US Information Agency began a

very ideologically charged journalism training program. USIA not only oversaw the

international broadcast services, the agency also ran cultural exchange programs and a

host of other public relations activities designed to promote a positive image of America

124 abroad.22 Prior to the Soviet invasion, the US State Department and then USIA

sponsored educational and cultural exchanges, promoted American cultural products, and

translated US press (O'Bannon, 1976; The Asia Foundation, 1973). Some of the cultural

exchange programs involved sending journalists for training in the US, but journalism

training was only one small part of USIA’s work. Journalists, like other professionals,

could benefit from seeing how the job was done in the US and hopefully, transfer their

knowledge to Afghanistan. But, just as the US Congress encouraged the international

radio broadcasters to become more polemical, they also promoted more ideological uses

for USIA’s training programs. In 1985, Congress approved half a million dollars for

USIA “to promote the development of an independent media service by the Afghan

people, and to provide for the training of Afghans in media and media-related fields”

(Stone, 1985). The “Afghan people” were, of course, those Afghans fighting the Soviets.

So the Afghan Media Project (AMP) was born to assist the Mujahideen in “telling their own story to the world” (Wick, 1986).

In Congressional rhetoric, the AMP was necessary as a response to a deliberate

Soviet news blackout. The regime in Kabul was very suspicious of Western journalists.

In 1980 eighteen Western journalists were expelled from Afghanistan following a

“biased” CBS report (Galster, 2001). Journalists sneaking into the country with

Mujahideen escort were threatened with death. The dangerous reporting conditions were one reason that few journalists ventured into Afghanistan. Most war coverage came from reporters stationed in Pakistan, who often covered the entire region, or from free-

22 The institutional responsibility for cultural and educational exchanges was initially housed with the State Department, but was transferred to USIA in 1978. 125 lancers, many of whom were unfamiliar with the context. They depended on US

Embassy briefings or information from Mujahideen party representatives, perceived as slanted and sometimes unreliable sources. The lack of communications infrastructure in

Afghanistan and Pakistan also made it difficult to get stories out in a timely way (Stone,

1985). The Western news coverage of Afghanistan that did exist was generally quite pro-

Mujahideen. However, the National Security Council felt that increasing international coverage of the war would ensure public backing and generate material support for the

Mujahideen (Galster, 2001). USIA designed the AMP so that Mujahideen representatives would learn how to work with Western journalists, bringing them information in a format compatible with Western journalistic structures, and provide a distribution mechanism for stories (Stone, 1985).

The Government of Pakistan, however, was reluctant to allow Mujahideen parties a direct route to the international media system. Mujahideen parties were headquartered in Peshawar, and the city was the center of the resistance effort. However, Pakistan would not allow any foreign journalists to be based in Peshawar. Instead, ten news organizations from noncommunist countries (including the three major wire services of

Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France Presse) were based in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad (Stone, 1985). When USIA requested permission to create a media training center in Peshawar, Pakistan refused. The AMP was designed in fall of 1985 and the grant for its implementation was awarded in July 1986, but the Afghan Media Resource

Center, where the AMP was supposed to conduct its training, was not established in

Peshawar until nearly a year later. The delay was due mostly to Pakistani reluctance to approve the project (Stone, 1985). The Pakistani government was the intermediary 126 between the US and Mujahideen parties; Pakistan acted as a conduit for covert military

assistance and allowed the resistance forces to use the country as a base of operations.

USIA needed Pakistani approval in order to proceed with the project as planned. In the face of stiff Pakistani opposition to an AMP training center in Peshawar, USIA was forced to take stop-gap measures such as sending trainers to work in other organizations

in Peshawar and negotiating with Germany for a potential training site there (Mosner,

1985; USIA, 1986). Pakistan finally agreed to the project and chose an Afghan director

in spring of 1987. The new director was careful to emphasize that the Center would be a

service for existing press organs of the Mujahideen parties, not a competitor (Daud &

Olsson, 1987).

Although the AMP’s position in the political structure appeased Pakistan, it

created controversy in the journalism world. In early discussions with media

organizations, USIA approached Sandy Gall, a TV reporter who had done a series of documentaries on the Mujahideen for the British television station ITN. Gall refused any

official cooperation or link with the AMP, saying that it would compromise ITN’s

credibility (Schneider, 1985). When Boston University (BU) won the contract for the

AMP, the project split BU’s journalism department into two camps: those who felt that

the university was participating in blatant propaganda and those who felt justified in taking on the project as an “educational” endeavor (Dorfman, 1986; Henry, 2001). BU ended up submitting two different proposals to USIA, one with training in Boston and another with training taking place in Pakistan. Each proposal was supported by a different faction within BU, and the dean of the journalism department resigned in protest

over the dispute. The Hearst Corporation had partnered with BU to undertake the 127 distribution elements of the project. But after the initial six month term of the project

expired, Hearst pulled out in the face of the BU controversy and questions from its board

members (Horner, 1986).

The BU controversy made good copy; as a consequence, the AMP got

unfavorable press coverage in the US (Dorfman, 1986; Drogin, 1986). In an angry letter

to the Los Angeles Times, BU’s Joaquim Maitre accused the paper of sloppy, inaccurate

reporting “that would not have received a passing grade in CO 201, “Newswriting and

Reporting I,” at our School of Journalism… I was under the impression that you had come to Boston University with an open mind. I was mistaken” (Maitre, 1986). As most of the articles pointed out, USIA, the AMP funding agency, was itself considered a propaganda arm of the US government and the provisions of the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act prevented the AMP’s media products from being distributed in the US. If the AMP targeted European and Asian media organizations, it was because they were denied direct access to US media.

Since media organizations were wary of becoming involved with the AMP, BU turned to development organizations. Faced with severe budget constraints, BU approached the NGO Mercy Fund to provide free office space for the project (Gefter,

1987a; Horner, 1986). USIA asked USAID for $700,000 to cover a projected shortfall.

USAID declined. USAID’s official position was that it was illegal to take money from the humanitarian aid budget to pay for a project that had been Congressionally earmarked under a different budget item (Gefter, 1987b; Morris, 1986). USIA disagreed and presented a legal memo outlining their argument. In the memo, USIA’s lawyer reminded

USAID that the organization was legally and ethically required to “vindicate policy 128 objectives set by the Reagan Administration…As Soviet bombs continue to rain down

upon Afghanistan,” the memo ended, “killing innocent civilians and children, I am sure

that we all understand that time is certainly of the essence” (Morris, 1986). Finally,

USAID agreed to let the Department of Justice determine the legal aspects and the money

was transferred to USIA.23

Although USAID was squeamish about getting involved in public diplomacy, the

agency played a direct role in material support of the Mujahideen through the Cross- border Humanitarian Assistance Program. Based in Pakistan, the cross-border program was designed to provide relief for Afghans inside Afghanistan, thereby preventing increased refugee flows to Pakistan and maintaining support within the Afghan population for the war. To counter the Soviet “scorched-earth” policy of decimating villages that supported the Mujahideen, the US government instituted measures to keep

villages viable. The cross-border program was made possible due to military and

political advances in the war, as well as a new openness about the US role in the war. In

1985, the same year USAID’s cross-border program began, the US provided the

Mujahideen with American-made Stinger missiles. This was a significant act not only

because the Stingers were a powerful weapon against Soviet air strikes, which had posed

a significant threat to the Mujahideen, but also because they were a public admission that

the US was funding the Mujahideen. The CIA had been careful to purchase weapons

through third parties, but there was no distancing the US from the Stinger missiles

(Galster, 2001). With the threat of Soviet bombing reduced, NGOs offering humanitarian

23 On a list of projects relating to Afghanistan generated by the Development Experience Clearinghouse, “transfer to USIA media project” has a project number, but no related documentation. 129 assistance could access much larger areas of the country. At the same time that safer conditions facilitated the work of NGOs, it also lessened the need for immediate relief services. As a result, humanitarian NGOs became more involved development-type tasks such as increasing agricultural yield, and building schools and health centers (Nicholds,

1994).

NGOs working in Mujahideen-controlled areas of Afghanistan had to cultivate relationships with individual commanders in order to be permitted access and provided security. (Nearly all NGOs were working with resistance groups; very few NGOs were allowed to operate by the Kabul regime.) As a result, NGOs came to “specialize” in particular geographic regions but provide a wide range of services, in the model of integrated rural development (Nicholds, 1994). As conduits for foreign funds, NGOs became a part of the shadow governments run by local commanders. For example, NGO- run schools became the norm in Mujahideen-controlled areas where there were no government schools. In 1985, foreign supporters of the war forced the various

Mujahideen groups to rationalize and form the Seven Party Alliance. Each commander who wished to receive military assistance had to be associated with one of the political parties in the Alliance. Through the newly formed Afghan Interim Government in exile, donors had more formal structures through which they could funnel monies. The

Alliance formed committees for different sectors such as health and education. NGOs were supposed to work through these committees for projects within their scope. NGOs that had started working in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, where projects were administered through Pakistani government structures, expanded to cross-border

130 activities and began working through the parallel government-in-exile structure (Galster,

2001).

The Rise of the Solidarity NGO

The increased (overt) funding available through USAID’s cross-border program fed the growth of NGOs. USAID worked in three main areas: agriculture, health, and education. They also had a large Rural Assistance Program that provided a variety of services, and administered humanitarian aid funding (mostly food and medical assistance) through small grants to NGOs. Only NGOs recognized by the US government can receive monies directly from USAID; this tended to limit direct beneficiaries to US-based or international NGOs. However these larger NGOs often subcontracted work to smaller organizations, especially to the growing number of Afghan

NGOs. Entrepreneurial Afghans would create NGOs in order to take advantage of donor resources. As the largest recipient of donor monies for humanitarian aid (Nicholds,

1994), the UN agencies also subcontracted much of the project implementation to Afghan and international NGOs.

Among the international NGOs, there was a small but active group of “solidarity”

NGOs (Nicholds, 1994) formed specifically to work in Afghanistan. Many of them began as Mujahideen lobbying efforts in the US and Europe and evolved into implementing organizations. Mercy Fund, the NGO that offered to share facilities with the AMP project, was one such solidarity NGO. Some of the most pro-Mujahideen members Congress were on Mercy Fund’s advisory board. This included Senator

Humphrey, the driving force behind increased funding for public diplomacy (Horner,

131 1986). Of the NGOs active in cross-border operations in 1992, approximately one fourth

of them were international NGOs already established, sixty percent were Afghan NGOs,

and fifteen percent were solidarity NGOs (Nicholds, 1994).

NGOs wielded considerable power in the absence of functioning government

structures. During the Soviet occupation, the entire Western foreign assistance

machinery, from policymakers to project implementers, was unashamedly pressed into

service for the Afghan war effort. Virtually the only way to function was in solidarity with the Mujahideen. Yet the Mujahideen, despite the Seven Party Alliance, did not always act in concert. There were ideological differences and rivalries among the parties.

Pakistan, too, had her national interests to promote. In an environment of fractured interests, NGOs were regarded as a source for reliable, or at least less partisan, information for donors. They could relate stories of happenings in real communities in

which they were working. They were also savvy about political realities on the ground, as they had to negotiate their own position within local political structures. International

NGOs could also access Western governments through their own lobbyists. They brought funds and real services to Mujahideen groups and advocated on their behalf.

Because NGOs were involved with advocacy, which required accessing the media, they had a symbiotic relationship with the press. For example, staff from the

NGO Médecins Sans Frontiers often accompanied journalists or put them in touch with

Mujahideen escorts for clandestine trips into Afghanistan (Girardet, 1985). In lieu of

academics or officials from the government-in-exile, journalists and NGO workers

became the new “experts” on Afghanistan. US government actions and Cold War

strategies were determined in large part by the perceptions of these experts. For example, 132 one US Embassy cable sent to Washington from Pakistan asked if Soviet troop

movements reported by VOA could be confirmed by intelligence sources (U.S. Embassy

Kabul, 1984).

Journalists also helped popularize the notion of “Sovietization” among

international policymakers. “Sovietization” was the idea that the USSR was practicing a

nefarious form of cultural imperialism through their control of Afghan educational and

cultural institutions. The notion of Sovietization gained currency among the journalists

reporting from Pakistan partly due to the efforts of Sayed Bahaoddin Majrooh, an Afghan

academic with strong ties to the international community. Journalists and academics

studying Afghanistan often stopped in at Professor Majrooh’s Afghan Information Center

for his analysis of the current situation.24 The Afghan Information Center was of two

Afghan organizations identified by USIA as a good partner for the AMP (Stone, 1985).

The Center put out a monthly news bulletin that was widely read and respected. Majrooh

was staunchly anti-Soviet, but not affiliated with any particular Mujahideen party, and

was therefore seen as independent. He was also very aware of the power of the media to

shape opinion and catalyze funding.

Majrooh co-authored a 1986 edited volume entitled The Sovietization of

Afghanistan (Majrooh & Elmi, 1986). Born of an academic conference, the book

addresses the negative influence of the Soviet invasion on Afghan education, politics and

culture. In an addendum to the book, the authors offer a series of practical suggestions

24 For example, Rubin (2002) and Edwards (1996) thank Majrooh for his insights in the forewords to their respective books. 133 for the resistance movement and their international backers, especially the US, in which

they propose an information policy. They argue:

The armed jehad must be accompanied by great propaganda work. Why did the youth all over the world demonstrate against the American war in Vietnam, and is almost indifferent to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan? Even though the communist empire is going to decline, the process of its decline must be accelerated (1986:191).

The notion of Sovietization that Majrooh warned against fit well with the anti- communist donors’ preoccupation with propaganda. The notion of “Sovietization” was reiterated in the State Department’s 1985 Afghanistan Human Rights Statement, where

“the effort to stamp out the Afghan native cultural heritage and incorporate the country de facto into the Soviet Union” was listed as one of the three major human rights violations of the Soviets in Afghanistan. The report went on to list the ways in which the Soviets controlled media outlets (The Department of State, 1986). The perception of the Soviet client regime in Afghanistan that was molded by media professionals and NGOs was very influential in setting the policy agenda.

The networks created by solidarity NGOs were also an important source of funding for Mujahideen media outlets. For example, the clandestine Radio Free Kabul was funded by European human rights activists, Soviet dissidents and American NGOs.

Afghan technicians were trained by European and US counterparts, and various transmitters were set up around the country. Radio Free Kabul came on the air after the nightly broadcasts of the BBC World Service and VOA news in order to capitalize on the existing audience. The programs were a mix of cultural influences, and included readings of the Koran in Arabic followed by Dari translation, recordings of Soviet 134 dissidents in exile, political analysis, and “revolutionary songs, poetry and news”

(Girardet, 1985:191).

Mujahideen groups based in Pakistan also recognized the importance of tapping

into the global news network, particularly international television and film, for positive

coverage. They built relationships with foreign journalists that would sometimes lead to

funding and training for their own press officers. For example, Jamiat-e-Islami, the

political party supporting the successful commander Massoud, had its own public

relations section with photographers and a film crew to accompany missions. The film

crew received funding and training from French solidarity NGOs (Girardet, 1985).

After the Taliban took power, feminist solidarity NGOs became more prominent.

They too, tapped into the international media system. For example, the US Feminist

Majority teamed up with the Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association in the “Stop

Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan” campaign in 1998. Supported by comedian Jay

Leno’s wife Mavis, the campaign drew Hollywood stars to a March 1999 rally and was covered by US women’s magazines like Glamour, Jane and Teen, as well as feminist

journals like Sojourner, Off Our Backs, and Ms. The campaign aimed to stop the US oil company UNOCAL from doing business in Afghanistan, and pressured the Clinton administration not to negotiate with the Taliban. Mavis Leno testified before the Senate

Foreign Relations Committee, met with UNOCAL shareholders and President Clinton, and began a letter campaign targeting the White House (Hirschkind & Mahmood, 2002).

The campaign successfully kept the Taliban’s policies prohibiting female participation in the public sphere in the forefront of US public opinion and policymaking. These kinds of efforts by solidarity NGOs and media organizations demonized the Taliban, much like 135 the Soviets before them. Nonetheless, there was no stated national security imperative

for the US to actively overthrow the Taliban state until November 2001.

MEDIA FOR TRANSITION: ADDRESSING LIMINAL STATES

In the 1990s, the focus of the Cold War shifted from Afghanistan to Eastern

Europe and Central Asia. The breakup of the USSR led USAID to re-conceptualize its

own role in US foreign policy and how the agency participated in the policy directive of

“democratic transitions.” Creating and promoting “independent” media outlets and

systems was seen as key to building the infrastructure of democracy. The US foreign assistance system was re-organized so that traditional channels of media aid such as

USIA were marginalized while the newly created Office of Transition Initiatives took on much of the work of media reconstruction. In order to implement media reconstruction projects, a host of specialized media NGOs arose to work on transforming the states of the former Soviet Union. It was not until the events of September 11th that Afghanistan

regained strategic importance for the US, and foreign assistance was used to further the

immediate policy goal of installing a new Afghan government.

This time, the US and other donor nations were actively and publicly involved in

defining, creating and maintaining a legitimate Afghan state. Media were considered an

important part of the transitions aid package. As the “fourth estate” in a democratic

nation, a functioning media system was as important to establish as a functioning

judiciary, legislature and executive. The international donor community also had short-

term goals. They needed to create a variety of media outlets and programming to

promote and support the process of political transition itself. However, the collaborative

136 atmosphere of the 1950s, 60s and 70s had been replaced by a much more antagonistic

one.

After the Taliban state was overthrown and Kabul occupied by US-backed forces

in November 2001, the new transitional state required support. But the new government

was precarious. Cobbled together by donors, the state itself was an amalgam of political

factions with varying ideologies and interests. The state was in a liminal position, neither

fully legitimate, as the government had not been democratically elected by its citizens,

nor fully illegitimate, since the transitional government was recognized, indeed created,

by international donors.25 Yet donors hesitated to give state media institutions, some

perceived as under the control of rival political factions, too much power. The US, in

particular, focused on distributing media aid to non-government institutions. NGOs had

become a much more important force in governance. The solidarity NGOs had

established relationships with Afghan political factions and a funding base. Media NGOs

had experience in other post Cold War transitions situations and links with key donor

organizations. The media aid sphere was no longer dominated by bilateral and

multilateral organizations functioning within state structures, with NGOs operating

primarily as implementing organizations. Instead, transnational NGOs were much more

involved in setting the agenda for political transition.

25 I am using the term “liminal” as it is commonly used to describe an in-between or ambiguous state of being. However, there is a large body of theoretical literature, particularly within anthropology (Turner, 1969; Van Gennep, 1961) and post-colonial studies (Bhabha, 1994) which addresses liminality as a theoretical concept. This would be an interesting theoretical avenue for further scholarly exploration. 137 Re-writing the Rules of Engagement in Multilateral Organizations

The international community gained a new justification for expanding their sphere

of influence in media aid following the genocide in Rwanda. Critics and scholars argued

that the United Nations and the international community should have taken a more

proactive stance in jamming the radio signals of Radio Mille Collines (Thompson &

DeLuce, 2002). Rwanda was a shocking case that seemed to prove anew the power of

propaganda in inciting and directing violence (Des Forges, 2002). Retrospective analyses

faulted the international community for not acting within their sphere of influence to

prevent genocide. In an influential 1997 Foreign Affairs article, Jamie Metzl argued that

post Cold War U.S. policy should be more active in “media intervention” in order to

respond to and prevent civil conflicts. Media intervention in this context is a humanitarian action, sanctioned by the United Nations Human Rights Charter. Metzl included jamming broadcast signals, promoting public diplomacy, and developing local media as part of media intervention (Thompson & DeLuce, 2002). The case for media

intervention led logically to media development. If mass media were used as tools of

war, then it stood to reason that they could also be used as instruments of peace. Actions

such as jamming unwanted signals were seen as short-term solutions undertaken in

emergency situations. However, media development was necessary in order to ensure the

long-term survival of a peaceful, democratic society.

These ideas had a strong impact on existing multilateral and UN agencies.

UNESCO gained new prominence as a forum for promoting media development in the

1990s. The New World Information and Communication Order promoted by UNESCO

138 in the 1970s and 1980s had become a lightening rod for controversy with devastating

consequences for the agency’s finances as both the US and Britain withdrew from the

organization. In 1988, Federico Mayor took over as Director-General of UNESCO.

Mayor took a much more conciliatory approach toward UNESCO’s critics (Sussman,

2003). In 1988, UNESCO’s Executive Board worked on a new communications strategy

to be presented to the General Conference, emphasizing the agency’s commitment “to encourage the free flow of information, at international as well as national levels, to promote its wider and better balanced dissemination of information without any obstacle

to the freedom of expression, and to strengthen communication capacities in the developing countries in order to increase their participation in the communication process.”26 They were overtaken by the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and

the imperative to develop “independent and pluralistic” media in the new nations of

Eastern Europe. The General Conference approved the new communications strategy. In

February of 1990, UNESCO and the UN Department of Public Information (UN-DPI)

decided to organize a series of regional conferences on press freedom designed to further

articulate the role of media in democracy. UNESCO conferences for “Promoting

Independent and Pluralistic Media” were held in Windhoek, Namibia in 1991; in Almaty,

Kazakstan in 1992; in Santiago, Chile in 1994; in Sana’a, Yemen in 1996; in Sofia,

Bulgaria in 1997; and in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2002. Each of these conferences yielded

a Declaration reinforcing the participants’ commitment to independent media.27

26 For the full text see http://www.unesco.org/webworld/com_media/communication_democracy/intro.html. 27 See http://www.unesco.org/webworld/com_media/development_rel_policies.html for the links to the full texts of the declarations. 139 UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication

(IPDC) was one of the concrete outcomes of the New World Order and Information

debates. It remained a key organizational instrument through which the agency funneled

funds and conducted media research. However, in the new post-Soviet world, IPDC was

re-focused on media development in transition nations as well as developing nations.28

The IPDC now “promotes free and pluralistic media in developing countries and the countries in transition.”29 Under the IPDC, UNESCO undertook several “transition”

projects in Afghanistan, establishing a training center for Afghan journalists and

supporting the development of an independent women’s radio network. More

importantly, however, UNESCO assisted the new Afghan state in articulating its media

development policies in ways that would fit within the global “free press” framework

while allowing the Afghan state to reap material benefits. Britain returned to UNESCO

in 1997, and the US re-joined in 2002. Although the US is now a member of UNESCO,

it currently relies on bilateral aid agencies for much of its media aid for transitional

nations.

Specialization within US Bilateral Development Organizations

With the end of the Cold War, USAID was scrambling to define itself and justify

its existence to a skeptical Congress. Some lawmakers felt that USAID had become too

enmeshed in Reagan’s battle against communism and sacrificed long-term development

28 The internal politics of UNESCO and the IPDC, although relevant to understanding why the organization shifted its mission, will not be explored here. Instead I focus on how the new mission statement assisted the organization in defining its role in Afghanistan. 29 See http://www.unesco.org/webworld/ipdc for more information on the mission statement, as well as a database of projects funded in Afghanistan and around the world. 140 goals to short-term foreign policy aims ("Stingy Sam," 1989; Auer, 1998). Others questioned the efficacy of development programs and criticized USAID’s cumbersome bureaucracy ("Stingy Sam,"1989; Doherty, 1992). In 1988, the bipartisan Hamilton commission was tasked with making recommendations to restructure USAID. The commission recommended abolishing USAID altogether and creating a new agency under the State Department. There were also attempts to limit the use of the politically fungible ESF, or Economic Support Funds, traditionally used to reward US allies. These efforts failed. So did the attempt to abolish Congressional earmarks that were often used by individual lawmakers to for pet projects. Instead, in a series of re-organizations in

1991, 1992 and 1993, USAID cut back its staff and reduced the number of missions abroad. The foreign aid budget steadily declined (Auer, 1998).

Although the Congressional and presidential commissions all criticized USAID’s lack of focus and clear mission, there was no agreement on a new direction. As the

Hamilton commission had pointed out in 1988, there were no fewer than 33 separate

Congressionally-mandated missions for USAID (Rondinelli, 1989). With the US in an economic recession, pragmatists generally saw a use for USAID in opening new markets and promoting trade. They pushed USAID toward focusing on privatization and creating favorable environments for US businesses abroad. Some wished to impose stricter rules for USAID to purchase American products and services (Rondinelli, 1989). Others found a global mission in environmental concerns, arguing that the US should look outside narrow national concerns. While the debate over re-structuring foreign aid mechanisms raged on, in 1992 the Bush administration requested a separate funding package for the former republics of the Soviet Union (Doherty, 1992). USAID’s existential crisis was 141 resolved in part by the practical necessities of finding ready mechanisms to channel aid funds to the former Soviet Union. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was followed by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the creation of new states in the Balkans. The immediate foreign policy goal of fostering democracy in these new nations gave USAID a practical course of action to follow. It also led to increased attention to media development.

Restructuring media systems was a high priority for the international community, particularly in the Balkans. It was widely accepted that nationalist propaganda disseminated over radio and television had exacerbated ethnic tensions and led to increased violence. Therefore, the international community was prepared to spend significant capital on restructuring the media. The “media missionaries” (Hume, 2002) rushed in to offer advice, training, and practical support. In 1990, USIA official Marvin

Stone created the International Media Fund as a means of getting US journalists involved in media restructuring in “emerging democracies.” IMF was intended to be an independent, self-sustaining agency that would offer training and other support for press and broadcast outlets. Congress allocated start-up funds of $325,000 and IMF sought additional support from public and private sources ("Fostering a free press," 1990). But five years after its creation, IMF was disbanded. Instead, USAID took over the function of supporting media development in a large grant administered by the regional bureau for

Europe and Eurasia (Hume, 2003; Kumar, 2004).

The US approach to media aid in Eastern Europe and Central Asia differed somewhat from the European approach. European funders tended to focus on regulatory reform, helping transition nations that might one day apply for European Union membership meet entry requirements. This included ensuring the editorial independence 142 of the state broadcaster. In contrast, the US focused heavily on creating commercial

media outlets as competitors to state broadcasters (Ballentine, 2002). These national

differences reflect to a large extent the media systems that each donor nation possesses.

They mimic long-held differences between the “US model” and “British model” of media

development identified in the 1970s by Katz and Wedell (1977).

Given the prominence of media reform in international discussions concerning

Eastern and Central Europe, USAID’s regional bureaus became more interested in

supporting media development.30 In June 1999, USAID’s Center for Democracy and

Governance published a technical guide designed to help individual USAID missions in

countries develop media aid programs. “USAID’s objective of the increased

development of a politically active civil society provides a strategic rationale for media-

related activities,” proclaimed the guide (Center for Democracy and Governance, 1999).

The publication differentiated between development activities that “indirectly”

contributed to media, such as health and education communication projects, and media

aid activities “to strengthen the media as an institution” (Center for Democracy and

Governance, 1999). This second goal was much more wide-ranging; it included

regulatory reform and funding media outlets, not just providing training to produce

particular programming. The publication also noted that USAID should be careful to

coordinate its activities with USIA, the traditional avenue for journalist training. But by

October 1999, USIA had been disbanded as part of the push to rationalize foreign aid and

ensure that it served specific foreign policy goals. The agency’s functions were split up

30 Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, USAID had one large-scale project to improve the quality of journalism in Central America, the Latin American Journalism Project (1986-96). 143 among various divisions within the State Department, with media development going to

the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. USAID was now the major US

bilateral funding agency for media aid.

Within USAID, however, there were two approaches to media aid (McClear,

McClear, & Graves, 2003). The regional bureaus and the Office of Democracy and

Governance promoted long-term systemic changes, while the Office for Transition

Initiatives focused on supporting as many media outlets as possible in a short time.31 OTI

was created in 1994 within the Bureau of Humanitarian Aid “to provide fast, flexible,

short-term assistance to take advantage of windows of opportunity to build democracy

and peace.” OTI is described as a “cross-cutting” office that operates independently, but

in concert with, other USAID offices.32 OTI has one practical advantage over other

USAID divisions; the office has a separate budget account with much more flexible

procurement standards than the rest of the agency. OTI’s budget has few pre-existing

constraints so that field managers can make many funding decisions on their own, and

approve grants within days of proposal submission. They are also allowed more latitude

in selecting organizations eligible for funding, with less stringent accounting reports

demanded of grantees. While other USAID divisions fund large, multi-year contracts,

OTI usually makes smaller grants for a shorter time period. This makes OTI a

particularly attractive funding source for small or local NGOs, or simply organizations

seeking rapid funding for projects. Institutionally, OTI is designed to fill the gap between

emergency humanitarian aid and long-term development programs. After a period of two

31 USAID divides the globe into regions for administrative purposes. There are also cross-cutting bureaus that offer technical assistance in particular topic areas to the regional bureaus. 144 or three years the Office phases out, “handing over” its programming to other USAID divisions. Media programs are handed over to USAID’s democracy and governance

sector.

Since OTI functions within the transition paradigm, their media focus is tied to

specific political transition milestones such as elections. They support many more media

outlets than will be ultimately sustainable with the justification that a multiplicity of

outlets is vital before elections. OTI staff described Serbian media aid, designed to oust

Milosevic by breaking his monopoly on broadcast outlets, as “pushing the reform

agenda” (McClear et al., 2003). For OTI, supporting a political reform agenda inevitably

entails creating non state media outlets to allow for political opposition. Even in

Afghanistan, where the US government installed and supported Hamid Karzai, OTI

primarily funded non state media outlets.33 Radio Television Afghanistan’s central Kabul

broadcaster was associated with potential rivals from the Northern Alliance, while

provincial broadcasters, nominally a part of the state system, were perceived as

vulnerable to the influence of local commanders and powerbrokers (BBC World Service

Trust, 2002a; Levine, 2002). Therefore, creating “independent” media was part of the

larger US foreign policy strategy of supporting Karzai.

The Rise of the Media NGO

The international interventions of the 1990s led to a boom in the growth of NGOs

dedicated to media development. Some of the NGOs were an outgrowth of free press

32 See OTI website at http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/transition_initiatives. 33 My source for specific OTI-funded projects is an August 7, 2004 printout of OTI’s grants database by a key word search on media. The printout was provided to the author by OTI-Kabul field staff. 145 advocacy organizations born out of the NWICO debate; others were started by journalists eager to participate in cross-cultural training programs. But the media NGOs soon expanded far beyond advocacy and training to become key strategists and implementers in the sweeping changes envisioned by donors for “transitional” media systems. Media

NGOs acted as conduits for donor monies to local media organizations and created the standards and models to which nascent media organizations were to adhere (Darbishire,

2002). In transitional situations, media NGOs saw themselves as independent arbiters of internationally recognized standards.

For example, in Kosovo, the international community, via the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), took over all the functions of government.

The OSCE had the mandate to completely reconstruct Kosovar media, including overseeing licensing, assessing fines, and shutting down media outlets that did not conform to regulations. The power to sanction media outlets for perceived infringements, particularly of anti-hate speech regulations, put the OSCE in the uncomfortable position of drawing criticism from free speech organizations for heavy-handed interventionism

(Goldberg, 2002; Sullivan, 2000). Scholars noted (Krug & Price, 2002) that the mandate of the international community was only temporary, and because it was based on

“international standards” that deliberately bypassed local structures perceived to be corrupt, it was not subject to local control. Media NGOs, they argued, must therefore take an active role in overseeing and holding the UN accountable for its media regimes, advocating for appropriate regulatory frameworks, monitoring media content for diversity, and working with local media organizations to bridge ethnic and political divides (Darbishire, 2002; Price, 2000). 146 Media NGOs were able to affect an independent stance in part because they had

access to private funding sources. For example, philanthropist George Soros was a major

player in media development in the states of the former Soviet Union through the Open

Society Initiative. The John D. and Catherine T. McArthur Foundation and Roderick J.

McArthur Foundation also funded several media NGOs, including the Institute for War

and Peace Reporting (IWPR) and Article 19 (Hume, 2002). In Afghanistan, the solidarity

NGO model of the 1980s was resuscitated for media NGOs. Some journalists who

reported on Afghanistan went on to create NGOs of their own. For example, Aïna, an

NGO very active in Afghan media reconstruction, was founded by National Geographic photographer Reza Deghati specifically to work in Afghanistan. Media Action

International was founded by Edward Girardet, a former journalist and author of

Afghanistan: The Soviet war (1985). The Open Media Fund for Afghanistan (funded in part by the Soros’ Open Media Fund) was started by journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of

Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia (2000) and Jihad: The rise of militant Islam in Central Asia (2002).. Media Support Services was founded by the former head BBC World Service’s Pashto division Gordon Adam. As former journalists, some media NGO staff had access to private funding from foundations, associations, and human rights groups.

However, private funding waxes and wanes. The Soros Foundation is pulling out of media development funding and plays a minor role in Afghanistan (Hume, 2002).

Media NGOs looked to bilateral foreign aid agencies to offer additional income. In

Afghan media transition, bilateral aid agencies are important funding sources. For example, IWPR received funding from OTI, as well as the European Union and the 147 British aid agency DIfD. Bilateral aid agencies develop relationships with particular

media NGOs, especially those headquartered in their nations. For example, the work of

the Canadian NGO Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society (IMPACS) was funded largely by the Canadian aid agency CIDA. The NGO International Media Support and its spin-off the Baltic Media Center, both based in Denmark, received funding from the

Danish aid agency, DANIDA. OTI’s largest media development grant was awarded to

Internews, an American NGO founded by journalist David Hoffman.

The “independence” that media NGOs claim rests mainly on the discursive construction of free press as it is applied to the development context. In a 2002 Foreign

Affairs article, Internews’ Hoffman argued that the US’s traditional public diplomacy

approach was outdated and bound to fail in a globalized world of multiple sources of

information and skeptic audiences. He pointed to the Bush administration’s post 9/11

efforts to influence media reports and the failed public relations campaign to influence

Muslim opinion in the Middle East as examples of media policy gone wrong. Audiences in the Middle East, he argued, were unlikely to have a positive reaction to a satellite channel sponsored by the US. “Rather than resorting to censorship and counterpropaganda, Washington should make use of the greatest weapon it has in its arsenal: the values enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution” (Hoffman,

2002a). That meant providing funding and allowing for the editorial independence of

“indigenous, independent media.” He argued that recreating Radio Free Afghanistan or establishing UN media channels was the wrong approach to media freedom in

Afghanistan. Instead, the US should help the Afghan government create a nationwide public broadcasting system, and “help train and finance other nongovernmental, 148 independent channels that could set the standard for good journalism and lead through

competition” (Hoffman, 2002a). Later that year, Hoffman took the same argument to

Congress. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he called local independent media “the oxygen of democracy” (Hoffman, 2002b). Media NGOs, as both the arbiters of free press and the conduits for media aid, have become vocal advocates for media transitions aid.

The wave of new states created upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union and

Yugoslavia coupled with major crises in other states like Rwanda gave the international media aid system a new purpose in the post Cold War world. At a time when there were questions about the relevancy of bilateral aid organizations like USAID and multilateral agencies like UNESCO were still struggling to recover a global mandate, media

transitions offered a compelling reason for their continued existence. So the institutions

of the international aid system added “transitions” work to their mandates, either

incorporating it as a new mission into existing divisions or creating new divisions within

the institution dedicated specifically to transitions.

As a practice, media transitions shares the same purpose as early development

communications media. That is, it aims to develop and consolidate the state. However,

understandings of the role of the state in media have changed since the 1950s, 60s and

70s. The state has lost much of its legitimacy as the driving force behind the expansion

of media systems. Although the US, in contrast to European donor nations, has always

promoted a private media system over one dominated by the state, they perceived their

main goal in media aid as disseminating messages for social good not radically

transforming the media sphere. However, when the state itself lost legitimacy, the lines 149 between development and public diplomacy blurred. The notion of media transition used today is highly politicized. Its overt aim, one that has the approval of the international community, is to transform a nation’s political system through and along with the transformation of media.

With the state weakened, international NGOs have become key actors in media

transition. A professionalized class of media reconstruction experts dedicated to systemic

media reform now interacts with development workers focused on poverty alleviation

strategies. Although media reconstruction is highly politicized, it is also dependent on a

universalizing discourse of journalistic objectivity. As objective arbiters of media

freedom, media NGOs play an increasingly important role in the international media aid system. They set the parameters of discourse and practice through their advocacy and implementation of transition media projects. In media transition, the main institutions of media aid are the same—states, bilateral and multilateral aid organizations, and NGOs— but the ways in which they interact have changed. The liminal state, neither fully legitimate nor fully illegitimate, is simultaneously the object of development and a negative force to be guarded against. However, as we shall see in the next chapter, during the transition period, the Afghan state was an active participant in the discursive

construction of media transition. The media transition model advocated by media NGOs

did not go uncontested. Instead, key institutional players within the system attempted to

influence the discursive construction of media aid in order assure that they would benefit from continued funding.

150 Chapter Four: The Discursive Formation of Media Transition

Coordination [of post-conflict assistance programs] is essential to ensure coherence of policies and programs and consistency and orderliness in the operation of aid programs.

From Robert J. Muscat's Lessons from post-conflict aid experience, 2004.

One of the great conundrums of the modern international aid system is that it lionizes strategic planning, coordination, cooperation, and collaboration, and frowns upon overt expressions of independence and organizational competitiveness. Yet paradoxically, “developmentalism,” in theory at least, is the champion of diversity, innovation, tolerance, economic competitiveness, and political, social, and cultural pluralism.

From Nicholas Stockton's Afghanistan, war, aid and international order, 2004.

This chapter examines how different players in Afghan media transition justified

the need for and direction of aid resources for media, and the mechanisms of control they

attempted to institute. September 11, 2001 marked a sharp turning point in the international aid community’s relationship with Afghanistan. When it became clear that the US would seek to depose the Taliban government, the humanitarian aid NGOs and

UN organizations who had been working in relative obscurity were suddenly important foot soldiers in the “war on terror.” There was a revived interest from the donor community in old friends from the cross-border era as well as a host of new actors born out of post-Soviet reconstruction efforts. Media assistance was becoming a standard part of the post-conflict aid package, and debates about what to do, how to do it, and with whom were a part of the earliest discussions among donors in the fall and winter of 2001.

It was emphasized in these meetings that coordination was vital in order to avoid

151 duplication of efforts and ensure the effectiveness of media assistance. So, formal

structures were created to coordinate aid to the media sector.

While it was difficult to argue against the idea of coordination, in practice

different coordination structures privileged certain actors, ideas and modes of action

above others. The discursive formations that coalesced around each structure had

important consequences for donors, as they were called to defend the legitimacy of their

assistance projects. Each structure had a set of guiding policy documents that justified

and defined the parameters of media aid, as well as an organizational structure that was

formed to implement the stated policy. Within each formation, certain groups were better

placed to attract funding than others. Each group jostled for a better position by invoking

slightly different discourses to justify their brand of transition media.

In this chapter, I analyze key policy documents produced by donor organizations,

Afghan state organs, and media NGOs in order to understand how media aid was

conceptualized by each of these players within the transition process. I also examine how

different players attempted to enforce their own understanding of media transition by

creating organizational structures within which media organizations were expected to

function to request and obtain funding. Together, the documents and organizational structures formed a discursive formation that set the parameters for what kinds of media projects were funded. I then analyze how each discursive formation benefited certain players above others, in order to understand why particular discursive formations are promoted above others. I identify four discursive formations: humanitarian aid, public information needs, cultural policy and press freedom. The first two formations were active in the early stages of media transition. However, they were then replaced by the 152 last two; cultural policy and press freedom became the dominant discursive formations

that structured how the new Afghan state and media NGOs attempted to convince donors

to fund their projects.

Prior to the installation of a new Afghan government, media aid was conceived of

as a humanitarian aid project. A group of media NGOs, relief organizations and funders

met outside the country to plan future interventions. This loose coordination was soon

superceded by the Afghan working group, where media aid was framed in terms of public

information needs. The discursive formation of public information was more inclusive

and long-lasting than humanitarian aid. Led by the United Nation’s Department of Public

Information, NGOs and donors planned for media aid interventions based on their own

media needs assessments. As the newly installed Afghan government demanded more

control over aid monies and began creating their own policy documents, the responsibility for media aid coordination shifted to UNESCO within a framework of cultural policy development. This framework privileged the public media sector over the private, and it marginalized media assistance as “cultural.” As a consequence, media

NGOs and bilateral donors like the US used political events to create a discursive space in which to act. By linking media assistance to milestones outlined in the Bonn

Agreement or to media regulation, they were able to reintegrate media freedom into the policy discourse. This highlighted the primacy and urgency of media assistance in political transitions and ensured a continuing flow of aid monies to the sector.

Media NGOs were originally working in Afghanistan within an international development framework with a history of conceiving media aid as a state modernization project, or as distribution outlets for messages for social good. They shifted the discourse 153 toward freedom of the press, a discursive formation that benefited NGOs and the private

media outlets they incubated over state media outlets, in part by linking free press to

notions of civil society. Within development communications, civil society can be understood as a legitimate participatory development communications project.

Development institutions like OTI understood and supported notions of media aid for civil society. The discursive stakes were high. Whoever controlled the parameters of discourse also influenced the direction of funding. So the discursive battle to define media transition for donors was earnestly fought by the state and media NGOs.

THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND HUMANITARIAN AID

In the weeks following the September 11th attacks, the media aid establishment

geared up for their role in Afghanistan’s expected political transition. Cross-border

media players were joined by NGOs working in the most recent “transition” countries.

On October 8 2001, the Afghan Media Resource Center (AMRC), BBC World Trust and

Media Action International (MAI) met with the Freeplay Foundation, Internews and the

Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) to brainstorm with donors and

humanitarian aid organizations on the use of media for disseminating humanitarian aid

information. UNESCO hosted the one-day seminar, and USAID, the International

Organization for Migration (IOM), and UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for

Refugees) sent representatives. The focus of the seminar was to plan for the “information

needs” of refugees inside and outside of Afghanistan (MAI, 2001).

The session served to highlight shared understandings of the importance of media

in humanitarian aid emergencies. It also reinforced the boundaries of the media aid

154 community as a professionalized class of development workers. Seminar participants

agreed to continue coordinating amongst themselves, to conduct information needs

assessments, and to explore the feasibility of long-term media assistance initiatives (MAI,

2001). The discursive formation of humanitarian aid privileged a fairly small group of known actors with established contacts in Afghanistan and the donor community. The urgency of humanitarian aid was also useful for mobilizing immediate funds. However, it was short-lived. The Taliban government fell in November 2001, and by the end of

December a new transitional government was in place. There was scarcely time to implement media projects for humanitarian aid. When the Afghan interim government was installed, humanitarian aid was no longer the primary justification for media aid.

Instead, the focus shifted to media aid for nation-building.

Media NGO Needs Assessments

As in the cross-border days, donors, international organizations, and NGOs had little information about what was actually happening inside Afghanistan. In October and

November, organizations with deep enough pockets sent consultants to Pakistan to create media needs assessments and generate project proposals (IMS & Article 19, 2001; IOM,

2001; Girardet, 2001). The needs assessment is a key document in the international aid system, the first step in the bureaucratic process that eventually leads to a release of funds. It establishes “the facts” on the ground to justify particular projects to donors.

IOM, MAI, IMS and Article 19 depended on the same listenership information, the

VOA-commissioned Intermedia surveys done by the AMRC, to argue for radio-based information programs. They made educated guesses as to what media outlets might still

155 be functioning within Afghanistan based on what they knew of Northern Alliance media operations. They also argued against giving Pakistan a major role in media aid operations, given the tight control of the Pakistani government over their own media outlets (IOM, 2001). All of this was information gleaned from experiences during the

1980s and 90s. The underlying assumption was that, as in the cross-border days, donors would pay for a credible media outlet to disseminate their own points of view. As one media consultant put it, “Aid officials feel there is an urgent need for Afghans to know the ‘real story’ behind international aid efforts” (Girardet, 2001).

By linking media projects to humanitarian aid efforts, media organizations benefited from the urgency and expected scope of relief operations. During the fall of

2001, predictions of an upcoming humanitarian aid crisis dominated international news coverage. Journalists covering the developments in Afghanistan, desperate for new items to send to their editors, broadcast warnings from UNHCR officials that the international community must plan for a dire refugee crisis (Clark, 2004). It seemed that funds would be available quickly for projects tied to the anticipated crisis and media NGOs focused on using the radio broadcast system in order to reach a broad Afghan public. Media aid organizations had a solid market in donors and relief agencies wanting to publicize their efforts to an Afghan audience. Media assessments were careful to characterize humanitarian information as a “need” – that is, the proposed programs were to broadcast news that the humanitarian aid community considered necessary for Afghans. Afghans fleeing from war “must have the information that will allow them to make better informed decisions regarding their security and access to assistance for basic needs”

(IOM, 2001). 156 Humanitarian aid organizations were concerned about what level of information

was appropriate to disseminate, given that aid convoys could also be targets (IMS &

Article 19, 2001; IOM, 2001). But in general, it was expected that the plethora of aid

agencies involved in relief efforts would welcome a chance to “counter…anti-UN and

anti-Western propaganda” with some “real information” of their own (Girardet, 2001).

Not only did the “free flow of information” argument resonate ideologically with the

cross-border era agencies, it also advanced the practical work of the agencies. Each

agency was likely to have a public relations arm looking for opportunities to publicize their work and prove their effectiveness to potential funders, thus ensuring continued financial support. As part of a humanitarian news operation, these agencies would have a legitimate outlet for their public relations materials.

Privileged Players in the Humanitarian Aid Formation

The discursive formation of humanitarian aid benefited media organizations with an established history in Afghanistan and tended to serve as an entry barrier to new organizations. The BBC World Service was particularly well placed with an Afghan production team in Pakistan, studies showing high listenership in Afghanistan, and an international reputation as a credible news source. BBC had already begun producing humanitarian news bulletins when the media organizations met in October, a project that the seminar participants agreed to “support.” When IOM proposed producing other humanitarian aid bulletins, they drew criticism from some media NGOs for “replicating” a news service already provided by BBC (Hieber, 2002). IOM argued that they were a more appropriate institution to carry out humanitarian aid bulletins, as they were part of

157 the relief community and had field staff able to collect and relay information from all over Afghanistan (IOM, 2001). IOM also tapped the AMRC for research and subcontracted Media Support Services (MSS), a group of former BBC World Service journalists, for production. By partnering with established media organizations, IOM was able to briefly enter the humanitarian aid media sphere.

But in the early days of Afghan media reconstruction, donors tended to rely on familiar international radio broadcast outlets. The US Congress expanded VOA’s Dari and Pashto programming the week after the September attacks, and resurrected Radio

Free Afghanistan in January 2002 over the objections of some media NGOs who argued that media aid should go to support “independent” outlets, not international broadcasters

(MAI, 2001). The need for humanitarian aid information could be met by having a limited number of media outlets reaching the vast majority of the Afghan population.

The international broadcasters could claim reach and listenership; the only arena in which newcomers could argue for an advantage was in terms of credibility.

The field of action in humanitarian information became even smaller when the predicted humanitarian crisis never materialized. Instead of a protracted war, the combination of American bombing and Northern Alliance ground troops made for a quick victory. Rather than a flow of refugees into Pakistan and Iran, there was a reverse movement of refugees repatriated into Afghanistan. The repatriation process, although a very large and complex undertaking, was fairly orderly. There was a defined population of refugees located in camps, or those who had registered with refugee agencies. As there was no need to reach a broad population of communities within Afghanistan, the repatriation process required targeted information campaigns that could be easily 158 accommodated by agencies’ own communications departments. The perceived need for

humanitarian information programs also diminished as the newly installed government

urged donors to shift the focus of their foreign aid programs from emergency aid to

reconstruction.

THE UN AND PUBLIC INFORMATION NEEDS

Afghan media reconstruction began in earnest with the installation of the Interim

Administration in December 2002. The same NGOs and aid agencies who had participated in planning media for humanitarian aid shifted their focus to public information needs. Addressing the information needs of the “Afghan public” rather than just refugees expanded the scope of action for media aid. As the political transition process was formalized, media aid organizations had to include the new Afghan state representatives in their planning and programming. The parameters for media aid were articulated in a joint donor preliminary needs assessment intended to guide donor investment in each of the sectors, and ensure that the Afghan government and major donors held common views of the main funding priorities. The UN Department of Public

Information (UNDPI) led donor coordination in media reconstruction through a media working group. A representative of the Ministry of Information and Culture (MOIC) co- chaired the working group meetings. The UN also instituted a system for prioritizing media projects in which the MOIC was to take a lead role in evaluating projects.

However, in practice the MOIC had little power to influence which projects were funded.

Instead, donors relied on NGO needs assessments to plan their own media reconstruction strategies. Despite the rhetoric of the preliminary needs assessment, there was no

159 common vision of media reconstruction shared by the Afghan state, donors and NGOs.

Instead, the state argued that it should be the main arbiter and beneficiary of media aid, while media NGOs argued that most monies should go to private media outlets.

The Preliminary Needs Assessment

In November 2001, the key donors of the Afghan Steering Group (the United

States, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the European Union) commissioned a multi-sectoral comprehensive needs assessment to be conducted jointly by major donor organizations.

The media sector was assigned to UNDPI. The Steering Group requested a preliminary needs assessment to be prepared for the first major multi-donor conference scheduled for

January 2002 in Tokyo. With this document in hand, donors would have a common framework around which to structure emergency aid. Later, the preliminary needs assessment could be revised and expanded into a truly comprehensive needs assessment.34 UNDPI turned to the BBC to conduct a rapid assessment in early January

2002 that would feed into the preliminary needs assessment. The BBC was a logical

choice for the UN. The BBC had a long history in Afghanistan as well as a cadre of Dari

and Pashto-speaking journalists to rely upon for interviews and analysis. But more

importantly, their global reputation as the model government broadcaster gave the entire

enterprise legitimacy in the nascent Afghan public sector. Whereas during the cross-

border days donors depended on NGOs for on-the-ground needs analysis, the Preliminary

34 In the media sector, the preliminary needs assessment was never revised or finalized into a comprehensive needs assessment. 160 Needs Assessment (PNA) was meant to reflect the needs of the Interim Administration

installed in December 2002 (ABD, UNDP, & The World Bank, 2002).35

The BBC team interviewed government officials at the Ministry of Information and Culture (MOIC) and inspected print and broadcasting facilities in Kabul (BBC World

Service Trust, 2002a).36 This method resulted in an oddly skewed analysis. It was

difficult to get a sense of what was happening outside the capital city. MOIC officials, newly appointed, had likely not traveled to the provinces and did not have access to telephones (at that point, the most reliable communication was via very expensive satellite phones). The BBC also found that their main sources for information and analysis, MOIC officials, did not share the BBC view of public broadcasting. They lamented that nobody in the government seemed to be familiar with the idea of an independent governing board, even the Western-educated deputy minister who was described as “otherwise, well informed, [and] progressive” (BBC World Service Trust,

2002a). “The team found a fundamental lack of understanding of what a modern media environment means,” writes one analyst, “so that staff had difficulty in answering the team’s questions at all levels, from technical to strategic.” Given the gap between the

BBC team and MOIC employees, it is difficult to know how much of the preliminary needs assessment distributed in Tokyo reflected the ideas and understandings of the BBC, and how much it reflected the viewpoint of the Afghan MOIC. The introduction to the overall document, which includes multiple sectors, states that due to the short time, lack

35The report is available online at http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/Afghanistan. 36 In mid 2002, the BBC posted their complete Afghan media assessment, which had been incorporated into the January Preliminary Needs Assessment, online. Since the overall Preliminary Needs Assessment

161 of data available, and little consultation with the Interim Administration, the results of the preliminary assessment should be considered “indicative” of needs (ABD et al., 2002).

The PNA argues that rebuilding media infrastructure is a vital aspect of good

governance, necessary for the “public communication of information through an effective

media strategy.” In the short term, donors should provide the infrastructure, training and

resources needed to quickly revive the media sector. The report also suggests that donors

focus immediate support on programming for the upcoming loya jirgas. The focus here

is on immediate public information needs, especially as related to political transition.

The idea was that the government needs a means of communicating with a national

public, and Afghans need information that will allow them to keep abreast of political

developments and participate in the public sphere.

The document sets out a broad political mandate for media “to play a role in

fostering national unity, educating civil society and promoting a representative and

democratic government” (30). Under long-term priorities, the PNA identifies creating

programming for educational and cultural purposes, restructuring the regulatory

framework, and transforming Radio-Television Afghanistan (RTA) into a public service

broadcaster. The PNA envisions a democratic political system in which the MOIC plays a key role in the management of media space as well as the production and dissemination

of programming. The report argues that “there is an immediate need to coordinate

assistance within a national strategy to stop the uncoordinated proliferation of small radio

and TV stations” (31). The report’s concern with controlling the media sphere through a

does not contain information on data collection, this is my source for the methodology and detailed BBC analysis. 162 national strategy foreshadows the divide to come, with the Afghan government

privileging public sector investments under the rubric of “national unity” while some

donors and media NGOs focused on promoting investment in the private sector as media

for “civil society.”

The Media Working Group and ITAP

A regular media working group met at the UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan

(UNAMA, the political arm of the UN) compound in Kabul.37 It was led jointly by

UNAMA’s press spokesman and the MOIC Deputy Minister. The meetings were held in

English, and were open to interested members of the donor community and NGOs. The

meetings served as venues for different organizations to report on activities, raise implementation issues, and promote particular approaches and projects. They usually

opened with those present doing a quick overview of their organization’s activities.

While the activity summary was redundant for regular participants, there was a constant

stream of donor representatives and consultants coming to Afghanistan to participate in

reconstruction. If newcomers wanted an overview of the media sector, they could attend

the media working group meeting. Working group regulars were well advised to take

advantage of the meetings to promote their organizations, since one never knew who

would be in attendance and how much money or influence they could leverage. A

consensus reached at a working group meeting, such as the need to get information on the

state of broadcast outlets in the provinces, could easily lead to a funded project.

37 There are no publicly available meeting minutes, however I was present at several media working group meetings in the summer of 2002. The information in this section is derived in part from my personal notes. 163 This ad-hoc structure worked well for OTI. USAID was in the process of transferring responsibility for the management of Afghan foreign aid from bureaus in

Washington to the newly established Kabul mission. While OTI hired field officers to send to the mission, an OTI program officer from Washington came for multiple, extended trips to Afghanistan. She had the authority to solicit and approve proposals.

Time permitting, she attended media working group meetings or sent a local representative. OTI-Washington also sent its senior media advisor to design OTI’s overall media program. He attended working group meetings or called similar informal meetings of his own. The overall direction of OTI’s media plans, with its focus on creating private media outlets as a competition for state broadcasters, was set by OTI’s media advisor. In discussions concerning USAID’s investments in media, including media for development, he argued that donors would have little leverage to affect real change at the national broadcaster. Instead, he claimed, the broadcaster would be forced to change in the face of private competition from more efficient and popular media outlets (J. Langlois, personal communication, June 10, 2002). Therefore, he advocated a media strategy that privileged private outlets.

The structure of OTI’s funding made personal communications with OTI staff important for project approval. Project officers had the authority to approve individual proposals without submitting them to long, competitive procurement procedures. With the support of OTI’s media advisor, a media project was likely to get approved by the appropriate project officers. For example, OTI funded the first private radio station,

Arman FM, a project that was promoted by the media advisor (J. Langlois, personal communication, June 10, 2002). At this stage, all of OTI’s programs, including media 164 aid, were fairly ad-hoc. There was not yet an overall USAID mission strategy, approved

by a Mission Director, for the entire mission. OTI had the mandate to get projects

approved and money disbursed quickly. Therefore, a short, face-to-face encounter with

OTI staff could be very productive for those seeking funding.

Once a relationship had been established with OTI, it opened the door for multiple

projects to be approved. For example, OTI became familiar with Media Support Services by funding IOM to create humanitarian aid bulletins. Later, OTI contracted directly with

MSS for the Emergency Loya Jirga and the first two phases of Constitutional Loya Jirga programming. John Butt, then working for MSS, was present at many of the working group meetings and was a main interlocutor with OTI. He later partnered with an OTI- funded local radio station, Killid, to create elections programming. Through the media working group, OTI had a means of keeping track of the changing players in the public

and private media sector, as well as a space in which to discuss specific project ideas.

Media NGOs and government organizations could establish a direct and personal

relationship with OTI and other donor agency representatives.

Although UNDPI and the MOIC chaired the working group meetings, neither agency was in a position to supervise how donors allocated media aid monies. The UN

sought to expand its influence by promoting the Immediate and Transitional Assistance

Programme for the Afghan People (ITAP) as the principal mechanism for channeling

funding. Created by the UN in October 2001, ITAP purported to represent reconstruction

needs and priorities as articulated by UN agencies, the Afghan government and NGOs.

The ITAP outlined a reconstruction strategy for all key sectors; the infrastructure sector

included roads, energy and communications. Under communications, media priorities for 165 2002 included reforming regulatory frameworks, conducting a comprehensive needs

assessment, establishing a media resource center, training media professionals and

producing programming to meet immediate “political, poverty alleviation and entertainment needs” (UN, 2002). This is a broad mandate that could include political news and information, traditional development communications as well as cultural programming. The ITAP estimated that $53 million would be needed.

To operationalize the needs assessment, the UN maintained a large database of project proposals. The UN encouraged all its agencies as well as NGOs to submit project proposals to the ITAP database. The UN would then pass proposals to the relevant government agencies to prioritize. With the UN as an intermediary, donors would be able to choose government priority projects to fund. Some media organizations did try to

participate in the ITAP process. The 2002 ITAP database included project proposals

from UNESCO, the BBC World Service Trust and its Afghan Education Project, as well as the media NGOs Baltic Media Center, Aïna and Internews (UN, 2002). But the ITAP system was never widely adopted by donors. The days of humanitarian aid, where the

UN acted as central coordinator for aid monies, were over. The political transition in

Afghanistan, unlike the Kosovo model where the new nation was a UN protectorate, involved legitimizing an Afghan government. As such, both the UN and donor nations were careful to appear to follow the direction of the new transitional government rather than appear to lead it.

In February 2002, the UN conducted a “comprehensive review” of the ITAP in order to incorporate the results of the donor commissioned Preliminary Needs

Assessment. The ITAP was subsequently reviewed twice by Afghan government 166 representatives, in order to try and rationalize the ITAP priorities with government funding priorities (UN, 2002). But by April 2002, the Afghan government had created its own policy document and funding mechanism for donors. This process soon overtook both the PNA and ITAP.

Privileged Players in the Information Needs Formation

There were material benefits for both government and non-government media organizations as they worked together to meet the civic information needs of the Afghan public. Unlike the humanitarian aid discourse, the discursive structure of public information could be easily linked to urgent political transition imperatives such as the need to promote discussion of key issues prior to the June 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga.

Under the ITAP, media reconstruction was perceived as an infrastructure project. Media had a broad mandate for all kinds of programming, including news and information.

However, the PNA focused on the immediate needs for political transition by conceiving

of media aid as an aspect of good governance. This emphasis highlighted the urgent need

for political programming for the upcoming Emergency and Constitutional Loya Jirgas.

The most important political news to be disseminated involved the purpose and

procedures of these loya jirgas.

In these early days, the state benefited from the urgency of political transition

since they still had a monopoly on broadcast distribution. Nationwide coverage could be

attained either through improving the transmission facilities of the national broadcaster in

Kabul or by multiplying the number of radio outlets in the provinces. RTA had a

network of provincial radio stations in varying states of decay and was anxious to get

167 funding to re-build them. However, they lacked content. Donors interested in getting particular programming aired could tie new equipment to media NGO- led journalism and production training, or even the distribution of NGO-produced programming. For example, OTI paid for a satellite uplink for RTA to enable the broadcaster to reach nationwide. In exchange, they expected that RTA would air OTI-funded programming on the Emergency Loya Jirga. While donors, media NGOs and government actors might have different programming priorities, they all needed distribution outlets.

The admitted lack of government production capacity allowed the media assistance sphere to accommodate a host of new actors. For example, the Baltic Media

Center began working with Radio Television Afghanistan, providing equipment and training. IWPR and Internews offered journalist training courses. Aïna created a Media and Culture Center in Kabul where NGOs and journalists could access media production equipment and training. MSS began production on a radio soap opera in preparation for the Emergency Loya Jirga. These new media organizations joined the BBC World

Service Trust and UNESCO, both of whom were working with state media outlets. The

BBC’s Afghan Education Project was in the process of moving its headquarters from

Pakistan to Afghanistan. They, too, were producing radio programming for the upcoming Emergency Loya Jirga.

The public information discourse is very expansive and inclusive; it is difficult to argue that there is too much public information. The limiting factor is funding. Although media organizations did compete for funding, they also collaborated fairly closely in the working group and through informal arrangements among media organizations. For example, as Internews became more involved in supporting radio, Aïna agreed to focus 168 more on technical assistance in film and video production (A. Kaplan, personal

communication, August 9, 2004). The loose coordination of the working group was soon

replaced by more formal structures as the Afghan government instituted new

coordination mechanisms designed to reinforce Afghan “ownership” of foreign aid.

Although these new structures purported to promote media diversity, in practice they re-

focused media assistance on state media.

THE AFGHAN STATE AND CULTURAL POLICY

As the Afghan state apparatus was reconstructed, the state entered into

competition with NGOs for donor funding. In the spring of 2002, the government began

to pressure donors to funnel monies through the state system and to claim supervisory

rights over how donor monies were allocated and spent. Neither the UN nor donor agencies should “coordinate” foreign aid to Afghanistan; that job, the government argued, was rightfully a state function. However, since the state was funded almost entirely through foreign aid, the Afghan government devised a coordination mechanism that fit within the structure of the foreign aid system. The Ministry of Information and

Culture (MOIC) was the primary state organization to represent the media sector.

After a February 2002 press law that seemed to allow private radio and television

broadcasting was instituted, the state media system began to see donor resources diverted to new private broadcast outlets. The public information discursive formation allowed

considerable latitude for competing media outlets. With the focus on information, private

radio stations were just as viable, if not more trusted as news outlets, than state

broadcasters. The MOIC, with ample assistance from UNESCO and the BBC, began

169 instead to promote media reconstruction as a matter of state cultural policy. This

highlighted the importance of public broadcasting. In the cultural policy framework the

state not only guides and supervises the entire media sphere, but is also a privileged

source for programming and distribution. So both the new competitive free press media paradigm and state media for cultural development received support from different agencies.

The National Development Framework and Budget

In April 2002, the Afghan administration presented donors with a draft document called the National Development Framework (AACA, 2002). Rather than being guided by the Preliminary Needs Assessment, donors were now to look to the NDF. The NDF outlined the government’s priorities in three main areas: pillar one, humanitarian aid and human and social capital; pillar two, physical reconstruction and natural resources; and pillar three, private sector development. Within each pillar, there were several sectors that roughly corresponded to existing government ministries (some sectors had multiple ministries). Media, in pillar one, were under the MOIC. Each Ministry was required to present an overall vision for the relevant sector and list their funding priorities. These would then be debated within the Cabinet and used to produce the national budget. Since foreign aid made up most of both the development and ordinary budgets (for civil servant salaries and other government operating costs), the NDF was intended to ensure that the new Afghan government exerted some control over aid monies. The government should be “in the driver’s seat” argued the NDF. “We expect donors to fund and implement only those projects consistent with the goals and strategies outlined in this document, to

170 respect the priorities decided in the budget process, and to ensure that all interventions

have clear outcomes, and are properly monitored” (6). The NDF was an attempt to use a

structure that would be intelligible to donors and feed directly into national government

processes.

The concept and function of the NDF was similar to the Strategic Framework

used by the UN to guide donors and NGOs in the late 1990s. The Strategic Framework,

born at a 1997 donor workshop, was intended to rationalize the work of humanitarian

NGOs and UN agencies. At the time, interest in Afghanistan was low and political solutions to the continuing civil war were losing credibility. There was criticism that the donor community’s lack of a cohesive strategy allowed the Taliban to play donors against each other and use aid monies to prop up the regime. The Strategic Framework, created by donors and endorsed by the UN, would create a clear agenda and means of evaluating success. NGOs and UN agencies were asked to demonstrate their compliance with the goals and methods outlined in the Strategic Framework (Donini, 2004).

In creating a similar master planning document, the Afghan administration could now exert pressure on the foreign aid community using the same method the UN and donors had instituted to control NGOs and UN agencies. The NDF expressed national priorities in terms that the donor community understood—needs, goals, priority projects and budgets. The document was also in English, the international language of the foreign aid community. It was a practical document that could be used to set funding goals and extract promises of donor aid at budget conferences. The first draft NDF was distributed to donors at a Kabul meeting of the Afghan Implementation Group, high level donor representatives who negotiated international funding for Afghanistan. Subsequent 171 revisions and addenda were timed to coincide with key funding opportunities such as the

March 2004 Berlin Donor’s Conference, a follow-up to the Tokyo conference of January

2002. The NDF was accepted by the donor community as the Afghan government’s

statement of policy (Costy, 2004).

The budget is the end point of the NDF. The Cabinet debates the National

Development Budget; in theory, only those projects that have been included in the

approved budget can be implemented. In practice, however, the government budgetary

timeline does not coincide with internal donor funding processes and timelines. For

example, the Afghan fiscal year runs from March to April, while the US government

funding cycle is from October to September. Thus, many projects have already been

approved by funders, and some are already underway, before being proposed in the

annual Afghan national budget. It is unlikely that these projects would or could be

stopped by government officials for noncompliance with national budget priorities.

However this is a chance that donors are unlikely to take, if only because it would be

politically uncomfortable.

Therefore, when the Ministry of Finance sends out a series of complex forms for donors and project implementers (NGOs or UN agencies) to fill out detailing the

expected outcomes and budgets of their assistance programs, donors would do well to

complete them.38 Hopefully, funded projects are subsequently included in the national

budget and approved by the Cabinet. Donors can then say with confidence that they are

following national development priorities. The budget process does allow for

government officials to exert pressure on donors to fund specific projects. Unfunded

172 projects are included in the national development budget; figures for total funds needed

per sector are derived by adding budget requests for all approved but unfunded projects.

The government can then present budget needs by sector and by priority projects at donor

conferences. Whatever bilateral and multilateral aid agencies might have thought of the

NDF process in private, all donor nations exhibited a public acceptance of the process

(Costy, 2004).

The April 2002 NDF has one brief paragraph on media development which

focuses on rebuilding print and broadcast infrastructure. It prioritizes expanding the

reach of Radio Television Afghanistan. Although media are barely discussed in the first

NDF, it is clear that the government is conceptualizing media reconstruction as a cultural

project of the state. Whereas the PNA conceptualizes media as a function of good

governance and the ITAP discusses media reconstruction under infrastructure, the NDF outlines goals for media in a section entitled “Cultural Heritage, Media and Sports.” The institutionalization of media, culture and sport as a single government unit borrows from the British model of the 1990s. Facing pressure to reduce and rationalize spending on arts, Britain’s New Labour government created the omnibus Department for National

Heritage in 1992. It was re-named the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in 1997 and has a broad mandate over “entertainment” including gambling, tourism, broadcasting and film.39 This new configuration allows the government to link the arts with economic

gain, as well as national heritage. In supporting media, the government is bringing

material benefits to its constituents while maintaining its position as the official source of

38 For a copy of the forms and more information on the budget process see http://www.af/mof/budget. 39 For more information see http://www.culture.gov.uk. 173 national culture (Belfiore, 2004). The Afghan government readily adopted the British

model. 40 The MOIC continued to promote the primacy of state media via cultural

arguments in subsequent iterations of the NDF.

The Consultative Group and the Technical Annex

In May 2002, ministries were paired with UN agencies through a system of

Programme Secretariats, which replaced informal working groups. There were twelve

Programme Secretariats that corresponded with the 12 national priority programs outlined

in the NDF. The Programme Secretariats were intended to aid ministries in finding funding for key priorities and tracking aid projects. In the media sector, UNESCO took over leadership from UNDPI. Coordination meetings were held at UNESCO and co- chaired by the MOIC Deputy Minister. However, there were complaints that the

Programme Secretariat structure gave individual UN agencies too much gate-keeping power and cut off the direct donor contact with ministries needed for bilateral aid. NGOs were also unhappy, as UN agencies were competitors for donor funding of projects.

Some argued that the close relationship that developed between UN agencies and ministries gave the UN the ability to unfairly influence the government in deciding where and how to allocate donor resources (Costy, 2004).

In October 2002, the Afghan government responded to these complaints by announcing that Programme Secretariats would be replaced by Consultative Groups

(CGs). There were sixteen CGs, one for each of the national development programs

40 In a further application of this model, after Karzai’s re-election in October 2004 the Department of Tourism, formerly part of the Telecommunications Ministry, was moved to the Ministry of Information and Culture. 174 outlined in the NDF and four additional national security programs. Each CG consisted of representatives from relevant ministries, UN agencies, NGOs, and donors.41 Donors were asked to choose a limited number of sectors in which to take a “focal” role by providing significant funding as well as coordinating other assistance. No donor stepped forward in the media sector, and UNESCO assumed the role of focal point. There were now three topic areas folded into one CG, with very different parties interested in each one. So the CG was divided into three sub-groups. The culture sub-group, dealing with museums and historical sites, was chaired by the MOIC director of planning. The sport sub-group was chaired by the vice president of the Olympic committee. The MOIC

Deputy Minister chaired the third sub-group on media. Meetings were held at the MOIC.

When the Programme Secretariat and then Consultative Group structure was established, UNESCO was tasked with aiding the MOIC in expanding and adding detail to the draft NDF presented in April 2002. Although the NDF’s format was guaranteed to be familiar to donors, it was foreign to many of the civil servants of the Afghan government. Both literally and figuratively, the NDF was in the language of donors. In order to prepare the NDF and subsequent annexes, many ministries depended heavily on foreign technical assistance. It was imperative that an updated and expanded report be prepared in time for the next big donor conference in Berlin in January 2004. The

Afghan government asked each sector to present a technical annex to a report entitled

“Securing Afghanistan’s Future: Accomplishments and the Strategic Path Forward” which detailed the progress to date of the NDF.

41 See http://www.afghanistangov.org for a list of Consultative Groups. 175 The media technical annex is indicative of how influential UN agencies were in conceptualizing and presenting the needs of the Afghan government to donors. The report was prepared by four international advisors, two from UNESCO, who began the report with a caveat:

Disclaimer: This report has been prepared at the request of the Transitional Islamic Government of Afghanistan as a technical input to the ‘Securing Afghanistan’s Future’ exercise. While the report has been prepared in partnership with key government ministries, due to time constraints in reviewing the annex, the final text and figures do not necessarily reflect the official view of the government (Haxthausen, Cairola, Traavik, & Adolphson, 2004).

UNESCO set up an Aid Coordination Unit within the MOIC’s Directorate of

Planning and External Relations to prepare, monitor and evaluate the progress of the

National Development Framework and Budget. However, the report notes that although staff was being trained for the unit, it was difficult to retain qualified civil servants.

Computer-literate workers with basic English skills were likely to be hired away by higher paying NGOs. State agencies regularly complained that donor agencies and

NGOs were draining the state of its best workers by offering high salaries with which the state could not compete. Ironically, the donor-initiated process of increasing state capacity had a built-in mechanism for failure in that salary gaps between the public and private sectors consistently increased.

In the January 2004 technical annex for media, state media retains the key nation- building role. At first blush, the stated vision for media is consistent with the freedom of information discourse: “The media, including national public information services, are independent, pluralistic and accessible to Afghan men and women throughout the

176 country” (Haxthausen, Cairola, Traavik, & Adolphson, 2004). But this rhetoric loses

force as one follows the trajectory from vision statement to target goals and finally, to the

budget. Specific media targets and outputs are heavily weighted toward the public sector.

The technical annex sets a target number of self-sustaining independent media outlets to

be created (30 by 2006, and 50 by 2010), which can be press or broadcast outlets.

The other goals involve government institutions, for example strengthening the

media regulatory framework, expanding RTA’s coverage and programming hours

(including specific goals for expanding television coverage), and strengthening

journalism departments within state universities. In the budget section, only those

projects that address government institutions are presented. These include on-going

projects to provide equipment and training to the state-run news agency, Bakhtar, and to

RTA; aid for the physical reconstruction of MOIC offices, the National Printing House

and provincial presses; and aid to the state-owned Afghan Film. The media development

budget does not reflect significant on-going activities and donor investment in private

media outlets. For example, USAID-OTI’s reported investment is approximately

$250,000. However, in January 2004, OTI reported fifty five grants for media support

with a total budget of approximately $5.6 million dollars (OTI, 2004). A review of the

OTI grants database indicates that $250,000 roughly corresponds to OTI projects where

the MOIC is a direct beneficiary, such as projects for the rehabilitation of RTA facilities,

provision of equipment and staff training.42

42 This does not appear to include investments made by OTI to purchase a satellite dish and uplink time for RTA, which total almost $700,000. It also excludes investments in media for other government agencies, 177 Initially, some media NGOs submitted their project proposals to UNESCO to be included in the National Development Budget. Unfunded projects were included in the hopes that they would attract donor interest. For example in fall 2002, Internews submitted project proposals for election media monitoring, journalism training and a media venture fund. The Internews project proposals were unfunded at the time.

Internews subsequently won a series of grants from OTI for journalist training and creating private broadcasting outlets. However, the projects do not appear in the January

2004 Technical Annex. Instead the CG decided that “as public investment programme” the budget would “only include projects supporting public media” (Media CG, 2003). It is not in the interest of the MOIC, no matter how often they extol the virtues of independent media, to include private media in donor budget requests. State media outlets are in competition with private outlets for funding. The technical annex demonstrates how the state, via the NDF, attempted to garner resources for itself. Private media outlets are permitted but not encouraged. Instead, within the discourse of cultural policy, the focus is on improving the production and distribution capacity of state media outlets.

Privileged Players in the Cultural Policy Formation

The cultural heritage framework is well articulated in a February 2002 speech of

UNESCO’s Director General to the Executive Board and invited guests, including the

Afghan Minister of Culture and Information. The Director General began his address with a welcome to Afghanistan: “It is hard for me to express with what pleasure and emotion this House, the house of all the cultures of the world, greets the return of a

178 brother” (Matsuura, 2002). The speech focused on ways that UNESCO could aid

Afghanistan in safeguarding its monuments and promoting a unified cultural heritage.

Whereas cultural heritage had been used as divisive tool during times of conflict, “under

UNESCO’s guidance, it can also become a rallying point for former adversaries, enabling them to re-build ties and dialogue, and re-design a common identity and future together,” the Director General offered. He acknowledged that “the necessary guarantees of a free and plural press are part and parcel of this quest for identity and reconciliation, for independent media are buttresses for the democratic process on which a society at peace with itself has a better chance to survive” (Matsuura, 2002). Like the freedom of information discourse, the cultural heritage discourse envisages a state that permits commercial media. However, it gives the state a much more active role in the production and dissemination of programming for national unity. In this framework, the process of negotiating and expressing a cultural identity via media parallels the political process of negotiation. The cultural heritage framework also offers a venue for national legitimacy by allowing Afghanistan to rejoin the global family through common cultural institutions such as state media.

However, the cultural heritage framework risks diluting overall donor interest in transitional media development. By linking media to culture and sport, it could be claimed that the state gains international legitimacy as a source of cultural policy, able to speak on equal terms with other states within the UNESCO forum. It is not simply one, rather discredited, voice among many. Instead, state media outlets are privileged cultural institutions. The notion of the state as a protector of cultural heritage and arbiter of national identity fits well with the ethos of the MOIC, whose original mission was to 179 create and reinforce a modern national identity. In a political situation in which ethnic

divides are a potential stumbling block in the political process, defining national identity

as multi-ethnic yet unitary cultural heritage seems a logical long-term justification for the

role and purpose of state media. It also supports the practical work of the MOIC, whose

primary task is to run state media outlets.

However, dealing with media development in the same section as culture,

understood as historic sites and objects, and sport, does not carry the same urgency as

media development for political milestones such as loya jirgas or national elections. The

Technical Annex laments that “financial support to the areas of culture, media and sport are usually lowly prioritised” (Haxthausen, Cairola, Traavik, & Adolphson, 2004).

Although the state gains a broader mandate within the cultural heritage discourse, it can be argued that the state loses the expediency of the Bonn timetable for political transition.

There is no evidence that UNESCO or the MOIC recognized this conflict, other than to complain that media, especially state media, were not getting the attention they deserved.

MEDIA NGOS, POLITICAL EVENTS, AND PRESS FREEDOM

Media NGOs and donors agencies like OTI who focused on the creation of new

private media over the reform of state outlets benefited from their relative exclusion from the NDF process and budget. They were able to bypass Afghan government approval processes for specific projects and take advantage of the press freedom discourse to argue

for multiple private media interventions. However, they did need an Afghan regulatory

framework that allowed for private media. By taking advantage of key political events

outlined in the Bonn Agreement, or by creating their own public events, media NGOs

180 exerted pressure on the Afghan government to allow them, and the private Afghan media outlets they supported, into the media sphere. Before the Bonn conference, IMS and

Article 19 had exhorted their colleagues to keep media freedom on the political agenda.

“Advocacy efforts should focus on key national governments as well as international organizations…The message should be that the international community, by being involved in Afghanistan, has an obligation to ensure respect for human rights, including freedom of expression. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and East Timor serve as examples in this regard” (IMS & Article 19, 2001). The new Afghan government, however, did not necessarily share the same vision of freedom of expression as media NGOs or donors. So media NGOs used public political events as occasions around which to promote their version of freedom of the press, and influence the Afghan media policymaking process.

The New Press Law

The Bonn Agreement stipulated that, until the adoption of the new constitution, the 1964 constitution would govern except where its provisions were in conflict with

“international legal obligations to which Afghanistan is a party” (UN, 2001). The 1964 constitution gave the state a monopoly on broadcasting, which could be interpreted to conflict with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Media NGOs advocated changing this provision immediately, well before the adoption of a new constitution, in order to give private media outlets time to be established prior to

elections. Karzai’s early public statements indicated that he would allow private media,

and media NGOs were anxious to hold him to this promise (Breum, 2002).

181 The Interim Authority undertook regulatory reform very quickly. In February

2002, a new press law was adopted. The new law cited the 1964 Afghan constitution,

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the “principles of Islam”

as guiding frameworks. It seemed to allow for both the cultural heritage as well as civil

society discourse. The law stated that media are “an effective tool for publicizing culture

to the citizens of the country and at the same time reflect public opinion in an honest and

beneficial way to society” (MOIC, 2002).43 But the law had contradictory provisions for

private media. The law clearly allowed for private print outlets. However, Article 16

stated that “establishment and operation of radio and television is special to the state.”

Subsequent articles addressed the procedures by which citizens could petition for “the establishment of video and audio systems.” This implied that private citizens could get

licenses for broadcasting.

The press law drew mixed reactions from the international media community,

depending on how each organization interpreted the provisions of the law. One

international consultant parsed the wording by explaining that the law “envisages

(although it does not necessarily guarantee) private media” (IMPACS, 2002). The

official statement of an April 2002 seminar in Copenhagen on “Future Challenges for

Public Broadcasting in Afghanistan” begins by praising the Afghan government for

allowing private media. They cite the passage on the “establishment of audio-visual

means [to] take place by Afghan citizens, political parties, organizations and government

of Afghanistan” as evidence that the government permits private media. A BBC

43 This copy of the English translation of the press law was obtained via an email communication that originated with an Afghan BBC World Service journalist in March 2002. Although there were official 182 assessment (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a) speculated that the clause on state

monopoly of broadcasting might be a translation mistake in the English version of the

law. The BBC re-print of the press law simply removes the confusing wording. Many

organizations (including the MOIC) seemed to have followed suit, ignoring the confusing

directions and interpreting the law to mean that private broadcasting was allowable.

Even if one interpreted the law so that it allowed for private broadcasting, there

was much about the new press law that concerned press freedom advocates. The

requirement to license press outlets could be construed as a means of controlling press.

Although there was an appeals process for rejected applicants, the appeals board included

the Minister of Information and Culture—the same government body that would have

rejected the initial license request. There were no clear provisions to ensure the editorial

independence of RTA. The state retained fairly stringent insult laws that prohibited

content “that could mean insult to the sacred religion of Islam and other religions,” or to individuals. It also prohibited “printing dirty articles or pictures that cause general

immorality” or material that could be considered anti-army. Media NGOs argued that the

broad and vaguely worded insult laws could allow for significant government repression

(BBC World Service Trust, 2002a; IMPACS, 2002). The “provocation” of a crime by

the media was considered criminal behavior for which individual journalists could be

prosecuted, a provision that promoted self-censorship. These concerns were articulated in media assessments and reports. However, NGOs needed concrete ways to feed these concerns back into Afghan policymaking.

announcements in the press concerning the new law, there was no official venue for an English translation. 183 The Seminar on Independent Media and the (Newer) Media Law

In September 2002, UNESCO and the MOIC, with donor funding, sponsored the

“International Seminar on Promoting Independent and Pluralistic Media in Afghanistan.”

The September seminar was a public venue at which the MOIC had to present its vision, knowing that it would be open to discussion and criticism from the international community which it had just re-joined. The MOIC had to demonstrate leadership as well as compliance with “international standards” in media freedom. In June 2002, the MOIC released a policy statement on the reconstruction and development of media in

Afghanistan. In it, the MOIC reiterated the principle of free press. It said the February press law was “the first step in opening up the media environment in Afghanistan, allowing the establishment of commercial and private radio, television, press and news agencies.” The MOIC agreed to “amend, to clarify and to extend the scope of our press law” reprint in (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a). The statement went on to outline key policy directions that strongly supported independent media. For example, the MOIC proposed steps to transform RTA and Bakhtar into public institutions with editorial independence, and advocated turning state press into “independent, commercial entities.”

They promised to consult extensively with “Afghan journalists, representatives of civil society, and a wide range of other stakeholders” over the direction of media policy reform. The September seminar would be the first open forum.

Media NGOs took advantage of this opening. Article 19 called on media organizations to discuss the MOIC policy statement in preparation for the September seminar (Article 19, 2002a). They wrote an “Explanatory Memo on Afghan Media

184 Policy” in support of the MOIC policy statement. The memo elaborated the international

legal basis for each of the fourteen items in the policy statement, pointing out how each

corresponded to international legal standards (Article 19, 2002b). Internews hired a

consultant to prepare memos for the MOIC and the Ministry of Justice, analyzing the

press law and relevant criminal codes and suggesting areas for change (Fowler, 2002a;

Fowler, 2002b). The MOIC policy statement ends with the wording: “We are

determined to rebuild our radio, television and press to international standards, and set

them at the forefront of the region’s media.” Media NGOs took advantage of this

opportunity to define the parameters of “international standards” and the ways in which

Afghan legislation would have to be changed to adapt.

In the end, however, legislative changes are effected by national governments not

international NGOs. In March 2003, a new media law was put into effect.44 Despite the

MOIC’s earlier rhetoric of public consultation, some international media NGOs were taken by surprise. Article 19 crafted a response to the new law using an English

translation provided by UNAMA in April 2003. “We regret the secretive, non-

consultative manner in which the Law was adopted,” they reproached (Article 19, 2004).

Some of the concerns about the press law that were raised by media NGOs in the

September conference and related documents are addressed in the new media law, but

many are not. For example, the new media law does not require print outlets to seek government permission prior to publication, although it still requires them to register with

the government. The law calls for the establishment of an administrative body for

44 Absent a parliament, the executive branch (the President and the Cabinet) created and approved legislation. 185 broadcasting but does not outline the means by which this body will retain its

independence. It includes vague language on the right to seek information from the

government. Article 19 suggested that the Afghan government should have a dedicated

law concerning freedom of information. “We note a certain irony,” they commented dryly, “in the fact that the process of adopting the Law did not observe this fundamental precept [of freedom of information] inasmuch as no one was given access to the Law prior to its adoption” (Article 19, 2004).45

Presidential Elections and the Media Code of Conduct

As the October 2004 presidential elections approached, the mass media system became more visible as a key component of the political process. The Joint Electoral

Management Body (JEMB), the group of UN and Afghan representatives who managed the elections process, appointed a Media Commission to create and implement a Code of

Conduct for state and private media outlets. The Media Commission was composed of six members, four Afghans and two international consultants. Created in August 2004, its mandate only lasted through the presidential elections. According to an international media consultant hired to assist the JEMB, the body was somewhat wary of getting involved in media regulation, anticipating a flood of complaints over any code of conduct, and considered media a minor “technical” part of elections.46

Nonetheless, the Code of Conduct established for the short-term purpose of

ensuring fair elections could have long-term consequences. The media law required the

45 This copy of the memo is from the Internews “Media Monitor” of June 15, 2004. It is also available on Article 19’s website at http://www.article19.org/docimages/1751.doc. 46 This information is from my personal notes of the meeting in Kabul on August 3, 2004. 186 government to set up a broadcast commission to regulate licensing, which it had not yet done. The Media Commission used for elections would set precedents for a more permanent body, and its guiding codes might later be embodied in legal statutes. As the media consultant pointed out, “The election gives everyone the excuse to get on with it.”

The election was a key opportunity for media NGOs to influence long-term Afghan media policy.

The main objective of the Code of Conduct was to provide Afghan citizens with information that would allow them to make informed decisions in the voting booth. The preamble to the Code begins: “Freedom of expression, including the constitutional right to receive and impart information, is a prerequisite for free and fair democratic elections”

(JEMB, 2004). The first principle outlined in the Code emphasizes that all media coverage must be “accurate, fair and balanced.” Under the Code, journalists had a positive obligation to promote democratic values, including women’s voting rights, and to carry public service announcements concerning elections. They were also prohibited from publishing or broadcasting material that might incite hate or violence. Some media

NGOs argued that while the Code encouraged them to report on elections, it offered no protection for journalists (Internews, 2004c). Covering a topic as sensitive as politics in a country still awash with weapons was bound to be risky. However, the JEMB had no means of ensuring security for journalists and there were no formal legal mechanisms to address persecution of journalists. Instead, outlets were advised to report, track and publicize incidents of harassment.47

47 As discussed during the August 3, 2004 meeting of JEMB consultants and OTI-funded media organizations. 187 Advertising was another key issue for private media outlets. Some argued that private outlets should be allowed to carry paid political advertisements. Commercial outlets, they pointed out, were struggling for survival. Why shouldn’t they take advantage of this opportunity for significant advertising dollars? However, the Code was not intended to benefit media outlets; its primary concern was ensuring fair and equitable use of media resources during the elections. Allowing rich candidates to buy more airtime could skew the election.

Private outlets and the Media Commission reached a compromise. In a separate set of rules, the Commission determined that all candidates should be allowed limited free access to media. They allocated each candidate twenty minutes a week for state broadcast outlets, eight minutes a week for commercial outlets, a third of a page every two days in state press, and a third of a page every week in non-state press. State outlets were prohibited from accepting paid advertising. Commercial outlets could accept paid advertising as long as it did not exceed ten percent of total airtime, and as long as they charged candidates the lowest commercial rate. All outlets were required to identify sponsorship of paid advertisements. The rules outlined other details such has how to report polling and election results. The Commission did not have the authority to publicly reprimand outlets for noncompliance to the rules, therefore they would refer cases to the JEMB for action (Internews, 2004c).

Although media NGOs had not created the Code and disputed some of its provisions, in general the Code embodied the principles of objective journalism that media NGOs espoused. The eyes of the international community were focused on media content during elections. This was the perfect opportunity to highlight the role of private 188 media in nation-building and juxtapose state and non state outlets. The Media

Commission formed a Media Monitoring Unit to collect a sample of broadcasts from state and non state outlets, and analyze the content for bias. Private media saw monitoring as a way of demonstrating their superiority over state media outlets. They expected that their own outlets would have no problems. At the August 3, 2004 meeting, some offered to provide the Monitoring Unit with transcripts of all their broadcasts.

Since state outlets did not have the means to maintain records and track all their

broadcasts, the Media Commission could not ask all media outlets provide them

broadcast logs. Instead, the Monitoring Unit placed monitors in various cities around

Afghanistan and recorded broadcasts at pre-determined times. Despite the rhetoric that

media monitoring was intended to regulate all media outlets, the JEMB consultant noted

that he did not expect private outlets to be “serial abusers” of the Code.

In another pre-elections effort to publicize the negative influence of state

authority over media outlets, Internews started a series of newsletters documenting and

publicizing journalist harassment (Internews, 2004a; Internews, 2004b). Although other

media freedom advocacy organizations such as Reporters without Borders (Reporters

without Borders, 2003) and Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch, 2003)

published similar reports, these were only released annually or occasionally. Internews

published two newsletters prior to the elections, in August and September 2004. As the

primary incubator and an active participant in the private Afghan media sphere,

Internews had unparalleled access to journalists and media outlets. The newsletters

highlighted not only how central and local powerbrokers harassed and threatened private

189 media outlets, but also how journalists in state outlets were subject to censorship

(Internews, 2004a).

The elections provided media NGOs with the opportunity to hold the Afghan

government accountable for its media practices in a public forum using a Code

sanctioned by international experts and Afghan authorities. In a September meeting of

the Media, Culture and Sports Consultative Group, the MOIC Deputy Minister gave a presentation on the results of elections media monitoring of state broadcast and print

outlets. He was pleased to report that all candidates were being treated fairly and

equitably (Media CG, 2004). Whether or not this was perceived to be accurate by others,

the very fact that the MOIC was made to defend its practices on the same terms as media

NGOs defined “standard” journalistic practice was a triumph of sorts for advocates of

press freedom.

Privileged Players in the Press Freedom Formation

The process of creating new media legislation and establishing codes of conduct

is indicative of the complex relationship, alternately supportive and antagonistic, between

media NGOs and the state. In the freedom of information discourse, the state holds an

ambivalent position. The state is something to be watched and guarded against. At the

same time, it is the guarantor of media freedom. This ambivalence toward the state is

particularly pronounced during the chaotic and uncertain time of major political transition

when the state itself is not seen as cohesive or legitimately representative. In

Afghanistan, there were struggles for power between central and provincial authorities.

Ethnic representation in government was a hot issue—who could legitimately represent

190 whom, and what proportion was fair? Within the government, who was more or less

“Westernized?” More “Westernized” personnel might have greater access to donors and share some of their views, but would they be sidelined by others within the government?

Power dynamics within the Afghan government could significantly affect media policy and practice.

At the same time that international media organizations promoted re-building state media and strengthening the government, their early media assessments express and reinforce an underlying mistrust of the state. By May 2002, several of the state-run provincial radio and television stations were functioning to some degree. However, although these were technically under the direction of the MOIC, some analysts noted that in practice these outlets were under the control of the “regional commander” (BBC

World Service Trust, 2002a; IMPACS, 2002) in the area. The lack of control of the central government over its provincial media outlets was seen as symptomatic of the larger lack of centralized control over the periphery. The Canadian-based NGO IMPACS argued that media aid could serve to “directly support the central government’s authority by disseminating information on their activities and by reaching out to people living in warlord-dominated regions…and increase the grass roots support for a central and democratic authority” (IMPACS, 2002:9). This view was echoed in a BBC assessment that called state broadcasting, along with the army and civil service, a state institution

“necessary to help rebuild a sense of nationhood and to build an environment in which democratic national elections can take place, as envisaged by the Bonn Agreement.”

Given that provincial broadcasters were controlled by commanders, the BBC also warned that increasing the coverage of the national broadcaster—RTA’s Kabul-based 191 transmission—might be seen as an “encroachment on their [the warlords’] territory”

(BBC World Service Trust, 2002a). Thus, they saw the need for centralized military

might to accompany media development.

While promoting the writ of the central government via media, the BBC

simultaneously warned that the central government could not be entirely trusted as it was

dominated by figures from the Northern Alliance. A Tajik-dominated government raised

the possibility of repression of other ethnic groups. “This is particularly worrying in the

light of credible reports of attacks directed at Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan and given

the military power of the Northern Alliance” (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a). The

implication is that the combination of military power and media could lead to ethnic

cleansing reminiscent of Rwanda. The report notes that RTA in Kabul is run by a Tajik

from the Panjsher Valley, home to many of the key Northern Alliance commanders, and

recommends creating an ethnic balance within top management at RTA.

There were also differences within the government concerning the level and

direction of media reform. For example, the July 2002 MOIC policy statement reads like

an international media NGO’s primer in media transitions. It advocates nearly all of the

reform measures that had been proposed by media NGOs themselves. This was a radical

shift from the government viewpoint presented a scant three months before at the April

Copenhagen conference on the role of public broadcasting in Afghanistan. A report by

an IMPACS consultant who participated in the seminar notes that there were significant

differences between Afghan government representatives and other seminar participants.

While media NGOs and representatives from European broadcasters emphasized institutional reform, Afghan broadcasters focused on RTA’s equipment needs. One 192 consultant deplored that during the MOIC Deputy Minister’s presentation at the

Copenhagen conference, he “literally sat and read from a list all the technical equipment

needs with the need for a transmitter capable of country-wide transmission as the top

priority” (Levine, 2002). How to reconcile this understanding of “transforming” RTA as a process of donating equipment with the radical transformations of RTA’s management envisioned in the July policy statement? Just whose beliefs did the policy statement

reflect? Given that radical transformation requires political will and power, would the

state be able to carry through with its public statements?

States, especially those in political transition, are not entirely trustworthy partners

in the media freedom discourse. Instead, international media organizations claim the

status of neutral arbiters of media standards. This discourse benefits media organizations

with global resources and experiences. Not only do they claim to understand the correct global model for media freedom, they also have experience in adapting the global model in other “transition” nations. For example, IMPACS has a large project in Cambodia.

They offer to bring both Canadian and Cambodian trainers to Afghanistan, a perfect combination of Western and “Asian know-how” (IMPACS, 2002). By discursively linking Cambodia and Afghanistan, two radically different nations, as “transition” nations, IMPACS is able to ignore their dissimilarities and argue that the same transition model used in Cambodia will be applicable for Afghanistan. Internews, an NGO that has implemented USAID contracts for media projects in the former Soviet Union, is able to reference this experience in their discussion of “standard” media legislation. For example, their memo to the Minister of Justice concerning media law principles includes a copy of laws from Azerbaijan and Bosnia-Herzegovina (Fowler, 2002a). 193 These NGOs mobilize “international standards” language while demonstrating knowledge of “transitions” situations that they claim will be applicable globally, regardless of individual national histories and situations. This is important to donor nations, who seek organizations with a history of success in implementing media transitions projects. Ironically, although media NGOs purport to be free of national constraints, they are dependent on foreign aid funding from states for their own existence.

Media organizations that are already known to particular donor nations, or those that can

demonstrate a global scope, are more likely to be regarded as credible.

Media transition is not a straightforward process of applying internationally

accepted standards to improve national media systems. Since the ways in which

discourse is mobilized determines which group gains material benefits, the terms of

media transitions are hotly debated. International media NGOs are powerful players in

the process; they set the agenda for transition and disburse funds to local media outlets.

As such, they compete with states and their media outlets. During political transitions,

states are at their most vulnerable. Although the objective of the international community

is to strengthen the state, in the media freedom discourse the state is relegated to a fairly

minor role in the media sphere. The role of state media as national educator is supplanted

by non state groups who represent more legitimate “civil society.” State media must thus

negotiate their position within a structure whose terms have been set by media NGOs to

privilege commercial media entities.

The discursive construction of media transition in Afghanistan had important

consequences for media organizations since it determined the direction of funding.

Donors held significant economic power during media transition. Foreign aid monies 194 made up most of the government’s budget and funded many media efforts, particularly those that demanded significant capital outlays such as broadcasting. Therefore, whoever controlled the discourse of media transition controlled the flow of money to various organizations as well as setting broad guidelines for practice. However, the discursive construction of media transition is only one factor that influences specific practices.

Media transitions practitioners must function within discursive formations, but they also negotiate the practical constraints of media production and dissemination on the ground.

As we will see in the next chapter, logistical factors played a key role in determining the nature of a series of radio programs that were produced during Afghan media transition.

195 Chapter Five: The Practice of Media Transition

This chapter analyzes the key factors that influenced the production of a specific set of radio programs created to aid in the transition process. While policymakers debated the nature and direction of media transition in Afghanistan, media producers began creating and disseminating media products. The early consensus among donors that media should support the Bonn process and the upcoming loya jirgas opened the door for NGOs to create programs around the political process. Radio broadcasting was highlighted as an efficient medium via which to reach a broad Afghan audience who needed information on the transition political process.

The first political milestone was the Emergency Loya Jirga, held in June 2002, to select a transitional administration. The transitional administration had a two year mandate, within which time a new constitution was to be written and ratified by a

Constitutional Loya Jirga. At the end of the transitional administration, national elections would be held in accordance with the strictures of the new Constitution. Each of these milestones required the Afghan population to actively participate in the selection of loya jirga representatives and then vote for a national leader. The Bonn process would only be considered legitimate by the international community if a large enough Afghan population could be seen participating. There was a special emphasis on female participation as a marker of modernity and democracy. Not only did a diverse swath of the Afghan population need information concerning the political process, they also

196 needed to be moved to action. Media producers were pressed into service as political

activists, tasked with promoting and harnessing a popular democratic movement.

This chapter is organized chronologically, following the production of three sets of radio programs designed around the Emergency Loya Jirga, the Constitutional Loya

Jirga and the presidential elections. For each new set of programs, I analyze how the changing political climate and media sphere, specific funding requirements, the producers’ own visions, the intended audience, as well as the logistical constraints of program production and dissemination impacted the programs themselves. I draw upon a range of sources, including news and NGO reports on the political and media context at particular moments, self-reporting by informants involved in the production process, as well as the media texts themselves. This analysis reveals how the specific conditions of

production and dissemination were highly influential, even determinant, of the kinds of

media transitions programs that were produced. It also calls into question some of the assumptions of media transition that were being mobilized discursively.

Whereas the discursive formation of media transition drew upon theories of press

freedom to argue for objective journalism, an examination of the practice of media

transition reveals that producers were very conscious of their own role as activists. They

shaped media products in “developmental” ways, engineering them so that they met

specific goals to contribute to the social good. They were, in short, acting much like

development communications workers. The predominant media transition paradigm

posits objective journalists and is quite suspicious of activism. But the practice of media

transition, undertaken by an international NGO well-schooled in the strictures of

197 objective journalism, was much more subjective than some media transitions theorists would predict.

Examining a series of radio programs created around the three major public political moments, the Emergency Loya Jirga, the Constitutional Loya Jirga and the presidential elections, also offers a unique opportunity to examine the ways in which media producers negotiated the changing media transition landscape. The changing discursive formations, from the fairly open and inclusive notion of public information to the narrower press freedom formation, had practical implications for media producers.

Although one key producer was involved with all of the programming examined here, the institutional home for the programs changed as OTI began to focus almost exclusively on supporting private media outlets. In order to maintain a presence in the transition media sphere, this producer changed institutional affiliations from an NGO known for its expertise in development communications, MSS, to an NGO known for its expertise in media transitions in other nations, Internews.

DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE AND MODELING BEHAVIOR: THE ELJ RADIO SOAP OPERAS

As the international community set the Emergency Loya Jirga logistics in motion,

OTI hired MSS to produce a series of radio programs to publicize the delegate election process. Listenership surveys commissioned by the VOA in the late 1990s had singled out the radio soap opera New Home, New Life as a driving force behind the overall popularity of the BBC World Service (InterMedia, 1998). So the radio soap opera had demonstrated success as a format that would attract Afghan listeners and disseminate

198 development messages. Producers replicated the radio soap opera format, creating a

complex storyline that would allow the international community to explain details of the

elections process and generally promote the process. Although the storyline was fictional, it was intended to mimic real problems that might occur in villages throughout

Afghanistan and present viable solutions for listeners to follow. But there were

difficulties broadcasting and producing the radio serial in a transition media environment

with few viable outlets and production resources. The soap opera was discontinued and

replaced with an interview format.

Establishing the Afghan Transitional State Authority

The Emergency Loya Jirga (ELJ) was held in Kabul from June 11-18, 2002. Over

1,600 delegates met to select Hamid Karzai as the head of the Transitional Islamic State

of Afghanistan. The process of selecting delegates began in April of that year with local

shuras, or councils, meeting to select electors for each district. A second round of voting then took place as electors met to cast ballots for loya jirga delegates.48 The process was

fraught with difficulties, as shuras were apt to be dominated by local commanders. The

US was overtly supporting Karzai’s election, and was concerned that powerful regional

leaders would be able to wrest political concessions by packing the loya jirga with their

supporters. Still the international and Afghan public had to perceive the ELJ as fair and

legitimate. Therefore, it was important to disseminate information concerning the ELJ

elections process as well as promote coverage of the ELJ itself.

48 For information on procedures for the ELJ see http://www.eurasianet.org/loya.jirga/election.html. 199 USAID spent approximately $6 million on “logistical and technical support” to

the ELJ, (Kunder, 2004) including OTI assistance to the Loya Jirga Commission for

public affairs programming. At the time, OTI had two mechanisms for providing small

grants to a variety of organizations via large umbrella grants to Ronco and the

International Organization for Migration (IOM). The two grant mechanisms were fairly

interchangeable; they both allowed OTI to delegate the day-to-day supervision and

management of projects to staff hired by IOM or Ronco. This was important since

USAID maintained a very lean staff in Kabul, due to both security concerns and the lack

of physical space at the American Embassy compound. Both the IOM and Ronco-

managed small grant mechanisms were structured broadly to allow for them to meet a variety of needs designed “to increase the interim Afghan government’s capacity to address immediate reconstruction and stabilization needs” (OTI, 2002). OTI project

officers worked closely with IOM and Ronco staff to approve specific proposals for

organizations that OTI wanted to fund.

OTI had hired IOM, who in turn subcontracted Media Support Services (MSS) for

the production of radio and print bulletins on humanitarian aid information. MSS was

called upon once again to assist the Loya Jirga Commission in creating programming to promote the Emergency Loya Jirga. Although the OTI project database lists the Loya

Jirga Commission as the official “project subgrantee,” the money for the ELJ radio programs was disbursed to Media Support Services via IOM.49 In order to support

49 On August 7, 2005, a print out of the OTI grants database on a key word search for media was provided by OTI-Kabul field staff. 200 Karzai’s interim government, OTI relied on familiar players and formats from the

development NGO world.

MSS proposed a radio soap opera series similar to the successful New Home, New

Life series produced by the BBC’s Afghan Education Project. MSS founder Gordon

Adam, the former head of BBC World Service’s Pashto division who had sought the initial funding for New Home, New Life, recruited John Butt, formerly head of the Afghan

Education Project in Pakistan. Butt went to the director of the Kabul-based Academy of

Sciences, an autonomous research institution, to recommend a Pashto-speaking scriptwriter. He found Rahim Bakhtani, a historian who was also a short story writer.

Mohammed Akbar, another former BBC reporter and scriptwriter, was brought in to assist with the production process and edit Bakhtani’s scripts. And wrote three of the thirty three Pashto scripts. The Pashto scripts were then translated into Dari and produced at the Radio Afghanistan studios in both languages. MSS was able to assemble a team fairly quickly because Adam, Butt and Akbar had been part of the Afghan media- in-exile community. The BBC’s Afghan Education Project and the Pashto and Dari language news services were a source of jobs for former Radio Afghanistan employees, or simply educated Afghans, fleeing Soviet invasion, civil war and the Taliban regime.

MSS personnel drew upon their previous relationships and knowledge of the Afghan media scene to pull together a fairly complex production team of writers, actors and musicians at short notice, creating and airing the soap opera in April and May of 2002 (J.

Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004).

201 The Educational Format: Presenting Ideal Solutions

The ELJ radio soap opera consists of 36 short radio programs in Pashto (33 in

Dari) of an average of three to five minutes in length. It follows a common development

communications format that mixes social issues and key messages with an episodic

fictional storyline (Singhal & Rogers, 1999). The format is similar to New Home, New

Life, the BBC World Service soap opera. It is also similar to development soap operas produced by Butt’s own NGO Silk Road Radio, which has contracts for development soap operas in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyztan.

The story takes place in a fictional Afghan village that replicates a “typical” village. The regular cast of characters is occasionally joined by guests as the storyline demands and programs follow a roughly chronological story arc. The “key message” is delivered in one or two sentences at the end of each program. Key messages were selected by the writing team on the basis of issues that arose in interviews with Afghans.

Butt called this method “storyline reporting.” A team of reporters interviewed people concerning the topics of the program. The concerns raised in the interviews were then woven into the storyline. The purpose of storyline reporting was to meld fact and fiction in such a way that the soap opera characters could identify problems and solutions that replicated real life situations (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004).

Bahktani, the primary scriptwriter, described the ELJ programs as dramas based on real events. A historian by training, he had written a series of unpublished short stories on important events in Afghan history. He saw the ELJ programs as a similar project of historical fiction. The benefit of fictionalizing history was to address

202 controversial topics within a non threatening setting. For example, he said that because

people expressed a fear of local commanders threatening and intimidating them during

the delegate selection process, this topic became a key program thread (R. Bakhtani,

personal communication, August 7, 2004).

An analysis of the ELJ programs shows that the producers clearly delineated

“good” authority figures from “bad” ones. A main character in the ELJ soap opera is

local strongman Lala Gul, who wants to be loya jirga delegate. He is supported by a rich

benefactor, Sultan Khan. The storyline follows the machinations of Lala Gul and Sultan

Khan as they attempt to get elected. The two hatch elaborate plots, putting up roadblocks, trying to control entry to the voting location, and attempting to pay people to vote for them. In one episode, Lala Gul holds his brother’s wedding feast on the same

day that elections are scheduled. But instead of attending the wedding, all the guests go

to the election and Lala Gul is left with platters full of food. Lala Gul is often left

looking foolish, his power diminished. By the end of the programs, even Lala Gul has

become convinced that cheaters never win. The program opened a space for the audience

to subvert power structures by making authority figures subject to ridicule.

More than simply offering the pleasure of seeing the bad guys demoralized and

stripped of power, the soap opera was intended to offer specific models of behavior for

the audience. Akbar, the MSS producer brought in to support Bakhtani by reviewing and

editing his scripts, was a great proponent of radio drama. With the BBC, he had written

developmental dramas for drug education, and was later charged with supervising MSS’s

teacher education radio programs. He advocated the use of drama at the “community

level” where clear-cut heroes and villains could present behavioral models for listeners 203 (M. Akbar, personal communication, January 12, 2004). The majority of the ELJ programs deal with problems or misunderstandings that the characters resolve, thereby offering specific knowledge and modeling behavior that listeners can replicate.

The ELJ programs provided information on specific procedural rules that differed from traditional councils, or shuras. A traditional shura is made up of respected authority figures from the community who reach decisions through open debate and consensus. In contrast, the ELJ process was supposed to include those outside the traditional power structure and allow for individual decision-making. In one episode, a local government official writes a letter in support of a candidate. However, the candidate is rejected on the grounds that government officials can not appoint delegates.

In another episode, a teacher at the local school requires students to vote for his preferred candidate. When they reach the polling place, the students are told that they are welcome to observe the proceedings but they are too young to vote.

Bakhtani wrote several programs concerning female candidates, emphasizing that women had the right both to put themselves forward as candidates and to vote. In another series, he explained why voting in the second round was secret, where all voters put their ballots in one box. Both Sultan Khan and Lala Gul make it through the first round of voting, but are defeated in the second round. They bring elections boxes for themselves in an attempt to track who votes for whom. But a community leader insists on following the proper procedure for secret voting. When Sultan Khan is not elected, he realizes that he has paid off people for nothing since he can’t tell who did or did not vote for him. These programs offered behavioral models for audience members. What should

204 one do if offered money to vote for a particular candidate? Accept the money and then vote secretly for whomever you wish, as the characters in the ELJ programs did.

In the idealized world of the radio soap opera, Bakhtani presented the international community as a penitent, benevolent presence. UN representatives were present at elections sites to provide correct information concerning proper procedure, but they also had to respond to criticism that they earlier abandoned Afghanistan. In one episode, Sultan Khan critiques the UN for coming too late to Afghanistan’s aid. Teacher

Salim Khan, an honest man who is eventually elected loya jirga delegate, responds that

there is still time to take advantage of UN reconstruction efforts. Sultan Khan angrily

denounces foreigners for having wrought the destruction of Afghanistan in the first place.

But these foreigners, Sultan Khan is told, have come to act as mediators and stop the

killing among Afghans.

In another episode, a UN representative is told that people are worried that the

UN will not fulfill its promises. The representative admits that the UN has made

mistakes in the past but assures his audience that the international community has learned

from these mistakes and will not repeat them. The fictional storyline always resolved

contradiction, giving legitimate authority figures the opportunity to respond to concerns.

The distinction between good guys and bad guys was clear, and in the end, the villagers

“lived happily ever after.”

Butt saw the ELJ programs as a public information service for the Loya Jirga

Commission (J. Butt, personal communication, January 15, 2004). Therefore, the

Commission and the UN workers supporting the Commission were always represented

positively. The ELJ programs were one means by which the Commission could explain 205 its purpose and procedures to a larger Afghan public with specific information needs.

By following the entire delegate selection process through the eyes of characters in a

fictional village, the idea was that listeners could participate vicariously in the process and would learn models of behavior for the selection process in their own village. The

ELJ storyline begins with the characters debating who should run for delegate and then follows the entire process through two rounds of voting, from local to regional representatives, ending with a representation of the Emergency Loya Jirga itself. Along the way, the characters deal with issues that producers expected real villagers to encounter. Who was qualified to run? How should the voting take place? What could people do if they were being coerced? The ELJ programs offered this practical information in an entertaining soap opera format.

Limited Distribution Outlets

Although the programs fit neatly into the “information needs” discourse of

national development and political transition, they were difficult to distribute with

available media outlets. OTI had funded the first private radio station, Arman FM, which began broadcasting in Kabul in April 2002. However, Arman FM was careful to define itself as a non political, commercial enterprise. Arman FM pitched itself as a hip, modern youth-oriented station—a much different demographic than the one sought by the ELJ programs. They began programming music almost exclusively, and stayed away from news programming until later in the year (Mohseni, 2003). Finally, Arman FM was only available in Kabul. OTI had also paid for a satellite link for RTA’s Kabul station to be able to broadcast nationwide on AM. While the ELJ programs would fit with the

206 broadcast ethos of RTA, OTI did not make expanding coverage contingent upon

broadcasting particular programming. Getting RTA to actually broadcast the ELJ

programs required constant negotiation and monitoring.

Unlike print, radio broadcasting is ephemeral. In order to ensure that programs

have in fact aired, someone must be tuning it at the exact broadcast time. As Adam said,

the most difficult part of radio programming can be convincing a station to air the

programs (G. Adam, personal communication, January 7, 2004). Regardless of any prior

agreements at a management level, there was ample room for a recalcitrant technician to

“forget” to air the programs. Although the programs were produced at the Radio

Afghanistan studios, MSS had little leverage over RTA staff. When some staff members

implied that they could be convinced to air the programs with a small monetary

“incentive,” Butt refused on principle (J. Butt, personal communication, January 15,

2004). There were also provincial radio stations, technically a part of the RTA network,

in the major cities of Herat, Kandahar and Mazar-i-Sharif (BBC World Service Trust,

2002a). However, negotiating airtime with these stations was even more difficult than

ensuring distribution via RTA’s Kabul transmitters. It would have required a local

presence to cajole each station.50

There was also a concern that programs aired on government stations would be

perceived as less credible than those aired on international outlets. A May 2002

50 Akbar tells an anecdote of when he visited the state broadcaster in Nangarhar province that demonstrates the difficulty of convincing provincial state-run stations to air programming. Akbar asked the station director whether he would cooperate by airing MSS-produced teacher training programming. In response, the director asked Akbar what the local station could expect in return and pointed to the trash can next to his desk. In it was a CD of programming produced by Internews. The implication was clear. If the station director could obtain no benefit for his station, in the form of equipment or money, he simply would not air the programming (M, Akbar, personal communication, January 12, 2004). 207 listenership study conducted by MSS found fairly high listenership for state-run Radio

Balkh, based in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The station was valued by its listeners for keeping track of the movements of local commanders so that listeners could

“assess their security situation” (Seibold, 2002). However, it was clear to listeners that

Radio Balkh presented a partisan view. BBC and VOA ranked highest in both listenership and credibility, even though listeners had access to a wide variety of international broadcasts including broadcasts from Iran, India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan,

Tajikistan as well as RTA’s Kabul feed. Despite BBC’s popularity, the station was unlikely to broadcast a radio soap opera that would compete with New Home, New Life, which kept relevant by adjusting its development messages to changing political realities

(BBC World Service Trust, 2002b). BBC’s Afghan Education Project saw itself as the premier producer of educational programming and envisioned an expanded role for themselves in the new media environment (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a).

With USAID’s help, MSS was able to get the ELJ programs aired by VOA. But the programs began airing only six weeks before the ELJ, after much of the first round of elections had finished (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004). There was little time to cultivate a consistent listenership, an important element of development soap operas where expected changes in audience knowledge, attitude and behavior come with repeated listening and audience identification of program themes and characters (Singhal

& Rogers, 1999).

The ELJ programs also had an ideal broadcast and listening order. Each program was self-contained in the sense that each had its own development message. However, prior knowledge of the characters was necessary to fully understand the progression of 208 the story. For example, Lala Gul’s support for secret voting in a local election was less meaningful as a conversion narrative if one did not know how he tried to manipulate

voting in earlier episodes. One cannot broadcast the episodes concerning second round

elections prior to episodes about the first round. There were several episodes that took

place during the second round of voting addressing the same time period from different

perspectives, enabling the producers to focus on a variety of key messages. However,

most of the episodes did follow a chronological, not thematic, order. The programs were no longer relevant after the political event for which they were supposed to educate listeners. After an enormous outlay of time and effort, the programs aired only briefly.

There was no time or system in place to measure the potential impact of the programs.

A Complex Production Process

If finding distribution outlets for the ELJ programs was difficult, producing the programming was an even more intricate process. It required a large team of people and complex management structures. Field reporters brought recordings of interviews to the writing team. Butt, Akbar and Bakhtani would discuss the interviews, key messages and storyline, and then outline the programs. Usually Bakhtani would write the script, then

Akbar would edit it.51 Typing the script up for the actors required a Pashto speaker able

to use a computer with a program for Pashto font, a specialized task that was given to a

“computer operator.” At some point, the Pashto script would be passed to the Dari

translator to create the parallel Dari version.

51 Except for the three scripts Akbar wrote himself. 209 Creating the radio dramas also required believable sound effects and talented actors. The ELJ programs had nearly 20 different characters throughout the series. The

Pashto and Dari language programs had a separate cast of actors. The producers also changed some of the music to match each language version. With no production studios of their own, MSS depended on Radio Afghanistan’s largesse. Musicians from RTA’s

Music Department collaborated on recording the music, and RTA technicians recorded the programs using digital equipment previously donated by the BBC. Programs were edited by Butt and consultant Brian Weeks. RTA technical staff was paid for their work on the programs, and some administrative personnel were given paid “advisory” roles in order to ensure their cooperation. All the while, the elections process for the ELJ was on- going. Programs had to air before it was too late to affect the outcome of the ELJ.

The difficulty of managing such a large production team was reflected in the programs themselves. The three programs written by Akbar were stylistically much different from Bakhtani’s programs. Bakhtani’s characters tended to speak in a straightforward manner whereas Akbar’s tone was more emotional and inspirational.

Akbar pointed to the episode where a wife convinces her commander husband not to bring his weapon to the elections as an example of effective storytelling. Even if he loses the election, the wife assures her husband, there is no shame attached. Whatever the outcome of the elections, it would be God’s will. The final message of the episode, delivered by the mullah, is that the people’s will is God’s will. In another episode written by Akbar, the loya jirga is inaugurated with two poems. Several characters stand and speak from their hearts including the commander who cast aside his sword for a pen. His wife makes an emotional speech praising her husband’s conversion: “He was a great 210 Mujahid during the war,” she says, “and now is the hero of peace and reconciliation.”

Bakhtani described Akbar’s edits as literary, that is, he added more elegant language and made the story more vivid and colorful (R. Bakhtani, personal communication, August 7,

2004). Akbar described Bakhtani’s weakness as a lack of experience writing dramas with emotional peaks (M. Akbar, personal communication, January 12, 2004).

Bakhtani’s approach was much more pragmatic. For example, in one episode the children are sent home late from school because of loya jirga elections. The mother goes to the school principal to complain: “Please tell me why we are sending our children to school to get an education, but their teacher keeps them for the loya jirga!” The final

message of the program is “do not spend the precious time of children on activities outside education and their lessons.” Bakhtani got the idea for the program from teachers at the teacher training college where he also worked. Apparently, there was a rumor that school would be cancelled for the loya jirga. Since most schools had just opened in

March, many after decades of closure, teachers were upset that school might be

cancelled. Bakhtani wanted to set the record straight on the ELJ programs (R. Bakhtani,

personal communication, August 7, 2004). His programs conveyed facts and information.

While both Akbar and Bakhtani adhered to the educational format of the development soap opera, the nature of the message they imparted reflected their personal beliefs in the use and effectiveness of drama for social change. Akbar called his audience

“idealistic” and felt that they could be moved, emotionally and rationally, to change their behavior (M. Akbar, personal communication, January 12, 2004). Bakhtani was somewhat more skeptical. The ELJ programs, he lamented, did not really affect the 211 outcome of the process. Most people didn’t really participate and only rich people were

elected as delegates. While the dramas might have affected “common people,” they

could not change political decisions. If politicians don’t change their actions even with a

petitioner standing right in front of them, Bakhtani asked, of what use is a drama?

Nonetheless, he wrote approximately fifteen scripts for the Constitutional Loya Jirga.

Although about half of them were produced, none were aired (R. Bakhtani, personal communication, August 7, 2004). Instead, the development soap opera format was abandoned and replaced by the more news-like vox pop format.

STRUCTURING THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE: THE CLJ VOX POPS

The radio programs produced for the Constitutional Loya Jirga used a standard

news format: the man-on-the-street interview. Whereas the ELJ programs were designed

to teach a mass Afghan audience about the political process, the CLJ programs were

conceived of as a two-way communication process. The international community and the

Constitutional Commission would have an avenue for informing the populace, and the

Afghan interviewees would have a means of voicing their opinions to policymakers.

Producers came to see their own role as advocates for a mass Afghan audience normally

shut out of the political process. They created questions and edited the programs to

highlight controversy and diverging opinions, rather than correct answers to problems.

But although the programs were distributed on the growing network of private

broadcasters supported by OTI, they were produced by an international NGO. As the

elections approached, OTI emphasized training for local media production. They agreed

212 to continue funding programs at a reduced level, but only if producers would create stronger links with private broadcasters.

Strengthening the Afghan Transitional State

The Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ), originally scheduled for fall of 2003, was finally held in December of that year. The new constitution would decide several key issues concerning the shape of the government. These included whether there would be a parliamentary or presidential system, the role of different Afghan languages within the education system and government, and how to describe the relationship between Islam and the state. There were interest groups, defined by a combination of ethnic affiliation, ideology and personal gain, advocating different constitutional solutions to these contentious issues. Underlying the discussion was the continuing concern that those holding military power would be able to force through solutions that benefited them. The

UN-sponsored Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) program to dismantle local militias was underway, but it was widely critiqued as ineffectual. The delay in holding the CLJ was intended to give the disarmament process more time to yield results and to ensure that continued fighting, particularly in the southern Pashtun belt, was controlled.52

USAID spent approximately $13 million in support of the Constitutional

Commission, whose task was to draft the new constitution that would then be debated and ratified during the CLJ (Kunder, 2004). The Commission announced that they were eager to get feedback from a wide spectrum of Afghan society. USAID funded the

213 printing and distribution of the draft constitution nationwide, and promoted coverage of

the CLJ, supporting training for journalists and an archive of the CLJ proceedings. Prior

to the CLJ, USAID helped fund a publicity campaign that included radio talk shows, a

mobile cinema, and community discussion groups, as well as the CLJ radio programs

(Kunder, 2004).

Getting news of government activities to the general Afghan population was a

prime objective of OTI. Just after Karzai’s election to the two-year transitional

administration, OTI identified their mission as bolstering Karzai’s legitimacy:

The transitional government’s greatest challenge is to engender the confidence of its people through rapid and meaningful improvements in their lives. This includes insuring [sic] that any work performed by other donors is perceived as direct support from the new Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan (ITGA). If Afghan citizens, particularly outside of Kabul, do not receive news about ITGA’s accomplishments, there is a danger that local warlords will gain legitimacy among the population (OTI, 2002).

OTI’s focus on media became sharper. In October 2003, OTI hired a local

program manager for media activities. October is the beginning of the US government

fiscal year, and OTI anticipated a significant increase in funding for fiscal year 2004, an

estimated $25 million, up from $19 million in 2003. Throughout their activities in

Afghanistan, OTI’s media support has been maintained at between 20-30% of their

overall budget. However, despite their overt support of the central government, OTI’s

media strategy increasingly moved away from even nominal support of government

media outlets. Instead, OTI continued the push for private, commercial media that the

52 For an insider’s view of the process of creating the new constitution, see (Rubin, 2004). Rubin was one of three international consultants who worked closely with the Constitutional Commission. 214 OTI media advisor had first envisioned (J. Langlois, personal communication, June 10,

2004). In the January 2004 OTI field report, OTI pledged to “expand the number and

reach of private, independent media outlets” (OTI, 2004).

Meanwhile, the large MSS team that put together the radio soap opera broke up.

Bakhtani continued working as a historian. Akbar began working on a new MSS contract

for teacher training radio programs. Butt and Weeks took over the CLJ program

production, interviewing people and editing their words into short programs they called

vox pops. These vox populi, or voice of the people, programs could be recorded and

edited quickly and efficiently. Butt and Weeks continued collaborating with Radio

Afghanistan musicians, but no longer used the RTA studios. Instead, they held jam

sessions in their hotel room, recording the music directly on to a laptop. The interviews

were also digitally recorded and programs could be easily edited and mixed, then burned

onto a CD.

The Vox Pop Format: Editing the “Real” Voice of the People

The CLJ programs are organized into 3 phases.53 Phase one, recorded in May

2003, was designed to raise awareness of the CLJ. Phase two programs focused on the

electoral process and issues affecting the implementation of the constitution. They were

recorded in August and September. Phase three programs, recorded prior to and during

the CLJ, focused on issues that would be decided during the CLJ. The 81 programs were usually two or three minutes each. In addition to broadcasting the programs throughout

the year, Butt distributed the programs via cassette tape and CD with English translations

215 of the text. When Butt traveled to tape interviews, he would bring cassettes and CDs from the last phase to hand out, or in some cases, to try and get shopkeepers to sell.

During the CLJ, cassettes and CDs were available at information booths in the tent (J.

Butt, personal communication, January 15, 2004).

The decision to translate the text of the programs into English reflected a new

perception of the purpose and audience of the programs. Whereas the dramas were

intended to convey information to a general public, Butt saw the vox pops as directed at

policymakers, including the English speaking international aid community. “I see them

as songs,” he wrote in the CD introduction to phase one programs, “expressing the will of the Afghan people and advertising their aspirations.” For Butt, the radio broadcasts

amplified the voice of “ordinary Afghans,” giving them a means of speaking back to

those in power. Butt told a story of when he first began producing the CLJ programs and

some UN representatives expressed concern that the programs would raise unrealistic

expectations among the audience. Good, thought Butt, it was about time that “public

opinion started shaking the gates” in Afghanistan (J. Butt, personal communication,

January 15, 2004).

In describing the CLJ programs, producers tended to emphasize the “reality” of

the vox pop format. Weeks, who worked in communist China and post communist

nations in the Balkans, saw the CLJ programs as a radical departure from a “Soviet style”

of programming. The Soviet Union exported rigid thought, a fear of authority and of

expressing opinions. When interviewing citizenry used to authoritarian regimes, he said,

53 Phase one consists of 18 Dari and 4 Pashto language programs. Phase two consists of 27 programs, 22 in Dari and 5 in Pashto. There are 32 programs in the third phase, 16 in Dari and 17 in Pashto. 216 you can tell that people don’t believe what they are saying. Although they may not be censored, people simply repeat what they think they should be saying. In contrast, the

CLJ program style was to “put a microphone in front of people” and elicit unscripted reactions. He was impressed with how the Afghan interviewees reacted to Butt. Many recognized Butt from the BBC or other media outlets, and wanted to speak to him.

Weeks was surprised at how open people seemed, and how thoughtful and articulate.

When Adam described Butt as the narrator of the CLJ programs, Weeks was quick to point out that Butt’s role as narrator was being minimized as they produced more programs. Instead, they were “letting people speak for themselves” (B. Weeks, personal communication, January 6, 2004).

However, an examination of the CLJ programs reveals just the opposite.

Throughout the three phases, the role of the interviewer is very visible. Butt himself noted that in phases two and three, he led the discussion more than in the first phase programs (J. Butt, personal communication, January 15, 2004). Butt’s questions framed the types of responses that interviewees gave, each question structured to delineate a limited range of acceptable answers. In order to get more interesting and controversial statements, Butt began to insert himself more overtly into the process. His questions became more open-ended. He played devil’s advocate and shared details of his own experiences. These exchanges between interviewer and interviewees were an integral part of the programs. They were not edited out as irrelevant. Rather, it became obvious that people were responding to Butt as a person.

The kinds of responses that Butt elicited could only emerge because of his particular status as interviewer. An Englishman who is so fluent in Pashto that radio 217 listeners do not know that he is foreign (R. Bakhtani, personal communication, August 7,

2004), Butt is also conversant in Dari. A Muslim with religious training, he can quote passages from the Quran in Arabic and sometimes uses his religious knowledge to frame questions. Butt’s white hair and long beard confer gravity and respect. In person, there is no doubt that Butt is a foreigner. However, his ability to gain entrée and interact with many different segments of Afghan society is unique.

Many of Butt’s questions, particularly in phase one programs, led directly to

“correct” answers. For example in one program (phase one, 11) he asks, “What do you think, how important is it that people are consulted, for the Constitution to be a success?”

54 Four answers were edited in, with speakers identified only as “voices.” “We believe

that if people are involved and consulted, then stability and peace will ensue in

Afghanistan,” says one. Another responds, “This is going to remove people’s difficulties,

and if people are not involved, it won’t be a proper Constitution.” All four speakers give

variations of a positive answer to the interviewer’s question.

In a phase two program (6a) on reconstruction, Butt opens with the query, “If

people are poor, and there is no reconstruction in Afghanistan, will they be able to

observe the law?” Of course not, several people respond. A man answers, “If I am

restless, what care do I have for the world? I don’t care about the world, if I have no

security. If I have personal security, then I will never do any wrong action.” “I think

there is a Hadith of the Holy Prophet, to the effect that sometimes poverty turns into

disbelief,” prompts Butt. “Absolutely!” the man replies. The program continues with

54 Programs are identified by phase and program number as listed on the relevant CD (a separate CD was produced for each phase). Direct quotes from the program are as written on the sleeve notes to the CD. 218 people noting the lack of factories and electricity in Mazar-i-Sharif, and exhorting the government and the international community to “provide opportunities for work.” Butt’s questioning elicited these complaints because he appeared to agree with interviewees, even going so far as to imply that the Prophet himself would concur.

In other instances, Butt took a stance that was clearly opposite of the expected correct answer in an effort to get interviewees to articulate particular viewpoints. On the issue of women’s rights and participation in development, Butt could not get anyone to say that they opposed women’s rights. So he, the foreigner most expected to champion women’s rights, took a clearly adversarial role, representing the conservative stance himself. “But if women get educated,” Butt asks, “won’t they fight with men?” No, he is told by female interviewees. “The fighting of groups will come to an end, the fighting of men and women will start! Isn’t that what will happen?” he persists. He then raises the same points with men. When none present will speak against women’s rights, he asks:

Interviewer: Why, in that case, do you think certain people are against this in Afghanistan?

First man: No one is against it. (Woman prompts him to say that is in the interests of both men and women). Both men and women have their interests. People will progress, and their lives will improve.

Interviewer: Look, this woman is prompting you, if she gets more educated, then she will prompt you even more!

First man: (Laughing.) You are right, then she will prompt even more!

Interviewer: Then she will tell you everything!

Music rises.

219 Finally, the man tacitly acknowledges what most audience members already know—that

there are many people who do not feel that it is appropriate for women to compete with

men in the public sphere.

Butt and Weeks also used judicious editing to make their point. For example, in

the programs on disarmament they contrast the rhetoric of the UN-sponsored

disarmament (DDR) program with the reality of living under the rule of the gun. Several

phase two programs are created from interviews conducted in Mazar, a province in

northern Afghanistan where fighting between two main opponents, Mohammad Atta and

Abdul Rashid Dostum, broke out sporadically. The UN would negotiate temporary

truces between the longtime foes at the same time that Western powers paid the men for

their support in hunting down Taliban forces, thereby enabling them to continue fighting

each other.

Many programs on disarmament convey distrust and cynicism toward the DDR

process. In several programs, the producers edited in Atta’s voice giving a speech on disarmament, interactions with security personnel present at the event, and interviews with other people concerning the situation in Mazar. One program (phase 2, 5a) begins with Butt asking how the constitution can be implemented if people are armed. It cannot, responds someone. Who will collect the arms? asks Butt. A young girl responds, “We have no idea up till now.” “It is not clear for now if they are going to collect arms or not.

But our leaders in the town of Mazar have promised us that they will do it. But in my opinion if there is a delegation from the center, and a peace-keeping force from the

United Nations, then I think that this process will be conducted in a very good manner,”

220 answers another person. These interviews were juxtaposed with material collected during

Atta’s speech:

Interviewer: I am working on behalf of the Constitution…(Sounds like a gun being loaded)….Lots of things have been said…

Secret service agent: You can carry on freely conducting your interviews. No one is going to stop you.

Interviewer: Yes, I know, but there should not be any armed person around.

Speech of Atta Mohammad: …..Mazar-e-Sharif should be known as a place of peace, and it should really become place of peace….

Interviewer: (Speech continues in the background) I have been listening to the words of a leader, a chief of yours, in which he said that he would like Mazar to turn into a place of peace. Do you think this can actually be done?

Voice 5 (Same secret service agent): Inshallah.

This program, at five minutes and forty eight seconds, is the longest program in this phase. It continues with more people supporting the idea of disarmament and ends with an interview with Sultan Aziz, the head of the DDR program. When asked why the pace of disarmament is so slow, Aziz points to the ongoing reforms within the Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense needs to function “in a better and more efficient manner.” The program ends without any resolution. While all the parties interviewed agree that peace would be a good thing, nobody seems to have any clear idea how to disarm the militias. Mazar, it is clear, is still highly militarized. Atta’s words are a sham, and the UN program designed to disarm warlords like him seems to be abdicating responsibility. The Ministry of Defense, itself under the direction of a powerful commander, would have little incentive to disarm militias. If the UN and the

221 international community cannot force the issue, who will? In this program, authority

figures do not have all the right answers.

The Vox Pop Format: Challenging Authority Figures

The producers’ ambivalence toward authority became more pronounced in phase

2 and 3 programs. In phase one, nearly half of the programs include quotes from members of the Constitutional Commission or the UN. Programs are structured so that

representatives of the Constitutional Commission can “correct” misapprehensions or

reassure listeners that all will be well. For example, a phase one program (9) on the role

of Islam in the constitution begins with the question: “Do Muslims need a Constitution?”

Four “ordinary people” respond with variations of “the Constitution should be made according to the Quran,” and to Sharia law, while a fifth emphasizes that a constitution that enshrines social justice would be in accordance with the Quran. “As for those who work against the interests of the rulers of a country, they are undermining Islam and the

Quran, as well as the Constitution,” says a fifth voice. The program ends with the words of the deputy chairman of the Constitutional Commission, a well known scholar of Islam.

He makes the distinction between Quranic “celestial law” and “the organization of daily

life” of the Constitution. The two do not conflict. In this program, state power draws its

legitimacy from religious power, and observing one is equated with observing the other.

The potential conflict between Islamic and secular legal interpretations, or allegiance to

religious authorities over secular ones, is neatly resolved.

In cases where the Constitutional Commission was critiqued, many phase one

programs offered those in authority the opportunity to respond. For example, one

222 program titled “Need for Awareness” (phase one, 2) begins with several people

exclaiming that they know nothing about the new constitution. The second part of the

program consists of a radio drama between a mother and son, produced by the

Constitutional Commission, explaining the benefits of a new Constitution. The program

ends with the words of one interviewee, “Yes, I am relatively well informed. I know

what a Constitution is. Once a Constitution is ratified, all public institutions—

government and non-government—are able to live under the Constitution, and implement

their programs in accordance with it.” The key message is a reprise of the positive words

of interviewees: “All are able to live under the Constitution. Constitution, the basis of

prosperity!” The final message of the program reinforces the authority and legitimacy of

the Constitutional Commission.

All phase one programs end with a final message. In phase two, Butt and Weeks began to drop the final message in some programs. By phase three, only six out of thirty

two programs had a final message. The lack of a final message allowed programs, such

as the program on DDR quoted above, to remain open to interpretation. The subject

matter of phase two and three programs, some dealing with particular issues to be

debated at the CLJ, lends itself to purposeful ambiguity. On issues such as whether there

should be a presidential or parliamentary system, it did not behoove producers to take a

partisan stance. However, there was a distinct shift in tone overall even in topics that

were previously presented as having a “correct” answer.

Compare, for example, a phase three program on the role of Islam with the phase

one program advocating the official view of the Constitutional Commission. The later program (phase 3, 4a) opens with the interviewer setting the scene: “It is Friday, and 223 people are coming out of the mosque in Mazar-e-Sharif. Salam alaikum! Salam

alaikum! How are you? Are you well? What do you think, will this Constitution bring

peace?” Many people respond negatively. “God has sent us down the Quran, and we

should take our guidance from it.” Most emphasize that secular law must be in

accordance with the Quran. However, instead of ending with a religious expert assuring

listeners that the law created by the Constitutional Commission will be appropriate, the

program ends with this man’s warning: “If it [the Constitution] is in accordance with the

Quran, everyone will follow it. If it’s not, well the people are Muslims, they will give

their answer—we will have to talk about it.” “Thank you, may you live long. God be

with you,” responds Butt and the program ends. The state, in this program, is subject to

the will of the citizens. There is no assumption that state authority will be legitimate. In

fact, there is an open challenge from religious authority. There is no final message.

In January 2004, Butt explained the changes in program format, with no final

messages and fewer interviews with official sources, by saying that he was “going off

experts.”55 Butt worked closely with the Public Education Officer of the Constitutional

Commission, in fact, during phase three he was hired as an advisor to that office (Butt,

2003). He thanked the Commission for their support in the introduction to the phase one

CD. However, Butt came to feel that his main purpose was to contribute to national

debate not to reflect the viewpoint of the Commission (Butt, 2003). For debate, there

needed to be differing viewpoints and controversy. Butt and Weeks created the sense of

55 In a subsequent email exchange, Butt clarified that the “message” in later programs was still present but articulated through other means. That is, rather than a statement in echoed tones at the end of a program, he tried to focus clearly on one theme, and then progress through the identification of a problem to various efforts made to solve the problem. He called this a “general, but not exaggerated or repeated ‘message’” (J. Butt, personal communication, May 29, 2005. 224 conflict by juxtaposing interviews that expressed different viewpoints, creating adversarial questions, or capturing moments of controversy.

Some of the most dramatic material in the CLJ programs came from recordings taken during the CLJ debates. Delegates were divided into ten working groups. There was considerable debate over the structure and procedures in the working groups— especially over who should be in each group, how group leaders should be selected, and how decisions would be made and presented to the larger CLJ. The press was not allowed to observe the working groups themselves, however Butt was stationed in the tent while the groups were in session and interviewed delegates as they came and went.

One program (phase 3, 5a) begins:

Interviewer: Why did you get up and leave this meeting? Why did you get up and leave?

Delegate: We walked out…I will tell him, I will give an interview.

Interviewer: Yes, why did you walk out?

Delegate: Listen to me (Background: “They took an Al-Qaida as the head….”) Because we are in group number 3. The words which have come in the introduction, it was written “the rightful conflict – the jihad and the resistance of the people of Afghanistan….”, he said the word resistance should not be there because…we say it should be there because we conducted a resistance against the Taliban and Pakistanis, foreigners, Al-Qaida and terrorists, he says, Ahmad Nabi Mohammadi, who is the head of our group, he says that the word resistance should not be there, because it is associated with heretics.

Interviewer: If that is the case, why did you elect him yesterday?

Delegate: Elected, because – I will say this also – we were unable to reach the required proportion and we did not take part in his election. And today, one woman told the truth, but everything we say, we are taken to court!

Interviewer: Yesterday, when you elected him, did you experience pressure?

Delegate: Yes! There was pressure. 225 Interviewer: How was there pressure?

Delegate: There is, he is a leader, a jihadi leader, how can we reject him, if we reject him, they will say we are infidels and heretics, he is a jihadi leader, we accept him, he is the light of our eyes, but we want our own right.”

The official interpretation of the jihad was an explosive issue. What rights and

privileges should be given to those who had fought the resistance? There was a complex

web of alliances and rivalries over twenty five years of strife, and atrocities had been

committed by many. One person’s resistance hero was another’s warlord. The woman to

whom the delegate refers is Malalai Joya, who stood up in a full CLJ session and called

for the criminal prosecution of many of the “jihadi leaders” in the room. The reaction

against Joya was swift. Some leapt up to defend themselves or called her a heretic. Her

microphone was cut off. Joya was later escorted out of the room, and was subsequently offered UN protection. The Joya incident was referred to in many of the programs recorded during the CLJ because it provoked strong emotions. Was this an exercise in free speech or slander? Could Afghanistan, in its fragile nation building state, afford the

kind of dissent that Joya’s words stirred up? It also garnered significant Western news coverage because it crystallizes one of the key transitions issues of how to define and cope with war crimes (Astill, 2003; Burnett, 2003; Waldman & Gall, 2003).

Whereas the ELJ programs followed a chronological storyline, where each episode depended upon some knowledge of the previous episode, the CLJ programs were self-contained. They addressed issues likely to arise during the preparation for the CLJ.

This included questions that Afghans might have concerning the process: What is a constitution? Is it a foreign invention, imposed on Afghanistan? What is the relationship

226 of a constitution to religious law? The programs also included discussions about issues that were likely to arise during the CLJ such as the relative benefits of a presidential versus a parliamentary system, the role of women, and the role of Islam in the new constitution. Finally, they offered a glimpse of the actual discussions that took place among delegates during the CLJ.

Appropriate Distribution Outlets

Despite the programs’ topical interest, when Butt tried to get the CLJ programs aired by the BBC, they were rejected as “propaganda.” He tried to convince the Ministry of Education’s radio and television division to air all the programs during their time slots on Radio Afghanistan, but the programs didn’t fit with their concept of “educational spots.” They would not sponsor programs over two minutes in length (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004). OTI’s local media officer helped to shop the programs around and check whether they were in fact being broadcast. RTA agreed to broadcast them during a segment they ran called “Society and the Constitution.” “Good

Morning Afghanistan,” a regular show that was funded by donors but housed and distributed by RTA, agreed to include the programs during an OTI-funded weekly program on constitutional issues. Program CDs were given to some provincial RTA affiliates, but it was nearly impossible to verify if the programs were actually broadcast there (Butt, 2003).

The most reliable broadcaster was Radio Free Afghanistan, called Radio Azadi in

Afghanistan. RFA had been revived by the US Congress early in 2002, and had nationwide coverage and high listenership (Internews, 2003b; Internews, 2004d). Butt

227 approached RFA’s Kabul bureau chief, who was enthusiastic about the programs.

However, before the programs could be aired, they had to be approved by RFA’s chief in

Prague. So Butt and Adam, the head of MSS, traveled to Prague in October 2003 to

present and personally advocate for the programs. RFA agreed to broadcast them during

prime morning hours (Butt, 2003).

Butt also approached Internews, another OTI grantee who was supporting the

creation of a network of 15 private radio stations. Internews sent the program CD to their

stations in the provinces, but each station had the option of whether or not to use the

programs. By phase three, Butt had reached an agreement with one of the Internews-

financed stations in Kabul, Radio Killid. Radio Killid, the project of an Afghan NGO

with a long history of development work, went on the air in August 2003. Radio Azadi

and Radio Killid were the most consistent and reliable outlets for the programs.

Butt felt that Killid, in particular, was a good outlet to reach his intended audience

of Afghan policymakers (Butt, 2003). A November 2003 listener survey conducted by

Internews showed that the private Afghan stations, Arman FM and Killid, were by far the

most popular stations in Kabul. Together, they accounted for an estimated 80% of the

market share, beating out RTA and the international broadcasters like BBC and

VOA/RFA.56 While Arman FM, the more popular of the two, focused on music, Killid

broadcast approximately four hours of talk radio a day (Internews, 2003a). This made

Killid a good fit for the CLJ programs.

56 As the VOA and RFA share the same frequency, they are treated as one broadcaster in listenership surveys. 228 However, to reach his intended audience of English speaking policymakers, Butt depended upon the CDs with translations. The CDs and cassettes also offered the benefit of longevity. Once the programs aired on the ephemeral broadcast news cycle, they were no longer relevant. Butt argued that the programs should not be seen as news but as development media promoting the peace process. He described the CLJ programs as

“needs-based” not “news-based.” The programs collected during all the phases of the program were still relevant because they reflected the larger aspirations of the Afghan people (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004). The international community played a key role in Afghan policymaking. Educating these nation-builders about the needs of Afghans was just as important as educating Afghans about the rules and regulations of global democratic models. OTI didn’t share Butt’s conviction. As national elections approached, OTI concentrated on expanding and supporting the

Internews network of local broadcasters whom they hoped would ensure the structural transformation of the Afghan media sphere. OTI agreed to fund the radio station Killid, where Butt acted as station director for five months during which he produced a reduced number of programs concerning elections. OTI did did not pay for English translations or CDs (J. Butt, personal communication, May 29, 2005).

SPEAKING TO THE WORLD: CLJ AND PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS VOX POPS

OTI was focused on creating a commercial broadcast system that would compete

with the state system. There was funding set aside for elections-related media, and this

would likely be the last, best opportunity for OTI to put a stamp on the media program

before handing it over to USAID’s Democracy and Governance sector. The immediate

229 need for programming to promote elections was a convenient avenue for promoting local

media production and dissemination. Unless international NGOs partnered with local

media organizations, OTI was not interested in funding them. So Butt worked under the

aegis of his own NGO Silk Road Radio for phase three of the CLJ programs, and then

partnered with the new private radio station Killid to produce the elections programs. He

produced a much smaller number of elections-related programs in the same vox pop

format as the CLJ programs.

The elections programs, like the CLJ programs, had one important advantage over

similarly-themed local productions. Since they were produced by foreigners and

distributed on international broadcast outlets, Afghan interviewees used them as means of

accessing international policymakers. In a transition situation, the hand of the

international community is very visible. Afghans were very aware that the international

community was setting the rules and providing funding for the transitions process. If one wanted to “speak to power” then one had to address not only Afghan policymakers, but international ones. Interviewees used the vox pop programs to address both a national and a transnational audience of powerbrokers.

Focusing on Private Media Prior to the Elections

Afghanistan’s first national elections took place on October 9, 2004. They had originally been scheduled for June, but were pushed back in order to maximize voter registration. It was also decided to separate the presidential and parliamentary elections.

Parliamentary elections were much more logistically and politically complex as they required agreeing upon district boundaries and population figures. However, delaying

230 elections much past the two-year transition period outlined in the Bonn Agreement could

cause a crisis of legitimacy for Karzai’s government. So while it was agreed that

parliamentary elections would be held in 2005, presidential elections took place just

before winter set in.

Registering voters, particularly female voters, was a key concern of the

international community. The higher the voter turnout, the more legitimate the election

results. It was widely expected that Karzai, the US’s favored candidate, would win re-

election. However, continuing instability in the south might prevent voters from

registering and coming to the polls, particularly Pashtuns likely to support Karzai. As in the ELJ and CLJ, the media were perceived as important tools to disseminate general

information concerning the elections process as well as to promote widespread voter

registration. However, the media could also be used by candidates to reinforce ethnic,

religious and ideological differences. So at elections, the international community was

also concerned with monitoring media content. Issues of media content became more

important as the field of presidential candidates expanded, particularly candidates with

regional constituencies who represented a challenge to Karzai.

USAID spent approximately $78 million dollars for elections (Kunder, 2004). In

February 2004, OTI’s media budget more than doubled in preparation for elections.

From October 2001 to January 2004, they had spent approximately $7.3 million on

media. Now they had $15 million to spend on media for elections (OTI, 2004). OTI

was scheduled to begin phasing out after the elections and leave by July 2005, so they

had a limited time in which to implement the elections media mandate (A. Kaplan,

personal communication, August 4, 2004). In January 2004, OTI went through an 231 internal re-evaluation of its programming goals and direction. OTI’s overall goal was re- cast to emphasize the link with the Bonn Agreement and long-term development objectives:

Working with central and provincial governments, national and international NGOs, informal community groups, and media outlets, OTI identifies and supports critical initiatives that facilitate the implementation of the Bonn Agreement. OTI’s rapid support for activities in Afghanistan’s transition period also helps establish credibility and space for longer-term development assistance (OTI, 2004).

In February 2004, with elections rapidly approaching and the media component of

OTI’s program gaining visibility, OTI hired Adam Kaplan to manage the media activities. Kaplan’s job was to implement a cohesive media strategy to foster an entirely independent media sector with no state involvement except for licensing (A. Kaplan, personal communication, August 4, 2004). OTI was open to supporting television, which was gaining a foothold in urban areas, but radio broadcasting was considered a much more important and viable outlet for nationwide dissemination of information prior to elections.57 By March 2004, sixteen independent stations supported by OTI were on the air, most of them near urban population centers around the country. According to a

national radio frequency mapping conducted by Internews, the independent stations were

accessible via FM to approximately 30% of the population. State and international

broadcasters still had a larger coverage area, mostly with medium wave signals, reaching

75% and 70% of the population respectively (Internews, 2004d). But as more and more

independent stations went on the air, they tended to pull listeners from the state and

232 international broadcasters. A February 2004 radio listening survey in the northern

province of Samangan showed, much like the November 2003 Kabul-based survey, that

listeners preferred local stations (Kamal, 2004).58 So OTI could expect high listenership

of independent stations in the provinces.

OTI saw their main objective as nurturing the burgeoning independent media

sphere. Therefore, it was no longer advantageous to be associated with an international

media outlet or an NGO to obtain funding from OTI. Butt had cultivated a relationship

with Radio Killid through his distribution of the CLJ programs. However, when it came

to submitting a joint proposal to OTI, both Radio Killid and Butt, through his NGO Silk

Road Radio, wanted to be the primary grantee (A. Kaplan, personal communication,

August 4, 2004; J. Butt, personal communication, May 29, 2005). In the end, the grant

went to Killid. Butt worked from February to June 2004 as Radio Killid’s station

manager. He also got a subcontract from OTI’s large grantee, Internews, to train and

make model programs for the Internews private radio network stations. During this time, he produced the elections programs, with no assistance from his previous collaborator,

Brian Weeks. After the October elections, Butt went to work for Internews as director of a new project, the Pak-Afghan Cross-border Training project based at Peshawar

University in Pakistan (J. Butt, personal communication, May 29, 2005). With OTI’s

focus on promoting local stations, Butt was effectively shut out of the media transition

sphere unless he collaborated with Internews or the local radio stations they incubated.

57 OTI provided seed money for a private television station run by the same owners as private radio station Arman FM, the Mohseni brothers. 58 The full text of the survey is available online at http://www.internews.org/regions/centralasia/afghanistan.html. 233 The Vox Pop Format: Addressing National and Transnational Audiences

Butt produced fifteen programs on voter registration and nine programs on the

qualities of candidates. Only nine of the programs were translated into English, since

OTI would not fund distribution via CD or cassette.59 The format is similar to the CLJ

programs. Butt interviewed local elections workers, members of the Joint Elections

Management Body (JEMB), as well as “ordinary” Afghans. There were no final

messages in any of the programs. By this time, Butt’s vox pop format and technique

were well established. The elections programs shared the same educational aim of the

ELJ and CLJ programs, to promote knowledge of the political process and participation

in it, but, like the later CLJ programs, they took a somewhat ambivalent stance toward

authority and tried to emphasize a variety of viewpoints concerning elections issues.

The programs reflected Butt’s continuing concern with taking the voice of the

people to those in power. Interviewees often addressed themselves to the government,

voicing their demands as well as practical suggestions for the elections process. For

example, in one program entitled “More awareness needed,” (1) Butt spoke with

attendees of a Women’s Day celebration as well as voter registration workers about the

reasons why some women were not registering. One reason was general suspicion about

who was collecting information and how it would be used. Some people were not

registering at all while others were registering several times, figuring that they could sell

the cards. The final speaker, an attendee of a Woman’s Day meeting in Kabul, faulted the government for ill-informing the populace about voter registration:

59 English translations of the elections programs used in this study were provided by John Butt. 234 This process of elections, which is going on in our country, has not been properly structured. Its work is weak. The minds of the people have not been properly enlightened. Election activities are proceeding in a very weak manner. For this reason, if only a few women have so far registered and taken their voting cards, it is the fault of those who are working in this process, and have not enlightened the minds of the people, so that people should be informed, and know about the meaning of elections, and really understand it, so that they themselves can elect their national leader (Elections program 1).

Others offered practical suggestions to the government and the UN. In one program, (9) several men said that the women in their family would register to vote if the process could be done while maintaining purdah (women’s seclusion). “People from

Paktia, whether they are from the provincial headquarters, or from those frontier regions, they are very modest people. They are not able to go to the bazaar, and visit offices and take out cards,” said one man. Another suggested, “It would be good if the government

could be so kind that when they go to the villages, there should be women with them

also, and photos can be taken in seclusion of the districts, then women can be given their

cards.” In another program, (6) one man working for an American company in Kabul

said he had not registered because there were no registration centers open on Fridays, his

only day off work. “The Americans are very desirous for a successful election process in

Afghanistan,” Butt pointed out, “so they should give you time for you to register,

shouldn’t they?”

Butt saw himself as an advocate for “ordinary Afghans” and tried to use his

access to the halls of power, particularly to the international community, to pass along

questions and concerns (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16, 2004). This is

235 evident in the notes he wrote himself on interview logs.60 To organize the interview

material, Butt created tables with a summary of the content of each track recorded, the

language used, and a potential program topic. He made a note to pass along to the BBC a

proposal for radio English lessons. He also made notes on issues to follow up with, such

as “Maybe USAID can approach the Finance Minister—otherwise elusive—to give an

interview on prospective systems of taxation.”

Although some of the interviewees’ more pointed criticism of the US did not

make it on the air, Butt tried to capture the sentiment in other ways. For example, the

summary of one track read: “Last year also you had a Loya Jirga. You got people

together, then you sent Khalilzad from America, and you gave the warlords authority

over us once again. This year I think it will be the same. We do not want to [sic]

warlords to be reinstalled in power.” Butt skipped the direct reference to US Special

Envoy (and later, Ambassador) Khalilzad. However, he did create several programs that

expressed dissatisfaction with the ELJ process and discussed how people did not want

warlords in power. Butt toned down the direct challenges to particular people, but

maintained the sense of expectation and demands.

At times, the interviewees’ demands were made to directly to Butt as a

representative of the international community. In one CLJ program (phase 2, 11a) a man complained that civil servants didn’t work and demanded bribes. Perhaps the government didn’t have enough money to pay them, Butt suggested. “I don’t know if it is the government to blame,” responded the man, “or you.” The Afghan population was

60 Information in this section is derived from Butt’s interview logs, provided in January 2004. They are not complete, as Butt was still in the process of transcribing material from later recordings. 236 keenly aware that donor funding ran the government, and the “you” here referred to

Butt’s perceived role as a representative of the donor community. In another program

recorded during the CLJ, a man approached Butt and said he had a question for him.

“You have a question from [sic] me?” asked a surprised Butt. Yes, said the man. “First of all, define democracy for me. What is democracy?” Only after Butt had answered his

question did the interviewee respond to Butt’s original query about how to implement the

constitution.

Interviewees also used examples of global democratic transition models to argue

for their own points. In one program on foreign assistance (CLJ, phase 2, 14b), an

interviewee complained, “In other countries, when there has been some fighting,

immediately the United Nations comes there, disarms the conflicting parties, and hands it

over readymade: “Here, take this government and make it for yourselves.” I am amazed

that the United Nations does not do the same in Afghanistan.” In another program (CLJ,

phase 3, 12a) one man argued that a minimum education requirement should be set for

government officials because “that is the custom in the whole world.” Afghan

interviewees, likely listeners of the international broadcast outlets, were able to mobilize

aspects of other transition political situations to argue for a particular course of action in

Afghanistan. Political transition, as these interviewees point out, is not exclusively a

national process. It is a global system and requires international participation. Program

producers saw their role as taking the voice of Afghans to those in power, and Afghan

interviewees responded. They used the programs as a megaphone to a world audience.

The notion of empowering ordinary citizens to actively participate in political

discussions and affect decision-making fits the discourse of participatory development as 237 well as civil society. As opposed to government-led development programs,

participatory development champions local efforts to define needs and undertake projects. The national government is appealed to in so far as state policy affects local interests. The real needs of people cannot be determined at a central level, but can only be understood and expressed by those who are living their situation. Communications, in the participatory paradigm, first promotes dialogue and discussion among local groups concerning their problems and potential solutions, and then conveys the results of those discussions to a centralized authority. In the CLJ and elections programs, a virtual national dialogue is created by having different people around the country interviewed concerning the same topics. Their opinions are conveyed to policymakers via the broadcasts as well as the English language textual translations. The CLJ and the

presidential elections, where key decisions will be made, is the endpoint of the discussion, the opportunity for public opinion to affect policy. Creating a space for public opinion to flourish is the goal of communications in the civil society discourse.

However, the legitimacy of the virtual dialogue depends on the extent to which

the public sphere is perceived as free of undue influence of government or business.

Thus, both the participatory development and civil society paradigms tend to ignore or at

least underplay the extent to which discussions are mediated. Any acknowledgement that

the “voice of the people” is mediated can be interpreted as manipulation or fakery.

Without authenticity, the “voice” loses power. The vox pop format, although drawing

upon the discourse of authenticity, is highly structured and edited. It is not simply a

matter of capturing reality, but creating it for a radio audience. In this process, the

interviewer is vital. The ways in which questions are structured, the way the interviewer 238 is perceived by interviewees, and the interaction between interviewer, interviewee and

onlookers shapes the discussion that is recorded. Recordings are subsequently edited.

Editors can then highlight a preferred viewpoint or present the topic as controversial

depending upon the selections they chose to include and the way in which these are

juxtaposed.

The notion of an expected audience also determines how producers structure the

programs, as well as how interviewees answer questions. One can discern a distinct shift in the vox pop programs as the producers’ concept of the intended audience shifts. In

early programs, the audience, as in the modernization paradigm, is a population “to be

developed.” They must be educated in the proper purpose and procedures of democratic

moments. The final message serves as means to reinforce the message that the intended

audience is to take from the program. The ELJ soap operas, too, used a message- oriented format. Each program was designed to impart a specific message. The imagined audience was a rural population, the “typical” Afghan whose world view and practices, in the modernization paradigm, are most in need of change. In contrast, in later vox pop programs the notion of expanding the audience to include policymakers fits

within the participatory development paradigm in which media serve to stimulate

discussion among populations and to convey their needs to centers of authority. This is

reflected in the ambiguous tone and lack of final message in later programs.

Despite their differing visions of the audience, the vox pop format is no more real

or less “developmental” than the radio soap opera format. The radio soap opera is clearly

a constructed world. Producers create characters, write storylines, and hire actors to

voice the script. However, the development soap opera also draws upon a discourse of 239 authenticity. “Storyline reporting” mixes notions of news, understood as recording what happens, with narratives, or translating the “real” world into a fictional setting. Producers themselves felt an obligation to use the medium to deal with real problems they perceived. For some, this meant addressing practical matters such as whether or not to cancel school. For others, it was an opportunity to promote a social system where the rule of the gun was replaced by the rule of law.

Throughout the transition process, media producers clearly saw themselves as development workers using media to promote social change. They constructed media products in ways that they thought would best result in the desired changes. They collaborated with other media organizations, state and non state, as needed. Their collaboration was defined less by institutional arrangements than personal relationships.

For example, RTA’s musicians continued to participate in the production process as free lancers even though the institutional relationship between RTA, OTI and MSS was tenuous. Programs were broadcast via US international broadcasters VOA and RFA, not because it was mandated by a central authority within the US foreign aid or broadcasting system, but due to personal relationships among broadcasters who knew each other and worked together. The dividing line that policymakers envision between international broadcasters, state outlets and “local” outlets was not as clear at the production level.

The systems are much more intertwined at the level of production and dissemination, where personnel are fluid and share many of the same assumptions concerning the role of journalism and media in political transition.

However, because OTI perceived “local” broadcasters as more legitimate, international media NGOs had to demonstrate that they worked within the strictures of 240 standard development practice. That is, once their project ended, NGOs had to demonstrate that they would leave behind a sustainable, functioning media system. Large international media NGOs that were incubators of local media outlets had an advantage over smaller international media NGOs focused on program production. At the beginning of the transitions process, MSS had the advantage of being well connected within the Afghan media sphere. The kind of programming that MSS could produce was unique because MSS had both key personnel and an entrée into the international funding apparatus. But by the end of the transitions period, Internews, with its large scale project of structural media transformation, was the main funding mechanism for OTI. Butt, through his own NGO Silk Road Radio, still managed to participate in media transitions by aligning himself with Radio Killid and Internews rather than MSS. With OTI’s media strategy of setting up a commercial broadcast network to compete with the state broadcast system well under way, the professional media transitions practitioners, veterans of media transitions in several countries, dominated the field.

241 CHAPTER SIX: IMPLICATIONS OF THE CASE OF AFGHAN MEDIA

TRANSITION

This study investigated the role that international donors and NGOs played in the reconstruction of Afghan media during the political transition period from fall 2001 to fall 2004. The purpose was not to see how media transition was conducted in

Afghanistan, compare it to other cases of internationally-led media transition, and propose a model or even a series of “best practices” for practitioners. Rather, it was to

use Afghanistan to interrogate the notion of media transition and its underlying

assumptions. How does the international development system function to produce and

reproduce accepted notions of media transition? In order to investigate the system as

whole, it was necessary to examine varying levels of the media transition system, from

global institutions to individual practitioners.

The view from each of these levels illuminates different aspects of media

transition. An institutional analysis illustrates how media transition is a part of the larger

international development network. A discursive analysis shows how the meaning of

“media transition” is contested by different actors, each vying to promote an

understanding of media transition that will benefit them. An examination of production

practices demonstrates how media producers craft their programs in order to produce the

desired social and political transformation.

This study highlights media transition as a discursive process that shares many of

the same concerns as development communications, and that mobilizes a transnational

242 public sphere. Although this study ends with the Afghan presidential elections, the

culmination of many media transition efforts, many of the issues raised may have

repercussions far beyond the traditional transition period. This chapter reviews some of the key findings of the study, focusing on the findings that would not have been predicted by the reviewed literature on media transition. It then explores some of the theoretical implications of those findings, referring back to the theories discussed in chapter one. It also suggests new avenues for scholars interested in continuing research on media transitions.

A REVIEW OF KEY FINDINGS

The study of Afghan media transition is particularly rich because it has broad

topical interest. It is timely; the process of nation-building in Afghanistan is on-going,

and the notion of nation-building seems to structure much of current US foreign policy.

While popular media coverage of Afghanistan may have declined, US policy in Iraq

continues to garner front page coverage. At the same time, the “war on terror” seems to

demonstrate the weakness of nations in the face of transnational forces. Therefore,

notions of transnational networks and how they are mobilized also resonate with current

events. Readers may find information or ideas in this study that spur thoughts or

questions in many areas. However, this review of the study is structured by the issues

raised previously in the review of relevant literature. It highlights key empirical findings

that were not suggested by the literature on media transitions.

243 Media Transition as a Discursive Process

The literature on media transitions tends to focus on how to best undertake media transition and how to capture effects. This study attempts to reinsert power dynamics into scholarly examinations of media transition by focusing on transition as a discursive project. The history of media aid to Afghanistan is a story of shifting legitimacy. As different institutional players in the international development network gained the “right” to lead media development, the institutions of media aid changed to accommodate the changing discourse. The primary difference between media aid to Afghanistan during the political transition of 2001-2004, as opposed to other incidences of media aid in other times, is that the state, although becoming legitimate, was negotiating from a weakened position. Instead, international NGOs were both the arbiters of accepted norms as well as the primary implementers of media aid. They funneled aid monies primarily to commercial media outlets, and mostly viewed government outlets with suspicion. During a time when there was heightened interest in media systems as well as increased direct funding for media, the state was likely to benefit the least. This reflects a significant power shift toward the dominant “media transition” institutions like USAID’s OTI and media NGOs, as well as shifting ideological and theoretical ideas about the need for competitive media.

In the post-World War II international environment, the nation-state was the primary unit that exerted legitimate power within its borders and was authorized to interact with other nation-states. This period coincided with the birth of many bilateral development aid agencies such as USAID, as well as the growth of the UN system.

244 Multilateral development agencies like UNESCO provided a forum for states to speak to

each other and create shared understandings of the responsibilities of states. It was

understood that the state should take the lead in national development and that the mass

media were a means to that end. This led to media aid projects for developmental goals

where donors worked closely with government ministries. Foreign aid to the Afghan

media system was almost accidental, or at least incidental to the main project.

The bilateral relationships between Afghanistan and other states were not equal

partnerships. Afghanistan was at a disadvantage in that mass media systems were

expensive operations and the government depended on foreign aid monies to implement

national development plans (Rubin, 2002). However, even if few donors came forward

to support the growth of national media systems, it was acknowledged that the state had a

legitimate interest in promoting mass media systems. All “modern” states had their own mass media systems. The modernization project of the Afghan state and their attempt to

expand state control via media systems was a credible one. As the domain of the Afghan

state, donors maintained a generally hands-off approach to media. Media aid was none of their concern (Clapp-Wincek & Baldwin, 1983; Stockley, 1977).

Direct aid to media became important business for Western donors when the

Afghan state lost its legitimacy. After the Soviet invasion in 1979, the same Afghan state media systems that had been outlets for educational media to modernize the population were now viewed as propaganda machines (Galster, 2001; Majrooh & Elmi, 1986). The

US and its anti-communist allies claimed that they could act in the media sphere because they were only countering Soviet propaganda. The perception that media were now being used illegitimately by a client Afghan state was the justification for the US and 245 Britain to expand their international broadcasts to Afghanistan. The US went as far as creating a surrogate service, Radio Free Afghanistan, with the stated purpose of overthrowing the Afghan government. The need to counter Soviet propaganda was also the justification for other direct aid to media, including USIA’s project to train and equip

Mujahideen journalists (Stone, 1985).

At the same time, nation states were losing their exclusive hold on international development and other international projects related to communication. The rise of the participatory paradigm in development communications, where development was seen as a grassroots process led by individual communities rather than central state authorities

(Melkote & Steeves, 2001), led to a concurrent rise in the number of NGOs acting as facilitators for local communities (Mendelson & Glenn, 2002). In Afghanistan, the 1980s and 90s saw an exponential increase in the number of international, Afghan and

“solidarity” NGOs formed specifically to work in Afghanistan to support the anti-Soviet forces and population (Nicholds, 1994). These NGOs obtained funding from the UN and bilateral aid agencies like USAID for humanitarian aid, which included both relief-type projects as well as development-type projects.

During the Soviet occupation and later, under the Taliban government, NGOs wielded power not only as the implementers of development projects, but also as policymakers. In the absence of an Afghan government structure acceptable to Western donors, NGOs formed shadow governments. They supplied the Afghan population with many of the services that would otherwise have been government duties. Donors depended on NGOs for reliable needs assessments as well as reports on the state of affairs in Afghanistan and among refugee populations in Pakistan. The new Afghan state 246 installed in December 2001 inherited a situation where UN agencies and NGOs were

accustomed to acting as the main interlocutors between donors and Afghan populations,

defining needs and setting action plans.

The supremacy of UN agencies, donors and NGOs did not go long unchallenged.

Four months after coming to power, the new government instituted a system to attempt to control the direction and flow of aid monies, still the main source of income for the state.

But the National Development Framework and budget were not successful in channeling most aid monies to, or via, the state. Instead NGOs and donor agencies like OTI

mobilized the discourse of press freedom to open up the media sphere to non state

players. The state was allowed to plan the growth of its own media systems, but took

little part in planning the growth of private media outlets. These were seen as outside the

purview of the state (Media CG, 2003). International media NGOs, flush with their

important role in media reconstruction in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, were

the arbiters of international standards for media transition (Hume, 2002).

Media Transition as a Development Project

Part of the discursive project of maintaining legitimacy requires media organizations, from international broadcasters to media NGOs and state broadcasters, to claim objectivity. “Developmental” journalism is often derided as biased and therefore illegitimate. But the case of Afghanistan indicates that historically, Western journalists have maintained a complex balancing act between their dual roles as activists and neutral observers. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 created an atmosphere in which subjective journalism was much more accepted by the global media community. Since

247 Western journalists were denied official access to Afghan and Soviet officials, they used

Mujahideen escorts to enter Afghanistan illegally and report on the war (Girardet, 1985).

These “independent” journalists were not so different from their colleagues in

international broadcast outlets. Both represented the viewpoint of the Mujahideen. The

Voice of America, and certainly the surrogate service, Radio Free Afghanistan, had an

overtly anti-communist stance. These journalists, some forced into exile by the

communist government, saw their role as liberating Afghanistan (Heil, 2003). So, too,

did many of the BBC’s journalists (G. Adam, personal communication, January 6, 2004).

Even those with few personal ties to Afghanistan, such as the educators from

Boston University’s journalism department hired by USIA to train Mujahideen journalists, argued that their work was a legitimate response to Soviet propaganda

(Maitre, 1986). Although the USIA project drew criticism for its partisanship from within Boston University’s journalism department, as well as in the US and international press, this was mainly because it was funded by the US government, not because it was seen to present a biased representation of events in Afghanistan (Dorfman, 1986). Sandy

Gall, the ITN journalist who refused cooperation with USIA on the grounds that it would taint his journalistic credibility (Schneider, 1985), was himself a major contributor to the

Western characterization of the Mujahideen as legitimate holy warriors fighting the evil of communism. Gall worked closely with Mujahideen groups to craft that image (Gall,

1988). Journalists were active participants in the struggle for political and social change

in Afghanistan.

The activist journalist is not a quaint artifact of the Cold War. Some of these

same journalists who reported on the war in Afghanistan now head their own media 248 NGOs involved in media transition work.61 These media NGOs are a part of the global

institutional development network. They interact with the UN and its agencies,

multilateral aid organizations, and bilateral aid agencies. Media NGOs participate not

only as “neutral observers” of the media sphere, tracking instances of press censorship

worldwide, but also as media transitions project theoreticians and implementers. As

implementers, they are leaders in the attempt to transform political and social systems.

Within the transitions focus, the development paradigm persists in subtle ways.

Media NGOs must adhere to the rules of the development system in that they are required

to create project proposals for funding that address the “needs” of the population to be

developed, propose a “solution” to that need, and offer ways of measuring the impact of

their intervention. For a media transitions project to be considered successful, there must

be a clear developmental trajectory where progress can be tracked and quantified. As a

result, an industry of media transitions evaluators has sprung up (Hume, 2003) that

parallels project evaluations in other development areas like health, education and

agriculture.

The institutional “developmental” mission of media NGOs is often reflected in

the attitudes of media producers. For some, this means imparting valuable information

about the logistical details and processes involved with political transition (R. Bakhtani,

personal communication, August 7, 2004). For others, the goal is to change the

audience’s attitude toward society and inspire them to replace guns with democracy (M.

Akbar, personal communication, January 12, 2004). For others, it is to enable the

61 For example, Gordon Adam’s Media Support Services, John Butt’s Silk Road Radio, Edward Giradet’s (now defunct) Media Action International, and Reza Deghati’s Aïna. 249 population to speak back to those in power (J. Butt, personal communication, January 16,

2004). In each of these cases, the role of the media transitions practitioner is self- consciously active and pedagogic, more closely resembling Freire’s (1970, 1983) impassioned development worker than Siebert et. al.’s (1956) detached and impartial reporter.

Media Transition and the Transnational Public Sphere

Most media transitions practitioners focus on promoting a vibrant national public sphere, either through the state broadcaster or via commercial media outlets. In

Afghanistan, UNESCO focused on transforming RTA into a “true” public broadcaster that reflected the range of populations within the Afghan nation. Media analysts expressed concern about RTA’s perceived political affiliations—in Kabul with the

Northern Alliance officials in the central government, and in provincial capitals with local politicians and commanders (Levine, 2002). The proposed transformation of RTA involved de-coupling broadcasting from entrenched political interests by promoting an independent governing board (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a). In Afghanistan, ethnic

representation was not overtly addressed in MOIC policy statements, as it was in some

transition situations (Sullivan, 2000). Rather, RTA focused on demonstrating its

impartiality and independence. For example, during the elections monitoring, the MOIC

announced that no bias toward any particular candidate had been found in RTA

programming (Media CG, 2004). RTA could be said to be representative in that it did

not unfairly benefit any particular group. As an instrument of the state, RTA was

legitimate in so far as the government itself was legitimate. Here, the work of transitions

250 media practitioners parallels the work of political transition—to ensure that no one group

unfairly dominates the national public sphere.

Another strategy for creating a national public sphere is to focus on creating a

multiplicity of local media outlets, as in OTI’s Afghan media strategy (J. Langlois, personal communication, June 10, 2002). While the ultimate goal is to create local media

outlets all over the nation and enable all populations to have access to a local media

outlet, partial coverage is nonetheless useful. For OTI, this is evident in local listenership

patterns. The fact that local radio stations have a higher listenership than national or

international broadcasters (Internews, 2003a; Internews, 2004d) is evidence that OTI has tapped into a need for a sub-national public sphere. Furthermore, through the media NGO

Internews, local outlets can exchange programming. The more programming created by local outlets and distributed to others, the more successful the public sphere (OTI, 2004).

Here local communities are able to speak to each other without mediation from a central authority. Instead, the mediating organ is an international media NGO that is perceived

of as objective, or at least not involved with the political maneuvering of the center.

Neither UNESCO nor OTI’s vision of a national public sphere is sufficient for

understanding media transition, which is fundamentally a transnational phenomenon.

Although the transition political process is national, in that it proscribes what should happen within a particular nation, it is determined by international actors. The outlines of

Afghan transition were set at the Bonn Conference by the United Nations, a select group of nations, and a limited number of Afghan representatives. The Afghans present in

Bonn represented interest groups with varying degrees of power, but they could not be said to be representative of Afghan citizenry as a whole. In the negotiation that followed, 251 international actors held most of the cards. They had the legitimacy of the UN as mediator, the money to fund the transition process, and the military power to impose the agreement.

This unequal power dynamic continued throughout the political transition. While the Afghan state attempted to gain control over international aid monies through the

National Development Framework and budget, the state had no effective means of imposing their strategy other than by haranguing and claiming the moral right to lead development efforts. In the media sector, aid agencies were able to supercede the state’s right to control media development and largely by-passed the control mechanisms in the

NDF. Instead, they mobilized international understandings of press freedom and international NGOs with their own global networks to implement their projects. In media transition, the state was the least powerful actor. International actors set the terms for media transition and funneled most of their money outside the state media system.

Transitions media producers were very aware of the role of international powerbrokers, and addressed this role in the radio programs, as examined in chapter five.

In the Emergency Loya Jirga radio soap opera, producers assured listeners that the UN and international donors had learned from their past involvement in Afghanistan and would not desert the nation now. The blame for Afghanistan’s ills was partly attributed to foreign intervention and the subsequent abandonment of the international community.

Although the intended audience for the ELJ programs is a national one, the virtual public sphere that is presented is international. It includes not only powerful local community leaders, elders and commanders but also UN representatives. The ELJ programs model a

252 global public sphere where Afghans are able to engage vicariously in discussion with the international community.

Producers of the Constitutional Loya Jirga and elections vox pop programs tried to create a more direct avenue of communication with powerful international policymakers. Butt translated the CLJ programs into English specifically for the purpose of reaching an international audience via the distribution of program CDs. He encouraged interviewees to address an international audience by referring to “the

Americans” and the “international community” within the programs. The programs examined in chapter five show that Afghan interviewees were very aware of the power of international actors in transition and included the international community in their virtual dialogue with policymakers. Interviewees made specific requests for international aid, exhorted the international community to enforce disarmament, and discussed how the international community should conduct nation-building in Afghanistan based on their understandings of international involvement in political transitions elsewhere.

Participants interviewed by the radio producers considered the radio programs appropriate vehicles for a transnational public sphere because they were broadcast on international outlets. They often recognized Butt as a figure from international broadcasting, and later heard the programs on the VOA/RFA radio frequency. Therefore, speaking with Butt was a means of speaking with the international community. For interviewees, the key distinction between local and international broadcasters was not their relative legitimacy and independence. It was the scope of the audience they were likely to reach. International broadcasters might reach an international audience, while local broadcasters would not. For media transitions practitioners, this means that 253 international broadcasting mechanisms should not be dismissed as mouthpieces of their respective governments. In Afghanistan, the VOA played an important role during political transition as a mediated space through which Afghan publics could participate in virtual dialogues with international policymakers. Promoting a transnational public sphere may require the involvement of international media outlets, not only the use of national or local outlets.

However, there are practical limitations to creating a transnational public sphere, not the least of which is language. The printed English translations, not the broadcasts on

VOA, were the only means of reaching a non Dari and Pashto-speaking audience.

Whether or not the programs actually reached international policymakers is difficult to say. Certainly, this was not considered a primary audience by OTI and no institutional effort was made to measure this audience. OTI’s perception of the public sphere as sub- national structured their activities, and led to the marginalization of international broadcast outlets and international programming in favor of local media outlets and programming facilitated via international media NGOs.

When to End Media Transition

The classic ending point of media transition, national elections, determined when

OTI began to withdraw from Afghanistan. However, to some extent, transitions institutions are struggling with the issue of when their tenure should end. For example,

OTI has found itself returning to countries like Angola and the Congo for second tours

(Hume, 2003). When the first democratic transition “doesn’t take,” new elections are called, a new “transitional” administration is installed, and the institutions of transition

254 return for a second try. It seems clear that the broader concepts of political development

need to be re-integrated into the transition paradigm.

For media transitions practitioners in Afghanistan, elections were more of a

means than an end. When the world’s attention was focused on Afghan elections and

media systems were seen as a vital component of the democratic process, media

organizations took advantage of the opportunity to push for favorable legislation and

obtain funding. At a meeting of OTI-funded media organizations in August 2004, the

media consultant to the Joint Elections Management Body made this explicit, exhorting the organizations not to promote complex media rules for the elections. Even though these would be temporary, in his experience, these rules often had long-term consequences as they were formalized into permanent legal codes.62 Media monitoring

units conducted content analyses, comparing elections reporting of private and state

media outlets. The expectation was that as private media would be more independent and

appropriate outlets for political information during elections. The implication was that

private media outlets were also more valuable media outlets for civil society in the

democratic system after elections. Elections were a discursive site around which to

mobilize international resources and attention.

Media organizations were proven right. Just as the entire USAID budget peaked

during the Afghan, and not coincidentally US, presidential election year of 2004, so did

the attention to media. When OTI pulled out of Afghanistan in June 2005, the media

program was handed over to USAID’s Democracy and Governance sector. This sector is

responsible for advancing democratic institution-building, including support for the

255 September 2005 parliamentary elections. Although media systems are a part of

democratic institution-building, they are often eclipsed by other projects. The sector

addresses media implicitly within its four focus areas: rule of law, civil society, elections,

and governance.63 Media development is most visible within the category of civil society, where creating independent media outlets may advance the larger goal of promoting a robust civil society (Center for Democracy and Governance, 1999).

However, OTI is the only USAID office that explicitly defines media as a focus area.

OTI’s large media contract to Internews will continue under democracy and governance, but the IOM small grant funding mechanism will end. This eliminates one space for smaller media organizations, not working within the Internews broadcast network, to access funding.

Expanding the discursive construction of media transition past elections would have important implications for media organizations by sustaining the sense of urgency and importance given to media in the overall development process. To some extent, media NGOs themselves have begun this process in Afghanistan. In the fall of 2004,

OTI commissioned an evaluation of Afghan media. The research was conducted by Altai

Consulting, an NGO created by a former member of the media NGO Aïna. The research was partly an evaluation of the Internews project, and partly a larger study of the impact of media development during the three years after transition (Altai, 2005). The researchers conducted observations, radio content analyses, focus groups and interviews in fifteen out of thirty-two Afghan provinces, covering provincial centers, nearby villages

62 From personal meeting notes. 63 See http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/democracy_and_governance. 256 and far villages. They spoke with more than 1,500 interviewees. The report’s executive

summary lists ten key findings, most of which focus on media listenership and usage

patterns. They find that Afghan men and women are “intensive” media users,

particularly of radio, and that they trust media sources. “Media are expected to be a tool

for progress in society,” reads the summary, “They are doing so, in the first place, by

providing people with a forum to discuss their problems” (1). The report concludes with

a list of areas in which media must continue to contribute to national development.

Afghan audiences, the report emphasizes, have high expectations of media:

It is likely that the Afghan media audience will evolve faster than the country’s media. Journalists, managers and media development specialists will have to use innovative approaches to meet changing and maturing demands while respecting the traditional roots of society. This will be one of the major challenges in the next three years (Altai, 2005:10).

For practitioners, the notion that media transition does not end with elections but

that their expertise will continue to be needed expands the scope of their work. Making

the leap from media “transition” to media “development” carries both risks and rewards.

On one hand, media NGOs are firmly established as credible within the development network. The added attention and legitimacy gained during the limited transition period may translate into expanded roles in democracy and governance, or in the traditional development communications domains of health, education and agriculture. On the other

hand, their influence may begin to wane once global attention shifts from the heightened

interest in sudden political change to the drudgery of continued national development.

As a discursive construct, extending the transition period is in the interest of media NGOs

and media transition practitioners. 257 THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS AND NEW AREAS OF RESEARCH

This case study of Afghan media transition suggests that some of the theoretical models with which scholars have engaged are not sufficient for understanding media transition. It is particularly important to move beyond normative press theory to engage with other theoretical constructs that offer more nuanced and complex ways of conceptualizing media transition. This includes theorizations of within development communications, as well as other fields that offer ways to understand social change.

Habermas’ notion of the public sphere offers another rich theoretical avenue. However, scholars must be careful to integrate notions of transnational publics into discussions of media transition. Finally, the discussion within political science of how to distinguish

between democratic “transition” and “consolidation” raises questions about how to best

understand and study media transition.

Going Beyond Normative Press Theory

The primary assumption of media transitions is that democracy is a self-evident

goal, and that an independent media system is a necessary component of democracy

(Ballentine, 2002; Gross, 2002). This basic assumption structures how most scholars

study media transition and the kinds of discussions that take place among practitioners

(Hume, 2003; Price et al., 2002; Taylor & Kent, 2000). Since the goal of media

transitions is unquestioned, research is often limited to the pragmatics of how to ensure

the most successful media transition—how to best create a media system, how to ensure

media independence, and how to measure the impact of media on the larger social and

258 political system. Thus, media transitions looks to normative press theories for descriptions of ideal media systems.

Scholarly attention is given to creating meaningful categories for media systems and identifying the key factors that place a particular media system in one category or another (McQuail, 1987; Mickiewicz, 1998; Schudson, 1998; Shah, 1996). Practitioners often follow a similar, if less systematic approach, by examining the successes and failures of different media transition cases (Gross, 2002; Marston, 2002; Neumann, 2000;

Price, 2000). From these case studies, particular models for media transition can be created. The standard model for democratic media transition includes regulatory reform, the transformation of the state broadcaster into a “true” public broadcaster, and the creation of private, commercial media outlets (Ballentine, 2002).

One difficulty of the normative approach is that, although it purports to have predictive value, actual media transitions rarely follow media transition models. As a result, media transitions practitioners are struggling to understand why, after the enormous outlay of money, time and effort to transform media systems such as those in the former Soviet Union (Ballentine, 2002; Gross, 2002; Taylor & Kent, 2000) or

Cambodia (Neumann, 2000), the process seems to have failed. Was the model applied improperly? Should there have been a greater emphasis on regulatory reform to ensure a

“permissive political normative framework,” as Ballentine (2002) argues? Or is regulatory reform generally a failure, as Gross contends? Should media transitions practitioners have focused in more sustained way on journalism training, as Gross and

Neumann believe? Or does the fault lie with the “culture” of the nation, both media producers and audiences, as Taylor and Kent imply? The titles of these authors’ works 259 often reflect the ultimate unpredictability of media transitions understood within a normative framework—the process is “entangled” (Gross, 2002) and the future

“uncertain” (Taylor & Kent, 2000).

Like the modernization theorists who dismissed evidence of modernity co- existing with Islamic fundamentalism as a temporary anomaly (Lerner, 1958, 1966), media transitions scholars who assume a normative model are then forced to argue that certain cases are simply “exceptions” to the model. For example, the Bosnian public,

Taylor and Kent argue, is different from other publics in mature democracies. They don’t yet understand or accept the watchdog function of independent media. The implication is that they will, someday. Taylor and Kent do not allow that perhaps the Bosnian public’s distrust of media outlets is evidence that media outlets can never be independent, rather than evidence that the Bosnian media are defective or publics untrained.

There is a fundamental tautology that is difficult to escape in the normative approach. That is, political systems that are deemed successful democracies must necessarily have successful media systems. Similarly, authoritarian, or other forms of non-democratic political systems, necessarily must have failed media systems.

Attributing particular political and social results to specific media interventions, the holy grail of media transition, is all but impossible. This is evident, for example, in Miller’s

(2003) difficulty in positing effects from a descriptive map of Afghan media transition.

The struggle to discern transition media effects echoes the difficulties that modernization theorists had in identifying the effects of development communications interventions. More importantly, it highlights the larger theoretical issue that a focus on media effects obfuscates the unequal power dynamics that exist between the objects and 260 subjects of any kind of development project, including media transition (Escobar, 1995;

Rogers, 1976; Wilkins, 2000).

A view of media transition as a discursive process allows the scholar to investigate changing power dynamics. It also points toward the importance of studying the nature of the state in the post Cold War era, and the role of international NGOs.

Media, development and nation-building have been linked since the inception of the post-

World War II international system (Escobar, 1995; Melkote & Steeves, 2001). But

changing understandings of the role of media in nation-building have an important impact

on who gets to set the development agenda and garner the majority of resources. In

development communications, the argument that development was a discursive construct,

not a self-evident goal, led scholars to propose new goals for development communications and new methods of practicing development communications (Huesca,

2002; Steeves, 2002; Wilkins, 1999). Similarly, if democracy via media transition is not a self-evident goal, what other goals might media transition legitimately aspire to? What other ways of conducting media transition might be appropriate?

Engaging with Development Communication Theory

Within scholarly analyses of development communication, the increasing emphasis on unequal power dynamics promoted via development projects has all but eliminated the notion that development communicators can be objective conduits for information (Escobar, 1995; Rogers, 1976). Since true neutrality is not only impossible but dangerous, in that development communicators may become unwitting participants in imperialist projects (Schiller, 1976), some scholars have been calling for ever more

261 activist approaches to development communications (Huesca, 2001). This means not

only acknowledging one’s own subjectivity, but joining the community’s struggle for

liberation (Freire, 1970, 1983). Since development communicators are necessarily a part

of the political framework, they argue, why not take an active part in the political

process?

This view is generally rejected within media transitions literature, which is firmly

based in notions of objective journalism and the normative models of journalistic

structure, as far back as Seibert et. al. (1956). While there may be some voices arguing

for activist journalism (Schudson, 1998; Shah, 1996), these are drowned out by the

majority of scholars advocating objective journalism (Gross, 2002; Neumann, 2000).

Transitions media cases where journalists have become politically powerful in their own

right are viewed with suspicion. While it may have been appropriate briefly during the

transition period, when the press was a formidable political opposition force, this role

must not continue (Mickiewicz, 1998). Where national audiences seem to reject the

model of objective journalism, these misguided publics must simply learn to appreciate

the watchdog role of journalists (Taylor & Kent, 2000). Not only journalists but

audiences, too, must be “trained” in the strictures of objectivity.

But, as the case study of Afghanistan shows, Western trained media professionals

don’t all share a view of their own work as objective reporting. Or, they may espouse

“objectivism” while acting in “developmental” ways. The role of the media transition

practitioner as an activist deserves more sustained scholarly attention. How do different practitioners view their own roles, and how different are “international standards” from

actual standards employed by various organizations and practitioners on the ground? 262 Development communications offers some theoretical frameworks within which to

investigate the role of the media transition practitioner as a communication facilitator

(Melkote & Steeves, 2001), or as part of a discursive network (Rodríguez, 2001).

Scholars should also look to theorizations of locality in order to address media

transition as a transnational process rather than a set of standard models to be applied globally (Basch, 1994; Castells, 1996; Robertson, 1995). Within development communications, Escobar (2000) argues that the notion of place is no longer either locally bound or universal. Instead, various actors mobilize the politics of difference for their own purpose. Escobar asserts that we have entered a “post-development” world.

While scholars do need a new language and conceptual framework within which to understand the politics of place, Escobar’s contention that development, as a system as well as a conceptual model, is no longer relevant seems premature. The case of

Afghanistan suggests that media transition has given the international development system new life, working within many of the concepts and structures that have defined international development since World War II. Rather than the end of development as a concept and practice, we are witnessing a systemic change that parallels changes in the place of the nation-state. Despite early predictions of the demise of the nation-state in the face of transnational forces, the nation-state continues to be a relevant structuring concept (Morris & Waisbord, 2001). So, too, does development.

However, the power dynamics of development may be shifting. Media NGOs play an active role in determining the parameters of development discourse as well as

implementing projects and acting as media incubators. While donor nations do control

funding, they act within established frameworks for media aid that are often set outside 263 national boundaries. As a result, it makes less sense to conceptualize media aid as a function of a national foreign policy, even a nation as dominant as the US, and more sense to investigate the transnational mobilizations of media transition. This leads scholars away from studies of how particular donor nations do or do not impose their views upon transition nations, and toward the ways in which the discursive construction of media transition has become universalized via media NGOs, multilateral organizations and via other communicative networks.

Media transitions scholars should also be looking at media texts themselves, not simply to conduct a content analysis for bias, as is common within the journalistic tradition, but to determine how different genres of transition media texts function. As in development communications, where the development soap opera is a recognized genre for social messages to promote particular behaviors (Singhal & Rogers, 1999), what are the standard program formats used for media transition? To date, the focus has been on the production of news, especially as it pertains to information concerning elections and bias toward particular candidates (Price, 2000; Thompson & Luce, 2002). But media transitions projects promote a wide variety of programming. Marston’s (2002) description of an elections news magazine format and Rodríguez’ (2000) mention of a unique talk show format in Bosnia indicate that there are many “transitions” formats that are being replicated and adapted in various situations. What common formats exist, and how do these function?

There is a rich body of literature on global genres (Straubhaar, 1999) and particular formats, such as the soap opera (Allen, 1996; Skuse, 2002b). This literature offers scholars ways of conceptualizing global media products as hybrid (Kraidy, 2002) 264 or glocal (Robertson, 1995), and may be useful for interrogating the production practices

of common media transition formats. Similarly, literature focusing on the formats used

in “alternative” media spheres or by social movements (Downing, 2001) may offer productive frameworks with which to examine the texts created for and by media transitions practitioners.

Understanding Audiences in Media Transition

One of the key limitations of this study, as well as many studies on media transition, is the dearth of information concerning audience construction and reception practices. Despite the important role that assumptions about audiences play in discourse and policymaking concerning media transition, examinations of audience are generally administrative exercises. Media transitions practitioners must be able to demonstrate audiences quantitatively via readership, listenership or viewership figures. Since the media environment in a transition situation is very fluid and institutionalized audience measurement companies are unlikely to exist, these numbers are often hard to obtain.

Still, broadcasters in Afghanistan worked hard to try and quantify their audience in order to justify funding. This study cites many of the listenership surveys conducted by broadcasters and media NGOs (InterMedia, 1998; Internews, 2003; Internews, 2004) in order to demonstrate how the assumptions embedded in the listenership surveys influenced particular production and dissemination decisions.

However, audience measurement within the context of media transition is an area that deserves further study. What do different ways of measuring audiences tell us about how audiences are constructed and used for specific purposes? How does the

265 institutional construction of media audiences overlap and interact with the institutional

construction of political publics? Scholarship within media studies as well as political

communication may offer theoretical and methodological insights to these questions. For example, Rodriguez (1997) has addressed the construction of a US Hispanic media audience that coincides with social movements to increase the economic and political power of this socially constructed ethno-linguistic group. Others have focused on the methodology used by audience measurement companies, and how these technologies construct particular audiences (Grossberg et. al, 1998; Hay et. al, 1996). Within cultural studies, Morley’s (1999) study of nationwide television audiences spurred further research on broadcasting and political publics. These approaches to nation-building via audience-making should be investigated in the media transition context.

Actual audiences are also missing in many discussions of media transition. One notable exception is Taylor and Kent’s (2000) use of focus groups in Bosnia. Since the focus groups were part of a project evaluation, the authors focused on a question of interest to the media NGO and their funders: did Bosnian media consumers consider private outlets more independent than public outlets? Their answer was “no.” The study is quite provocative in that it demonstrates the unpredictability of real audiences. Despite the assumptions of policymakers and media organizations that their media products were radically different from those of state broadcasters, audiences did not respond as expected. That is, they did not equate “different” with “independent.”

Within communications, there is a considerable body of literature on how audiences receive programming that may be of use for scholars of media transition.

Some literature on cross-cultural understanding of media texts, such as Katz & Liebes, 266 1990, stems from concerns about cultural imperialism. This work points to the importance of understanding media reception within a social context. That is, how particular audiences interpret media texts depends on pre-existing frameworks as well as the social contexts in which media texts are consumed and then re-created. Research on media audiences will likely belie the media transition assumption that standard models are globally applicable and that different audiences will react similarly to similar media texts. This is a rich area for further study.

Expanding the Notion of the Public Sphere

The notion of a public sphere, independent of government and commercial controls, (Habermas, 1991, 1962) is key to media transitions. In the transition paradigm, media systems are vital outlets for promoting public discussion of key policy issues, giving voice to previously disempowered populations, and keeping governments in check. They are the “fourth estate” to balance the executive, legislative and judicial powers in a democratic system. Since media transitions focus on the political transformation of a particular state, most discussions of media transitions conceive of the public sphere as a space for national debate. They acknowledge that the international community, via bilateral aid mechanisms or media NGOs, plays a role in creating mediated spaces for national debate (Darbishire, 2002; Hume, 2002; Whitehead, 1986).

However, the accepted purpose of the public sphere is to contribute to rational debate among the citizenry of the country undergoing transition. This often focuses on elections. The upcoming elections are a national event where citizens will chose national leaders or local leaders to represent them at a national level. Therefore, the concept of

267 the nation-state that is mobilized is one that emanates from the capital. The center is exerting control on the periphery, or the periphery is granting legitimacy to the center via its representatives. The proper space for this kind of nation-building is a national public sphere. If debate is not national, it is not appropriately inclusive and representative of all citizens, rendering the transitions processes illegitimate.

The discussion of media and civil society within the participatory paradigm of development communications presents a different image of nation-building. In this literature, the appropriate public sphere is sub-national. Media should allow local community groups to speak to each other, to find their own solutions to problems, and, only in the last instance, to communicate their needs to the center (Huesca, 2002). The center is often discredited within this literature. National media systems, controlled by the elite, are not appropriate vehicles for nation-building because they cannot allow access to marginalized populations (Rodríguez, 2000). True nation-building, in the participatory paradigm, takes places outside the center in ‘grassroots’ development conducted by communities, not state organs (Rogers, 1976). This does not require a national public sphere; discussion and debate should take place among communities without being mediated by the center. These discussions do not have to have a national scope to be legitimate. They can link only one or two communities, or even disparate groups within a community, and still be considered successful public spheres.

Both approaches to the public sphere can be accommodated theoretically within media transition under the overarching notion of “independence.” Even in the modernization scheme of the 1950s-70s, a powerful state media in the service of a particular government was considered harmful. State media outlets were expected, like 268 the state itself, to act in ways that benefited citizens through messages for social good and national unity, not simply to act as mouthpieces for particular governments in power

(Whiting & Mustamandy, 1978). The over-riding paradigm for nation-building today

acknowledges that the state is much more fractured and prone to advancing particular

interests rather than the greater good (Chatterjee, 1993). Given that states may not

always be benign entities, supporters of state media today emphasize the importance of

de-coupling state media outlets from government (BBC World Service Trust, 2002a).

The “true” public broadcaster, the idealized “British model” (Katz & Wedell, 1977), is

independent of both government and business. For advocates of state broadcasting, this

is the model to which transition nations should aspire.

Among advocates of commercial media outlets, as opposed to state outlets,

internal debates often center on the relative merits of different ownership patterns in

assuring independence. If private media outlets are controlled by business oligarchs, they

cannot be independent of commercial interests (Mickiewicz, 1998). Therefore, as one media NGO argued in a 2002 Afghan media needs assessment, “small” or community media may be more likely to reflect the needs and aspirations of civil society in a

transition situation (Girard & Spek, 2002). The fact that these media outlets are funded

by other governments is also an issue of concern for advocates of local media for civil

society. In a seminar and paper on “best practices” in USAID media assistance, practitioners emphasize the importance of ensuring that there is no US government interference with content (Hume, 2003). Again, the overriding concern is to de-couple these outlets from the nefarious influence of both business and government.

269 However, as the case of Afghanistan demonstrates, neither the national nor sub-

national notion of the public sphere entirely captures what happens in media transition.

For scholars, the acknowledgement of the transitions public sphere as transnational

breaks down distinctions among international, national and local media outlets that

depend on institutional analyses of each outlet’s relative role within a particular political

system. It makes notions of “independence” much less relevant than analyses of

transnational networking and the creation and mobilization of transnational publics. For

example, the Bosnian audiences’ mistrust of media networks (Taylor & Kent, 2000) can

be reconceptualized as a nuanced understanding of the constructed nature of media

products, their creators and their audiences.

Acknowledging that media transition has an important transitional dimension

changes the nature of the research questions that scholars could ask. For example,

scholars could investigate how particular groups might be able to participate themselves

in crafting media products directed to specific transnational publics. Downing’s work on

Internet communities offers a productive framework within which to consider media

transitions networks (Downing, 1999). To what extent can scholars examine them as

communities? What boundaries define the transnational public sphere? Social

movements theory may also provide useful theoretical models for the scholar interested in understanding the global mobilization of ideas for specific social goals, and the communications networks that enable and create social movements (Gamson &

Wolfsfeld, 1993; Huesca, 2001; Snow & Benford, 1992). How do particular groups create and mobilize a transnational public sphere?

270 Distinguishing between Democratic Transition and Consolidation

The classic transitions period, as defined by O’Donnell and Schmitter (1986), ends with the founding election. Many of the institutional understandings of transition

follow this scholarly model. The Bonn Agreement outlines the steps to be undertaken

until presidential and parliamentary elections. After that point, the international

community won’t consider Afghanistan to be in political transition. The Office of

Transition Initiatives left Afghanistan in June 2005, beginning to phase out after the

presidential elections. With elections as the end point, much of the practical work of

media transition is geared toward creating an appropriate media environment for that key

event.

There has been scholarly criticism that the transitions paradigm weighs too

heavily toward elections, unreasonably expecting that after elections nations in transition

will be fully democratic (Carothers, 2002). As a result, political scientists have begun to

focus on how to theorize “consolidating” democracy (Diamond, 1999; Mainwaring et al.,

1992) and ways of understanding political systems that are neither fully democratic nor

fully authoritarian (Carothers, 2002). These scholars argue that the work of political

transitions is on-going, and cannot be limited to the period between the breakdown of authoritarian regimes and the first democratic elections. A great deal of area studies

political science in several parts of the world has focused on this, but within policy

circles, the transition paradigm focused on elections has dominated.

For media transitions scholars, integrating literature on democratic

“consolidations” into the transition paradigm opens up a host of questions about how

271 international organizations “hand off” media from divisions dedicated to transition to

divisions dedicated to long-term governance aid. McClear et. al. note that a major

difference between OTI’s media strategy and the strategy advanced by USAID’s

Democracy and Governance sector is the relative importance given to sustainability

(McClear et al., 2003). Whereas OTI sees a short-term benefit in funding a multiplicity

of outlets, the democracy sector is concerned about “wasting” resources and saturating the media market. Are there marked differences in practice between so-called

“transition” organizations and other “democracy-building” institutions? If so, do they

reflect differences in the underlying assumptions and paradigms used? Continuing this

study past the OTI-led media aid phase could begin to address interesting questions, not

about whether or not OTI was successful, but about how a shift in discourse might impact

various institutional actors and the practice of media development for democracy.

The argument that media transition does not end with elections also leads to larger

theoretical questions about the nature of international communication. To what extent is

the role of media in the classical political transition timeframe simply one manifestation

of larger global media trends? The rise of NGOs as powerbrokers in the global political

economy, the relative weakness of the state, and the increasing importance of global

networks of people and ideas are all notions that are being explored by globalization

scholars (Appadurai, 1996; Downing, 1996; Herman & McChesney, 1997; Morris &

Waisbord, 2001; Straubhaar, 1997).

Does the notion of media transition mobilized in the post-Cold War era imply

larger transformations in the international development system? Does it reflect changes

in the balance of power among states, the role of international agencies, the impact of 272 universalizing discourses like media freedom, and the place of NGOs in global politics?

What strategies must states employ to be viable actors in the media sphere? How can

citizenship be understood in a global media environment where audiences are no longer

constrained by national borders? Media transitions may be a time and place of

heightened attention where it is easier for the scholar to examine issues. But the issues that arise during media transition may reflect larger trends in international communication studies.

273

Appendix: Program Themes

Themes ELJ Dramas Constitution Vox Pops Presidential Elections 36 total Phase one Phase two Phase three 9 translated - 22 - 27 - 32 ELJ/CLJ/E 1, 4, 29, 31, 2 , 4, 6, 2, 5 purpose/results 32, 35 16, 18, 19, 20, 22 ELJ/CLJ/E 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 8a, 9a, 2b, 1a, 3a*, 5a, 6, 7 process 11, 13, 14, 15, 17 7b, 14b 7a, 8a, 12a, (*weapons, 15, 16, 17, 3b, 6b, 10b, Joya incident) 19, 20, 21, 11b, 15b, 24, 25, 26, 17b 28, 30, 33, 34, 36 ELJ/CLJ/E 15b 14a, 12b 8 issues 16b Disarmament 3 2a, 3a, 4a, 11a, 1b, 4b, 5a, 2b, 9b, 5b, 8b 11b Reconstruction 3, 7, 22 1, 7, 10 1a, 13b 14* (*opium, arms) 6a*, 7a*, 10a, 4b, 6*, 10b*, 12b Role of women 5, 12, 23 12a 9a, 16a, 7b 1, 4, 9 Role of Islam 9 4a, 6a, 13a, 2b, 13b Education 5, 14* 1b, 5b, 8b 9b* (*women) Misc 18, 27 8, 12, 21 11a 2a, 10a, 15a # with final 22/22 24/27 6/32 0 message

ELJ= Emergency Loya Jirga; CLJ= Constitutional Loya Jirga; E=Elections. Programs are identified by the number as listed on the cassette or CD.

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293 Vita

Lisa Anne Hartenberger was born in New Delhi, India on September 23, 1970, the daughter of Doris Jean Bareuther and Paul Henry Hartenberger. She attended high school at Herndon High School in Herndon, Virginia and the American Cooperative

School in La Paz, Bolivia. In 1988, she entered the University of California at Los

Angeles. She attended one semester at the Université de Pau et les Pays de l’Adour in

Pau, France during Fall 1990, and one semester at the Centre Parisien d’Etudes Critiques,

Paris IV in Paris, France during Spring 1991. She received the degree of Bachelor of

Arts from the University of California at Los Angeles in May 1992. She received a

Fulbright Fellowship to study in La Paz, Bolivia from August 1992 to August 1993.

During the following years, she worked in development communications. In August

1997, she entered the Graduate School of The University of Texas. She obtained a

Master of Arts from The University of Texas at Austin in August 1999, and entered the doctoral program.

Permanent address: 5109 Martin Ave., Austin, Texas 78751

This dissertation was typed by the author.

294