How the Bush administration's propaganda machine -- with the help of Roger Ailes' Fox News -- distorts the truth in the Middle East and at home.
By Jennifer L.
September 30, 2003 | It seemed like an auspicious debut: The new magazine Hi was just off the presses and it generated heavy buzz. It was glossy. It was young. It was fresh and hip and just a little bit sexy. The multimillion-dollar launch across 14 countries got headlines worldwide. And for the U.S. State Department that seemed to be good news, because Hi is a government publication issued to win hearts and minds in the Arab and Muslim world.
While produced by a private company, Hi is just one part of a U.S. campaign to convince citizens of Arab and Muslim countries to look a little more favorably on the United States. Critics have called it "soft-sell propaganda"; press reports from the Middle East have suggested that much of the young-adult target audience finds it laughable. All of which suggests that it will have little impact in offsetting long-held negative attitudes toward the United States -- suspicions worsened almost universally by the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War in Iraq," co-authors Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber explain why efforts like Hi have almost inevitably failed. "The United States lost the propaganda war a long time ago," Rampton told Salon, citing the wisdom of an Arab-American news executive. "They could have the prophet Mohammed doing their public relations, and it wouldn't help."
That hasn't stopped the Bush administration from trying. Last Thursday, the White House announced its plan to launch a round-the-clock television station, a competitor to the al-Jazeera network -- albeit with a slightly different perspective. Congress has approved $32 million to fund the project, with another $30 million to follow soon.
But to Stauber and Rampton, projects like Hi and the new TV station prove only that the Bush administration understands neither the Middle East nor the art of communication. Aided by Roger Ailes' flag-waving "news" crew at the Fox network and the timidity of the mainstream press, the propaganda campaign at home has been relatively effective, they say. But though Bush doesn't seem to realize it, the Middle East isn't Texas. Across the Middle East and throughout the Muslim world, people loathe America for its Israel policy and for its decades of manipulation and arrogance. No glossy magazine or advertising campaign is going to change that. What might work, Stauber and Rampton say, is having a real dialogue with the Middle East -- not just talking, but listening, too.
"Weapons of Mass Deception" is a readable, witty, fact-filled catalog of the U.S. government's attempts to counter the tide of anti-U.S. sentiment that the Bush administration abruptly discovered in the Muslim world after Sept. 11, 2001. It starts with the story of Charlotte Beers, former chairwoman and CEO of two of the world's top ad agencies, J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather. She was hired after 9/11, as Colin Powell explained, "to change from just selling the U.S. ... to really branding foreign policy."
Efforts like these eventually cost $1 billion a year. Where did the money go?
A $5 million failed "Shared Values" advertising campaign was a typical Beers project. The TV commercial showed average Muslim Americans going about their daily lives, enjoying the lack of religious and racial discrimination in the U.S. Meant to be broadcast in Islamic countries, the "Shared Values" ad prominently featured a woman running in shorts. Deemed offensive to Muslims, the ad was not permitted to be broadcast on many important television stations in Egypt and other largely Islamic countries.
Another Beers' idea was Radio Sawa, a station playing music by corn-fed American superstars. Radio Sawa broadcasts plenty of pop, but also features hourly news with a distinctly pro-America perspective. Rampton and Stauber admit that Radio Sawa has had a certain level of popularity -- but they say that most of its audience simply tunes out the talking.
Early this year, polls by the Pew Research Center indicated that the United States' public image had plummeted around the globe, including in the Arab countries targeted by Beers and her "public diplomacy" crew. When Egyptians were asked in the poll if they had a "favorable" view of the United States, only 6 percent said yes.
With her campaign subject to critical harpooning, Beers resigned in March of this year, citing "health reasons." Much of the media was surprisingly explicit in calling her State Department work a failure.
Much of the research for "Weapons of Mass Deception" came from their Web site, PR Watch, and their "Disinfopedia," an "encyclopedia of propaganda" about "public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts." Previous joint projects by the former investigative journalists include the books "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future" and "Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry."
Rampton and Stauber spoke with Salon by phone from Madison, Wis. They explained why American pop radio isn't going to prevent future al-Qaida attacks, how the Pentagon may be falling for its own propaganda, and why Bush turned the "war on terror" into the war in Iraq.
What's the difference between government-sponsored P.R. and propaganda?
Sheldon Rampton: From the very outset, public relations was steeped in propaganda, but the term "public relations" sounds less offensive to most ears, so it's the term they prefer. Public relations is constantly looking for new euphemisms for itself, because every term they use for it eventually becomes synonymous with manipulation or deception in the public's eyes.
So they come up with other terms, like "community relations" or "reputation management" or "perception management."
What does a "perception manager" -- or, more specifically, Charlotte Beers -- do?
Rampton:They spend their days planning propaganda. [laughs] The job of someone who's doing "public diplomacy" is to try to come up with ways of influencing the opinions of people outside of the United States to view the U.S. and its policies in a more favorable light. That description of their task is not terribly different from the way most scholars would define propaganda.
In the book, you describe the P.R. efforts of Charlotte Beers in Arab and Muslim countries. Can you describe her tenure in the State Department a bit here?
Rampton: Charlotte Beers' task was not to promote the war in Iraq or the war in Afghanistan. Her specific task was to create a more favorable impression of the United States overseas, especially in Arab and Muslim countries.
Charlotte Beers' work was a good example of the limits of propaganda as a form of communication. It's one of the myths about propaganda that it's some all-powerful force that can hypnotize people into accepting things that they wouldn't otherwise believe.
Propaganda is sometimes successful at deceiving people, but oftentimes it's much less successful at influencing its target population than it is at helping the propaganda team deceive themselves. I think Charlotte Beers' campaign is an example of that.
Every quantitative indicator that anyone has shows that her campaign, rather than helping, probably contributed to the decline of public opinion regarding the United States. Several of her campaigns became objects of ridicule.
The approach of her campaign -- that you can "brand" America -- is something that's bound to attract resentment. It contains a number of undemocratic assumptions about how communication should happen.
"Branding America"? What does "branding" mean, in regards to a country?
Rampton: Charlotte Beers was an expert in "brand management." Branding, in general, is the idea of getting people to associate emotional values with the product or idea you're trying to sell.
This is what advertisers are always saying in one form or another. "Sell the sizzle, not the steak." They try to get you to buy an automobile, not because it is a form of transportation, but because it makes you feel powerful. Or it makes you feel sexy. They try to sell things on the basis of these emotional reactions that they're trying to get you to develop.
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