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41. Effectiveness of Russia’s Foreign Policy Information Support in Its Confrontation With the United States

Author:
M. Kovshar
Publication Date:
01-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Affairs: A Russian Journal of World Politics, Diplomacy and International Relations
Institution:
East View Information Services
Abstract:
ONE FEATURE of the modern system of international relations is the increased influence on it of the information component. The transnation- al nature of the media space is being actively utilized by world actors to achieve their foreign policy objectives, leading to a clash of their interests and the beginning of information confrontation. The goal of modern-day confrontations is not only to fight for resources or territory but to fight for control over minds and public loyalty. In that respect, today it is strategi- cally important to all states that they be viewed positively by the interna- tional community and successfully get the mass audience to form a favor- able perception of their positions on the world stage, achieving under- standing and acceptance of their actions and objectives. Modern Russian scholarship does not have a well-established concept of information confrontation. The term is defined in the individual works of various authors [7, p. 18]. In general terms, it can be understood as a relationship of opposition and rivalry between several information enti- ties that are influencing the information space of an adversary through various means and methods. Researchers identify two areas of information confrontation: techni- cal, which affects an enemy’s technical means, and psychological, which impacts consciousness and public opinion [5, p. 23]. While the main goal of the former is to inflict maximal material losses on the enemy, the goal of the latter is to undermine state stability from within. The simplest and most affordable platform for waging psychological warfare is the mass media. That is why the meia space is considered a major tool of foreign policy pressure today.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Media, Information Age, and Propaganda
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, North America, and United States of America

42. Jihadist propaganda, offline: Strategic communications in modern warfare

Author:
Haid Haid and Charlie Winter
Publication Date:
06-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Middle East Institute (MEI)
Abstract:
Insurgent strategic communication has rarely posed as great a threat to regional and international security as it does today in Syria, where jihadists are using it to aggressively advance their short- and long-term interests. Using a qualitative mixed-methods approach incorporating semi-structured interviews with activists and journalists operating inside Syria and in-depth, longitudinal content analysis, this paper compares and contrasts the in-theater outreach strategies of the Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, tracking how each has used propaganda and censorship to entrench its rule over local constituents in recent years. It demonstrates that, notwithstanding the fact that both organizations share the same ideology, there are significant tactical and strategic disparities between their respective approaches toward public diplomacy, disparities that run right to the heart of what drives their enmity for each other.
Topic:
Media, Islamic State, Propaganda, Jihad, and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)
Political Geography:
Middle East and Syria

43. How K-pop Broke the West: An Analysis of Western Media Coverage from 2009 to 2019

Author:
Jenna Gibson
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
Over the last decade, Western publics have gradually caught on to the Kpop phenomenon; the Korean Wave has arrived on European and North American shores and shows no signs of receding. Heightened interest has corresponded with increased mainstream media coverage, both among news and entertainment outlets. This article analyzes mainstream media coverage of the Korean Wave from 2009 to 2019, including an examination of overall trends in K-pop framing over time. This analysis suggests that coverage of K-pop in Western media has proceeded through four distinct stages of development: 1) Introductory Stage, 2) Gangnam Style Stage, 3) Korean Wave Stage, and 4) Mainstreaming Stage. This article also examines how the changing portrayal of K-pop for general audiences has corresponded with a similar evolution in portrayals of South Korea and Korean society as a whole.
Topic:
Media, News Analysis, Soft Power, Music, and popular culture
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, and United States of America

44. The U.S. Adaptation of Korea’s Unscripted Format in the New Korean Wave Era: A Case Study of Grandpas Over Flowers

Author:
Dal Yong Jin and Ju Oak Kim
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
International Journal of Korean Studies
Institution:
International Council on Korean Studies
Abstract:
The Korean unscripted format has recently reshaped media flows and practices on a global scale. This article, based upon a comparative analysis of Grandpas Over Flowers (tvN) and Better Late Than Never (NBC), explores how the Korean broadcasting industry has attracted Western broadcasting providers with its travel-based reality format, and how an American television network has produced its own version, negotiating the local specificity that the original series contained. Certainly, cultural differences in media production between the two societies are largely embedded in the localizing process. While Grandpas Over Flowers was dependent upon the long-standing friendship between veteran actors and their public images as fathers and grandfathers within society, Better Late Than Never employs veteran entertainers’ professional successes as the driving force for adventuring into exotic cultures in East Asia. This article claims that the Grandpas Over Flowers case evokes a new phase of the Korean Wave phenomenon, revealing a non-Western media player’s attempt at challenging the domination of United States and United Kingdom television formats in the global media industries.
Topic:
Mass Media, Culture, Media, and popular culture
Political Geography:
Asia, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

45. The Sun Sort-of Rises: The “Strong and Prosperous” Slogan in Recent North Korean Fiction

Author:
Meredith Shaw
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI)
Abstract:
Kim Jong-un’s sudden ascent as leader came at a significant time for North Korea—a year that had coincidentally been long foreshadowed in state media as the “dawn of the strong and prosperous era.” Yet the new leader had different priorities and a different idea of what strength and prosperity looked like than his forebears, and this has resulted in notable changes to lifestyle and landscape. In a state notoriously resistant to policy changes, propaganda tools such as state fiction were able to repurpose the existing “strong and prosperous” slogan to lend legitimacy to new initiatives and social trends encouraged by the new leadership. Through a thematic analysis of new North Korean fiction, this paper examines how “strong and prosperous” and related buzzwords have been tied to changes in architecture, culture, science and technology, leisure, entertainment, and daily living. In addition to the author’s close reading of recent North Korean literature, this research draws upon analysis by leading South Korean analysts of North Korean literature and the testimony of North Korean defectors.
Topic:
Culture, Media, Literature, and Propaganda
Political Geography:
Asia and North Korea

46. Amplifying Voices, Responding to Crises: Media Technology and the Arab Spring

Author:
Jeffrey Ghannam
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Well before the Arab Spring protests erupted in late 2010, people in the Arab world were accessing the Internet and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter at rapidly growing rates. These platforms became perfectly poised to amplify the demands that would soon be voiced and, in the wake of the Arab Spring, would become impossible to ignore.
Topic:
Mass Media, Media, Internet, Arab Spring, and Surveillance
Political Geography:
Middle East and Arab Countries

47. The Big Takedown

Author:
Mary Margaret Ewens
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
In an era marred by a barrage of fake news, sensational reporting, and corrupt business practices, the work of investigative journalists like MAAS alumna Dorothee Myriam Kellou (’12), who exposed one of the biggest cases of corporate greed and exploitative war-zone practices seen in recent years, is more important than ever. Kellou’s groundbreaking investigation, which began in 2014, found that French cement giant Lafarge-Holcim not only endangered employees at its Syrian branch, but also paid concessions to armed groups in Syria, including ISIS. Kellou’s work, published in 2016 in a three-part report by Le Monde and on the television station France 24, led to an ongoing judicial inquiry of Lafarge, the resignation of Lafarge’s CEO and criminal investigations of several top executives, and an overhaul of the company’s corporate practices.
Topic:
Crime, Media, Business, and Journalism
Political Geography:
Europe, Middle East, France, and Syria

48. Speaking Truth to Power, Giving Voice to the Voiceless

Author:
Tithi Patel
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Growing up in California, Dena Takruri, Senior Presenter and Producer at AJ+, the digital news channel of Al Jazeera Network, always knew she wanted to be a journalist. Summers spent in her parents’ native Palestine made an early and lasting impression about injustice in the world, while watching the nightly news with her family left her seeking better on-screen representation. As an Arab-American woman, she developed an early awareness of how marginalized communities are often misrepresented in the media. “As a minority in America, you see how people are reported on and how they’re often dehumanized and not given their fair shake,” said Takruri in an interview with Nieman Storyboard. “Seeing the really negative portrayal of Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians, which I also am, I wanted to correct that.”
Topic:
Media, Journalism, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Middle East and Palestine

49. Preserving a Genre under Duress

Author:
Brittni Foster
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
How a class assignment led to MAAS alum Dan Walsh’s lifelong passion for preserving Palestine’s visual heritage. When Dan Walsh (MAAS ’11) was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Marrakesh in the early 1970s, his language tutor encouraged him to practice his budding Arabic and Moroccan Darija skills by translating the posters that papered the buildings around town. Walsh, now the curator of the world’s largest collection of posters on Palestine, remembers how grateful he was for the break from verb conjugations but says he never could have imagined how that assignment would change the course of his career. He credits his hours spent walking the streets of Marrakech and Rabat reading posters—Arabic dictionary in hand—with not only improving his language skills, but also igniting what has become one of his life’s passions.
Topic:
Culture, Media, Peace Corps, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Palestine, North America, and United States of America

50. MAAS in and on the Media

Author:
Nadine Cheaib, Timothy Kaldas, Bassam Haddad, Laila Shereen Sakr, and Samia Errazzouki
Publication Date:
04-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
Abstract:
Graduates of the MAAS program have distinguished themselves in many professional fields, including the media. We hear below from alums who work in the media—as journalists and producers—and on the media—as expert commentators, knowledge archivists, and scholars.
Topic:
Science and Technology, Social Movement, Media, Social Media, Protests, Journalism, Revolution, and Interview
Political Geography:
Middle East, Arab Countries, North America, Morocco, and United States of America