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Strategic Communications in Afghanistan’s Transition Context

Jamil Seddiqui

Swansea: Swansea University, Thesis (2012), v, 64 pp.

"Following a decade of extensive international involvement and arduous fighting, Afghanistan is currently going through a significant Transition intended to enable Afghans to assume responsibility for their own security, development and governance. In addition to opportunities, this process provides ... significant challenges to the Afghan society and its development partners. This study raises awareness of the role and potential of strategic communications to address some of these challenges and aid Afghanistan’s Transition objectives beyond the timeframe set for 2014. In treatment of this topic, this study provides a theoretical and historical overview of communication for development, Afghanistan’s pre- and post-2001 situation with reference to the use of important channels of modern and traditional communications, and examines pertinent perspectives on the importance of strategic communications, particularly in strengthening Afghanistan’s Transition context. In addition, this study focuses on the contribution of strategic communication in non-security matters, particularly governance and peace promotion, and identifies some major challenges where the potential of strategic communications to contribute has remained underexploited. Drawing on these discussions, the results indicates that, in spite of some measures put to the fore, the Afghan government lacks an overarching strategic communications framework integrating multi-media, multi-outlet and public outreach to help in achieving the Transition goal; a stable Afghan state. Pointing clearly to the need for such an integrated campaign, the dissemination of negative perspectives, such as that suggesting that Afghanistan would collapse after 2004, has given space to insurgents propaganda, a challenge which can be addressed through effective strategic communications. In the conclusions, this study argues on the importance of strategic communications as an strategic tool to aid Afghanistan development agenda particularly in the Transition context and presents some practical recommendations to the Afghan government and its deployment partners for effective use of strategic communications in view of a holistic approach aimed the strengthening development of Afghanistan and particularly the Transition process." (Abstract) more

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Media development, information operations, and the liberal order: Mapping US mass media policy and practice in the Afghan intervention, 2001-10

Daniel Wiley

Toronto: York University, Master Thesis (2012), iv, 149 pp.

"Since 2001 the development and use of the nascent mass media environment has been an integral component to the US-led democratization of Afghanistan. This approach is embedded in a history of US-led liberal order building, in which liberal principles and democracy are deployed strategically as me ... more

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Picturing Afghanistan: The Photography of Foreign Conflict

Paul Verschueren

New York: Hampton Press (2012), xiii, 199 pp.

"Picturing Afghanistan is an in-depth account of the Euro-American visualization of the conflict in Afghanistan. Comparing images in public affairs, psychological warfare, journalism and the photobook, the author argues that there are no strong boundaries between photography in war and photography a ... more

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Cluster Evaluation Report: UNDEF-Funded Media-Related Projects

Pierre Robert

United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF); Transtec (2012), 40 pp.

"This report is the cluster evaluation of 12 UNDEF-supported projects related to the media. It concerns projects that either focused on media capacity building or included a significant element of work with the media. The projects were implemented between 2007 and 2011; they lasted between 12 and 24 ... more

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Asian Communication Handbook
Deep Insights

Sundeep R. Muppidi (ed.)

Singapore: Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC); Nanyang Technological University, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (2012), 466 pp.

"The first "theoretical perspectives" section has opinions and research articles by academic scholars and expert practitioners on new media and communication Issues and trends in Asia. Some of the topics covered include the dynamics arising out of the shift to the 'digilogue', mobile activism, corpo ... more

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The State of Telecommunications and Internet in Afghanistan: Six Years Later, 2006-2012

Javid Hamdard

Internews; USAID (2012), 57 pp.

"This report presents a comprehensive and multidimensional overview of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) sector in Afghanistan, covering developments and intersections across the areas of Internet and telecom infrastructure; policy, services, accessibility and affordability; key ... more

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An Explosion of News: The State of Media in Afghanistan

Peter Cary

Washington, DC: Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA) (2012), 56 pp.

"The exponential media growth in Afghanistan over the last decade is due to the enthusiasm of Afghan entrepreneurs and to support from the United States and other nations, states this report. According to the executive summary "support from the United States, the biggest donor, has waxed and waned. ... more

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The Practice of Public Diplomacy: Confronting Challenges Abroad

William A. Rugh

New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2011), xviii, 262 pp.

"Relying heavily on scores of first-hand accounts collected through interviews, the studies examine the practice of public diplomacy largely from the perspective of American practitioners in different countries. The analyses follow the standard field officer approach, asking systematically: what iss ... more

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Analyzing Taliban Taranas (chants): An Effective Afghan Propaganda Artifact

Thomas H. Johnson, Ahmad Waheed

Small Wars & Insurgencies, volume 22, issue 1 (2011), pp. 3-31

"This article describes and analyzes a little understood Afghan Taliban propaganda tool: chants or taranas. These melodic refrains effectively use historical narratives, symbology, and iconic portraits. The chants are engendered in emotions of sorrow, pride, desperation, hope, and complaints to mobi ... more

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Afghanistan: Media and Telecoms Landscape Guide

infoasaid (2011), 72 pp.

"The Afghan media have flourished since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001. Under Taliban rule, television was banned and there was only one government-controlled radio station. Today Afghanistan boasts over 75 TV stations, 175 radio station and hundreds of newspapers and magazines. However, ... more

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Designs, Devices and Development: Audience Research as Creative Resource in the Making of an Afghan Radio Drama

Andrew Skuse, Marie Gillespie

Participations: Journal of Audience & Reception Studies, volume 8, issue 1 (2011), pp. 132-153

"This essay analyses the role of audience research as a change agent in media development interventions in Afghanistan. It analyses how audience research in transnational contexts involves a complex set of intercultural negotiations and translations that contribute to the enduring relevance and sust ... ainability of the highly popular Afghan radio soap opera New Home, New Life. This is a ‘development drama’ that has been broadcast across Afghanistan since 1993. It is based on BBC Radio 4’s The Archers and produced by BBC Afghan Education Projects (BBC AEP). Audience research has been vital to forging a dynamic relationship between the creative teams who make the drama, the donors who pay for it, and the audiences who consume it. The article addresses three broad themes. First, we outline how data gathered in formative audience research, prior to the creation of the drama, provides the creative team with the dramatic raw material for the radio serial. The extensive qualitative data gathered by Afghan researchers in local milieux is translated so as to enable culturally diverse teams of writers and producers to ground the serial narratives in the lived experiences of its audiences, and to introduce multiple local perspectives on development issues. Second, we show how evaluative audience research, data gathered in the postproduction phase, plays a key role in providing critical audience interpretations of New Home, New Life’s dramatic themes. In so doing, it creates feedback loops that allow audiences to become active participants in the ongoing creation of the drama. The research designs and devices, developed over the last two decades to document the changing life-worlds of Afghan citizens-cum-audiences, are part of an ongoing set of transcultural encounters that contribute to strengthening the social realist appeal of the drama and to calibrating how far any given storyline can be pushed in terms of cultural propriety. Third, we examine how during periods of military conflict, when routine audience research becomes dangerous or impossible and audience feedback loops are disrupted, the writers and producers have to rely on their own personal and political experiences, often with unpredictable ideological consequences. We draw attention to the limitations and challenges of making dramas for development in highly charged politicised and postcolonial contexts. While, development dramas may be a cheap and effective way of dealing with certain informational needs, such as landmine awareness, they cannot redress social and structural inequalities or, as Western donors wish, eradicate opium cultivation." (Abstract) more

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Starting a Local Radio Station: A Manual for Afghanistan

Parisa Saadatmand-Zitouni (comp.)

Arcata, Calif; Washington, DC; Kabul: Internews; USAID; Pact (2011), 100 pp.

"This manual describes the process for starting a local radio station—the organization of community support and planning, equipment needs, programming strategies, business growth and sustainability and journalistic ethics and standards. This manual does not insist that you follow a set of rules to ... more

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Radio Sound and Social Realism: In the Terrain of Drama for Development Production

Andrew Skuse

International Communication Gazette, volume 73, issue 7 (2011), pp. 595-609

"This article explores the use of sound in the context of two BBC World Service development-focused social realist radio drama productions in Afghanistan (New Home, New Life) and Nepal (Sweet Tales of the Sarangi). It examines the various ‘sound strategies' employed to enhance the realist aspirati ... more

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Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change
Deep Insights

Andrew Skuse, Marie Gillespie, Gerry Power (eds.)

Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage (2011), xxiii, 324 pp.

"By assessing edutainment as a space of cultural translation, Drama for Development advances an often neglected perspective in this topics' research. It focuses on what happens when various goals, worldviews and needs from donors, producers and the audiences come together in the production and meani ... more

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Can You Help me Now? Mobile Phones and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan

Sheldon Himelfarb, Cecilia Paradi-Guilford

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2010), 15 pp.

"A decade ago, mobile phone usage in Afghanistan was almost nonexistent; now there are 13 million subscriptions for a total of 29 million citizens, and the annual growth rate of subscription is estimated at 53 percent. A number of factors have fueled this dramatic increase, including the sheer popul ... more

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Make it Theirs: The Imperative of Local Ownership in Communications and Media Initiatives
Deep Insights

Simon Haselock

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace (USIP) (2010), 17 pp.

"This report presents the author's experiences regarding the relation of international interventions and local institutions in the (post-)conflict countries of Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan. Haselock states that media reforms are most successful where they are the result of partnership ... more

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Internetnutzung islamistischer Terror- und Insurgentengruppen unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von medialen Geiselnahmen im Irak, Afghanistan, Pakistan und Saudi-Arabien

Judith Tinnes

Saarbrücken: Universität des Saarlandes, Doctoral Thesis (2010), xvii, 846 pp.

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The War in Afghanistan and Peace Journalism in Practice

Rune Ottosen

Media, War & Conflict, volume 3, issue 3 (2010), pp. 261-278

"This article argues that Johan Galtung’s theory on peace journalism can serve as a fruitful supplement to theory-building in the field of war and peace journalism, and critically reviews the scholarly debate on peace journalism. By using examples from Norwegian media coverage of the war in Afghan ... more

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Afghan Media in 2010: Synthesis Report

Eric Davin, Philibert de Mercey, Carlotta Tincati, Kinga Komorowska, Arezo Malakooti, Sébastien Duhaut

Altai Consulting; USAID (2010), 178 pp.

"In 2004-2005, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Transition Initiatives commissioned Altai Consulting to conduct the first comprehensive media evaluation of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, looking at the impact of the Afghan media on opinions and behav ... iors three years after the beginning of the country’s reconstruction. The evaluation found, among other things: that Afghans were avid and sophisticated media users and that cultural barriers to media use were less significant than previously expected; that the radio played a predominant role throughout the country; and that media are instrumental in social progress and education. However, since publication of that report1, Afghanistan’s media sector has seen important changes. To inform future assistance from the international community to the Afghan media, it was deemed necessary to assess the current state of the Afghan media – by reflecting a full and accurate audience profile, to determine program preferences, to measure the impact of the Afghan media on local opinions and behaviors and to gauge Afghan expectations in terms of programming and messaging. A large-scale research project was thus planned and conducted from March to August 2010. This research included a deep probe into the media sector and the public’s behaviors and expectations. The methodology used to achieved this included a combination of: literature review; direct observations; key informant interviews with most relevant actors involved in the media sector; 6,648 close-ended interviews in more than 900 towns and villages of 106 districts, covering all 34 provinces of the country; an audience survey on more than 1,500 individuals run daily for a week; about 200 qualitative, open-ended interviews; and 10 community case studies. Such an effort guarantees that results presented here are fairly representative of the Afghan population at large. This document provides a comprehensive synthesis of data collected during the survey. A database of media actors, 16 priority district reports, 10 case study reports, a complete description of the methodology and the original datasets from the main quantitative research and the audience research are publicly available, allowing anyone interested to access more focused information as needed." (Introduction, page 8) more

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The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam

Philip N. Howard

Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press (2010), xii, 285 pp.

"Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people ar ... more

Asian Communication Handbook Deep Insights

Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change Deep Insights

Make it Theirs: The Imperative of Local Ownership in Communications and Media Initiatives Deep Insights

Asian Communication Handbook
Deep Insights

Drama for Development: Cultural Translation and Social Change
Deep Insights

Make it Theirs: The Imperative of Local Ownership in Communications and Media Initiatives
Deep Insights