That particular evening of December 31 I turned to the Armed Forces Radio out of Baghdad and first heard a series of typical advertisements or public service announcements.
Some of these announcements can be rather boring but common sense things like, "Be careful with what you say!!! Don't unintentionally pass on information and knowledge. Listeners and inadvertent receivers of information are everywhere."
Such an announcement ends by telling the American armed forces personnel to remember to destroy documents so as not to allow them to get in others hands, etc.
As a radio listener to Armed Forces Radio, the VOA, or to any radio station program locally that does not have a call-in portion for listeners, I am technically a lurker.
As a lurker, I acquire information without being identified or contributing to the media.
As a lurker (and as a human being) who absorbs cultural information all around me each work day, I am constantly processing data. The display that night of inattention to those "lurkers" receiving reception of Armed Forces Radio that New Years Eve is disconcerting to hear-5 years after the occupation of Iraq began.
LURKING ON ARMED FORCES RADIO IN MIDDLE EAST
Here is a short report of what I observed or listened to on the evening of December 31, 2007 and in the early morning hours on January 1, 2008 emanating from U.S. Armed Forces Radio in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Middle East.
First, early in the evening, two female soldiers were running a discussion program. They were giggling and occasional laughing hysterically about some recent news item or some recent discussion. The discussion had to do with exposure of women's body parts in public displays.
Admittedly, I did not know the context of what was being discussed or joked about-nor what the name of that particular Armed Forces Radio program was.However, I was immediately aware, though, that as the female radio personalities said things like this and giggled, they were bound to be misunderstood by thousands of other radio lurkers around the Middle East. These laughing talk radio personalities said things like:
"Women should be able to show their stuff."
"Women are blessed and ought to be able to do that [without hindrances]."
As I strained to believe what I was hearing on my radio dial, I couldn't tell whether these two female radio personalities were talking about a particular news item, a particular celebrity, the exploitation of women in magazines, or any particular social concept in general.
However, after reading a short article on YAHOO the day before, I assumed I knew basically the topic.
That is, as a listener or lurker, I assumed that the giggling GIs were talking about the YAHOO news item from the weekend about a woman in the USA who had been outraged when asked by stewards and stewardesses on the plane to hike her skimpy skirt back down as she was in a public plane with other passengers. Apparently, as the woman sat in her seat her tiny skirt was no longer at lap level.
I listened for about 5 to 10 minutes but I was unable to gather what the context was. Nonetheless, I had had enough and switched off the station
