This month, VOA'S popular Persian-language Mizegerdi ba Shoma (Roundtable With You) program will expand to a new daily schedule, broadcasting 60 minutes a day. The radio-TV simulcast has been broadcast weekly for 90 minutes for nearly a decade.
How effective have US-funded broadcasts been in Iran?
The impact has been mixed, experts say. While less than five percent of Iranians who listen to foreign broadcasts tune into VOA, Radio Farda appears to have had more success. The 24-hour news and music station is the third-most important conduit of information in Iran after local television and radio (excluding print media), according to an April-May 2005 survey commissioned by the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors.
Is the new effort worth $75 million in taxpayer funds?
John Brown, a former Foreign Service Officer and now a professor of public diplomacy at Georgetown University, supports the new public-diplomacy effort but says it may be too little, too late. "We should have started ages ago," he says. "Now we're playing catch-up."
Brown adds, "I think that public diplomacy efforts in Iran are bound to fail unless our policies drastically change. After all, Persians weren't exactly 'born yesterday' and pop songs or even 'serious' discussions about values on the air are not going to change people's mindsets."
Lionel Beehner of the Council on Foreign Relations also takes a skeptical view of the potential impact of US plans. "I'm generally skeptical of the good soft diplomacy can have in Iran. The surveys I see show that most Iranians, particularly youth, who make up a bulk of the country, are pretty pro-America already (not pro-US foreign policy, however). A growing number have access to satellite TV. This is not Poland circa 1980," he says.
And William Rugh, former US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates and a specialist in Middle East public diplomacy, says, "The package of new public diplomacy initiatives directed at Iran contains some positive elements and some well meaning but doubtful ones. The positive elements of the new Iran package are those that involve broadcasting, both radio and television. These are the soft power instruments that are highly appropriate in current circumstances with respect to Iran."
Rugh says, "Other parts of the package are impractical. There is no way we can work with NGOs or dissidents or reformers inside Iran effectively, and working with exiles has limited value. For such programs, we must wait for an improvement in the overall atmosphere," adding, "We should engage Tehran instead of confronting Tehran."
Overall, he says, "Public diplomacy is a positive step but it's very difficult to do without our being there."
Will Iranians be influenced by US-funded media?
The outcome is unclear, experts say. According to Alvin Snyder, a VOA veteran now associated with the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, "The VOA's Persian-language TV programs must be compelling to successfully compete for viewers in Iran, where a variety of indigenous program fare is readily available, from sports to movies, and from news to family shows and entertainment. The VOA needs to speak out quickly and boldly, to stake out its turf within Iran's media landscape, to excite viewers and attract immediate attention."
The CFR's Beehner says he is "not convinced that most Iranians are diehard pro-nuclear. For most, it's an issue of national pride; it's not about energy, or flouting NPT rules, or striking Israel. They see others with nuclear programs and think, why not us?"
One additional critical issue needs to be factored into this equation: Resistance to US pro-democracy offers from within Iran. Human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman and first Iranian to win the Nobel Peace Prize, expressed this view in a recent PBS Newshour interview.
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