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War Culture
The Other Air Force: U.S. Efforts to Reshape Middle Eastern Media Since 9/11
Winner of the 2019 Alpha Sigma Nu Book Award
As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of citizens in the Muslim world, the United States has poured millions of dollars into local television and radio programming, hoping to generate pro-American currents on Middle Eastern airwaves. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and creative agendas while working within U.S. restrictions.
The Other Air Force gives readers a unique inside look at television and radio production in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, from the isolated villages of the Afghan Panjshir Valley to the congested streets of Ramallah. Communications scholar Matt Sienkiewicz explores how the U.S. takes a “soft-psy” approach to its media efforts combining “soft” methods of encouraging entertainment programming, such as adaptations of The Voice and The Apprentice with more militaristic “psy-ops” approaches to information control. Drawing from years of field research and interviews with everyone from millionaire executives to underpaid but ever resourceful cameramen, Sienkiewicz considers the perspectives of the Afghan and Palestinian media workers trying to forge viable broadcasting businesses without straying outside American-set boundaries for acceptable content.
As it carefully examines the interplay of U.S. military and economic might with the capacity for local ingenuity and resistance, the book also analyzes the intriguingly complex programming that emerges from this tension. Combining eyewitness reportage with cutting-edge scholarship, The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world’s tensest conflict zones.
As it seeks to win the hearts and minds of citizens in the Muslim world, the United States has poured millions of dollars into local television and radio programming, hoping to generate pro-American currents on Middle Eastern airwaves. However, as this fascinating new book shows, the Middle Eastern media producers who rely on these funds are hardly puppets on an American string, but instead contribute their own political and creative agendas while working within U.S. restrictions.
The Other Air Force gives readers a unique inside look at television and radio production in Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, from the isolated villages of the Afghan Panjshir Valley to the congested streets of Ramallah. Communications scholar Matt Sienkiewicz explores how the U.S. takes a “soft-psy” approach to its media efforts combining “soft” methods of encouraging entertainment programming, such as adaptations of The Voice and The Apprentice with more militaristic “psy-ops” approaches to information control. Drawing from years of field research and interviews with everyone from millionaire executives to underpaid but ever resourceful cameramen, Sienkiewicz considers the perspectives of the Afghan and Palestinian media workers trying to forge viable broadcasting businesses without straying outside American-set boundaries for acceptable content.
As it carefully examines the interplay of U.S. military and economic might with the capacity for local ingenuity and resistance, the book also analyzes the intriguingly complex programming that emerges from this tension. Combining eyewitness reportage with cutting-edge scholarship, The Other Air Force reveals the remarkable creative output that can emerge even from the world’s tensest conflict zones.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
224 pages, Paperback
Published October 1, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 12, 2019
With my reading I do my best to alternate between fluffy & weighty. Dr Sienkiewicz's slender book is rather weighty, but not dense, to be clear. The United States government is putatively focused on freedom and democracy. In order to receive money from our government, various private radio & TV stations then have their own freedom to express themselves curtailed in a serious fashion. Red lines appear: Palestinian TV stations that receive money from the USAID can't reference the occupation of Palestinian land by Israeli settlers. So our government wants to export freedom to nations that our military has invaded (Afghanistan & Iraq, e.g.) and one pre-requisite for receiving this export is to accept limitations upon one's freedom of speech. My own simple life pales in comparison to the fascinating challenges that the Iraqi, Palestinian, and Afghani people in various media companies surmount every day. The characters in this book are absolutely entertaining. I would love to sit down with any number of them and just listen. I doubt I would have anything to teach them.
The ways by which various movie directors & show producers sneak their own local messages past and right up to the red lines imposed upon them is well discussed here. Dr Sienkiewicz hits the grayscale of reality quite well here -- people who are subjugated and participate in give-and-take with their invaders still have agency & can still affect people who have power over them.
I do my best to get at least one nugget out of every non-fiction book I read. My nugget here is that I should read news from Al-Jazeera & other Middle Eastern outlets.
I received a copy of this book from the author and I'm grateful for that.
The ways by which various movie directors & show producers sneak their own local messages past and right up to the red lines imposed upon them is well discussed here. Dr Sienkiewicz hits the grayscale of reality quite well here -- people who are subjugated and participate in give-and-take with their invaders still have agency & can still affect people who have power over them.
I do my best to get at least one nugget out of every non-fiction book I read. My nugget here is that I should read news from Al-Jazeera & other Middle Eastern outlets.
I received a copy of this book from the author and I'm grateful for that.
March 8, 2018
Little too short, but very intriguing study on US attempts to "modernize" people from MEAN-terrirories
July 18, 2017
a little dense, but good
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews