USC Center on Public Diplomacy

Direct link to this article: http://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/index.php/newsroom/specialreports_detail/5608/

Published: MAR 1, 2009 - 1:59PM PST

Special Reports
Special reports are articles collecting the most relevant public diplomacy articles and information on topical issues, and are posted periodically by our research team at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy.

THE GAZA CRISIS: SOCIAL MEDIA, INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING, AND PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
MAR 1, 2009 - 1:59PM PST
by Uri Zigelboim

Summary: The Gaza crisis has once again highlighted the growing significance of public diplomacy and information campaigns during global conflicts. In 2006, Israel suffered a significant public diplomacy setback during its summer war with Hezbollah. In spite of a renewed focus and some notable improvements to its communication strategy, Israel has once again sustained a blow to its image, while Hamas’ popularity, among Palestinians in particular, has increased in the aftermath of the war. Like the Russian-Georgian war in 2008, reporting about the Gaza conflict varied widely among different international broadcasters, with Arab and Western observers often witnessing vastly different accounts of the war. The Gaza conflict also saw the unprecedented use of social media by both Israel and Hamas, a development likely to be repeated and expanded in future conflicts. __________________________________________________________________ Having suffered a significant defeat in the battle of public perceptions during the Hezbollah war in 2006, Israel made a concerted attempt to improve its communications effort going into the Gaza campaign. Even before the first bombs of the war were dropped in late December, 2008, the Israeli Foreign Ministry opened a new media center in Sderot, and prepared its media affairs personnel with press releases and talking points to try to help convey its message. Following a reasonably successful public diplomacy effort in the earliest stages of the war, however, Israel began to lose traction as the images of carnage and destruction began to circulate out of Gaza, transmitted with particular intensity around the Arab world. Israel sustained further damage to its credibility following a decision to prohibit foreign journalists from entering Gaza. The policy came in response to reporting during the Hezbollah war which Israel believed had compromised or complicated some of its military operations. Still, the restriction heightened suspicions among some about Israel’s attempts to try to control the flow of information during the conflict. For its part, Hamas sought to portray itself as a victim of Israeli aggression, maintaining a steady flow of images, delivered nearly instantaneously following Israeli attacks through its Al Qassam website and Al-Aksa television network, and subsequently picked up by other broadcasters. Reporting within the Arab world in particular evoked a surge of sympathy for Hamas, particularly on the Arab street. A poll conducted in early February by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center confirms the consolidation of Hamas’ popularity among Palestinians. Strikingly, a majority of Palestinians believe Hamas won the war, and the poll indicates that if new elections were held today, Hamas would narrowly defeat Fatah, with support rising from 19% before the war to over 28% afterwards. If anything, Hamas’ effort may have been tempered somewhat in the Arab world as a result of tepid support or even opposition from a number of Arab governments, including Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. While demonstrations of public support for Hamas materialized even in these nations, unlike past conflicts, certain Arab regimes avoided provoking further outrage among their populations. Following a troubling trend witnessed during the Russian-Georgian war, reporting about the…... FULL TEXT

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