{"id":9270,"date":"2011-06-08T03:06:13","date_gmt":"2011-06-08T03:06:13","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-06-08T03:06:13","modified_gmt":"2011-06-08T03:06:13","slug":"A-New-Voice-of-America-for-the-Age-of-Twitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=9270","title":{"rendered":"A New Voice of America for the Age of Twitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Walter Isaacson championed Voice of America\u2019s decision to shut down its shortwave radio broadcasts to China \u2014 and shift those funds to the Internet, cellphones and other forms of digital media \u2014 he viewed it as the sensible updating of a propaganda playbook dating from the cold war. But nothing is simple in the world of government broadcasting. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican and staunch critic of China, condemned the move, saying it would deprive Chinese listeners of unfiltered news. It amounted, he said, to an American retreat in the face of Beijing\u2019s growing global influence. \u201cWho knew shortwave in China was a land mine?\u201d said Mr. Isaacson, a onetime head of CNN who is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America and its four sister networks.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

With the Obama administration embarking on a fundamental overhaul of Voice of America and other official broadcasters \u2014 one that seeks to adapt their traditional diplomatic missions to the era of Facebook and Twitter \u2014 Mr. Rohrabacher\u2019s response could be a foretaste of battles to come. As part of its yearlong review, Mr. Isaacson\u2019s board is seeking ways to streamline and modernize Voice of America and its sister networks: Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Alhurra, and Radio and TV Mart\u00ed. Each service has its protectors in Congress \u2014 Cuban-American lawmakers fiercely defend Radio Mart\u00ed, for example \u2014 and they are likely to view any change as a threat. \u201cIt\u2019s going to take some tilling of the ground,\u201d acknowledged Mr. Isaacson, who brings the perspective of both a media executive and an aspiring diplomat (he has been in line for senior jobs at the State Department). <\/p>\n

While the need for the United States to get its message across to an often hostile world is greater than ever, Mr. Isaacson said, digital technology risks turning these services into relics of a bygone era, when dissidents in closed societies huddled over their transistor radios for scraps of information from the West. To be sure, the broadcasters have made significant strides. Voice of America is inviting listeners to file reports about the uprisings in Bahrain on Facebook, while Radio Free Asia is aggressively developing technology to circumvent firewalls that the Chinese government puts up to block its transmissions.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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