Audience research: Keeping Afghanistan interesting
This week Afghanistan again hogged much of the news coverage - this time because of the injection of 30,00 extra US troops to the region by President Obama. This was followed by raised hopes for a new counter-insurgency strategy and speculation as to how much other NATO allies would contribute to the renewed military effort.
British soliders from 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh prepare to deploy to Afghanistan. Credit: Getty Images
In Bush House however, home of the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service, a different kind of strategy was being discussed. How do you retain the interest of listeners in the Afghanistan story, eight years down the line? While the military top brass worry about "losing the initiative" in Afghanistan, the media worries about losing the attention of its audience.
A new research project, conducted in Istanbul, Los Angeles and Barcelona, gauging the reactions of the public to news reporting of the conflict threw up some interesting results. For example, the drip-drip effect of relaying daily news of violence and casualties is a turn-off for some of the audience - either because they can't stomach the gory detail of the death toll or because they become numbed by it, to the extent it starts feeling like "old news".
One respondent in Barcelona said she no longer knows what the war is about, which may suggest that the extent and nature of the coverage may actually be working against our better understanding of the situation. Or, as one senior journalist in the newsroom commented, during a meeting to discuss the research, some people just aren't interested.
"People do care!" World Today newsroom editor Simon Peeks insisted to me when I interviewed him for Over To You. And he maintained that his team is always thinking of different ways to treat daily developments from Afghanistan - to escape, for instance, from the usual inner circle of experts, military figures and politicians trawling over the ramifications of each episode in the conflict.
A recent ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service news item about Afghanistan
But this of course cannot mean resorting to gimmickry or pandering to the lowest common denominator. It makes for painful and wearing listening at times, but then, that's the nature of a long drawn-out conflict like this, with which many of us, whether we like it or not, are associated.
Mike Fox, who co-ordinated this largely anecdotal but timely project, is very keen to hear your views on this. World Service listeners are without doubt better informed and more intelligent than the average, but you are also rightly more demanding.
What is the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ not providing you with when you hear reports about fighting and casualties in Afghanistan, or about election fraud or dithering amongst the political classes as to what to do next?
Let us know - your input could make a difference.
Oh, and listen to this week's programme for an interesting discussion as to whether divisions in Rwanda and Burundi between the Hutus and Tutsis is correctly described as "ethnic". Martin Plaut, Africa Editor, gives a stout defence of his approach to the issue.Ìý And staying with Africa, your comments about the validity of the "Only in Africa" interactive segment on the "Focus on Africa" programme rumble on...
In fact interactivity, now I come to think of it, is one very good reason why media coverage of long-running conflicts will always progress. Programmes like World Have Your Say and, yes, Over To You, increasingly inform the debate and influence the decisions made at the top. So keep your views and contributions flowing!
Rajan Datar is the Presenter, Over To You.
Over To You is your chance to have your say about the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳
World Service and its programmes. It airs at 10:40 and 23:40 every Saturday, and atÌý02:40 on Sunday (GMT).
- Listen to previous episodes of Over To You
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- Send the team your feedback by email (overtoyou@bbc.co.uk), telephone (44 144 960 9000), SMS (447786 202006) or by leaving comments on this blog.
Comment number 1.
At 6th Dec 2009, Donald Mukobeko wrote:Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to hear your reporters reporting about the elections in Romania from Budapest. Is there a reason why they cannot be in Bucharest?
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Comment number 2.
At 7th Dec 2009, tom zoller wrote:It's important
receiving pictures,audios,videos out of all these countries.
even if it is hard to watch some pictures,like these young two soldiers.....
risking their life ,to find a solution, of a problem,our anchestors were releasing several centuries ago.
Keep on reporting...........
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Comment number 3.
At 20th Dec 2009, voice_germany wrote:The public has a great interest in what´s going on in Afghanistan.
It costs very much for the tax payer, the military staff and equipment is most expensive for the tax payers, more expensive than what is spent on social issues. The conflict is long-running, so the conference on Afghanistan on the 28th of January in London will be milestone for the exit strategy, until now a sustainable solution has not been found.
The lives of soldiers and the dangers are a sensitive issue to the public, and the situation in Afghanistan is still fragile with no signs of a clear stability.
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Comment number 4.
At 13th Jan 2010, David Cromwell wrote:WERE AFGHAN CHILDREN EXECUTED BY US-LED FORCES?
AND WHY AREN'T THE MEDIA INTERESTED?
Ignoring or downplaying Western crimes is a standard feature of the corporate Western media. On rare occasions when a broadcaster or newspaper breaks ranks and reports 'our' crimes honestly, it is instructive to observe the response from the rest of the media. Do they follow suit, perhaps digging deeper for details, devoting space to profiles of the victims and interviews with grieving relatives, humanising all concerned? Do they put the crimes in perspective as the inevitable consequence of rapacious Western power? Or do they look away?
One such case is a report that American-led troops dragged Afghan children from their beds and shot them during a night raid on December 27 last year, leaving ten people dead. Afghan government investigators said that eight of the dead were schoolchildren, and that some of them had been handcuffed before being killed. Kabul-based Times correspondent Jerome Starkey reported the shocking accusations about the joint US-Afghan operation. But the rest of the UK news media have buried the report.
After details of the massacre first emerged, Afghan President Karzai sent a team of investigators to the alleged scene of the atrocity in the village of Ghazi Kang in eastern Kunar province. Assadullah Wafa, a former governor of Helmand province, led the investigation. He told The Times that US soldiers flew to Kunar from Kabul, implying that they were part of a special forces unit:
"At around 1 am, three nights ago, some American troops with helicopters left Kabul and landed around 2km away from the village. The troops walked from the helicopters to the houses and, according to my investigation, they gathered all the students from two rooms, into one room, and opened fire." (Jerome Starkey, 'Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children', The Times, December 31, 2009;
Wafa continued:
"I spoke to the local headmaster. It's impossible they were al-Qaeda. They were children, they were civilians, they were innocent. I condemn this attack."
The Times reporter interviewed the headmaster who told him that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived:
"Seven students were in one room. A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.
"First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed."
A local elder told the Times reporter: "I saw their school books covered in blood."
The dead children were aged from 11 to 17.
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