Whaling – the Spoiler of Norway’s Impeccable Image

Image 1. Norwegian whaling ship. Not the most attractive way to capture the attention of the publics.

 

Norway is often categorised as a “smaller state” on the world stage, due to the size of its economy and population, coexisting in the shadow of major powers and medium-sized states. The aim of Norwegian public diplomacy is therefore to build an internationally acknowledged image based on Norwegian culture as well as the country’s relationship with nature (Government.no, 2013). Norway’s strategy is to showcase its vast resources, its engagement with publics home and with humanitarian issues abroad, and its reliability as a partner in international affairs as well as a provider for its own citizens (ibid). To achieve such goals, small-sized states are not able to take advantage of an already existing universal visibility and image in the same way major powers are, which makes it their public diplomacy’s main mission to capture the attention of the targeted international audience (Bátora, 2005:7).

Norway has been successful in capturing the attention of publics in positive matters or niches such as mediating peace processes in some of the world’s most conflict-torn regions and managing to appear bountiful and versatile in terms of natural resources and governance. However, it is not only the positive matters that gain the public’s attention, but the negative ones as well. One internationally disputable issue has in many minds had a negative impact on Norway’s image: the policy of whaling. Still in 2016 the Norwegian Government allows and encourages Norwegian whaling in the waters of its Exclusive Economic Zone despite the International Whaling Commission’s (IWC) ban on commercial whaling in force since 1986 (Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, 2013). This activity has required advocacy on behalf of the state, and giving explanations and reasons for such actions to foreign publics in particular.

There is a contradiction between the Norwegian Government’s point of view on whaling and on the viewpoint of the rest of the world, excluding the two other whaling countries Iceland and Japan, who mostly share Norway’s opinion. From an internationally contested perspective whaling is not only unlawful under the international regulatory framework of the IWC, but also highly unnecessary. Whaling contributes gravely to extinction of various whale species, causing imbalances in the ecosystem, on the expense of whale-product trade, which has become rather needless in the contemporary economy, where plenty of alternatives, most often fishing, exists.

From the Norwegian Government’s perspective whaling is a traditional Norwegian livelihood and a method of maintaining a balanced ecosystem in the region’s waters (Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries, 2013). The Government, though being a member to the IWC, has added an objection to the 1982 moratorium on commercial whaling allowing it to hunt minke whales for commercial purposes, a right, which it exercises annually. Due to international environmental and ethical concerns, however, it is no wonder that Norwegian Government supported whaling raises a number of debates and frowned eyebrows amongst most publics across the globe.

First of all, in many cases making reservations and objections or refusing to fully sign up to international treaties, which are generally seen as beneficial to the entire planet or as gestures of good will, can put a state in a bad light. As Norway’s aim is to portray itself as a committed and strong partner in international interactions, its objection to the IWC moratorium might undermine this effort. Second of all, even though Norway wishes to build its international image based on its relationship with nature, hunting whales might not exactly be a crowd-pleaser. Whaling does not tend to belong to the equation when people think about the correlation between actions taken by a state and the positive impact on nature.

Withdrawing the objection and consequently ending state supported whaling would not only improve Norway’s image as an environmentally friendly and internationally cooperative state, but it would also mean an end to the Government’s need of explaining the world why Norway still persists to uphold this ancient activity. When small-sized states do not have the need to explain their activities to the publics, they have more resources to put into the most crucial task enabling them to stand out of the crowd and against the giant powers: capturing the attention of the audience in areas of expertise. Being already successful in gaining attention through numerous peace initiatives, Norway has great preconditions for developing a stronger, more positive and above all more coherent international image if it can overcome the issues whaling has caused to its otherwise impeccable reputation.

 

Bibliography

Bátora, J. (2005), ‘Public Diplomacy in Small and Medium-Sized States: Norway and Canada’, Clingendael Discussion Papers in Diplomacy No. 97, available at: www.clingendael.nl/publications/2005/20050300_cli_paper_dip_issue97.pdf.

Government.no (2013), Norway’s Image Abroad – a Shared Responsibility, available at: https://www.regjeringen.no/en/topics/foreign-affairs/int-cultural-engagement/norgesprofilering/image_abroad/id708753/, accessed 14 May 2016.

Greenpeace (2014), Norway and Whaling, available at: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/fit-for-the-future/whaling/norwegian-whaling/, accessed 14 May 2016.

Norwegian Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries (2013), Norwegian Whaling – based on a Balanced Ecosystem, available at: http://www.fisheries.no/ecosystems-and-stocks/marine_stocks/mammals/whales/whaling/#.VzbaYo-cFv0, accessed 14 May 2016.

Image 1 available at: https://media.guim.co.uk/13dd943c18ed82ce0742b2d8b8572f8a7504d687/0_0_2150_1291/master/2150.jpg.

 

Sports-diplomacy or “sports diplomacy”?

In a very few broad words, sports-diplomacy can be described as government supported activities undertaken by athletes. To detail, sports-diplomacy “uses sports people and sporting events to engage, inform and create a favourable image among foreign publics and organisations, to shape their perceptions in a way that is (more) conducive to the sending government’s foreign policy goals” (Murray, 2011). Despite this fairly tangible concept, there seems to be a deal of confusion surrounding not only the contents, but also use of sports-diplomacy.

U.S State Department sports-diplomacy

At times, diplomatic activities performed outside official channels and without governmental influence are drawn to the sphere of or identified as ‘sports-diplomacy’. A perfectly valid example of unofficially conducted sports-diplomacy is the often cited Cold War era Ping Pong Diplomacy. Susan Pittman from the U.S. Bureau of Cultural and Educational Affairs exemplifies how the main events of the ground-breaking diplomacy were actually organized by the International Table Tennis Federation,  an international NGO, not by the State Department (Stone, 2013). Additionally, the whole process was in fact initiated by a friendly and informal exchange between Chinese and American table tennis players – again an achievement of individual athletes, rather than state agents. 

Celebrity “sports diplomacy”

The trend of athletes, individuals and teams conducting diplomatic activities has increased tremendously since those days. However, the issue is whether this kind of activity can or should in all cases be called ‘sports-diplomacy’? Nowadays, so called “sports-diplomats” are more or less world-known sports people or teams who use their status as celebrities to gain attention mostly for humanitarian and environmental issues.

In many cases, modern “sports-diplomats” are not pushing for a state’s foreign policy agenda per se, but for the good of mankind and the globe in general. These ‘ambassadors of humanity’ tend to work with various IGOs and NGOs, rather than a single state, and therefore as Murray (2011) sustains this kind of practice “is neither sport (because it is not competitive) nor diplomacy (because the state is absent)”.

FC Barcelona and UNICEF use the team’s celebrity to act as “ambassadors of humanity”.

Here we run into a second difficulty in terms of defining the contents of “sports-diplomacy”. Can sports and diplomacy mix or are the ideologies behind these two activities actually contradicting each other? The answer is most obviously two-fold.

On one hand, the two are very closely linked in their nature. Both diplomacy and sports seek to create feel-good emotions, friendship, understanding and unity amongst people. From this perspective sports seems an ideal tool for public diplomacy efforts. Sports-diplomacy brings people closer together as it approaches publics through a perspective to which they can easily relate to. Something entertaining and easily comprehensible. Something appealing and universal. Sports is something that touches millions of people on a daily basis, and that is probably hated by only a “handful”. No matter which type of government, religion or culture prevails within a society, sports is always present in people’s lives whether it is transmitted to our living rooms through media or the internet, or simply a bunch of children playing football on the city streets or the village savannahs.

On the other hand, according to Murray (2011) there is a contradiction between how diplomacy perceives sports and how the mainstream perceives it. Taking a pessimistic (or even a realistic) stand, at its core sports is not centrally about building long-lasting relations and peace between rivals, but about competing; there are losers and there are winners whether it is a match of football between friends or the Men’s 100m Final. Sports is also a highly emotional activity, which can easily generate nationalistic feelings. It creates certain belongingness within supporters of the same athlete, team, or nation, but this bond can be extremely difficult to transcend to a global peaceful effort.

In the end, governments do tend to have specialised departments for sports-diplomacy and celebrity athletes and sports teams practice diplomatic activities either on their own, in co-operation with various organisations or in some cases with governments. It so seems that no matter how you look at it, or what you call it, sports-diplomacy or “sports diplomacy” is in its various forms effectively and extensively in use.

 

Bibliography

MURRAY, S. (2011), Sports-Diplomacy: a hybrid of two halves, Institute for Cultural Diplomacy, available at: http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/content/pdf/participant-papers/2011-symposium/Sports-Diplomacy-a-hybrid-of-two-halves–Dr-Stuart-Murray.pdf.

The U.S. National Archives (2008), National Archives Highlights “Ping Pong Diplomacy” in August, available at: http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2008/nr08-110.html.

STONE, D. (2013), Does Sports Diplomacy Work? National Geographic, available at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/09/130912-north-korea-diplomacy-kim-jong-un-basketball-rodman/.

Images from: http://vamosjogar.info/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/unicef-ginebra.jpg

https://blogs.state.gov/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/contributed_images/2014_0331_baseball_2.jpg?itok=9jI6aqbv

 

Social Media as Isis’s deadly weapon?

Isis is infamous for its worldwide online propaganda, as not only is Twitter on the fingertips of over 320 million people, but in addition the news media are frequently pushing out stories of the terror group’s latest efforts on the social media platform. Isis uses Twitter and YouTube as outlets for its sophisticated propaganda machine (Farwell, 2014; Johnson, 2015), which thanks to globalisation is constantly accessible by both of the group’s target audiences; new recruits and opponents (Farwell, 2014). Due to their 24/7 accessibility, these applications are ideal for spreading recruitment propaganda to likeminded soldiers as well as sending intimidating messages to the Western-minded opposition.

The question, however, is whether or not this social media propaganda is effective in its aims. Recruitment of foreigners has seemed to be exceptionally successful. The strategy of showcasing fearless fighters in brutal training exercises, or holding guns up high victoriously has shown that images of violence are powerful weapons as they unite the spirit of Isis-minded individuals. Especially images of the black and white  Isis- flag waiving gloriously in the wind add to the hype. Power of persuasion via professionally edited videos, which many might call straightforward propaganda, is seen for example in THIS CLIP of a recruitment video where foreign fighters are reaching out to their likeminded souls across the globe.

On the one hand, it seems as social media works for the benefit of Isis as a recruitment propaganda weapon creating an appearance or illusion of what the NBC News (2015) calls “a stable Islamic utopia”, but on the other hand, intimidating opponents has not similarly had such a strong congruent outcome. Not to completely understate the image of the world’s most notorious terrorist organisation, posting and tweeting images and videos of gore, bombings and beheadings all accompanied with daunting music creating an oppressive atmosphere might cultivate fear and horror in some minds of the Westernised public.

However, a couple of factors undermine especially the impact of Twitter propaganda. First of all Twitter’s accessibility, the exact characteristic that makes it so useful to Isis, can turn against it as images published online are as easily available to the ones fighting against Isis as they are to the ones fighting for Isis. Even a glimpse of the surroundings, for example a monument or a street name, in an images or video clip can lead the opponents on the track of Isis. These hints can ultimately, and in fact have already lead to destroying bases and headquarters of the organisation, and even capturing some who fight for its cause (Johnson, 2015). Secondly, as Farwell (2014) points out, individuals claiming to be Isis minded can also tweet recklessly or foolishly, contradicting the views of the leadership, and so perhaps sabotaging the true intentions of Isis propaganda.

In addition, the credibility of Isis as an opponent and ridiculer of western values has been undermined by the narratives of news media and twitter feeds of Isis fighters themselves, which both publish stories and images of fighters consuming products of the west, such as energy drinks, chocolate bars, and crisps. Both, the conventional media through their online mediums as well as members of Isis through their Twitter accounts have made it clear that especially foreign Isis fighters are big fans of Snickers bars, Pringles crisps and Red Bull energy drinks. The shopping spree of junk food and western gadgets has actually gone as far as transforming the economy of Isis held areas, where products previously unheard-of have since the reign of Isis entered the local market (Financial Times, 2014). Somewhat amusing and hypocritical? To the eyes of a spectator it seems like the deadliest weapons Isis still possesses are its sharp swords and blazing guns.

 

Bibliography:

FARWELL, J. P. (2014), The Media Strategy of ISIS, Survival, 56, 49-55.

JOHNSON, N. (2015), How ISIS is Waging a “War of Ideas” through Social Media?, The Daily Signal. Available at: http://dailysignal.com/2015/06/08/how-isis-is-waging-a-war-of-ideas-through-social-media/. Accessed 13 November 2015.

NBC News. (2015), ISIS Using Social Media and Violence to Recruit, NBC News. Available at: http://www.nbcnews.com/watch/long-story-short/isis-using-social-media-and-violence-to-recruit-432161347692. Accessed 13 November 2015.

SOLOMON, E. (2014). Isis Fighters Crave Snacks and Gadgets of the West they Disdain. Financial Times. Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5298d716-758a-11e4-a1a9-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3urnrHvHN. Accessed 15 November 2015.

Image:http://static3.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1914449.1408821529!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/article_400/nutella24n-1-web.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

Syrian Citizen Journalism -Just Another Form of Propaganda?

Father and son in an anti-governmental protest, captured by a Syrian citizen journalist.

War reporting has always been about government-controlled propaganda shows enforced with sophisticated spin and PR machineries. In Iraq the US even went as far as positioning embedded journalists among soldiers on the ground to twist the truth and so polish its own image (Louw, 2010). However, even though Citizen Journalism and YouTube as a source of the traditional news media is “unexplored territory” as Philip Seib puts it (Karam, 2013), the war in Syria has increasingly been coined as the first YouTube war, allegedly out of hands of the professional mass media.

As the Syrian government regulates the entry of foreign journalists (basically bans them) and the dangers of the ever more complicated war are very real (by now over a hundred journalists left dead), conventional mass medias have decided to rely on the thousands of online videos filmed, edited, and posted by citizens from within the state. A bulk of these videos is of activist and opposition origin, but supporters of the Assad regime have had their fair share of YouTube fame as well. However, posting videos is far more crucial to the opposition forces, who as underdogs cannot get their perspective through to the world via traditional news as reporting anything else than pro-governmental stories within Syrian borders might cost them their lives.

In fact, the struggle for getting voices heard over the government’s opinion has become so vital to ordinary Syrians and opposition members that citizen reporting can now unfortunately in some cases be seen as questionable. Harkin (2012) from the BBC World Service describes this reporting not as traditional journalism, but far more radically as “using images as weapons in a struggle”. These images can, and in some instances have been altered and exaggerated to fit desired goals. Continuing in a similar manner Cockburn (2013) argues that all sides in Syria use propaganda to serve their own interest. Being a reporter for the Independent and after travelling a whole month in Syria Cockburn witnessed how “it is possible to show how far media reports differ markedly what is really happening”. In other words propaganda can still very much be present in modern YouTube warfare.

Issues arise when occasionally Western leaders, influenced by their political viewpoints, rely almost blindly on images and videos from Syrian opposition as sources of information, and further on make foreign policy decisions based on the assumptions citizen coverage generates, condemning only Assad’s stories as propaganda. Even though “nearly every rebel-held area or brigade has a media office” (Karam, 2013), and in order to verify the authenticity of videos citizen reporters use creative methods, such as including the day’s newspaper in their reportages to indicate the date of filming, citizen journalism has its downfalls.

A citizen journalist can be anything from a neutral witness to an activist (Al-Ghazzi, 2014), since anyone with access to a smartphone and internet connection can become an amateur cameraman or woman as seen in the video below:

These citizens’ motives to report are sometimes left unknown, as they tend to be extremely personal due to the nature of the civil war –most commonly a situation has occurred where family members have been imprisoned, tortured or killed by governmental forces. Here understandably rage and desperation can push even the most neutral witness to twist the truth behind an event, producing a false image of what is truly going on inside the borders of this closed state.

Nonetheless, Syrian citizen journalists have provided a great deal of news for the otherwise crippled conventional media, giving one side of the on-going conflict – the opposing view to the government’s one. If the international community is able to take advantage of and examine both sides of the story, and then make conclusions of its own, it might be able to see past the propaganda both sides are generating in the battle to win hearts and minds of foreign support.

Bibliography

AL-GHAZZI, O. (2014). ‘Citizen Journalism’ in the Syrian Uprising: Problematizing Western Narratives in a Local Context. Communication Theory (10503293) Vol. 24 Issue 4, p435-454.

COCKBURN, P. (2013). Foreign Media Portrayals of the Conflict in Syria are Dangerously Inaccurate. The Independent. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/foreign-media-portrayals-of-the-conflict-in-syria-are-dangerously-inaccurate-8679937.html. Accessed 15th November 2015.

KARAM, Z. (2013). Syria’s Civil War Plays Out on Social Media. The Huffington Post. Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/19/syria-social-media_n_4128360.html. Accessed: 14th November 2015.

LOUW, E. (2010). The Media and Political Process. Sage Publications, London.

HARKING, J. (2012). Syria and the Media. BBC World Service. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00vyzhq. Accessed: 15th November 2015.

Image from: http://www.mintpressnews.com/MyMPN/content/uploads/2015/03/Syria-Protest-Mideast-Syria_Webf1-800×528.jpg