The Center for a Public Anthropology (based at the University of Hawaii and run by Dr. Robert Borofsky) recently released a study of social science faculty media impact at public universities. The aim, as Borofsky stated, was to permit the public to assess “the degree to which those who draw on public funding participate in public conversations in return.”
The project involved using the Google News archive from 2006 to 2011 to find how many times faculty members were cited in any of 6,000 news sources, and then dividing the average number of citations for a school by the
percentage of National Science Foundation funding the institution
received. Schools then were ranked and, within schools, the political science, anthropology, psychology, economics and sociology departments were also ranked using the same system.
As reported in the University of Arkansas Newswire on October 11, 2013, the University of Arkansas social scientists ranked 5th in the country, out of 94 research universities, behind Rice University, Southern Methodist University, the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas, San Antonio.
As is typical in such cases, the top three faculty at the University of Arkansas were named in the Newswire: Janine Parry and Andrew Dowdle from
political science and my colleague Peter Ungar from anthropology. Among departments at the University of Arkansas, political science ranked #1. Anthropology ranked #2.
Curious, I decided to dig a little deeper, and discovered this:
Yep, I was number 4. I didn't make the headlines. Of course, I did have a lot fewer cites than the top 3, but 50% more than the numbers 5 and 6.
It's not that I really care about such things (well, that's not entirely true, if this ranking helped me get a larger merit raise that would be great). The point for calling attention to it is (1) because who else will, since I missed the top three cut-off (the tyranny of trinitological thinking!) and (2) my citations are in all likelihood due to this blog; the fact that I display here my obsession with kufiyas; and that during 2007-2008 there was a "kufiya craze" and a fair amount of media attention to the phenomenon. I was interviewed by various media reporters about the kufiya, most notably in the New York Times.
There is no lesson here, or at least, there is no "model" for anyone who wants a similar amount of media attention so they can impress their college dean. The media attention was really quite random. Moreover, the NSF funding that also factors into the equation has nothing to do with me. Most of it, when it comes to my university, is probably from my anthropology colleagues, especially those in Biological Science. There is no direct line between NSF funding and media impact with an impact on the public.
I usually devote a chunk of Sunday a.m. to reading the pages of the New York Times. But whenever there is an outrage involving Israel, it ceases to be a relaxing occupation.
Today, none of the commentators or the editorial columns mention Gaza. There are demonstrations throughout the world, the UN is again raising questions about whether Israel committed war crimes, the US' reputation in the Middle East is in tatters again due to our complicity with the aggression...and nary a word. Maureen Dowd's column mentions the word once--seemingly to cast blame on Cheney for whatever it is she thinks he has to do with it, but it's entirely unclear. Tom Friedman, Frank Rich, Nick Kristoff, and guest columnist Bono: nothing.
There is a column from the ombudsman or Public Editor who addresses claims from "both sides" that the Times' coverage is biased one way or another, and argues that it is essentially "balanced." See the Angry Arab for daily demolitions of that claim.
Here's what really got my goat. On page 2 of the Week in Review section, "An Eyeful in Gaza," which recaps events of the past week, the Times writes: "In hopes of weakening Hamas, Israel has blockaded shipments of goods into Gaza in varying degrees since the militant group violently seized full power in the territory in 2007..."
Sanctions against Gaza were imposed by Israel, the US and the EU in the wake of parliamentary elections in January 2006. The sanctions included restrictions on the movement of goods and people. Such restrictions, aimed at a democratically elected government, were a prelude to the more severe restrictions imposed after Hamas fully took over the Gaza Strip in June 2007. It's important to recall that this was in response to threats of a Fateh coup. Read Ali Abunimeh on this here.
I don't attempt in any way on this blog to do what very fine Middle East-related blogs like Abu Aardvark or Angry Arab or Informed Comment or Just World News (see my "Fellow Travelers" on the right) do--keep up a running account and commentary on current events. Yet when a crisis like what is going on in Gaza breaks out, I spend most of my time obsessing about it and reading, listening and watching the news. And so before I post on my usual, "frivolous," culture-related subjects, I feel somehow compelled to comment on what is going on. So to put my mind at rest, and before I move on to the normal if irregular flow of comment on kufiyas and music and whatnot, I do have a few things to say about Gaza.
First, one of my favorite commentators is Frank Rich. For the last few years, the virtually first thing I have done every Sunday is to get the New York Times off the front porch and go straight to Rich's column and read it over tea and, usually, pancakes. During the Bush years, the commentary has been bracing and incisive. But this Sunday, my disappoint over Rich was almost as great as my disappoint about Rachel Maddow's Gaza coverage. In the case of Rich, it was not what he said but what he didn't say. In a column that was a postmortem on all of Bush's failures over the past eight years and the horrific mess he has left the US in, he failed to address the effect that Israel's Gaza outrage is having--and will continue to have into the foreseeable future--on the US image in the Middle East. He does actually mention Gaza but he states that Bush's failure here was to push for elections in Palestine, which brought Gaza to power in a landslide. In other words, Bush's failure when it comes to Palestine is that he brought Hamas to power. Not his failure to do anything to limit Israel's ongoing colonization of the West Bank or its embargo of Gaza and its periodic deadly assaults. So Rich goes right along with the US media and political elite consensus on Gaza: it's all Hamas' fault. Not even a word about Palestinian civilian casualties.
I read this article later in the day, from Editor & Publisher, which makes clear that Rich's failure to say anything really, is quite in line with what the New York Times has been doing ever since the invasion began:
Israel launched its much-anticipated invasion of Gaza on Saturday. For over a week, U.S. media had provided largely one-sided coverage of the conflict, with little editorializing or commentary arguing against broader Israeli actions.
Most notably, after more than eight days of Israeli bombing and Hamas rocket launching in Gaza, The New York Times had produced exactly one editorial, not a single commentary by any of its columnists, and only two op-eds (one already published elsewhere). The editorial, several days ago, did argue against the wisdom of a ground invasion - - but even though that invasion had become ever more likely all week the paper did not return to this subject.
Amazingly, the paper has kept that silence going in Sunday's and even Monday's paper, with no editorial or columnist comment on the Israeli invasion -- beyond a hawkish pro-invasion contribution by William Kristol. It's as if the Times is waiting for the invasion to be over and adapt its position to the outcome.
So where do you go if you want to follow the crisis and get decent information? (And feed the obsession...) I keep finding new sources. I mentioned some last week, and of course there are the blogs I mention in the first paragraph. The Guardian and The Independent are regularly producing good reporting and commentary, quite unlike anything we have access to in the US. And one of my favorite blogs, Kabobfest, has really been on top of this one, updating constantly. And as Mehammed "Abou" Mack notes on Kabobfest, if you're on facebook and have friends who care about Palestine and Gaza, they are constantly posting youtube videos and links to good articles.
One of my most recent discoveries is that you can watch Al Jazeera English's streaming broadcasts, in real time, on the internet. You can go to their website and do this, but better yet, download the Livestation application (which works on PC and Mac--yay!) and you can watch it, full screen. If you are interested at all in Gaza, and don't have satellite, you really want to do this. Why? Because Al Jazeera is the only international network with reporters inside the Gaza Strip. So unlike watching all the other networks, where the reporters are standing around on the border with Gaza and watching the bombing taking place from the position of the aggressor, from Al Jazeera you get actual footage and reports from the inside. It's really horrific and appalling and infuriating and tear-inducing. You must watch it!
What I wonder sometimes, however, if all this information that is available--if you know where to get it--doesn't turn us into, well, passive observers. I wonder whether I don't spend way too much time trying to stay up to date and read and watch and listen to all the commentary. As opposed to, say writing letters to the editor, trying to convince others who know next to nothing about what is going on, or organizing protests. I have to admit, I have trouble keeping myself away from the (not mainstream US) media coverage...Don't get too hooked.
On the other hand I don't have much trouble staying away from the mainstream media, because every time I watch or read, I am infuriated. Angry Arab is doing a great job of exposing how horrible a job Taghreed El Khodary is doing for the New York Times. Just because an "Arab" is reporting doesn't mean it isn't basically Israeli propaganda. I had the unhappy experience of watching Octavia Nasr comment on CNN for a few minutes yesterday. She is unbelievably dumb, and does nothing to correct the most basic, Orientalist, anti-Arab prejudices of the anchors.
But here is a brief ray of hope: check out this report on CBS, where they do a phone interview a Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, who is working in a Gaza Hospital. He says it's hell, like Dante's Inferno. That he's seen only one military casualty. That fifty percent of the 2500 wounded are women and children, and so on. (I should add that if you watch Al Jazeera English, you are likely to see, as I did, an on-camera interview with Mads Gilbert, at the hospital, with a nonstop stream of wounded showing up. Much more vivid, much more compelling. But then, Israel won't let foreign correspondents into Gaza, to better manage the spin of the news. And none of them are complaining.)
I learned about this CBS broadcast from Juan Cole's Informed Comment. He suggests that you take this information about civilian casualties and write your Senators and Congresspeople and President. He also gives a link making it easy to do so. I took a bit of time off from watching the news flow and sent notes to Bush and Sens. Lincoln and Prior and Congressman Boozman. Please do the same and write your elected representatives.
(I promise, more future posts on music and culture and the like. But with a political flavor...)
UPDATE: I just found this youtube video of an Al Jazeera interview with the Norwegian physician, from Dec. 31.
Britain's The Guardian, yesterday: "Israel defies peacemakers and prepares for invasion."
From today's New York Times: "In a Broadening Offensive, Israel Steps Up Diplomacy."
The Guardian goes on to tell us, "Israel has defied a formidable international consensus in favour of a ceasefire in Gaza by opting to continue its unprecedentedly fierce air attacks on Hamas targets and stepping up preparations for a possible ground offensive." Read the rest of the article here.
Meanwhile, the New York Timestells us, "With Israeli troops and tanks massing along the border with Gaza in preparation for a possible ground invasion, Israel also pursued diplomatic avenues to explain its positions." The article does go on to tell us that the EU is calling for an immediate ceasefire, and that Sarkozy is pushing for the same thing, but the piece is spun entirely from the point of view of Israel and the efforts of Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni to argue that Israel needs more time to carry out its military operations in Gaza. That is, what matters most for the New York Times is Israel's position, and the "formidable international consensus" apparently matters not one bit.
"Diplomacy," for the New York Times, means arguing for more time for war. War is peace.
Professor of Anthropology, University of Arkansas. Author of Memories of Revolt: The 1936-39 Rebellion and the Palestinian National Past. Co-editor of Palestine, Israel and the Politics of Popular Culture and of Displacement, Diaspora, and Geographies of Identity.
