Following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the government initiated a public relations campaign using both old and new communication tools focusing on “winning the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.”[1] A major component of the public relations effort, called the “Shared Values Initiative,” used television commercials to reach a variety of audiences with positive messages about Muslim life in America.  During the same period, Radio Sawa, an American-funded Arabic language radio network, stepped up its efforts to provide a more positive view of the United States to young Arabic people throughout the Middle East region through western-style popular music, news and information.  A year later, at the onset of the war in Iraq, U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft began a six-month mission to drop 36 million leaflets over the country of Iraq, with messages ranging from liberation to survival, again with the intent of both saving lives and effecting favorable public opinion of American policies and operations in that country (Clark & Christie, 2005).

Although these efforts to communicate government messages to the Muslim world originated from various sources (U.S. Department of State, Broadcasting Board of Governors, and the Department of Defense, respectively), all were created in America and reflected the U.S. perspective.  Moreover, all were directed towards citizens of Middle Eastern countries, most of which are primarily Muslim.  The discrepancy between the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the creators of these messages and their intended audience may represent a challenge to their efficacy in changing hearts and minds.  Using Social Identity Theory, this study tested whether people with family heritage from a predominantly Muslim country, who identify with the intended audience, will rate the credibility of the three types of messages lower than Americans without such a heritage, who identify more with the sender.

Additionally, applying a framework developed to analyze international broadcasting reveals that each message type—leaflet, television commercial, and radio broadcast—can be categorized as having a different function: to communicate survival messages, to counter disinformation being provided by other countries’ leaders, and to facilitate relations.  Therefore, this study also examines whether the two ethnic groups’ credibility ratings differ depending on the function of the message.  .

U.S. Public Relations Efforts in the Middle East            

Efforts by governments to reach and influence target audiences require a planned, long-term strategy where ideas and images are introduced and developed, commonly known as propaganda (Lasswell, 1934).  Lasswell argued that successful social movements achieve power by using symbols over a period of time through a variety of media.  In talking about his theory of propaganda, Laswell (1927a) maintained that a propagandist seeks to intensify certain cultural attitudes favorable to a certain purpose while reversing hostile attitudes.  He noted that propaganda had four major objectives:  "To mobilize hatred against the enemy, to preserve the friendship of allies, to preserve the friendship and, if possible, to procure the cooperation of neutrals, and to demoralize the enemy” (p. 195).

Propaganda is often thought of as a pejorative term.  However, depending on the culture or country, it may be thought of as public relations or advertising (Stevenson, 1994), which may be deemed more acceptable and less insidious.  Rawnsley (1996) says that audience perception of the reliability of the source of the information plays a large role in whether the audience views a campaign as propagandistic. So, if the creator of a campaign can persuade the audience to trust the source, the more likely it is the aim of the propagandist will be fulfilled. Rawnsley (1996) notes that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union repeatedly accused the BBC of engaging in propaganda by claiming to broadcast in an objective manner and without prejudice. In 1952 the BBC candidly admitted to the USIA that this was indeed its method: “You're cheating all the time, of course,” BBC personnel told USIA's Ralph White. “What matters is the appearance of objectivity when actually you are not completely objective.” In other words, credibility, balance and truth are used to sell a political message in much the same way as one would use overt propaganda techniques.  In order to successfully accomplish this, a major challenge for the propagandist is to understand the audience they are intending to reach with the messages, so that message credibility and thus message effectiveness may be achieved. 

Faced with hostility, tension, and violence in its recent dealings with the Middle East, the U.S. knew that it had to “marry the mission to the market” (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004, p.4) to further its cause and ideals, and engage in a multi-prong public diplomacy campaign in the region. During the U.S. War with Afghanistan in 2002, the U.S. Department of State hired a former advertising executive, Charlotte Beers, to administer a $15 million communication campaign to reach the Muslim world.  Beers headed the Bureau of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Department of State with the job of “communicating America’s core values to the Muslim world” (Kendrick & Fullerton, 2004, p.298).  A major part of the campaign, called the “Shared Values Initiative,” used television commercials to reach the target audience with positive messages about Muslim life in America.

The Shared Values Initiative, a series of 60-second television commercials, featured Arab-Americans talking to the camera about the quality of their lives in the United States, with an emphasis on the freedom and respect their heritage receives on a daily basis.  Beers claimed that 288 million people received these commercial messages (Beers, 2003).  Unfortunately for her and her colleagues, some broadcast outlets in the Muslim world (e.g. Egypt and Saudi Arabia) refused to broadcast the commercials, obviously limiting their effectiveness in the process.  Nonetheless, the spots were broadcast in many other areas throughout the region (“Public Diplomacy,” 2003).  However, in examining the effectiveness of the commercials, Kendrick and Fullerton (2004) found that fewer than half of a convenience sample of international student respondents who viewed them considered them to be believable, and even more doubted that the commercials would be credible in the Muslim world.

Another effort the U.S. engaged in was establishing Radio Sawa, a radio station that began broadcasting in March 2001 and that targets people under 25 years old. It is available via medium wave in Egypt, Iraq, and the Gulf region.  The station is broadcast in FM in Amman, Kuwait, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha.  It is also available on digital satellite 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and broadcasts a lively blend of western-style popular music interspersed with fast-hitting news and information programming (Radio Sawa, 2003).  While the strategy for the station is clearly to “cover U.S. policies and actions” and “broadcast unvarnished, unbiased news” (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004, p. 20), it aims to “engage the audience” with a “fresh, upbeat American style” and to “become part of the daily lives” of its primarily young listeners (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004, p. 20).

The success of Radio Sawa has been phenomenal.  AC Nielsen surveys conducted in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Jordan, and Morocco in February 2004, and in Qatar in July and August 2003, show Sawa as the leading international broadcaster in those countries, reaching 49% of 15-29 year olds and 29% of those 30 and older each week (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004). Even more importantly, 80% of those answering the surveys said they considered its news to be “very” or “somewhat” reliable (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004).  Radio Sawa can therefore be seen as a more successful public diplomacy effort than the Shared Values Initiative.

Although radio, television and satellite are favored means of reaching large audiences, sometimes other more “primitive” methods can be effective in reaching populations, particularly when there is a sense of urgency.  During the war in Iraq, between October 2002 and March 2003, 36 million leaflets with 60 varieties of messages were dropped over regions of Iraq by the U.S. Air Force.  As an example, on March 21, 2003, over two million leaflets were dropped, with over a million dropped on Iraqi military forces, and the rest dropped on civilian areas (The Information Warfare Site, 2003).  A news release from U.S. Central Command on Nov. 28, 2002 stated that 360,000 leaflets were dropped between Al Kut and Al Basrah, approximately 100-150 miles southeast of Baghdad in Southern Iraq.  The 3 inch by 6 inch leaflets were dropped by six fiberglass canisters each containing about 60,000 leaflets. The canisters opened over the targeted areas, releasing the leaflets that then drifted to the ground.  (CENTCOM, 2002). 

The U.S. military has not made information about the success of the leaflets available, so it is difficult to assess just how effective they were. While some of their more urgent messages aimed at keeping civilians in their homes and away from the gunfire may have been successful, it is not known whether they were particularly effective at improving the image of the Americans.

Heeding Laswell’s advice about propaganda, the U.S. engaged in a multi-faceted strategy using various media.  Despite the variety of channels used, however, all of the messages were similar in that they originated in the U.S., reflected an American point of view, and were targeted toward a different culture in an attempt to cultivate certain cultural attitudes favorable to the U.S.’s purpose while reversing attitudes perceived by the U.S. as negative ones.  This is reflected in the opening remarks of a meeting of the Senate Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism, in which Senator John Sununu stated, “To win the war on terrorism, we need not only defeat the terrorists in the field, we need to defeat their ideas” (Hearing before the subcommittee, 2004, p. 1). In other words, it was crucial that the U.S. extol the virtues of democracy and explain its objectives in the war on terror, while at the same time combating anti-American sentiment found in the region.

Social Identity Theory

As an effort by one group to persuade another group, the messages created by the U.S. for their public diplomacy efforts in the Middle East may be viewed as intergroup behavior.  Tajfel (1978) distinguishes between interpersonal behavior, where someone acts as an individual and draws upon his or her unique relationships with the other party, and intergroup behavior, in which actions are undertaken as a group member, and who one is as a person is less important than the social category one belongs to (Brown, 1996).  The messages described above are not written by or for individuals; rather, they clearly delineate two groups, each cohesive: the senders (Americans) and the receivers (people living in the countries where the messages were sent).

Additionally, Tajfel (1978) noted three conditions that would increase the likelihood of interaction between people being intergroup, as opposed to interpersonal: the more discernable the division between the two groups; the more uniform the behavior within each group; and the more each group treats members of the other group uniformly and stereotypically.  If one considers the conflict between the U.S. and certain people in the Middle East, the strong identification many individuals in each of those groups feel for their respective country and/or religion, and the sometimes inaccurate perceptions each group has of members of the other, policy-level relations between the U.S. and the Middle East can be categorized as intergroup.

The significance of this classification is that, according to Social Identity Theory, identification with a group is often linked to ingroup overevaluation, a favorable bias towards one’s own group, and outgroup rejection, discrimination toward the other group.  While this is not always the case, it is increasingly likely to be true when a group is very important to its members, and when they perceive conflict with the outgroup (Brown, 1996).  Thus, it is possible that due to the nature of the conflict between the United States and Iraq and other parts of the Middle East, people from predominantly Muslim countries would identify strongly with themselves and tend to discount the ideas and beliefs of the Americans, while the same thing might occur in reverse with Americans.

Indeed, Social Identity Theory has been expanded to mediated messages about different ethnicities; for example, Mastro (2003) found that television can contribute to ingroup-outgroup distinctions and can negatively affect attitudes toward the outgroup through its portrayals.  Mastro concluded that content in entertainment media “can enforce self-esteem through the process of social contrast in favor of the ingroup” (p. 100); this occurs when the message’s audience and its senders belong to the same group, as in the case of ethnicity.  Rivenburgh’s application of Social Identity Theory to the mass media (2000) found that national newspapers enhanced and protected national identity in three countries, again in an instance of the senders belonging to the same social group as the receivers.  If messages within members of an ingroup can serve to strengthen the identity of that group and reinforce negative perceptions of the outgroup, it is also possible that messages sent from one group to a different group, such as propaganda, could heighten group differences, resulting in skepticism or disapproval of the sender’s message on the part of the receiver.

Thus, messages sent from the United States on behalf of their cause might not be readily accepted by people in the Middle East, who identify as strongly with their culture and its values as the U.S. does with its own, and who felt that their group was under attack.  Consistent with Social Identity Theory, such messages might be met with resistance because they originate with and reflect the beliefs of the outgroup.  As such, they might not be considered credible.  A lack of credibility in the outgroup’s message would make it very challenging for the ingroup to change their minds.  Thus, this might explain the limited success of some of the U.S.’s public relations efforts in the region.

Credibility

While there are multiple ways to evaluate how an ingroup’s messages are evaluated by the outgroup, one appropriate measure is credibility.  Credibility is “an important issue to study because public inability to believe the news media severely hampers the nation’s ability to inform the public, to monitor leaders, and to govern” (Gaziano, 1988, p. 267).  The large number of media credibility studies, particularly over the past two decades, may be credited in part to this perceived importance of the issue.

Early credibility studies centered around two main components, trustworthiness and expertise (Hovland, Janis & Kelley, 1953; Hovland & Weiss, 1951).   The work of Gaziano (1988) and Izard (1985) illustrated the importance of the user’s perception of bias. Izard (1985) surveyed user perception of roles and motives of journalists in a nationwide telephone survey of the American public, and found that a majority of respondents indicated they felt major news media covered up stories that ought to be reported.  Half the respondents said there were too many situations in which journalists made up information in their reporting of news events, and more than half agreed reporters gave too much of their own opinions, suggesting that accuracy and completeness are important components of credibility.  Finally, the personal relevance of a message, or its usefulness to the receiver, could be viewed as a component of credibility in the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981).  In sum, credibility can be seen as comprised of trust, expertise or knowledge, bias, accuracy, completeness, and usefulness.

It makes sense that the messages the U.S. sent to the Muslim world would need to be perceived as credible in order to be successful.  People are not likely to have their hearts or their minds changed by messages they do not trust, find accurate, or perceive as useful.  Yet Social Identity Theory suggests that, due to the conflict between the U.S. and the Muslim world at the time the messages were sent, Americans are likely perceived as an outgroup, and possibly even a hostile outgroup that is attempting to employ its “democratic ideals” on the Muslim world.  As a result, people from the Muslim world—the ingroup—may be more apt to reject those messages, or find them less credible, since they originate from a different group than their own.  Lending support to this possibility are studies that have shown that how the receiver of a message evaluates the source will impact how credible he or she finds that message (Sundar, 1998).   There is also evidence that people who are more involved with the content of the message—in other words, for whom it is more relevant—are more skeptical of this content, at least in the context of news (Austin & Dong, 1994; Gunther, 1992), a finding that is consistent with both social judgment theory (Sherif, Sherif, & Neberga, 1965) and the elaboration likelihood model (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981).  If people are more concerned with a message, it follows that they will be more concerned with its accuracy, leading to greater involvement and thus, greater skepticism (Gunther, 1992). Therefore, the following hypothesis is posed:

H1: People with a family heritage from a predominantly Muslim country will find U.S. public relations messages less credible than will people without such a heritage.

Framework for analyzing international broadcasting

To further understand the role credibility plays in message effectiveness, it is important to consider the nature of messages sent by governments who must communicate to sometimes hostile audiences.  In examining the U.S. government’s use of international broadcasting to reach Afghanistan and Iraq during wartime, Clark and Christie (2005) posited that these communication efforts could be categorized into functions of survival, counter-disinformation and facilitative communication.  While previously these categories have been applied to individual media messages (Clark & Christie, 2005), it is also possible to use them to describe broad categories of message types.

Survival messages are urgent in nature and take the form of telling troops how to surrender, or telling civilians to stay away from military targets.  These messages rely on the assumption that the audience believes the source is credible and that what is stated in the message will happen soon (Clark and Christie, 2005).  While there were some leaflets whose particular message could be considered facilitative or counter-disinformative, a strong preponderance fall into the category of survival information (Clark & Christie, 2005).  Moreover, as a general form of communication, the leaflets can be considered survival messages, because of the manner in which they were delivered, in an intense and dramatic effort to reach vast numbers of people before air strikes began.

Countering disinformation is a softer and often less urgent approach than the survival function.  It is used in times of crisis or in times of peace to get the United States message out in the face of adversarial messages and propaganda from the other side. Because of the recurring theme of quality of life in the United States for Arab-Americans in the Shared Values Initiative, these commercials as a whole can be classified as counter-disinformation.  They are intended to challenge what is perceived to be the prevailing belief Middle Easterners hold toward Americans, and instead present a different version of life in America. 

The third part of the framework analyzing U.S. international communication efforts affecting international public opinion is facilitative communication (Clark and Christie, 2005).  Facilitative communication constitutes what many countries engage in through public diplomacy efforts.  These include radio and television programming, press releases, and artistic and cultural programs.  This type of communication’s function is to create a friendly atmosphere (Clark & Christie, 2005).   In contrast to the counter disinformation described above, Radio Sawa falls into the general category of facilitative communication because it is designed to foster a more positive view of the United States in the Middle East, but to do so in an entertainment format.

It therefore seems fair to say that these three categories of messages, which met with different degrees of success, had different functions.  In fact, it has been established that evaluations of media credibility can be affected by the type of information being presented. For example, messages with persuasive intent, such as advertising or government propaganda, are typically perceived as less trustworthy than fact-based messages (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981).  Flanagin & Metzger (2001) not only replicated this finding, they also found that entertainment information was perceived as more credible than commercial information. This held true both for radio and television. 

Considering these findings in light of the three different types of messages, it seems possible that there could be differences in credibility ratings assigned by people with a family background from a primarily Muslim country as opposed to those without such a background, depending on the message function.  Therefore, the following research question was posed:

RQ1: When comparing people with a family heritage from a predominantly Muslim country and those without such a heritage, what differences in credibility emerge in the three framework categories (survival, counter disinformation, and facilitative)?

Methodology

Participants

Data for this study were drawn from a purposive convenience sample of 114 participants living in a major southwestern U.S. metropolitan area.  Ideally, this study would have compared non-Muslim Americans with people actually living in the Middle East.  Because this was not possible, people with a family heritage from a predominantly Muslim country were used as a point of comparison with non-Muslim Americans.  While this is not a perfect substitution, bias against an outgroup is stronger for people who are highly identified with the ingroup, so any differences found in this study are likely to be conservative estimates of what might have been found had people actually living in predominantly Muslim countries been able to participate.

A total of 114 participants completed the evaluation, including 40 who reported Muslim country backgrounds, most from regions in or near the Middle East including Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Pakistan.  The average age of participants was 25 with ages ranging from 18 to 55.  Of the participants, 55% were female, and 45% were male. 

Stimulus

Three television commercials from the Shared Values Initiative were selected for this study to allow for the examination of a variety of professional and gender variables.  One commercial showed a successful Muslim baker thriving at his work at a U.S. bakery; another showed a scientist at the National Institutes of Health (Dr. E. Zerhouni) being honored by President Bush; and a third showed a female Muslim public school teacher at her job in Ohio.

Additionally, participants were shown three leaflets dropped over Iraq between October 2002 and March 2003.  The English translations of the leaflets were also provided (see Figure 1).  Finally, participants were instructed to listen to an edited five-minute audio clip of a previously recorded Radio Sawa broadcast (including newscasts, brief edited musical clips from both American and Middle Eastern artists, and a talk feature called “Sawa Chat”).  An English translation of the Radio Sawa news and talk material was provided to assist participants in evaluating Radio Sawa, for participants who did not speak Arabic. 

Procedure

Three groups of participants were placed in a room and asked to fill out the basic demographic portion of the questionnaire. Next they were told to watch the first commercial. After the commercial, they were asked to answer six questions about its credibility (accuracy, trustworthiness, bias, usefulness, completeness, and knowledge of source). This procedure was followed for the next two commercials. The commercials were not shown all at once so that participants would be able to evaluate each ad carefully.

Next, participants were shown the leaflets one at a time and asked to answer the corresponding questions about each one. Finally, they were asked to listen to the Radio Sawa broadcast, refer to the translation if necessary, and then answer the questions about it.

At this point, participants were asked a few questions about their political orientation, thanked for their time, and encouraged to ask any questions about the study they had.

Measures

The questionnaire asked participants to indicate their year of birth, their gender, and whether they had a family heritage from a predominantly Muslim country.  Students were asked to indicate their grade level, major, and whether they were an international student.

Six 10-point semantic differential scales were used to evaluate the credibility of each media exposure.  Consistent with existing studies on media credibility (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelly, 1953; Izard, 1985; Gaziano, 1988), participants were asked to evaluate the information in each message on its accuracy, completeness, usefulness, objectivity, and trustworthiness, and to evaluate the creator of the information on his/her knowledge

After all the media messages were shown or played, participants were asked to describe their American political views (from very conservative to very liberal, with don’t know/other as an option), and to rate the trustworthiness of various news sources, such as cable television and radio.  The semantic differential items were varied so that the more negative term did not always appear on one side; later, measures were reverse coded so that higher numbers indicated a higher degree of credibility. In addition, the six measures were combined into a credibility scale so that the overall credibility of each medium could be examined.  Reliability for the overall credibility scales was high: for the leaflets, Cronbach’s Alpha = .819; for the television commercials, Cronbach’s Alpha = .836; and for Radio Sawa, Cronbach’s Alpha = .791 (p <.05).

Results

The results of the survey are based on the questionnaire distributed from March to June 2004.  T-tests were best suited to examine differences in the mean credibility scores of these participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.  

Table 1 shows a significant difference in Muslim and non-Muslim evaluations of the credibility of U.S. public relations efforts overall (leaflets, commercials, and Radio Sawa).  Therefore, Hypothesis 1 is supported.  With both groups’ mean scores falling between 5 and 7 on a 10-point scale, it appears that the messages were perceived as somewhat credible, but Muslims found them significantly less credible.

When the items from the credibility scale are considered individually, the non-Muslim group rated the messages higher on every dimension except bias.  Both groups rated the bias of the messages around a 5, with no significant difference between the two groups’ scores.

Next, to answer the study’s research question, the credibility ratings for the three types of messages were compared.  As seen in Table 2, there is a significant difference in how credible Muslims and non-Muslims perceive survival messages (the leaflets) to be.  The Muslim group mean was 5.15 on the 10-point scale, which is significantly lower than the 6.75 mean for respondents who were from non-Muslim countries (t =  -3.8, p = .000).  Muslims also found the commercials (counter disinformation) and the radio broadcast (facilitative) to be less credible than non-Muslims did, but the differences for these two message types were not significant.

Looking at the survival messages (leaflets) more closely, each item from the credibility scale was examined (Table 3). In all cases, the Muslims rated the leaflets as less credible than the non-Muslims did, with all differences significant except for bias.

Finally, while differences in Muslim and non-Muslim credibility ratings for counter disinformation were not significant, an examination of individual items from the scale revealed one significantly different dimension, how knowledgeable the source was perceived (see Table 4).  Next, the television commercials were examined individually on the knowledge dimension (see Table 5). While once again, the Muslim group found the source of all three commercials to be less knowledgeable than the non-Muslims did, the differences were significant for the “Baker” (M_Muslim = 6.49; M_non-Muslim  = 7.78; t = -2.74;  p = .008) and “Teacher” commercials M_Muslim = 6.63; M_non-Muslim  = 7.56; t = -1.99, p = .05), but not the “Scientist” one.

Discussion

Results of the study show differences in how people from Muslim countries and people from non-Muslim countries perceive the credibility of various types of government public relations messages.  While the fact that this study’s sample contained people who originally hail from predominately Muslim countries, not people who live there now, is a serious limitation, differences found here are likely to be less pronounced than they would be with a more international sample.  In seeking to understand why U.S. propaganda efforts did not meet with more success, this seems a good place to look for answers. 

While it is clear that the U.S. felt that it had to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world through careful deliberate effort, a review of intergroup relations and Social Identity Theory reveals just how challenging that would actually be.  Given the tense relations between the two parts of the world, and the substantive differences in their cultures, it is likely that each group would regard the other’s actions and communications with more suspicion than if they originated with people who belonged to their same group.

Indeed, this hypothesis is supported when the credibility ratings for the messages overall are considered. Muslims thought the messages as a whole were significantly less credible than non-Muslims did.  This finding held for every item in the credibility scale except for one. Interestingly, that one item is bias. It appears that both groups perceived the messages as propaganda, or in the words of Laswell, an effort by a government to promote their cultural values while reversing hostile attitudes.  It therefore seems that Social Identity Theory may be quite explanatory in this instance.  While both groups recognized the persuasive nature of the message, the group that identified with the targeted culture tended to discount the value of that message, while the group who identified more with the sender was more accepting of it. This suggests that future efforts at communicating with a different culture might be more successful if they de-emphasize group differences, and if they can appear to originate with someone with whom the target audience would identify.

This study also examined three quite different types of communication: survival messages dropped from the sky from aircraft, television commercials attempting to counter prevailing negative views of life in America, and radio broadcasts full of pop music with news and chat sprinkled in.  Previous research on the credibility of different message types suggests that message function might play a role in how credible the messages were perceived to be.

With respect to survival messages, the Muslim group rated the leaflets’ credibility significantly lower than the non-Muslims did.  This may be because the leaflets’ urgent nature suggests that their message would be scrutinized closely and with great skepticism by those who have more of a stake in the message.  It also makes sense according to Social Identity Theory that the group who identified with the target audience would be more suspicious of the group sending the message than people who identified more with the sender.

Moreover, nearly every item from the credibility scale showed significant differences when examined individually, with the Muslim group giving the leaflets especially low scores on bias and trustworthiness.  The combination of who was sending the message and what kind of message it was seems to have affected credibility ratings, and more research is needed to tease apart these two factors to see how much each play a role.  It is worth noting that there was no significant difference between the two groups on bias, but this is because the non-Muslim group also rated the leaflets as being quite biased.  Both groups seem to recognize that messages like this sent during wartime have an agenda.

It seemed possible that the Muslim group might find the television commercials less credible not only due to outgroup bias, but also because the counter disinformative nature of the messages suggested that close attention would be paid to them, with greater involvement leading to greater skepticism.  However, findings indicate that people with backgrounds from predominantly Muslim countries do not find the counter disinformation messages significantly less credible than those not from such countries.  Although the Muslims’ scores are slightly lower, both groups found the commercials to be somewhat credible.  It is possible that this is a function of all of the respondents in this study living in America.  Because these commercials depict life in America, all of our respondents may have been able to judge for themselves whether the portrayals of life as an Arab American were accurate.  It is possible that significant differences would occur with some respondents who did not live in the United States.

More can be learned from examining the components of the credibility scale individually.  The one significant difference was found for the perceived level of knowledge that the source of these messages possessed.  In general, the Muslim audience thought the message source was less knowledgeable than non-Muslims did, perhaps because this group was dubious that an American source had expertise on a different population group. 

This finding is consistent with research that suggests that greater involvement with a message leads to a wider latitude of rejection (as per Social Judgment Theory) and more cognitive elaboration in an effort to seek accurate information (as per ELM). It may be that people of Muslim descent were more skeptical of these messages than their non-Muslim counterparts for the very reason that it was their culture at stake. Moreover, this skepticism may have led them to perceive the American sources responsible for the messages as less knowledgeable than the non-Muslims did.

Interestingly, knowledge is the one item in the credibility scale that asks respondents about the source of the message, not the message itself.  It may therefore be that intergroup relations are playing a role here as well.  Obviously, more research would be needed to confirm this, but the fact that the people who are similar to the target audience are less convinced of the source’s knowledge about their heritage is an interesting one. 

When examining the television commercials independently on the “knowledgeable” dimension, results varied. Interestingly, the commercial that did not have a significant difference between Muslims and non-Muslims on this dimension was the commercial featuring a Muslim scientist, whereas those featuring a baker and a teacher did show significant differences.  What may be at play here is the type of content these ads contained. While all three featured Muslim-Americans touting the freedom, tolerance, and overall quality of their life in the United States, the ad with the scientist showed a Muslim-American who had been named the director of the National Institutes of Health by President Bush. Because this is a factual assertion, it may have been more resistant to skepticism than the other two ads, which relied solely on the testimony of the actors in it as proof of their happiness.

With respect to facilitative messages, the credibility rating for the Radio Sawa broadcast was not significantly different for Muslims and non-Muslims. This may have to do with the fact that this format is largely entertainment-driven. Research has shown that entertainment media are perceived as more credible than commercial messages.  Just as the more ‘important’ message types already discussed may tend to be more scrutinized by audiences with a stake in their messages, it is possible that information embedded in entertainment escapes such scrutiny and is more ‘palatable.’  After all, while the Sawa broadcast did contain news and talk, it also contained both Western and Middle Eastern music. This focus on pop culture, as well as the blending of two cultures, may have lessened the difference in the two groups’ perception of its credibility.

However, it should be noted that while the difference was not significant, the mean for Muslims was still lower than the mean for non-Muslims.  As is the case with all international advertising efforts, it appears that familiarity with the targeted culture, such that one’s message appears to be coming from an insider, not an outsider, increases the likelihood of that message being persuasive.

This study has contributed to what is known about the efficacy of U.S. public relations messages to the Muslim world by considering how the intergroup relations between the sender and the receiver and how the type of message can affect credibility.  Despite these contributions, this study can be further improved and developed. Although the sample was diverse in age, gender, and ethnic background, as a purposive sample it may not be generalizable for all Muslim and non-Muslim people.  It would be helpful to conduct similar tests in the actual countries targeted.  Additionally, the order of the stimulus materials should be rotated to account for any order effects.  Finally, an experimental design could be helpful, so that difference in message types could be considered for all people, not just across Muslim and non Muslim groups.

In conclusion, this study has revealed key intergroup differences in the credibility of U.S. messages to the Muslim world.  In almost every case the Muslim group rated the message as less credible, though not always significantly so.  The fact that these differences were evident in Muslims living in America suggests that they would be more pronounced if people actually living in the areas targeted by these messages were considered.  It appears that more consideration of who creates the message and whether they are from the same culture as the target audience is needed in order to increase the efficacy of these types of public relations efforts.  At the same time, the framework used here needs to be more fully developed and tested, to examine whether differences in the credibility of various types of media seen in other contexts hold true in the context of public diplomacy efforts.  The similarity in how each group perceived the credibility of the facilitative message, and the popularity of Radio Sawa in general, suggests this is a very fruitful direction for future diplomacy efforts.

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Figure 1.  Leaflet coded as having “survival” message.

Table 1

Mean credibility scores* for all public relations efforts by participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

____________________________________________________________________________

Media                    Group               n          Mean            S.D.           t         Prob.

______________________________________________________________________________

*Scale of 1-10, higher score = more credible

Table 2

Mean credibility scores* for different message functions by participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

______________________________________________________________________

Media                    Group               n          Mean            S.D.           t         Prob.

______________________________________________________________________

Table 3

Mean Responses* to all items from credibility scale for leaflets by participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

______________________________________________________________________

Category                Group               n          Mean            S.D.           t         Prob.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

*Scale of 1-10, higher score = more credible

Table 4

Mean Responses* to all items from credibility scale for counter disinformation (television commercials) by participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

______________________________________________________________________

Category                Group               n          Mean            S.D.           t         Prob.

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

*Scale of 1-10, higher score = more credible

Table 5

Mean Responses* to “knowledgeable” dimension of three television commercials by participants from Muslim and non-Muslim countries.

______________________________________________________________________

Commercial            Group               n          Mean            S.D.           t         Prob.

______________________________________________________________________

*Scale of 1-10, higher score = more credible