# United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) - https://www.usagm.gov/ - "The mission of United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy." - https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/mission/ ## Mission (Initiatives) - https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/mission/ - ### [[Voice of America]] [link](https://www.usagm.gov/networks/voa/) - 1. VOA will serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news. VOA news will be accurate, objective, and comprehensive. - 2. VOA will represent America, not any single segment of American society, and will therefore present a balanced and comprehensive projection of significant American thought and institutions. - 3. VOA will present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively, and will also present responsible discussions and opinion on these policies. - ### [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty](https://www.usagm.gov/networks/rferl/) - "RFE/RL’s mission is to promote democratic values and institutions by reporting the news in countries where a free press is banned by the government or not fully established. Our journalists provide what many people cannot get locally: uncensored news, responsible discussion, and open debate." - ### [Radio Free Asia](https://www.usagm.gov/networks/rfa/) - "Radio Free Asia’s mission is to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press." - ### [Office of Cuba Broadcasting (Radio and TV Martí)](https://www.usagm.gov/networks/ocb/) - "The Office of Cuba Broadcasting’s mission is to promote freedom and democracy by providing the people of Cuba with objective news and information programming." - ### [Middle East Broadcasting Networks (Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa)](https://www.usagm.gov/networks/mbn/) - "MBN’s mission is to expand the spectrum of ideas, opinions, and perspectives available in the media of the Middle East and North Africa; provide objective, accurate, and relevant news and information; and, accurately represent America, Americans, and American policies. Through its multimedia broadcasts, MBN seeks to inform, engage, and connect with the regions’ people in support of universal freedoms." - ### [Open Technology Fund](http://www.usagm.gov/networks/otf/) - We support open technologies and communities that increase free expression, circumvent censorship, and obstruct repressive surveillance as a way to promote human rights and open societies. ## Strategic Priorities - https://www.usagm.gov/our-work/strategy-and-results/strategic-priorities/ - Description: "Over the past year, the USAGM CEO worked with the ICC and other key stakeholders to refine the agency’s five strategic priorities. These priorities tie to objectives in the Agency’s 2018-2022 Strategic Plan and will maximize the agility, efficiency and impact of the Agency’s networks and enable it to more effectively address the rapidly evolving media environment." - ### 3. Focus on key issues and audiences "USAGM is prioritizing resources to ensure that its activities advance the broad foreign policy priorities of the United States, including the universal values of freedom and democracy. To this end, USAGM is targeting its resources strategically to provide accurate and credible news and information for audiences most impacted by state-sponsored disinformation and violent extremism, particularly by campaigns of terror. These audiences are located, among other places, in **Russia and its periphery, China, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, and Cuba and nations threatened by extremist attacks**."" - [Strategic Plan 2018-2022](https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BBG-Strategic-Plan-2018-2022_FINAL.pdf) (PDF, 2.57 MB) ## Impact and Results - https://www.usagm.gov/our-work/impact-and-results/ - "Every day, USAGM networks work in some of the most repressive media environments in the world to inform, engage and connect with their audiences in support of freedom and democracy." - #### Measuring Impact - https://www.usagm.gov/our-work/impact-and-results/measuring-impact/ - #### "6,233,903,487 people live in countries that have a press that is partly free or not free" - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 5.55.49 PM.png]] - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 5.56.02 PM.png]] - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 5.58.34 PM.png]] - ### “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers.” — The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 6.00.12 PM.png]] ## Office of Internet Freedom - https://www.usagm.gov/office-internet-freedom/ - USAGM has supported internet freedom projects through the Office of Internet Freedom (formerly the Internet Anti-Censorship Division) and the [[Open Technology Fund]], USAGM’s newest non-profit grantee.  The USAGM’s internet freedom program supports, per congressional appropriations guidance, global internet freedom for the expansion of unrestricted access to information on the internet. - Over the past seven years, USAGM has invested more than **$100 million** in projects to promote internet freedom in the world’s most restricted environments. - **Relationship with OTF** - "While previously OIF directly supported certain circumvention at-scale projects, OTF now supports all the agency’s internet freedom needs. OIF’s role is to maintain a strong partnership with OTF, to provide oversight to ensure continued OTF compliance with relevant rules and regulations in the execution of congressionally mandated use of internet freedom funds for technology projects, ensure uninterrupted circumvention services for USAGM entities and their training needs, provide critical field-driven feedback loop, and manage the assessment of particular OTF projects to inform USAGM strategy and oversight." # BBG Strategic Plan 2018-2022 - BBG = Broadcasting Board of Governors - [Link to BBG Strategic Plan 2018-2022](https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/BBG-Strategic-Plan-2018-2022_FINAL.pdf) (PDF, 2.57 MB) - ![[BBG-Strategic-Plan-2018-2022_FINAL.pdf]] - ### Executive Summary - "The BBG networks advance U.S. national interests and universal values of freedom by providing audiences in closed societies, or where free media is not yet fully established, with consistently accurate and compelling journalism and other content that opens minds and stimulates debate. **U.S. international media demonstrate to the world values that reflect our society: freedom, openness, democracy, and hope.** Societies that embrace these values support U.S. interests because they enjoy greater stability and prosperity, live in peace with their neighbors, reject terrorism and extremism, and make better political allies and trade partners for the United States. As the National Security Strategy explains, “Stable, prosperous, and friendly states enhance American security and boost U.S. economic opportunities.” In covering the United States, BBG networks open a window onto democracy in action, in all its richness and complexity, through which global audiences can see reflected their own struggles to build sustainable democratic systems." - "China’s CCTV and Russia’s RT inundate audiences with disinformation about global events and depict the United States on an irreversible downward social spiral, its institutions failing and global strength on the wane. Global media freedom has deteriorated steadily during the past decade and internet freedom is declining as more governments censor information and expand surveillance."" - ### Impact and Agility Objectives - BBG’s Impact Objectives are to: - Produce and curate journalism and other content of exceptional value that informs and engages audiences and expands the media marketplace - Reach and engage audiences in key strategic areas, including the information-denied, underserved, and targets of disinformation and extremist rhetoric - Overcome censorship to connect audiences in closed societies - Optimize program delivery by market and expand engagement on digital platforms - Serve as an authoritative source of information on U.S. news, policy, and society - Serve as a surrogate news operation, delivering information otherwise not available in local markets - Engage local media and empower citizen information-gathering and exchange. - ### Introduction - "While impact is not a matter of numbers alone, BBG audiences have grown to record levels, with a worldwide measured weekly audience of **278 million people in 2016**, an unprecedented year-on-year increase of 52 million."" - "Signature accomplishments include launching a vibrant 24/7 Russian-language TV and digital channel with a specialized web and social media team that counters Kremlin disinformation and tells the truth about Russian, American, and global events; accelerating the migration from shortwave radio to satellite TV, FM, mobile, and social media; **pioneering technologies to circumvent government-imposed Internet firewalls;** reinvigorating the telling of America’s story by expanding a “U.S. bureau” approach for reporting to media outlets around the world; and fully operationalizing a sophisticated, dynamic Impact Model to demonstrate effectiveness and improve accountability." - ### A global information challenge - "Yet, despite these positive trends, access to open and accurate information in many regions is backsliding. While the world grows ever more interconnected, the freedoms of expression and of the press, and the sanctity of objective truth, are under fire as states and groups hijack the trade of information itself to serve their ends. **More media does not equate to more media freedom.**" - "In 2014, scholars Peter Pomerantsev and Michael Weiss coined the phrase “the weaponization of information” to describe how both state and non-state actors successfully appropriate modern media to sow confusion and distrust, weaken opposition to their policies, and suppress dissent. **The goal? To defend the indefensible: tyranny, kleptocracy, religious and ethnic intolerance, and visions of society that deny fundamental human rights.**" - "Each day, actors ranging from ISIS to Iran to China to Russia adopt the very tools of free society to serve their own ends. As detailed in the NSS, “America’s competitors weaponized information to attack the values and institutions that underpin free societies, while shielding themselves from outside information.” **They employ their version of “journalism” and information technology not as a means to inform audiences but rather as tools to control expression, restrict freedom, obfuscate and pervert truth, or create the impression that there are no objective facts, all in the service of undermining global peace, stability, and democratic values.** Our adversaries do this creatively, proactively, and with a keen eye toward production values." - "This current context stands in stark contrast to the Cold War, when backward-looking global actors cut off the flow of information to the point of creating informational vacuums in key communities. The United States and its partners moved to fill these spaces through tools including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Today, we see the opposite: bad actors flooding media markets with an abundance of false, doctored, or misleading information on a multitude of different platforms." - "At the same time, even as they embrace media tools for their own ends, repressive regimes relentlessly attack the free press and stifle free expression. **In 2016, Freedom House found that press freedom declined to its lowest point in 13 years, with intimidation, digital censorship, extralegal harassment, abduction and imprisonment, impunity, and even murder on the rise. In certain places it has never been more dangerous to be a journalist.**" - "**Information itself – who has access to it, its veracity and timeliness, the platforms on which it is presented, and the safety of those who report and consume it – is now, and for the foreseeable future, a key currency of the global order.** As a result, responding to the global explosion of information must no longer be considered to be a “value added” function in support of broader strategic ends. Rather it must be understood as a key focus of U.S. foreign policy in its own right." - "Today’s media has the power to reach audiences through visual means, enticing and motivating them to action – or suppressing them. It can provide communities with accurate, objective truths and hold governments and institutions accountable – or it can be used by oppressive actors to legitimize their own ideologies and actions. BBG’s agenda in support of freedom and democracy will not be effective if we fail to appreciate these facts." - ### Mission and Support for U.S. Interests - "The BBG is not a propaganda outfit and our networks do not “message” or proselytize. Rather, consistent with the American values of free speech and free expression, they advance U.S. national interests by providing audiences in closed societies, or where free media is not yet fully established, with consistently accurate reporting and other content that opens minds and stimulates debate. Even as repressive actors around the world work to keep information from their citizens and propagate false realities through disinformation, BBG networks inform, engage, and connect these very populations in support of freedom and democracy - every day. U.S. international media’s journalistic independence is protected by the “firewall” enshrined in the BBG’s enabling legislation, which prohibits editorial interference by U.S. government officials." - ### Overarching Strategic Goals - "We see the role of journalism in supporting free, democratic, and peaceful societies in the daily work of BBG networks around the world:" - IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA, where challenges to stability and democracy have wracked the region, BBG networks provide breaking news coverage, analysis, and diverse perspectives, featuring U.S. and European views in the face of heightened Russian propaganda. - IN WAR-TORN SYRIA, we aid the besieged citizenry with reports on life-and-death developments, including the progress of the campaign to defeat ISIS. - IN SOMALIA AND IRAQ, we counter violent extremist propaganda targeted to youth with frank on-air and online discussion of extremism and its causes. - THROUGHOUT THE ARABIC-SPEAKING MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA, we challenge through news and opinion the ideological dimensions of violent extremism and its support network. - IN CHINA, we combat censorship by tapping into internal viral networks with coverage of taboo subjects, including high-level government corruption, Tibet, and the repression of Uyghur identity. - IN NORTH KOREA, we offer hard news, but also share life stories of defectors in South Korea and the Korean diaspora in the U.S., as an antidote to the DPRK’s propaganda. - IN A HOST OF COUNTRIES, FROM BURMA TO BURUNDI, we ease inter-ethnic and interreligious strife with roundtable discussions that bring diverse parties together to bridge differences and model civil discourse. - In lands that have suffered natural as well as man-made disasters, FROM HAITI TO AFGHANISTAN, we provide a humanitarian lifeline to people in extreme distress. - ### Impact and Agility Objectives - #### Impact Objective 1: Produce and curate journalism and other content of exceptional value that informs and engages audiences and expands the media marketplace - BBG will: - As mandated by Congress, provide news and other programming that is accurate, objective, and comprehensive and in accordance with the highest professional standards of journalism. - Produce news and information, consistent with audience preferences and mission requirements, on issues which are not addressed adequately by media in the target area, e.g., human rights and good governance. - Offer non-news content that research, web analytics, and audience and affiliate feedback show are of vital interest to audiences, such as health, science, and technology. - Produce enterprise reporting through deep and lasting exploration of critical issues in the countries BBG targets. - Curate content from and co-create content with reputable partners, as appropriate and consistent with broadcasting standards and editorial guidelines. - Examples of performance goals (and measures): - Reach significant audiences (measured weekly audiences) - Provide programming that audiences find trustworthy (program credibility) - #### Impact Objective 2: Reach and engage audiences in key strategic areas, including the information-denied, underserved, and targets of disinformation and extremist rhetoric - "In deciding where to target, BBG considers the local media situation, along with U.S. strategic interests, and prioritizes countries that lack a free or developed press. Special consideration is given to populations at risk due to extremist rhetoric and disinformation. BBG prioritizes reaching audiences in areas plagued by extremism, where extremist forces espouse a violent ideology and execute campaigns of terror that threaten U.S. and regional security and stymie free, open, democratic societies. Another key focus area is audiences subjected to state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, which seek to undermine democratic norms and the very idea of objective truth. In all target countries, BBG networks seek to grow their audience base and reach those traditionally underserved by BBG broadcasts. Populations in the target countries are overwhelmingly young – a challenge, but also a chance for us to connect with a demographic that in many cases has never even heard of us." - BBG will: - Prioritize countries lacking freedom and democracy or faced with disinformation or extremism, where accurate, credible news and information are lacking. **Boost service to these areas, where feasible.** - Introduce service in selected new languages to reach sizeable new audiences in countries where BBG products are urgently needed. - Reach out to women and youth with programming that addresses issues of concern and relevance to their lives. - Sharpen audience segmentation and targeting to drive content strategies and better address gender and age demographics, as well as psychographic segments. - Serve as a conduit for the transmission of reporting from inside closed societies lacking press freedom to outside audiences. - Ensure strong local news coverage, as warranted by events, to meet urgent audience needs in areas of crisis. - Draw on the experiences of the world’s many models of free societies, in particular the U.S., to present a broad array of political views and debates. - Examples of performance goals (and measures): - chieve significant audience reach in environments subject to extremist rhetoric and violence, including Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (measured weekly audience in target countries) - Reach audiences in information-denied environments, including China, Iran, and Cuba (measured weekly audience in target countries). - Reach audiences in environments targeted by state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, including Russia and Ukraine (measured weekly audience in target countries). - #### Impact Objective 3: Overcome censorship to connect audiences in closed societies - For almost 70 years U.S. international broadcasting has fought censorship in all its forms. Today, as the global media environment undergoes a dynamic revolution, access to a truly free press is actually in decline. **Jamming of radio and TV broadcasts, including the BBG’s, continues in a number of countries.** Journalists suffer harassment and violence daily. Media laws often restrict free flows of information, limiting the ability of international news organizations to distribute their content. **The Internet in particular is under assault, even as audiences increasingly access and share our content on digital platforms and via social media.** The agency upholds the universal right of citizens everywhere to receive and impart information without restriction. BBG works on many fronts to make news and information accessible to its global audiences with the aim of enabling not only unfettered access to agency products but also the full spectrum of independent news sources on the Internet. - BBG will: - ead in assisting the world’s citizens to gain access to information on all platforms, advocating on the international stage and coordinating within the U.S. government and with international broadcasters and other allies. - Help audiences understand through journalistic reports the practices and policies of Internet censorship and circumvention. - **Fund technologies that counter Internet censorship and Internet blocking and allow citizens and journalists to operate securely online.** - Increase effective use of social media and digital platforms to combat censorship. - **Provide in-house digital expertise to address real-time censorship and jamming issues in targeted regions.** - Cultivate information-sharing relationships on Internet freedom matters with other federal agencies, nonprofits, and the private sector - #### Impact Objective 4: Optimize program delivery by market and expand engagement on digital platforms - It is essential that BBG networks reach audiences on their preferred media platforms. Yet the agency’s distribution methods and means have historically lagged shifts in media use. BBG must therefore align how it delivers content with how consumers access it now and in the future. **The BBG must continue growing and enhancing new distribution methods, with specific attention to social and mobile platforms. On traditional media, BBG must continually migrate to the most effective broadcast channels, including satellite and broadcast television and FM radio.** - BBG will: - Increase distribution on platforms that BBG knows audiences are using – FM, satellite and broadcast television, and mobile devices – continuing our migration away from legacy platforms where they do not reach audiences. - Expand reach and engagement on digital platforms, including new streaming and over-the-top platforms. - **Find creative ways to penetrate closed societies, through flash drives, DVDs, and other alternative delivery means.** - Expand distribution through affiliation with strong local television and FM radio stations and digital platforms and, where possible, installation of FM transmitters. - Draw on research and other inputs to tailor format and presentation styles to audience needs and media usage habits, creating content that can break through ever-increasing clutter. - Exploit the falling cost of video production by updating BBG broadcasting facilities to support growing audience appetite for TV and video. - Examples of performance goals (and measures): - Increase web traffic (weekly visits to websites) - Increase audience interaction via social media (weekly digital engagement actions) - #### Impact Objective 5: Serve as an authoritative source of information on U.S. news, policy, and society - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 6.40.19 PM.png]] - #### Impact Objective 6: Serve as a surrogate news operation, delivering information otherwise not available in local markets - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 6.40.58 PM.png]] - #### Impact Model Example: Burundi - ![[Screen Shot 2021-07-02 at 6.42.59 PM.png]]