Carola Richter takes a look at Germany's broadcasting efforts in the Middle East in the Arab Media and Society Journal, and offers her perspective on whether the channel effectively promotes intercultural dialogue. This is one of six possible functions she identifies (and attributes to scholar Groebel) for foreign broadcasting efforts like this one (and also like the BBC, Radio/TV Marti, al Hurra, etc):
Two main functions of most Western channels are 1) the focus on being a gateway for accurate information in crises and 2) compensation for the lack of media supply in underdeveloped regions. On the other hand, France and Germany particularly focus on the function of 3) representing a certain culture and language as well as on 4) offering a connection to the home country for fellow countrymen abroad. Groebel characterizes the U.S. approach as being 5) "missionary" in that it has "the goal of disseminating certain social and political convictions, concepts and ideologies." The British BBC, however, is seen as a 6) global player that tries to encompass all but the missionary function in addition to being a global news channel.
Essentially, 1 and 2 are becoming gratuitous in the Middle East. There are plenty of Arabic news sources. In order to continue to serve those two functions, foreign broadcasts have to add value, specifically by presenting the viewpoints and interpretations of another culture, assuming that Arab audiences are interested in having that information. She calls this “the dialogue function”. Performing the dialogue function fully is contingent on mirroring the issues that media leaders (i.e. al Jazeera and al Arabiya) identify as important; DWTV Arabia does a so-so job on this. Since not all its programming is in Arabic (most of the day it broadcasts in English or German with Arabic subtitles) it also has a limited audience. Finally, it doesn't spend nearly as much time as Jazeera/Arabiya on covering regional (Middle Eastern) news.
Richter cautiously advocates a shift toward covering more cultural news (as opposed to political, which tends to focus on either horse-racey things like elections or on wars) in a fashion that makes it more relevant for Arab audiences. She (wisely) points out that doing this well will require support from the German government.
It's interesting that Richter chose to advance “soft” programming on a news channel designed for public diplomacy purposes. This idea adheres to typical public diplomacy efforts (such as DAAD/Fulbright/etc, libraries and cultural centers) but refashions the idea of the news channel. Richter does not come out and say this, but appears to suggest that maybe importing news isn't economically viable (it really adds little value in a region that produces its own news). I am not sure that the problem lies in the foreign-ness of the news sources; it seems more likely that the shortcoming is in the quality of the news.
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