In your research, you found out that international organisations (IOs) are more visible in countries where they do tangible, development-focused work. According to your findings, the media visibility of IOs in states with the lowest levels of human development is approximately 75% higher than in highly developed states, which are typically Western. How do you explain that discrepancy?
Exactly, the central finding of my recent article is that major global IOs are far less visible in the media of Western states than in low-income countries – countries that are often located in the Global South. A key reason for this lies in the low tangibility of the work of IOs in the West.
I like to see the situation through the eyes of the average media consumer, a person who may not be very interested in foreign affairs or politics. For that person located in Western states and high-income states in general, a lot of what IOs do is distant and abstract –in short, intangible. When this individual comes across IOs in local media outlets, it is likely to be in the context of specific international crises, summits on difficult-to-comprehend transnational challenges, or speeches from world leaders during the annual UN General Debate. However, this person is unlikely to come into contact with news stories about the everyday work of the IOs or their ongoing projects in his or her own city or country. The reason: Most global IOs do not carry out the kinds of tangible work in economically advanced countries which their citizens could immediately connect with their daily life.
In low-income states, the picture is very different. Most major global IOs perform the bulk of their operational activity in low-income countries. In these locations, IOs implement large-scale, often development-focused programmes on the ground, employ many local experts, and spend money on materially visible projects. These activities are quite tangible, concrete, immediate – and thus directly relevant to the average person’s life. This difference in the types of work that IOs carry out in much of the Global South, as compared to in high-income states in the Global North, explains why news media coverage of IOs is much more prevalent in the former than in the latter.
What are the implications of your findings for how we think about and understand the public image of international organisations in different parts of the world?
While the effects may not be immediate, the relative intangibility of IOs in the West will have major implications down the road. Indeed, IOs’ visibility does not reflect a short-term challenge, but rather the long-term, structural issues that IOs face. Around the world, the public hears about IOs as sources of information and expertise, as well as in the context of what happens at IO headquarters – e.g., discussions around global issues and conflicts. The real difference in reporting on IOs comes down to the coverage of IOs’ local, tangible activities – programmes which are prominent in developing countries in the Global South and rare in the West.
My analysis cannot say conclusively whether the discussion of IOs in low-income states is positive, neutral or perhaps even negative in tone. Surely, the implementation work of the UN and other IOs can be criticized for a host of reasons in the receiving countries as well. Future research on the content of reporting on IOs will be crucial for understanding whether this news media coverage is positive or negative. However, my findings do reveal that the news coverage of IOs in the West is markedly poor when it comes to reporting on the everyday work of IOs and the tangible results stemming from the taxpayer’s money. The connection between IO spending and the public good is a message that does not make it to Western audience as much as it should.
In the long-term, this lack of coverage makes IOs vulnerable. Political authority rests on the ‘reservoirs of confidence’ accumulated by those political bodies leading the charge. These reservoirs only fill up over time if the public becomes accustomed to the IOs’ authority and understands its purpose – and thus appreciate the benefits that the IO brings. However, when people lack information about an important aspect of the IOs’ work and the concrete goals it helps deliver, their attitude towards the IO will turn more critical. Under these conditions, IOs’ perceived democratic legitimacy may well be questioned.
With your research in mind, how can international organisations better leverage the media to promote multilateral action? What can they do to combat their image as “distant” or “out of touch”?
IOs are in a difficult situation here. The intuitive answer to the challenges I identify would be for IOs to concentrate on the human face of their work – in other words, to focus their West-facing PR efforts on the tangible work they carry out in low-development states. You can see this playing out in many IOs’ PR campaigns on social media, showcasing their very concrete work with an often deeply emotional undertone. While I do not think this strategy is wrong, it also does not solve the underlying problem of relatability. In the long-term, IOs must be able to explain to audiences in the West what work they do for Western audiences themselves – not ‘only’ for those in poorer or crisis-ridden regions in the Global South.
The central problem I see going forward is that IOs may increasingly be seen as irrelevant and therefore not worthy of media attention in the West.
The COVID-19 pandemic provides a pertinent example of how global IOs can become highly tangible. Under usual circumstances, the WHO is far more media-visible in low-income countries than in high-income states. My new data shows that early into the pandemic, this difference completely disappeared as the WHO was suddenly perceived as equally relevant for all states. The WHO may have been heavily criticized in some circles, but at least in the early stages of the pandemic, the organisation was perceived as a highly relevant source of unique information in countries both rich and poor.
The central problem I see going forward is that IOs may increasingly be seen as irrelevant and therefore not worthy of media attention in the West. This is an important warning sign. Flying under the radar may be more comfortable for IOs’ work in the short-term, but it renders them vulnerable in the long-term. The difficulty in fighting this phenomenon is that IOs do not carry out much of their tangible work in high-income states, and explaining their more abstract, long-term contribution to the public in media-attractive terms is incredibly difficult. And to be blunt: Better leveraging the media may prove close to impossible, precisely because the nature of IOs’ contribution in the West isn’t considered ‘news-worthy’.
This blog post is based on a longer article published in “The Review of International Organizations” on 30 May 2024. Michal Parizek is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Charles University and leads ENSURED’s Trade and Inequality work package.
You can also find content from ENSURED's Expert Blog on the Global Policy website.
Photo: UN Women / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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