8.1: Introduction

On September 11, 2001, Afghanistan’s media sphere was one of the sparsest in the world. Few newspapers had survived the previous half-decade of Taliban rule, during which the nation devolved into a “country without news or pictures,” according to Reporters Without Borders.¹ A single radio station, Radio Sharia, was in operation—the lone remnant of a bygone Soviet era marked by relatively sophisticated, if centrally controlled, broadcasting practices. According to the architects of the American-led invasion that would ultimately overthrow the Taliban regime, this lack of media was not only a symptom of totalitarianism but also a cause. Free media, argued President George W. Bush during a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy in 2003, was a central pillar of “successful societies” that rejected terrorism, engaged productively with the international system, and respected the rights of all people, especially women.² To “fix” Afghanistan would be, in part, to fix Afghan media.

Accordingly, America’s war on terror brought an unprecedented level of media intervention into Afghanistan. As early as November 2001, just weeks after the start of the invasion, American media consultants were in Kabul, laying the groundwork for a hybridized public-private broadcasting system that would flourish, at least numerically, in the years to come. Today, Afghanistan’s media market is as crowded as it was once barren. Countless television stations compete for viewer attention, ranging from the megalith Tolo TV, backed by the United States and co-owned by Newscorp, to the dozens of tiny outlets owned by local politicians, businessmen, and warlords. Bolstered by both direct American investment and a local economy supported by international aid, Afghan’s media system today appears not only vibrant but in many ways progressive. Minority cultural groups and women are represented on screen in a fashion that only years ago would have seemed impossible. It is also now commonplace to find women in key production positions, a phenomenon unseen in Afghanistan in the years between the end of Soviet control and the arrival of NATO forces in 2001.

This chapter details the ways Western media intervention in Afghanistan has aimed to foster cultural and economic environments that encourage female media participation, as well as the significant costs and limitations that have come with it. Drawing upon a five-week research trip to Kabul as well as extensive documentary research and personal communications over several years, I aim to move beyond the sweeping ideological accusations of critics to understand the specific gender dynamics that have emerged in the world of Western-funded Afghan media production. In doing so, I argue that Western efforts to bolster Afghan broadcasting have resulted in a limited but identifiable success with regard to greater female participation in the mediasphere. Noting the differences in gendered media labor between the nonprofit and commercial spheres, I foreground the intersection of economics and culture that complicates these two approaches to media assistance. I argue, however, that both approaches have fostered a sense of precariousness in the lives and careers of all media workers, with particular instability affecting women.