敘利亞的媒體戰爭(三)／朱弘川編譯

That month, he moved all his close family members out of Syria, realizing that they would be used as leverage against him. Fearing the government would prevent their exit, he passed instructions through an intermediary: Leave at night, he advised, adding that they should tell border guards they were going on a short trip to attend a family wedding. Once out of Syria, his parents and siblings scattered between Dubai, Jordan, and Europe. By the end of that month, the phone calls from Assad’s government stopped, and the regime turned to more direct attacks.

就在那個月，Aboud把所有親近的家族成員都移出敘利亞，因為他知道敘利亞政府會將這些親人當做籌碼來威脅他。Aboud擔心政府會阻止他的親人離開敘利亞，他還透過中間人去指導親人們如何離開敘利亞：趁晚上時離開，並告訴邊界的衛兵，他們是要去參加親人的婚禮。一旦出了敘利亞，他的父母及兄弟姊妹都分散到各地，像是杜拜、約旦和歐洲等。在那個月底，Assad政府已經停止打電話給他，取而代之的是直接的攻擊。

FIFTEEN YEARS BEFORE ANYONE had heard of the Arab Spring, the media was getting its first taste of complicity in mass atrocities in Africa’s Great Lakes region. On the dense mountain hillsides of Rwanda, nationalist channel Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines laid the groundwork for a Hutu-led genocide of Tutsis. In early 1994, Canadian Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, at the time commander of the UN assistance mission in the country, warned his superiors of rising ethnic tensions. He started hearing broadcasts denouncing Tutsis as “cockroaches” ripe for extermination. That April, a torrent of violence ripped through Rwanda, leaving some 800,000 dead. “The local media… were literally part of the genocide,” Dallaire would later　write. “The haunting image of killers with a machete in one hand and a radio in the other never leaves you.”

早在15年前，阿拉伯之春都還沒發生時，媒體就已首次嘗試到在非洲大湖（Great Lakes）地區與政府共謀發動大規模殘暴行動。在盧安達人口密集的山丘上，國家主義電台Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines為後來胡圖族政府軍大屠殺圖西族（Tutsis），埋下了一顆不定時炸彈。在1994年初，當時為聯合國駐當地的指揮官—加拿大籍Romeo Dallaire將軍，就曾警告過他的上司要注意種族之間高漲的緊張情緒，因為他耳聞電視台不斷的譴責圖西族是群該消滅的「蟑螂」。同年4月，一連串暴力行為襲捲盧安達，造成80多萬人死亡。「當地媒體，就是造成種族滅絕的共謀」，Dallaire後來寫道。「一邊是拿著大刀殺戮的劊子手，另一邊是收音機不斷的在你腦中環繞。」

Rwanda cast a shadow on the media in conflict, prompting calls for early warning systems to monitor hate speech. But little changed, and when Syria’s uprising began, researchers working with Dallaire, now distinguished senior fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, were watching nervously. “There was a lot of hope about the possibility of media and what they could do by reporting what was happening,” the institute’s media monitoring project manager, Marie Lamensch, recalls. Within days, what she saw quashed her optimism. First, she began to notice that state broadcasters were using dangerous speech, a term honed in Rwanda to describe borderline incitement. Soon, no one was making any pretenses anymore. Syrian government media actively called for opponents to be crushed. “Obviously that kind of discourse aggravated the conflict,” Lamensch says. “That kind of hateful language basically forces you to choose a side.”

盧安達事件讓媒體在衝突事件上留下陰影，也興起了預警系統來監控仇恨言論的想法。但這只起了一點點作用，當敘利亞的革命開始，一些早期與Dallaire工作過的研究員們—現今在蒙特婁研究機構裡從事種族滅絕與人權研究（Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies）的資深研究員們，都非常緊張地看待這件事。「大家對於媒體的可能性，和媒體藉由報導發生的事件所造成影響，仍抱有很大的期望」，機構的媒體監控專案經理Marie Lamensch回憶著。但不到幾天內，她所看到的事情就粉碎了她那天真的想法。起初，她注意到國營電視台使用「危險的字眼」，描述在盧安達事件上邊界的煽動。很快地，已經沒有人想再掩飾什麼了。敘利亞政府的媒體要求這些反對者都要被摧毀。「明顯地這種論述加快了衝突」，Lamensch說，「那種仇恨的用語，基本上會強迫你選邊站。」

In Syria, it wasn’t radios but smartphones that fighters carried. In the early days of the uprising, new media activists had focused on projecting Syria’s crisis to the outside world, hoping for the sort of intervention Western states had undertaken in Libya, where the UN authorized a no-fly zone. Yet as more and more Syrians started filming and tweeting, something unexpected happened: their audiences shrank. By June 2011, “social media increasingly focused inward on local and identity-based communities,” according to the USIP study, which analyzed the output of thousands of online accounts. The proliferation of information sources—once hailed as a sort of equalizing force—now facilitated the compartmentalization of viewpoints.

在敘利亞，這些戰士們手裡拿的不是無線電，而是智慧型手機，在革命初期，新的媒體行動者，著重在對外凸顯敘利亞的危機，希望能像2011年時，多國武裝干涉利比亞，幫助脫離格達費（al-Gaddafi）統治一樣。的確，越來越多的敘利亞民眾開始拍攝影像及發推文，但沒料到的是：觀眾變少了。到了2011年6月時，根據分析上千筆線上帳號的USIP研究指出，「社群媒體大幅度集中在報導當地及族群認同的新聞」。消息來源的增加，曾經被視為平衡不同觀點的力量，現在則加速了觀點的分化。

Fragmentation in the information war happened in step with splits emerging on the ground. Citizen journalists behind one group’s battle lines became targets from the other side, as Orient TV soon saw firsthand. Just two months into the uprising, the channel lost its first correspondent to regime sniper fire. Soon, stories started to circulate of families caught watching the station being arrested by government troops. Orient TV warned correspondents what they were signing up for, and included hostile environments awareness in some of their training. Still, Aboud admits, “their safety depends on God. We can’t do anything about it.” In Dubai, the media mogul forbade his children from walking alone; trusted drivers would shuttle them around.

資訊戰的分裂特性，和目前發生實際情形是若合符節的。公民記者無論站在哪一方，都會成為另一方的目標，就像Orient TV所經歷的一樣。就在革命後的兩個月，電視台失去了他們首位特派記者：死於狙擊手下。過沒多久，事件的發展始終圍繞在家族和電視台的員工被政府軍隊逮捕上。Orient TV提醒這些特派員別忘了曾受過的訓練，還要注意自身的安全。儘管如此，Aboud承認，「這些記者的安危還是得看上天決定，我們束手無策」。在杜拜，這位媒體大亨禁止他的小孩們單獨走在路上，只能靠信任的司機載他們到處逛逛。

The brutality of the regime’s initial crackdown—including against the station—left no doubt in Aboud’s and his team’s minds about supporting the emerging rebellion. Opposition supporters had begun to organize ragtag military resistance to the government, and defected army generals announced the creation of a “Free Syrian Army.” Soon, a menagerie of Islamist groups began soliciting aid and arms. The growing opposition was dominated by Sunnis, and regime attacks tended to hit their neighborhoods hardest. “The regime started a policy to attack only the Sunnis,” argues Abdulrahim, Orient TV’s editor in chief. “That’s why I was sure this would end in civil war, because when they directed attacks at the Sunnis, it led to creating a Sunni identity …such that now even people who are not religious, they would talk about themselves as Sunni.”

殘暴的政權開始鎮壓，也打擊電視台，這讓Aboud和他的團隊決定要支持新崛起的反對派。反對派的支持者開始組織雜牌軍來對抗政府，這支軍隊的將軍宣告要創造一個「自由派的敘利亞軍隊」。很快地，這一群伊斯蘭主義者所組成的雜牌軍，開始對外尋求援助力量。這逐漸壯大的反對派是由遜尼派所統治，而政府的也擬定相開對策，針對遜尼派集中火力攻擊，Orient TV的主編Abdulrahim認為，「這就是為什麼我認為一切都會在內戰中結束，因為當他們炮口對準遜尼派時，這將會使遜尼派更出名，像現今一些根本沒宗教信仰的人，也會說自己是遜尼派。」

That persecuted group of Sunni revolutionaries, known as thuwwar, became the station’s key subject and audience. Orient TV covered the growing opposition to Assad, profiled martyrs, applauded defectors, and rallied around the “demands of the Syrian people.” The channel denies directing coverage toward any one particular side. “We try to give pro-regime voices a chance to speak,” Abdulrahim says. “But they refuse most of the time.”

那些遭受迫害的遜尼派革命團體，像是為人所知的thuwwar，變成了電台的主要報導題材及觀眾。Orient TV報導那些反對Assad的人士和那些殉難者，向那些反叛者致敬，及重新整合「敘利亞人民的需求」。電視台否認他們有偏袒哪一方，「我們試著給政府一個辯白的機會」，Abdulrahim說。「但他們總是拒絕。」

As the conflict deepened, both traditional and new media coverage increasingly reflected their audiences. Orient TV had its niche. But so did Salafi station Al Wesal TV, which spoke to a Saudi-supported Islamist perspective. Qatar-based Al Jazeera Arabic trumpeted Jabhat al-Nusra, an al Qaeda-aligned rebel movement. Kuwaiti Islamist clerics formed their own social media universe, advocating donations to a small cohort of militias. Meanwhile, the Beirut-based Al Mayadeen lauded the Assad government and Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, which entered the conflict in support of the regime in the spring of 2012.

當衝突逐漸升溫時，傳統媒體及新媒體的影響力，也逐漸反映在它們的支持者上。Orient TV有它自己的市場，但Salafi的Al Wesal TV也一樣—一個以支持沙烏地阿拉伯伊斯蘭教的電視台。卡達（Qatar）的Al Jazeera Arabic電台極力替與蓋達（al Qaeda）反對方站同陣線的努斯拉（al-Nusra）宣傳。科威特的伊斯蘭教神職人員，創立他們自己的社群媒體，來倡導捐款給小型軍隊。同時間，貝魯特（黎巴嫩首都）的Al Mayadeen電台讚揚Assad政府，和黎巴嫩什葉派團體的真主黨—真主黨為了支持政府，而在2012年春天時加入這場混戰。

Viewership statistics show just how disparate audiences became. In 2014, a study by German nonprofit MiCT found that 22.1 percent of viewers in government-controlled areas named Al Mayadeen, the Beirut-based pro-government channel, as their most trusted source of news—over four times higher than in opposition-held zones. Orient TV gets most-trusted marks from 10 percent of opposition-area viewers, compared to just 2.3 percent in regime zones.

觀眾統計資料有了差異性變化。2014年，德國非營利性MiCT研究發現，在政府監

控的地區，有22.1%的觀眾最信任Al Mayadeen電台（比反對派的地區高出4倍）—這是個在貝魯特以政府為首的電台。Orient TV在反對派的地盤則得到10%的觀眾信任，比起其他統治地區只有2.3%的觀眾高出許多。

“Everyone is looking for sources of information that reinforce their views,” says Fadi Salem, researcher on Syria at Oxford University. “It’s easier not to consume balance. What they’re interested in is hearing about their victimization. The media is not there as a source of information … it’s more to fill an emotional need.”

「每個人都在尋找可以強化他們自己觀點的資訊來源」，牛津大學研究敘利亞的研究員Fadi Salem說道。「不需要客觀中立，人們更關心自身所處的困境。所以媒體不只是資訊的來源，它還能補充情感上的需求。」

Meanwhile, as Syrians readied for battle, each faction’s media began laying the groundwork: They needed to raise morale while crafting the image of an enemy who could be justly killed. It was the same tactic once employed in Rwanda, only now it was coming from all sides.

同時，當敘利亞人民準備好作戰時，不同立場的媒體也沒閒著：媒體在提振士氣的同時，也形塑出所殺之人可恨之處。這跟盧安達事件時用的策略一樣，只是現在不管哪一方都是用同樣的技巧。

On Orient TV, correspondents lumped together nearly all rebel groups fighting the government, calling them simply thuwwar, says Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a fellow at the Middle East Forum who studies Syrian social media. Such terminology glossed over internal divisions and painted a rosier picture of the war. Meanwhile, commentators on the channel sometimes portrayed enemies as gangs, infidels, and merciless killers. Aboud denounced regime supporters as an “alliance of minorities” set upon Sunni destruction. He has been quick to criticize　political opposition figures who have even hinted at the idea of dialogue with the government. Orient TV’s website carries a disclaimer saying that the opinions expressed there are not necessarily those of the company or its owners. In reality, though, commentators have shaped the channel’s brand and audience.

在Orient TV，通訊記者跟那些反叛團體其實也沒什麼分別，目的都是對抗政府。中東論壇（Middle East Forum）研究敘利亞社群媒體的Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi，稱這些通訊記者為 thuwwar，這種術語會被標示在內部，而且漆上玫瑰色的戰爭圖案。同時，電視台的評論員有時候會將敵人描述成幫派分子、異教徒及無情的殺手。Aboud譴責那些支持政府的人為「少數人民的同盟」，只會傷害遜尼派；也曾經批評反政府的人士在與政府對話時，說了一些不該說的話。Orient TV的網站發出免責聲明，認為這些想法並不代表公司或老闆。但實際上，這些播報員早已影響了電視台的形象和觀眾了。

Anti-government factions were hardly the first to draw battle lines. The government dubbed its opponents unbelievers, trying to stir strife. Ola Rifai, research fellow at the Centre for Syrian Studies at St. Andrews University, has documented the rhetoric in detail: On state radio stations such as Ninar FM and Sham FM, protesters were “khawna” (traitors) and “muta’miriyyn” (conspirators). Loyalists, meanwhile, were portrayed as upholding tradition, unity, and sovereignty.

反抗政府的派系幾乎都不是第一個開戰的，政府稱這些反抗者為異教徒，試圖引起紛爭。英國聖安德魯斯大學(St. Andrews University)專門研究敘利亞的研究員Ola Rifai紀錄下這些說詞：國營的廣播電台，像是Ninar FM 和 Sham FM，示威者就是「背叛者」（khawna）和「謀反者」（muta’miriyyn）。同時，忠誠的人就會被描述成支持傳統、團結及鞏固主權的人。

Name-calling is one thing when it stays on the airwaves or online. But every new militia—opposition and pro-government alike—saw the media as a vital weapon in any battle plan. They designated Web-savvy members to run Twitter and YouTube accounts, design snazzy logos, and choreograph videos, all aimed at a captive audience of recruits and supporters. Soon, they learned to leverage their target audiences to target their enemies.

在虛擬世界裡，要鬥倒敵人是很容易的。每一個新崛起的武裝部隊，不論是反對派或是支持政府派的，都視媒體為戰場上極重要的武器。他們找熟悉網路的人員經營Twitter和YouTube帳號、設計時髦的標誌及編排錄影節目，目的都是要控制招募到的新成員和支持者。沒過多久，他們了解到可以利用他們的目標觀眾，來鎖定他們的敵人。

Syria’s media war原文網址：http://www.cjr.org/analysis/syria_media_war.php

作者：Elizabeth Dickinson
編譯：朱弘川