The Emergence of the Pashto Service

This project examined the BBC Pashto Service since 1980, from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and since 9/11. Based on documents from the BBC Archive, the research analyses the difficulties that the BBC had in persuading the FCO that a Pashto channel separate from the Persian Service was necessary. It examines the current role of the Pashto Service within a dramatically changing media environment inside Afghanistan and asks what the role of the service is now and whom it addresses.

Project contact: 

Professor Annabelle Sreberny, SOAS, University of London, a.sreberny@soas.ac.uk, 020 7898 4422

Project members: 

• Prof Annabelle Sreberny is the Director of the Centre for Media and Film Studies, SOAS and coordinator of Diasporic Nationhood. She spent seven weeks in Tehran in autumn 2008. She has conducted interviews about the use of BBC WS and other external broadcasting channels.

  Dr Massoumeh Torfeh is a former BBC World Service senior producer, now a Research Associate at the Centre for Media and Film Studies, SOAS. She has worked on histories of BBC Persian and Pashto language services, and on papers released in January 2009 that relate to the BBC and the Iranian Revolution.

Core theme reference: 

• Diasporic Nationhood