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Barack Obama´s 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was based on "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples". Media Tenor´s analysis of President Obama´s image on foreign policy shows that this is truly the case when it comes to Obama´s image in world media markets – but with one big exception – inside the US.

Outside America Obama´s the balance in negative and positive reporting is very strongly tilted towards the positive with between around 15% positive reporting in the Middle East and Western Europe and close to 40% positive in the Middle East. As Media Tenor CEO Roland Schatz puts it, “The high positive news flow from Obama outside the US is really helping to correct negative perceptions of Americans. As our work with the C1 foundation has shown, it is easy for the media to create negative perceptions of other cultures and religions – with Obama our data show an American President working to create positives”.

Obama´s greatest strength in foreign media, is exactly the same strength which led the Nobel Prize committee to its decision – foreign affairs. In Middle Eastern, African and Western European media markets Obama´s image is driven by between 40-65% of all volume on issues relating to foreign policy with correspondingly high ratings for the president in those media markets,

Yet Obama´s image ha developed a significant downside – his own domestic media market. In US TV news, Obama suffers a negative balanced rating for the year 2009. The failure of his healthcare reforms, the inevitable backlash on the administration over high unemployment and the ongoing financial instability in the wake of the financial crisis have given the US media plenty of ammunition against the President. In the US where Obama´s overall media rating is around 25% negative – he also rates negatively on foreign affairs.

Media Tenor´s analysis shows that the vast majority of Obama´s negative foreign affairs news still comes from the two wars in the Middle East – with Afghanistan occupying the majority of that negativity. This presents an interesting challenge to a Nobel Prize recipient who is currently lauded abroad for changing the direction of international perception and fostering peace – but suffering at home due to two occupational wars.

The Nobel Prize committee addressed concerns about this award coming so early in the Presidency by stating, "It was because we would like to support what he is trying to achieve". However, as there are so little few tangible results from the President´s work, the question may need to be raised as to whether there may be a future backlash against the award .

Media Tenor´s analysis of 39 international TV news media in markets as diverse as Turkey, South Africa, Switzerland the Pan Arab Satellite networks, and the US was one of the core research component s of this year´s C1 foundation Annual dialogue Report on Religion and values. The report, launched earlier this year brings together leaders from a broad range of political, religious, scientific and business backgrounds to investigate ways of encouraging dialogue and progress in interreligious dialogue.

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