Here Helps the Marshall Plan, not ‘Courtesy Of’ (Source: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-20671-0014 / CC-BY-SA)
On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall delivered a “routine commencement speech” at Harvard University. The only pomp and circumstance was for the graduates and the lone reporter in the crowd was there only because of a friend. It was, however, a speech that changed history as the retired General of the Army proposed a program for Europe based on building local economic strength, governance, and self-confidence. Continue reading “Certain Aspects of the European Recovery Problem from the U.S. Standpoint “→
Cover page for USIS daily news bulletin from Sep 1945
There was a time before USIA when the U.S. Government practiced what we now call public diplomacy. This period is often forgotten or ignored. For too many, the history of U.S. public diplomacy begins with the establishment of the United States Information Agency, or USIA. However, it did not and pretending it did start with USIA not only misrepresents the past and subsequent trajectories, but it is also a disservice to those who worked hard to establish peacetime public diplomacy.
Sardonic? Ironic? Satire? Which word best fits the the lack of serious debate over the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act and the realities for which public diplomacy and international broadcasting are required and operate? See my post at the Public Diplomacy Council about this.
What is it about U.S. public diplomacy that we must hide it from Americans? Is it so abhorrent that it would embarrass the taxpayer, upset the Congress (which has surprisingly little additional insight on the details of public diplomacy), or upend our democracy? Of our international broadcasting, such as the Voice of America, do we fear the content to be so persuasive and compelling that we dare not permit the American media, academia, nor the Congress, let alone the mere layperson, to have the right over oversight to hold accountable their government? [Read the rest here]
Courtesy of Bruce Gregory, Professor of Media and Public Affairs, here is the latest update on resources that may be of general interest for teachers, students, and practitioners of public diplomacy and related courses and activities. Suggestions for future updates are welcome.
Last week, Representatives Mac Thornberry (R-TX) and Adam Smith (D-WA) introduced a bill to amend the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948 to “authorize the domestic dissemination of information and material about the United States intended primarily for foreign audiences, and for other purposes.” The bill, H.R.5736 — Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 (Introduced in House – IH), removes the prohibition on public diplomacy material from being available to people within the United States and thus eliminates an artificial handicap to U.S. global engagement while creating domestic awareness of international affairs and oversight and accountability of the same. This bill also specifies Smith-Mundt only applies to the Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, eliminating an ambiguity creatively over the last three decades.
For well more than a decade, Korea experts who specialize in international media have been examining the impact of foreign broadcasts and DVDs on users in North Korea. They have done so through a combination of in-country surveys and debriefings of defectors from North Korea, refugees and travelers abroad. In annual reports, Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders invariably have ranked that country as having the “least free” media in the world. Yet the curtain of near total silence appears to be opening as never before in North Korea.
2012 PDAA Awards Recognize Public Diplomacy Excellence
The Public Diplomacy Alumni Association, formerly the USIA Alumni Association, gave its 2012 achievement awards to U.S. public diplomacy professionals working in Zimbabwe, Okinawa, and Washington, DC. The announcement is below.
A high level conference on public diplomacy and China’s reputation in the world will take place in Beijing later this month. The event is co-sponsored by the Charhar Institute, China’s primary public diplomacy “tthink tank”, the Clingendael Institute of the Netherlands, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the China-Europe Academic Network (CEAN). The title theme is “Geo-cultural Perspectives on Public Diplomacy – Trialogue among Chinese, European, and American Scholars.”
The forum brings together a mixed group of leading Chinese and international scholars, think-tankers, and practitioners to discuss a geo-cultural perspective on public diplomacy based on a China-Europe-US-Dialogue.
The event starts on May 19 at 9am (Beijing time) and will end at 4:30pm. I am not aware of any webcast or transcription, but I will share what I can after the event.
The conference opens with three 30min keynotes, including one by me:
Zhao Qizheng: The Future of China’s Public Diplomacy
Matt Armstrong: The Learning Curve of US Public Diplomacy
Amb. Markus Ederer: The Potential of Public Diplomacy in China-EU Relations
Zhao Qizheng is the Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Peoples Political Consultative Conerence and Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University. Amb. Markus Ederer is the EU Ambassador to China.
An hour-long “dialogue with journalists” follows the keynote. The second session of the day is “Debating China’s Public Diplomacy” with panelists speaking for 10min each. Tentative topics include “Is there a China model for public diplomacy?” and “What can China’s public diplomacy towards Pakistan tell us?”
The third session will be chaired by Clingendael’s Jan Melissen. Panelists, again with 10min each, include Phil Seib of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, Ronald Gratz, Wang Jay, and Ingrid d’Hooghe.
What would you highlight as positive examples of U.S. public diplomacy over the past ten years?
What if you put neuroscientists, social scientists, conflict resolution experts, and diplomats together in a room? Is there something to the “human dimension” of conflict that the science of the brain can inform the art of conflict resolution and mitigation? The Project on Justice in Times of Transition, in partnership with the SaxeLab at MIT, launched the initiative “Neuroscience and Social Conflict: Identifying New Approaches for the 21st Century” to find out.
The first meeting was February 9-11, 2012, at MIT in Boston. PJTT and SaxeLab brought together a high-level group of experienced leaders from the Middle East, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Central America with conflict conflict resolution experts, social psychologists, and leading neuroscientists to survey the latest findings in neuroscience and brain research to brainstorm and exchange ideas for addressing conflict.
I attended the February meeting and it was an eye-opening few days that started early and continued over dinner into the night. The presentations were honest, devoid of grandiose assertions of magic bullets, and each were followed by collegial discussions fueled by fresh questions and ideas.
Rebecca Saxe, the Director of SaxeLab, highlighted some of the general assumptions most scientists looking at conflict and conflict resolution share:
People respond to conflict as human beings and there is some generalized experience that can be captured
Behaviors can reflect emotions, associations, norms, and narratives that are not accessible through cognition or introspection
People resist changing their minds and simple persuasion is almost never sufficient to make them change
The science presentations shared research on how particular parts of the brain were involved with specific behavior and emotions, such as fear. Discussions included the role of humiliation in perpetuating war, motivations for “prosocial” and empathetic behavior, group norms, among others.
The acknowledged drawback of some of the existing scientific research is the “normal” person for much of the brain imaging is an MIT student, which all acknowledged is not a true representation. The scientists were eager for advice on how to modify their experiments to test on relevant questions, topics, and people.
The first meeting left all of the participants more interested than when the meeting started. Follow up ideas include:
Convening a second meeting to inventory key areas of research relevant to conflict resolution
Studying specific conflict resolution approaches to test assumptions underlying various established methodologies
Exposing leading neuroscientists to active conflict resolution and negotiation situations
Generate opportunities for concrete research on perpetrators of violence who have been de-radicalized [see Google Ideas’ “Formers” project]
Evaluating the impact of social media-based public diplomacy efforts
Create a multi-disciplinary study and research program that investigates core questions related to conflict resolution
This effort continues with a working group, which I am a part of, to help guide the initiative forward. The working group includes:
Matt Armstrong, former Executive Director, U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
Eileen Babbitt, Fletcher School of Law and Public Diplomacy, Tufts University
Dan Batson, Professor of Social Psychology, Kansas University
Kim Brizzolara, feature film and documentary producer
Emile Bruneau, Researcher, SaxeLab, MIT
Betsy Levy Paluck, Professor of Psychology, Princeton University
Mohammed Milad, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry
Tim Phillips, Co-founder, Project on Justice in Times of Transition
Lee Ross, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University
Rebecca Saxe, Professor Cognitive Neuroscience; Director, SaxeLab, MIT
Gary Slutkin, Executive Director, CeaseFire
Jessica Stern, former member of President Clinton’s National Security Council staff
It has long been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what words to which people? The pixels or streaks of paint of an image is the only commonality shared by different audiences. The context in which they are received and interpreted matters. Beyond the intended framing, including words or other images, personal and shared history, language, current or developing narratives, and other inputs, both direct and indirect, all matter in the impact of a picture.
On March 16, 2012, Georgia State University, in conjunction with the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College, convened a conference entitled Visual Propaganda and Online Radicalization. This public event followed two days of working meetings between the conference’s speakers and others from a variety of disciplines to better understand the role of images, still and moving, in recruiting, radicalizing, and mobilizing support. Also discussed was the possibility of over-analyzing images.
Conference day presentations are available here. Speakers included David Perlmutter, Scott Ruston, Anne Stenersen, Carol Winkler, Hussein Amin, Saeid Belkasim, Cori Dauber, Doug Jordan, Jad Melki, Shawn Powers, and me, Matt Armstrong.
My presentation was “Now Media, Identity, & the Marketplace for Loyalty.” Video of my part of the conference, which was a quick 15min, is here. This presentation will be more fleshed out elsewhere, including a book chapter Shawn Powers and I are writing presently named “From Nation-State to Nations-State: Conceptualizing Radicalization in the Marketplace for Loyalties.”
In the case of over-analysis, there was an interesting discussion on the use of fancy Islamic calligraphy in logos or brands of insurgent or terrorist groups. The meaning of these texts were analyzed but elder native Arab speakers from and living in the Middle East dismissed some of the conclusions. The contention was the youth cannot read the script or don’t bother to read it. The result is the calligraphy is better interpreted as a picture rather than text. The meaning is derived from the appearance of the image framing the logo as religious, Arab, or something else based on its similarity to other script, or all of the above.
The product of the working meetings will be book from the Strategic Studies Institute on visual propaganda.
If you have not seen the Proctor & Gamble marketing campaign entitled “Thank you, Mom“, you really should. An Olympic Partner for London 2012, the campaign will run for these last 100 days before the start of the summer games. It is the largest campaign in P&G’s 174-year history.
The campaign launched with the digital release of the short film “Best Job,” a moving celebration of mom’s raising great kids and Olympians, according to a press release. The video was shot on four continents with local actors and athletes from each location — London, Rio de Janeiro, Los Angeles and Beijing — and will be found online, across social media, TV, and print.*
How might the State Department produce similar vignettes that could translate policy initiatives including women’s issues, empowering young people, and other democracy and civil society issues?
The Bureau of International Information Programs has both the technical capacity, including a HD studio and post production suite, and the creative capacity. Madison Avenue agencies (both literal and figurative) would be willing to help, as private discussions have raised and previous efforts demonstrate. This partnership would not be unusual as there is established, if perhaps forgotten, precedent that extends at least to 1951, before the USIA was established, in the form of both formal and informal advisory relationships.
Such cross-cultural outreach like this P&G campaign that supports and praises moms would likely enjoy the support of senior leadership in DC and the field. It would likely have traction with Ambassador moms and Ambassador wives. The vignettes would have a ready audience to the growing number of Facebook friends of the various State Department sites, many of which need content.
What do you think?
*Does this make the ad “old media” or “new media”? Try “now media”…
UNESCO’s Declaration of Human Rights, held by Eleanor Roosevelt
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, was established over six decades ago to be the public diplomacy organization of the West, countering the influences and false promises of Communism. Last year, the U.S. cut its funding to UNESCO resulting in a severe budget shortfall and program elimination by the agency. Defense News reports that immediately after the U.S. cut, China stepped in with “a first-time $8 million funding for the U.N. agency’s education program, while Qatar chipped in $20 million.”
The State Department’s “Smart Power” policy relies on UNESCO as a partner and facilitator for informing, engaging, and empowering people around the world, particularly in difficult places often low on the list of priorities. Today, UNESCO has a role as an anti-extremist organization through developing civilian capacity and self-governance. This mission fits in with and compliments the Departments efforts found mostly in the ever-expanding and increasingly central Office of the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights.
It is unlikely the timing of the Chinese and Qatari contributions are coincidental. Rather, they are surely taking the opportunity to gain influence with the U.S. withdrawal. Last month, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice testified to Congress that a “loss of U.S. clout is the price for axing funding.”
Almost exactly sixty-six years ago today, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs William Benton also urged the House Foreign Affairs Committee to support the then-proposed international agency. The State Department was vigorously supporting UNESCO. Some in the Department even suggested the U.S. should drop the idea of establishing a cultural and affairs office, then being debated, in favor of relying on UNESCO.
At the Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Benton presented a statement from Secretary of State James Byrnes that UNESCO was designed to carry out recommendations of the President and others for an agency “for consistent and thorough interchange of thought and ideas.” Benton listed three basic purposes of UNESCO:
Stimulate the use of the media for mass communication to advance mutual knowledge and wide true understanding among the peoples of the world;
Encourage schools and other educational institutions to build “defenses of peace” in the minds of children as well as adults; and,
Cooperate in the growth and sharing of useful knowledge to the peoples of the world may strive together for a better life.
Today, the concept UNESCO appears to have completed a circle, moving away from the radical opposition of the past. Once again, it is poised to have an important role in the struggle for minds and wills.
But with the U.S. withdrawal, the need to engage and empower people, and build more secure regions, has not gone away. Neither has the need to have other actors do the work. Are we safe in the implicit assumption that China and Qatar will support America’s interests?
Thoughts?
(Note: a research paper on how UNESCO was transformed from supporting anti-communism to support communism might be interesting for public diplomacy. Did the East “capture” UNESCO due to poor strategy, possibly of focusing on governments rather than people? Are there lessons to be learned today?)
The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at USC has their annual conference tomorrow, April 6, 2012. The conference will provide a discussion on new technologies and emerging actors in the amorphous “thing” sometimes called public diplomacy.
The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars invites you to join the discussion, with a half day of panels and speakers from around the world. The conference will feature an opening address by Dr. Nicholas J. Cull, director of the Master’s of Public Diplomacy program at USC, and keynote speaker Ben Hammersley, the U.K. prime minister’s ambassador to East London TechCity. We will also have panelists from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, United Nations Global Pulse, Facebook, Carleton University, the South East European Film Festival, the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles, and the Brazilian Consulate in Los Angeles.
Attendance to the conference is free, but you are requested to RSVP with the USC Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars by going to this RSVP link.
The phrase “public diplomacy” is variously viewed as a concept, a bureaucracy, and/or a practice. The community craves to see the word “diplomacy” follow the word “public” and debates when the phrase does and does not appear. Is it something defined by the objective, as Betty Hanson eloquently asked this week? Is it defined by means, by the actor? Is the term “public diplomacy” itself problematic and self-limiting, suggesting an adversarial bureaucratic relationship with other agencies, a use of the softest of “soft power” to “win hearts” and be “liked”, or activities that “influence” rather than merely “inform”, or all of the above?
Unfortunately, I will not be at the conference but I look forward to the discussions and hope the students press the opportunity to engage the uniquely qualified speakers beyond the soft and fuzzy.
By Brian Carlson The following originally appeared at the Public Diplomacy Council and is republished here with permission.
Tara Sonenshine was confirmed Thursday night by the Senate, and she will probably take office officially early this week. (She can be sworn in privately by some current official and begin work, even as a more formal ceremony is planned for a few weeks hence.)
It is a new beginning down at Foggy Bottom. Tara becomes only the seventh Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs since the job was created upon the merger of USIA into the Department in 1999.
It is a propitious time to consider what habits lead to success at the State Department, as well as what experience teaches about being the nation’s Olympic spear-catcher when they think we’re being out-communicated by some guy in a cave. Here are a few suggestions for how to succeed at this job, all gathered from my time working directly with five of the six previous Under Secretaries. (I had no contact with Margaret Tutwiler.)
There will be a healthy (and impressive) number of panels and roundtables at next week’s Annual Convention for the International Studies Association (ISA) in San Diego. These include: Understanding Public Diplomacy in Different Contexts: Issues of Culture, Science and Power; Public Diplomacy 2.0; Public Diplomacy and New Media in the Information Age; and others.
I’ll be at ISA Sunday through Tuesday. Besides attending various panels, I will be the discussant for one, “Winning Hearts an Minds in the Information Age.” This panel starts at 8:15a Tuesday, April 3, in the Hospitality Suite #1501. About the panel:
In the new information environment world leaders are finding that they must communicate—effectively—with multiple audiences. This panel considers the range of approaches governments are using to meet this public diplomacy imperative as well as the diverse objectives behind these efforts. Hayden provides a comparative framework for analyzing how various power mechanisms are adapted to fit specific strategic requirements. Hanson focuses on one particular new approach, the use of social media, of one country, India. The main target audiences are youth at home and abroad, and the primary objective is to provide vehicle for Indian soft power. Corman focuses on changes in the information and communication environment that require a reconceptualization of public diplomacy and a reformulation of policies. Finally, Cull considers emerging trends and provides recommendations for the conduct of public diplomacy in the new information environment.
The panel chair is Robin Brown (PD Networks). The panel discussant is your author. The panelists are:
Emily Metzgar: Building a Public Diplomacy Network: One JET at a Time
Craig Hayden: Audience, Mechanism, and Objective: A Comparative Framework for Soft Power Analysis
Betty Hanson: India Would Like to Be Your Friend: New Initiatives in Indian Public Diplomacy
Steve Corman: New Concepts of Audience for Public Diplomacy in the Information Age
Nick Cull: The Future: Tracking Forward Trends in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy
If you’re there, stop by.
To single one of the many fine discussions that will take place, “Public Diplomacy and Power: To What End?” should be interesting. Phil Seib chairs a discussion with Kathy Fitzpatrick, Ali Fisher, and Craig Hayden. Scene settings questions include:
If public diplomacy is viewed as an extension of power over others, then how does relationship building fit within such a construct?
What does power mean in a collaborative public diplomacy context?
What influence does the relative power of nation-states (or other international actors) have on cross-border relationship building?
What moral aspects should be considered in discussions of power in public diplomacy?
Do links between public diplomacy and power define (or mask) public diplomacy’s purpose and value to nations and other international actors, as well as to global society?
Congratulations to Tara Sonenshine, who was confirmed this evening to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs!
Also confirmed was Mike Hammer as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs (finally dropping “Acting” from his title).
Below is a list of all State Department.
Michael A. Hammer to be Assistant Secretary of State (Public Affairs)
Anne Claire Richard, of New York, to be an Assistant Secretary of State
Tara D. Sonenshine, of Maryland, to be Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, vice Judith A. McHale.
Robert E. Whitehead, of Florida, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Class of Minister-Counselor, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Togolese Republic.
Larry Leon Palmer, of Georgia to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Barbados, and to serve concurrently and without additional compensation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to St. Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Antigua and Barbuda, the Commonwealth of Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Jonathan Don Farrar, of California to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Panama.
Phyllis Marie Powers, of Virginia to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to Republic of Nicaragua.
Nancy J. Powell, of Iowa, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign Service, Personal Rank of Career Ambassador, to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to India.
Frederick D. Barton, of Maine, to be an Assistant Secretary of State (Conflict and Stabilization Operations), vice Bradford R. Higgins.
For Tara, getting started requires waiting for the President to attest (certify) the confirmation, then swearing in (mostly like at the Department, possibly by Secretary Clinton but possibly Under Secretary Kennedy, unless she has a specific individual in mind), and then she’s off and running. She could start as early as Monday but Tuesday may be more likely. It largely depends on the White House’s ability to turn around the certification and get it to State.
Congratulations also goes to State’s public diplomacy, including the people, bureaucracy, the practice and the supporters. Having a strong leader like Tara confirmed for the job is long overdue.
One of the most important public diplomacy books you have never heard of is American Avatar: The United States in the Global Imagination by Barry Sanders. An adjunct professor of Communications Studies at UCLA, an international corporate lawyer, President of the Board of Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks, Barry provides a unique, fascinating, and worthwhile exploration of the opportunities and risks of American global engagement.
In American Avatar, Barry looks at narratives, their foundations and trajectories. “Now more than ever,” Barry writes, “foreign views of the United States also affects its national security.”
As a panelist at the November 2011 meeting of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, Barry explained that stories at the heart of everything: the study and practice of law, movies, group membership, and more.
Barry was in DC to discuss his book earlier this month. Watch this meeting and read a discussion here.
I recommend Barry’s book for students and practitioners of strategic communication and public diplomacy.
Public opinion has always had a major role in foreign policy and global affairs. Information flows, which help shape public opinion, are critical to the power of diplomacy, the ability of the military persuade and dissuade, and to the health of the economy, including trade. There is little argument that the United States Government lags in its ability to effectively understand, inform, engage, and empower people in the conduct of foreign affairs and across global affairs. The notable exception is domestic politics, but the role of public opinion appears to end at the water’s edge. Continue reading “SAGE: independent strategic communication for America “→
The mission of public diplomacy is generally described as seeking to “understand, engage, inform and influence” foreign publics and elites in support of national policy objectives. Public diplomacy has been practiced, in one form or another, for a long time – think Benjamin Franklin in France, charming the nobility to garner support for the American colonies in their struggle for independence. Its modern origins include the first broadcast of the Voice of America in February 1942 (VOA celebrates its 70th anniversary this spring) and the establishment of the Office of War Information in June of that year. Continue reading “A Call to Action on Public Diplomacy “→
