The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars at the University of Southern California last week launched their twice-yearly magazine. Titled simply “PD”, the website is http://publicdiplomacymagazine.com/, it is edited by graduate students and published with the support of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and the USC School for International Relations.
According to the website, the publication will “address the challenges and issues of public diplomacy, not only for the United States, but wherever it is relevant in the world.”
Debuting with some serious names (table of contents is below the fold), we hope the magazine remains strong through its second and third issues and beyond.
Calling it a magazine is a bit of stretch considering its publishing schedule, but I know from when we tried to launch the same thing a couple of years ago at USC, there was significant (fatal) resistance to calling it a journal (and we were pushing for 3-4 times a year with classifieds, event calendar, etc.).
This is the only game in town outside of web-only fora for serious public diplomacy articles. The slow production cycle in many ways means the publication is much more like a journal as it means less dynamic and less time-sensitive articles. I’ve already heard from several who wished this wasn’t a semi-annual because they wanted to publish articles but couldn’t wait.
It will be interesting to see the articles in the the next issues as interpretations of public diplomacy by the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars and the Center on Public Diplomacy will certainly dictate what is published.
The inaugural issue, themed New President. New Public Diplomacy? features:
- Memos To Obama: Professor Nicholas J. Cull, Kristin Lord of the Brookings Institution, Helle Dale of the Heritage Foundation, and the Internews Network present their agendas for this new century of American public diplomacy
- Benjamin Barber ponders which version of America’s brand image will win out in the Obama Era
- Ambassador Edward Djerejian reports again: Five years on, what’s changed in American public diplomacy?
- James K. Glassman evaluates his tenure at State, discussing what structures have been put in place and his thoughts on the “war of ideas”
- Public Diplomacy in Practice: An ongoing feature that breaks down the mechanics of public diplomacy. What works in the Field?
- Case Study: Beijing Olympics: Did the 2008 Games advance China’s public diplomacy goals
- In Print: reviews of new books on public diplomacy
- New Developments in Public Diplomacy: a roundup of latest trends and events
- Nancy Snow considers the challenge of managing “Brand Obama”
Go to the magazine here.
