My information technology background (knowledge management to SEC compliance software) makes this story interesting to me. Without comment, here’s an article from a magazine I subscribed to long ago, InformationWeek:
Continue reading “Government Using BI Software To Measure Public Diplomacy
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Briefly, check out State’s Facebook page eliciting comments on Sean McCormack’s Virtual Briefing initiative. As of now, there’s nothing there, but I expect comments to start appearing. Several of us were on a teleconference last week to share our thoughts on this with Sean. Look for more sooner than later.
Related, see ExchangesConnect Online Video Contest:
Enter your 3-minute video about what "My Culture + Your Culture" means to you for a chance to win an international exchange program! The contest opens on December 1, 2008 and ends on January 26, 2009.
Also, see Assistant Secretary Goli Ameri upcoming (Jan 5) talk at UCLA titled The Challenges of U.S. Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century. Ameri leads the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA). Ameri recently
Briefly, from friend Steve Tatham (RN Commander and author), a view from the UK: Strategic Communication: A Primer:
Continue reading “From the UK: ‘Strategic Communication: A Primer’
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“The U.S. government needs to resurrect the nonviolent practice of "political warfare" and create an agency to manage it. … Mr. Obama’s administration could use as a model the British Political Warfare Executive, which rallied support for the Allied cause behind enemy lines during World War II, or the U.S. Information Agency, which helped network opponents of communism and undermine Moscow’s intellectual appeal during the Cold War.” – “Information Warfare Matters: We need to confront the jihadist ideology directly” by Christian Whiton and Kristofer Harrison, two State Department employees writing in Wall Street Journal Asia. This Op-Ed sounds a lot like the need to return to the fighting a psychological struggle for minds and wills with all means available. The authors are asking to return to core roots of what became known as public diplomacy. Makes the upcoming Smith-Mundt discussion even more timely. See also “Information Warfare and VOA” at the VOA blog.
“Discussing Special Operations forces’ information role in the "war of ideas" with Islamist terrorists, Vickers said during an appearance at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that the "themes you emphasize, how well they resonate, the distribution mechanisms, who’s giving the message" are important factors.” – Walter Pincus of The Washington Post writing about Defense Department Sustains Focus On ‘War of Ideas’ in Anti-Terrorism Efforts. This doesn’t concern me. Why? Because both Special Operations and Public Diplomats have the same basic mission: operate by, with, and through indigenous people to prevent conflict. Both communities also share a similar lack of visibility and constituency in Congress to protect funding streams. On the specific subject of the news and information websites, this isn’t really new: www.setimes.com, www.magharebia.com, etc.
“Let’s say we came up with four or five concepts of messages that we would want to send out. Potentially, those messages could even create second- and third-order effects. This guy does A, it causes this guy to do B. Well, tell me how you would rehearse prior to actually sending those messages out? How would you codify the potential impact of that message set before you sent it out?” – “Range Accelerates Information Operations Planning: Joint Management Office creates environment for exploring nonkinetic options” by Maryann Lawlor.
“Once the coordinated attacks began, the terrorists were on their cell phones constantly. They used BlackBerries "to monitor international reaction to the atrocities, and to check on the police response via the internet…” – cited by Noah Shachtman in How Gadgets Helped Mumbai Attackers.
“Welcome to the age of celebrity terrorism.” cited by Andrew Exum at Abu Muqawama. Media is the oxygen of the terrorist. It is also the oxygen of the counterterrorist. We must be agile to negate and counter the attractiveness of terrorist, create alternatives from building local capacity to creating opportunities. Inability to function at speed in the global information environment will bring new meaning to the phrase the quick and the dead.
“We can seldom match the speed of Taleban disinformation. but we can, in information terms, switch thebattle to ground of our own choosing….Information Operations must be at the heart of any counter-insurgency campaign, and the size, efficiency and prominenceof the relevant organisation ought to reflect this. … we need political leadership from Kabul of the information effort in Afghanistan.” – Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the UK Defence Staff, at UK Defence Forum Defence Viewpoints blogsite.
“It took the Bush Administration seven years before, as enunciated by Undersecretary Jim Glassman, it recognized that public diplomacy is mainly about “them” (empowering mainstream Muslims to compete with and defeat radical Islamists) and not about “us” (harnessing our best researchers, pollsters, and marketeers to improve the American brand).” – Robert Satloff at Middle East Strategy at Harvard on Kristin Lord’s Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century.
At the New America Foundation today, Under Secretary Jim Glassman spoke about Public Diplomacy 2.0. In the spirit of choices in the modern information environment, you may check out video or audio that includes Q&A from NAF here, or see Darren Krape’s post here for a summary of the speech, or read the speech itself here.
Darren has a great summary, so I won’t retread what he’s written, but I will add a few brief comments below.
Continue reading “Public Diplomacy 2.0 “From Evan Kohlman at the Counterterrorism blog:
Global reactions to Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri’s controversial condemnation of U.S. President-Elect Barack Obama as a "House Slave" (or, alternatively, "House Negro") have begun to pour in — including via the top jihad web forums used by Al-Qaida to disseminate its propaganda. Though hardcore Al-Qaida supporters have predictably dismissed any criticism of Dr. al-Zawahiri and are fiercely backing his choice of words, there is a rather ironic (if not entirely unfamiliar) twist to this issue. After observing international press reporting on the incident, these same supporters are now bitterly attacking the media for its "unfair" pro-Obama bias and for deliberately "confusing" the meaning of al-Zawahiri’s message.
In related news, Zawahiri’s audio statement also appears to have created a palpable, tense confrontation between Al-Qaida and a significant cross-section of African-American Muslims. Several U.S.-based Muslim organizations immediately held press conferences or issued statements to strongly criticize al-Zawahiri and his manipulation of the words of the late Malcolm X. Conversely, these conferences and statements of response have not gone over well within the jihadi community, with some Arabic-speaking commentators issuing angry rants about the apparent treachery of American Muslims, including specifically the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). One Al-Qaida supporter cautioned his quarrelsome online colleagues, "Brothers, this does not apply to all American Muslims. Do not forget our brother [Adam] Yehiye Gadahn, a naturalized Muslim and U.S. citizen."
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Foreign aid, from humanitarian relief to reconstruction and stabilization programs, are at their core public diplomacy missions. They communicate interest, respect, and generate understanding of both sides. They are also absolutely essential in today’s global struggle for minds and wills. The mother of all reconstruction and stabilization programs, the Marshall Plan, included the “standard” rebuilding but also incorporated education programs, cultural exchanges, and rebuilding civic society.
However, foreign aid has little in the way of a domestic constituency. Like public diplomacy’s international information programs, there’s little awareness within the United States not just about the effectiveness of these overseas endeavors but that anything is being done at all.
USAID just released a significant and interesting report on how it needs to improve engagement both overseas and here in the United States.
Unfortunately without comment (time constrained), I highly recommend this report. ‘Tis the season for reports on changing America’s voice, so if you have limited time, I recommend this be very near the top of that pile.
Foreign assistance is at the center of the most comprehensive reformulation of this nation’s strategic doctrines in more than half a century. The development community will play a key role in meeting the nation’s unprecedented challenges.
Our own well-being as a nation is closely linked to events in developing countries on fronts including trade and investment, infectious diseases, environmental protection, international crime and terrorism, weapons proliferation, migration and the advance of democracy and human rights, among others.
Americans, however, have only a rudimentary understanding of the design, scope and impact of U.S. foreign assistance programs. Public opinion is characterized by misconceptions and prejudices that must be countered if we are to sustain the foreign assistance commitment that our humanitarian and national security objectives require.
Detect a bit of Smith-Mundt in there? You should… The Act was passed largely because America’s “whisper” was inadequate to support the mother of all foreign aid programs: the Marshall Plan. Despite the American role in liberating the continent, “knowledge of the United States [was] being systematically blotted out” by Communist information activities that were compared to a “tremendous symphony orchestra” playing all the time. The Smith-Mundt Act was passed to make known what we were doing and to counter distortions and misinformation propagated by the enemy. Together, the Marshall Plan and the Smith-Mundt Act constituted a denial of sanctuary program central to Kennan’s containment that was not, contrary to many modern believes, based on force of arms but on the force of ideas and deeds.
In other words, USAID should be very interested in returning to the principles, purposes, and intent of the Smith-Mundt Act.
Download the report here.
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“All this leaves the Pentagon chief in the unusual position of arguing for greater funding for the State Department, which was sidelined under Rumsfeld.” – Anna Mulrine writing about Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in US News & World Report. This sentence, the first of the last paragraph goes directly to the of America’s public diplomacy/strategic communication problem: a lack of leadership at State that not only sidelines the Department but creates a spiral to the bottom by undermining Congressional confidence (and thus limiting funding) and the perceived utility of the Department across the Administration. Secretary of State Rice has so marginalized herself in these debates that she is an implied problem better left undisturbed and unmentioned.
SIGMA has a website: “SIGMA is a new concept in public service "think tanks"– we are a voluntary association of speculative writers who have spent our careers exploring the future. We offer that experience and expertise pro bono to the government for the good of the nation.” Full disclosure: I’m a friend of SIGMA.
“A leading Russian political analyst has said the economic turmoil in the United States has confirmed his long-held view that the country is heading for collapse, and will divide into separate parts.” – Novosti. The quoted “political analyst” is Professor Igor Panarin, “a professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and has authored several books on information warfare.”
“…armed groups attack humanitarians to prevent them from winning the minds and wills of populations.” Chris Albon at War and Health. Public diplomacy is not just about informing and discussing with people the alternatives but building an alternative future. Foreign Aid, reconstruction and stabilization or core efforts of the struggle for minds and wills. It is worthwhile to remember that the Marshall Plan, the mother of all reconstruction and stabilization programs, was very much a denial of sanctuary program in the struggle for minds and wills. It is also worthwhile to know that the enemy’s response to that program caused Smith-Mundt to be passed.
Google hosts millions of Time photos here.
Scripting Jihad: pulling back the curtain and exposing uncertainty and manipulation from MSNBC (h/t JMW)
Kristin Lord’s report, published by Brookings, was released today. I wasn’t at today’s release, but had a chance to review it. Here is an excerpt from the executive summary:
This report presents concrete steps to strengthen America’s efforts to engage, persuade, and attract the support of foreign publics. As part of a comprehensive plan to enhance our government’s public diplomacy, it urges the creation of a nimble and entrepreneurial new non-profit organization, the USAWorld Trust, to complement and support U.S. government efforts. The USAWorld Trust will draw on the enormous goodwill, creativity, knowledge, and talent of the American people and likeminded partners overseas to
- present a more accurate and nuanced vision of America to counterbalance the one-sided
views sometimes promulgated by popular culture and foreign media- contribute to an environment of mutual trust, respect, and understanding in which cooperation is more feasible
- promote shared values and their champions
- inform and support our government’s public diplomacy efforts through the sharing of knowledge regarding communication, public opinion, foreign cultures, and technology.
The report recommends creating a new entity, the USAWorld Trust, a 501c3 non-profit. It would be in many ways a RAND-like organization but with the additional charge of executing public diplomacy programs, not just monitoring. It would conduct research as a hub for extranet engagement with the private sector, academia, and NGOs. As a non-governmental organization, it could receive external funding and at the same time operate like a venture-capitalist promoting public diplomacy programs from the tried-and-true to experimental. According to the report, the distance would not only create additional freedom of action but distance from the government to encourage participation by groups inside and outside the US who would otherwise be skeptical of collaborating with the government.
The report is posted here. I welcome your thoughts.
Brookings will post a transcript of the release event here.
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Ruminate \ˈrü-mə-ˌnāt\ v.t. : to go over in the mind repeatedly and often casually or slowly
My son turned three years old not too long ago which means we’re now reading longer bedtime stories. To satisfy the demand and to push his envelope, I turned to a fifty year old book series that as far as I know was my mother’s: Through Golden Windows. Reading Aesop fables, Johnny Appleseed, Paul Bunyan, tales from the Grimm collective, and other stories “of adventure”, some “magical”, got me thinking. Instead of ten different copies of Abe Lincoln on our international reading lists, what about the “old” children’s tales (many of which were never intended for children) that inform through parable, the communicative method largely dropped from American society but very strong elsewhere? They inform who we are, where we came from, and are (often) entertaining, if not simply captivating.
Just thinking out loud on this… thoughts?
Also looking back:
From the New America Foundation:
How the State Department, with partners like YouTube, Google and Facebook, is taking advantage of social networking technology to tell America’s story and to encourage young people with political grievances to find outlets for their protests other than violent extremism.
featured speaker
The Hon. James K. Glassman
Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs
moderator
Steve Clemons
Director, American Strategy Program
New America Foundation
Publisher, TheWashingtonNote.comTo RSVP for this event, click on the red button, or go to the event page: http://www.newamerica.net/events/2008/public_diplomacy_2_0
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From the History Department at US Army Combined Arms Center comes the following recommendation for Andrew Bacevich’s book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism:
Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power (Metropolitan Books, 2008), should be on everyone’s reading list over the holidays. Of special interests are his criticisms of how we view our current operating environment and how we are preparing for it.
For example, discussing the 2003 invasion plan, Bacevich writes:
"For starters, it was devoid of political context. Narrowly focused on the upcoming fight, it paid no attention to the aftermath. Defining the problem as Iraq alone, it ignored other regional power relationships and made no provision for how war might alter those relationships, whether for good or ill. It was completely ahistorical and made no reference to culture, religion, or ethnic identity. It had no moral dimension. It even failed to include a statement of purpose." (166-167)
His book hits at the heart of what we teach here at CGSC. While you may not agree with his argument, it will cause you to think about what we are doing here in a new light. It should be on the Chief of Staff’s reading list.
Unrelated to the book review, the US Army CAC “blog collective” is a poster example of a new dynamic in the U.S. Army to educate and empower new media engagement. The Foreign Service Institute should explore this as should must the State Department as a whole. From DipNote to America.gov to embassy sites should also think about implementing a “collective” model as the FCO is doing.
The first edition of any book has errors and the Routledge Handbook on Public Diplomacy is no exception. The first paragraph of my chapter, “Operationalizing Public Diplomacy”, should read:
American public diplomacy wears combat boots. Over the last two decades, American national security has increasingly relied on the threat of a muscular military, intelligence, and technological resources while ignoring more effective, and cheaper, tools of persuasion. The downward spiral of Iraq and Afghanistan, and plummeting public opinions of the United States around the world, suggests the U.S. has decoupled the “big stick” and “speaking softly” of Theodore Roosevelt’s time-tested adage without understanding its insight or utility. Fortunately, the value of speaking softly is being rediscovered, albeit by the Defense Department.
In the printed edition, the comma between “muscular military” and “intelligence” is missing. I didn’t meant to coin the phrase “muscular military intelligence,” which could be applied to Human Terrain Teams or PRTs, especially not in 2007 when I wrote the chapter.
There are other corrections, but that leapt out and needed to be addressed. Hopefully I’ll be able to fine-tune the chapter for the second edition, including updating some thoughts like new knowledge about the Smith-Mundt Act.
Update: the paperback is now available at Amazon.com (mouse over or click for price).
Required reading for today: Heritage’s latest titled Reforming U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century by Tony Blankley, Helle C. Dale and Oliver Horn. (also required: President-elect Obama, we need a new kind of public diplomacy by Heritage’s Kim Holmes.)
Margaret Thatcher once said that America is the only nation in the world "built upon an idea." This idea–liberty–has transcended geography and ethnicity to shape American identity and to inspire political discourse, both domestic and foreign, since the nation’s founding nearly two and a half centuries ago. Indeed, John Adams wrote that the American Revolution occurred first "in the hearts and minds of the people." Ideas lie at the very core of this country.
It is therefore both frustrating and ironic that the United States should have such difficulty conveying ideas today. Seven years into the war on terrorism, it has become apparent that final victory must be won not only on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in the hearts and minds of people.
Margaret Thatcher also said that the media is the oxygen of the terrorist. The same is true of the counterterrorist and the counterinsurgent. Being able to communicate ideas and counter misinformation and distortion has always been essential to peace, stability, and national security in general. Understanding that everything we say and everything we do is linked and shapes perceptions is, fortunately, becoming vogue.
Continue reading “Reforming U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century
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John Sullivan, the co-founder of the Los Angeles Terrorism Early Warning group and lieutenant with the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, focusing on emerging threats, reminds us that Al-Qaeda is not the only threat. As such, public diplomacy and strategic communication planning that focuses only on Al-Qaeda is too limiting.
From Danger Room:
While the public and media are occupied with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the potential conflict with Iran, the downward spiral in Pakistan, and a global economic meltdown, a new, rapidly-evolving danger — narco-cartels and gangs — has been developing in Mexico and Latin America. And it has the potential to trump global terrorism as a threat to the United States.
Read the rest at Danger Room and a longer article on Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency at Defense and the National Interest.
MountainRunner friend Spencer Ackerman nails it on Zawahiri’s use of "House Negro" in Al-Qaeda’s latest propaganda:
With an American president as loathed as George W. Bush around the world, it’s easy for Al Qaeda to portray the U.S. as venal and stupid and brutish as he’s proven. Obama complicates the narrative significantly: the very color of his skin, precisely what Al Qaeda mocks, symbolizes America’s willingness to change. That’s exactly what Al Qaeda fears most. …
Still, as Ilan Goldenberg notes at Democracy Arsenal, "Al Qaeda’s narrative is now under siege and it’s clearly uncertain about how to react." That sort of disruption is precisely what the U.S. needs to rapidly exploit. In both policy and public-diplomacy terms, the clay is still wet. Why haven’t we seen the State Dept.’s blog hit the Zawahiri "House Negro" tape yet?
I have all the respect for the DipNote staff, and America.gov for that matter, but they just don’t have the agility or flexibility to respond to this message. Of course the argument could be made that a response highlights the attack. But in this case, as with most, we know the message is being received and a reply like Spencer’s strikes at AQ’s vulnerability. AQ is losing the struggle for minds and wills and this very message highlights that they will grasp at anything to attempt to regain control of the narrative.
DipNote and America.gov should be one of the many platforms used to post accessible responses. Reposting the above is out of the question, but at a minimum a short response echoing or linking to Spencer is better than silence and would get traction. I can think of several @state.gov people that could bang out a credible response.
State’s foreign media hubs are one thing, but what about online? I’ll wager Defense has already started to respond to this the Zawahiri message on the Internet. State needs to respond both to U.S. audiences (ostensibly DipNote’s mission) and abroad (America.gov’s mission). Seriously, even China is implementing an agile response capability.
I don’t think we’ll see anything from DipNote or America.gov on this. It would be great to be wrong. Prove me wrong.
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From Brookings, a major report on revising America’s public diplomacy:
Tuesday, November 25, 2008, 10:00 am — 11:30 am
The Brookings Institution, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC
Public opinion holds more sway now than at any previous time in history. Information and communication technologies are cheap and ubiquitous. It is in this context that the United States must increasingly engage, persuade and attract the cooperation of foreign publics to achieve its national interests. Yet, the United States must do this in a world that has changed markedly in the years since its public diplomacy institutions were created.
On November 25, Kristin Lord will present Voices of America, a new Brookings report on the effectiveness of public diplomacy that includes specific recommendations for the next administration. Drawing on extensive research, approximately 300 interviews and the advice of a distinguished board of ten advisers, Voices of America presents a comprehensive vision for U.S. public diplomacy in the twenty-first century. It argues for the creation of a new non-governmental organization to tap extensive private sector expertise and mobilize the talents of Americans and partners around the world. The report also presents wide-ranging recommendations regarding strategy, leadership, organization, resources and methods of U.S. public diplomacy and how this important instrument of statecraft should be integrated into a broader foreign policy strategy.
Lord will be joined by a distinguished panel of experts including Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution; Thomas A. Miller, vice president of Business for Diplomatic Action; and Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering. Senior Fellow Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, will offer introductory remarks and Carlos Pascual, vice president and director of Foreign Policy, will moderate the discussion. After the program, panelists will take audience questions.
Public diplomacy expectations by Helle Dale in The Washington Times
What is specifically needed is a new U.S. Agency for Strategic Communication under the guidance of a director of strategic communications. Its director should have the confidence and trust of the president, though maybe not necessarily at cabinet level, and his responsibility would be to coordinate the informational activities of the entire U.S. government, including the vast resources currently commanded by the Pentagon. He would also be responsible for formulating a much-needed comprehensive new communications strategy that would address the activities of U.S. public affairs, public diplomacy, international broadcasting and military information operations.
The State Department itself is in dire need of reform, and should lose an array of public diplomacy activities and assets, which it has been wasting. It should focus more narrowly on traditional diplomacy in state-to-state and multilateral settings. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, where most of the new thinking on this topic has taken place, could be called in to coordinate activities through its combatant command structures, which are the prime examples currently of U.S interagency coordination directed at different regions of the world.
Iranians Flood VOA with Messages for Obama – VOA press release
Iranians are flooding President-elect Barack Obama with personal messages on a special Persian-language website the Voice of America (VOA) created for people to express their views.
VOA’s Persian News Network (PNN) has received hundreds of messages on topics ranging from U.S.-Iranian relations to access to student visas since it invited its audience last week to write to Obama at the website www.VOANews.com/persian/obamapnn.cfm. The messages, posted on the site, will eventually be transmitted to the president-elect’s transition office.
Dictators Prefer Botnets – StrategyPage.com
In the African nation of Mauritania, the military dictatorship has used Cyber War techniques to shut down two opposition web sites that provide the most information on what is going on inside the country. The generals apparently hired several botnets … to smother the anti-dictatorship websites with phony visitors (a "DDOS attack").
Should Arabs Use Violence Against the U.S.? – MEMRI
Jordanian university lecturer Dr. Ibrahim ‘Alloush: I’d like to salute whoever conducts resistance against the Zionist-American hegemony in this world – whether by means of politics or by means of weapons. …
Kuwaiti journalist Sami Al-Nisf: This is the same formula of Stalin, Hitler, Kim Il-Sung, Qaddafi, Saddam, and so on. They all used bombastic words, all had ‘deep throats,’ but at the end of the day – and that’s the greatest mistake – one should look at the figures, rather than the words. These people destroy their countries.
HARDtalk interview with former US National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski from 14 October.
Patrick F. Kennedy, Under Secretary for Management, discussed the State Department’s FY09 budget request today. The budget request includes 450 new positions for training. Three hundred are for language training, seventy-five are to permit a training float for professional training, and another seventy-five are for training at the military colleges – Army War College, Air University, Leavenworth, Naval War College, ICAF and NDU at Fort McNair.
There’s more. The budget also add 50 to the policy advisor cadre.
And there’s public diplomacy.
There’s also been discussion about what is our outreach: are we doing enough in the public affairs and public diplomacy world. There are 39 positions in the budget to expand public diplomacy and educational and cultural exchanges, again, focusing on what the Secretary sees is major needs in the time ahead.
Continue reading “A look at State Department’s FY09 budget
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Maybe. From Gutenberg to pre-Revolutionary pamphleteers to the Internet, increasing the access to information has been a catalyst for change. Yesterday, Steve Corman looked at this question and noted that
[w]hile Facebook played an important role in the development of the protest march, it can be better described as a catalyst than a cause.
The media, formal and informal, new and old, is the oxygen both terrorist and counter-terrorist movements require to exist and thrive. The advantage of the latter over the former is truth, transparency, and promising futures. New Media’s ability to engage, mobilize, and empower transcends geography and time. It simultaneously reaches locally and globally, providing instant and “time-shifted” access to text, pictures, and videos. It also fosters trusting peer relationships that add credibility to messages and the movement itself.
Today, the State Department announced an event to facilitate more catalysts for change:
Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School and the U.S. Department of State Convene the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit
Dec. 3-5 Summit in New York to Bring Together Global Youth Groups, Tech Experts to Find Best Ways to Use Digital Media to Promote Freedom and Justice, Counter Violence, Extremism and Oppression
New York, NY, November 18, 2008—Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School, the U.S. Department of State and Access 360 Media are bringing leaders of 17 pioneering organizations from 15 countries together with technology experts next month in New York for the first-ever conclave to empower youth against violence and oppression through the use of the latest online tools.
Rising star Jared Cohen (author of Children of Jihad: A Young American’s Travels Among the Youth of the Middle East) is a major force behind this event. The rest of the press release is below the fold.
