Event: Digital Statecraft: Media, Broadcasting, and the Internet as Instruments of Public Diplomacy in the Middle East

~ Matt Armstrong

Today, the Aspen Institute hosts a discussion on “digital statecraft” at its Washington, DC, office at DuPont Circle. Digital Statecraft: Media, Broadcasting, and the Internet as Instruments of Public Diplomacy in the Middle East will feature Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute and Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors; Eli Khoury, CEO of Quantum Communications, a leading advertising and communications firm in the Middle East; and Duncan MacInnes, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP) in the Office of the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.

The topic is “the use of social and digital media as a tool to promote a vibrant civil society in the Middle East” and will include “insights and lessons learned from their extensive experience in the media sector and the region.”

The event will be webcast and archived on the Aspen Institute’s website. Lunch will also be served.

Date: today, Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Time: 12p – 1p

RSVP is requested: call 202-736-2526 or email maysam.ali@aspeninstitute.org.

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The world of Wikileaks Part 2: A means of evaluating Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

By Ali Fisher

Wikileaks Part 2 looks at the impact of releasing information through the traditional media on the network of interactions using social media and reflects on the potential to use network analysis in evaluation. (See also The Small World of Wikileaks, Part 1.)

image From a Strategic Communications and Public Diplomacy perspective, evaluation has become increasingly important with forthcoming reports and even spending decisions, for example, in the UK. If an organisation is seeking to develop lasting relationships, seeking to subsequently identify those relationships would be a logical part of any evaluation or bid for further funding.

The example of Wikileaks has much in common with those engaged in Public Diplomacy and seeking to measure their attempts to disperse information on specific issues. In terms of Public Diplomacy, Wikileaks part 1 discussed creating a baseline of interactions and information sharing behaviours. Part 1 also highlighted that information about Wikileaks was trapped in a ‘Small World’ limiting the ability of Wikileaks to go mainstream.

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The BBG’s Honeymoon: All Work and No Play

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

The subject of government-supported broadcasting has risen out of seemingly nowhere over the past year. Several high quality reports have appeared, including those by Senator Richard Lugar, Shawn Powers, and the Lowy Institute in Australia. Over at Layalina, I put in my nickel on the discussion with regard to the challenge faced by the new leadership of America’s non-military government broadcasting.

There is a new governor in town, eight of them in fact. For the first time in six years, all of the top jobs at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) are filled. Half of the seats sat empty for up to four years, including the chairmanship for the past two. This fresh beginning provides some breathing room for the BBG, which manages all U.S. government, non-military international broadcasting. The Board is taking this honeymoon seriously: it has already held two meetings and is actively reviewing the state of international broadcasting, before putting its programmatic and managerial stamp on its operations.

I describe in the article the need for the BBG to establish its relevance in today’s competitive information environment of increasingly shallow news, improve relations with Congress, and do its part to empower the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, a body charged with providing Congress and the American public insights and recommendations on public diplomacy, including government broadcasting.

Read the whole article at Layalina or download it as a PDF.

Your comments are appreciated.

Australian report on international broadcasting and its contribution to public diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

imageDespite the dozens of reports on U.S. public diplomacy, it is actually quite rare to see an in-depth study on public diplomacy, particularly in the areas of government broadcasting. The “too many” reports have often focused on specific cogs without regard to their place in the greater bureaucratic machine that spans the whole of whatever government the agency happens to be in. Even more rare is an in-depth public analysis of the public diplomacy of another country by another country. This week, an Australian think tank, the Lowy Institute, published such a report.

This report, International broadcasting and its contribution to public diplomacy by Annmaree O’Keeffe and Alex Oliver, is focused on the argument Australia’s government broadcasting needs to be taken seriously and properly funded. In supporting this argument, the authors smartly look at how broadcasting fits into the whole of government public diplomacy efforts as well as examines the activities of peer countries.

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California plans to bid for 2020 World Expo

~ Matt Armstrong

image Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in China on a weeklong trade mission through Asia, announced California is preparing to bid to host the 2020 World Expo.

The plan, which is not due until late 2011, would propose using Moffett Field, a decommissioned (1994) air field on San Francisco Bay and is adjacent to Silicon Valley.

“Shanghai has demonstrated that when you host the World Expo, the world comes to you, and I want the world to come to California. Our state is a leader in entertainment, agriculture, the environment, high-tech, green-tech and bio-tech, and we are ready to showcase our innovation to the world,” said Governor Schwarzenegger. “As the hub of innovation, Silicon Valley is the most natural place to hold the Expo, which will promote the international exchange of ideas, create jobs and increase revenues in our state.”

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U.S. International Broadcasting: An Untapped Resource For Domestic And Ethnic News Organizations

~ Matt Armstrong

Walter RobertsFor anyone interested in the Broadcasting Board of Governors and/or U.S. government broadcasting, I recommend reading this updated report-turned-chapter written by Shawn Powers: U.S. International Broadcasting: An Untapped Resource For Domestic And Ethnic News Organizations (180kb PDF, also available as a Google Doc).

The news media landscape is rapidly changing in the wake of technological progress and the altered ways in which information is received and disseminated require adjustments in the contemporary media regulatory framework. Just as advances in science and health sectors require governments to adjust their laws accordingly, so do advances in information technology. The advent of the Internet, a global infrastructure able to disseminate information instantaneously from anyone to anywhere in the world, calls into question the value of laws written in the first half of the 20th century with the intent to limit the direction of news and information broadcast by particular organizations.

Currently, U.S. public service broadcasting, which is severely underfunded in comparison to the rest of the world, is also legally separate from U.S. international broadcasting, a technical firewall that inhibits effective collaboration between the two entities. As a result, U.S. funded international broadcasting is prohibited from disseminating its journalistic features within the U.S., a legal ban that hinders the use of its significant journalistic resources by both public and private news networks, including a large sector of ethnic media that could surely benefit from the 60 languages that American international broadcasters report in. This chapter argues for further collaboration between government funded international broadcasting and its domestic counterparts–both public and private–and for an adjustment in policies in order to accurately and intelligently adapt to the reality of today’s information ecology. …

It is important to note that international broadcasting from other governments is increasingly available throughout the United States as well. Moscow’s Russia Today is available via the Internet and on cable systems throughout the East coast. China’s state-run CCTV is also available throughout the US and on a few major cable providers. Ditto for Japan’s NHK World, France’s France 24 and Iran’s Press TV. Qatar’s Al Jazeera network, much more controversial than any U.S.-funded broadcaster, is available via the Dish Network for a small fee. Its sister station–Al Jazeera English, which is less sensational and more polished–is available in over 17 million American homes. In January 2009 as tensions rose between Hamas and Israel, it was the network of choice for Americans (via the Internet) for news about Gaza. If Americans can access foreign statefunded broadcasters, shouldn’t they also be able to tune into their own government’s programming? …

As the quality of news, especially international news, continues to decline, and as the domestic news media–both public and private–continue to face financial challenges, there is one untapped resource that remains off of the radar of most domestic news media, despite its long history of providing timely and accurate information: U.S. international broadcasting. Regretfully, few have argued for removing the Smith-Mundt Act’s restrictions in order to facilitate collaboration between the two, despite the fact that it would cost zero additional government resources and likely improve the quality of information produced by both American international broadcasting and its domestic news media. This oversight stems largely from the cultural and political stigma surrounding international broadcasting. The perception persists that it is government propaganda, an impression that, accurate or not, is no longer relevant in a world where information sovereignty is a thing of the past. Americans are bombarded with so-called “propaganda” from foreign governments all of the time. Territory-based restrictions on the flow of information no longer make sense in a world where identities, languages and politics increasingly transcend national boundaries. It is time to adjust our information policies to reflect today’s new reality, and soon, as both the domestic news media and U.S. international broadcasting are falling behind their international competitors. …

Shawn documents the use of BBG media and the availability of foreign government media inside the U.S. as well as debunks the arguments that the BBG is simply a front of U.S. propaganda. Shawn, USC-alum and now an Assistant Professor at Georgia State University, made his chapter available to MountainRunner for publication in advance to its appearance in a forthcoming book edited by Robert W. McChesney and Victor Pickard’s Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done To Fix It (New Press, 2011). This is an update of Shawn’s previous report of the same name.

See also:

Image: Walter Roberts, former Associate Director of the United States Information Agency.

State Department and Social Media

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

imageHave you been wondering how many “fans” there are for the State Department’s Facebook pages? Interested in knowing whether the numbers are going up or down for a particular online “property”? Look no further than this site put together by the Office of Innovation within “R”, the Office of the Under Secretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Go there and you’ll find that as of today, there are 1,011,712 fans for the 191 pages the department maintains. There’s data by site as well. U.S. Embassy Kabul has 3,682 fans, six times as many as U.S. Embassy Brussels (623). A quick look raises questions about the validity of the data, however. I was curious about the information resource center in Brazil (IRC Brasil) because the report showed zero friends, but the Facebook page shows 140. Probably just a minor glitch… Either way, it’s an interesting bit of transparency into public diplomacy.

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U.S. market share of foreign students declines, OECD reports

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comes another measurement of America’s decline in global stature: a drop in the relative number of university students choosing the U.S. to continue their education. The Chronicle of Higher Education cites the OECD report, Education at a Glance 2010: OECD Indicators:

While the absolute number of students opting to study abroad continues to go up, their destination choices are shifting. The United States has witnessed by far the biggest drop in its market share, which fell more than 7 percentage points, from 26 to 18.7 percent between 2000 and 2008, the report says. Meanwhile, Australia increased its share by 1 percentage point, to reach 6.9 percent in 2008, the latest year for which figures were available, and Russia, a relative newcomer to internationalization, increased its share by 2 percentage points to reach 4.9 percent in 2008. …

The report also takes a broader look at college-enrollment rates, which continue to rise worldwide—with a few exceptions, such as in the United States.

Upcoming meeting of the US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong

From the Federal Register:

The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy will hold a public meeting on September 28, 2010, in the conference room of the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, located at 1850 K Street NW., Fifth Floor, Washington, DC 20006. The meeting will begin at 2 p.m. and conclude at 4 p.m. The Commissioners will discuss the findings of a joint research project of the Commission and the University of Texas at Austin on measurement of public diplomacy efforts. …

The public may attend this meeting as seating capacity allows. To attend this meeting and for further information, please contact Carl Chan at (202) 632-2823; E-mail: acpdpublicmeeting@state.gov. Any member of the public requesting reasonable accommodation at this meeting should contact Mr. Chan prior to September 23. Requests received after that date will be considered, but might not be possible to fulfill.

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The BBG’s Honeymoon: All Work and No Play

~ Matt Armstrong

The BBG’s Honeymoon: All Work and No Play by Matt Armstrong, 9 September 2010, in Layalina’s Perspectives column. My blog post on the article is here.

There is a new governor in town, eight of them in fact. For the first time in six years, all of the top jobs at the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) are filled. Half of the seats sat empty for up to four years, including the chairmanship for the past two years. This fresh beginning provides some breathing room for the BBG, which manages all U.S. government, non-military international broadcasting. The Board is taking this honeymoon seriously: it has already held two meetings and is actively reviewing the state of international broadcasting, before putting its programmatic and managerial stamp on its operations.

As the Board considers the requirements, challenges, and opportunities it faces, along with the broadcasting organizations it supervises – including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Middle East Broadcasting Network (MBN), Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), and Radio Free Asia (RFA)- three fundamental questions must be addressed: how is the BBG relevant in today’s global information environment? Can the BBG balance advocacy with news delivery as a part of the federal government? And, can the BBG adapt to the free-for-all participation of social media?

Discussions on Digital Diplomacy

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

imageThe July/August issue of PDiN Monitor, the electronic review of public diplomacy in the news by the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School, focuses on the subject of Digital Diplomacy.

In “Beyond the Blackberry Ban: Realpolitik and the Negotiation of Digital Rights,” Shawn Powers looks at the Blackberry data network as a component of the global communications grid called for by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In doing so, Shawn asks,

…shouldn’t we be talking about the importance of maintaining the sanctity of such a network, and even thinking through how to get more secure, BlackBerry devices in the hands of civil society advocates and leaders in the Middle East? Or would such a strategy backfire, similar to the way U.S. arms sales to mujahidin during the Cold War continue to thwart American policy in Afghanistan today? …

But what would a world with ubiquitous secure, mobile communications actually look like? Would democracy and civil society flourish, or would hateful and violent groups be better able to organize and plan their terrorizing of society?

While I disagree with Shawn’s characterization of Wikileaks in his article as an organization “whose primary mission is to enhance democratic deliberations and accountability through transparency”, his points about the tension between the freedom and security of information exchange are valuable fodder for a serious discussion on the issue.

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Public Diplomacy: Books, Articles, Websites #52 (Courtesy of Bruce Gregory)

~ Matt Armstrong

Courtesy of Bruce Gregory, Professor of Media and Public Affairs, George Washington University.

Intended for teachers of public diplomacy and related courses, here is an update on resources that may be of general interest.  Suggestions for future updates are welcome. 
Bruce Gregory
Adjunct Professor
George Washington University / Georgetown University

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Recalling History: Making the Case for U.S. Government Broadcasting

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

image As Americans, we are detached from our history. True, remaining anchored to the past can hold back progress, understanding what came before and thus the trajectory of past activities that shape today is helpful. As the saying goes, those who fail to grasp history are doomed to repeat it.
Understanding the context of public diplomacy, the institutions, and methods is important. For too many, public diplomacy began in the 1980s when the beginning of recent memory. At a 2009 conference organized by Doug Wilson, now the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, I sat on a “scene setting” panel with Harriet Fulbright, widow of the late Senator Fulbright, Len Baldyga, former Director of the Office of European Affairs of USIA, Barry Fulton, former Associate Director of USIA, and moderated by Bob Coonrod, former deputy director of VOA and former president and CEO for the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. (I still don’t know why I was on this panel of luminaries.) Each person told a terrific example of public diplomacy. My job was to wrap it up, so I did. I realized there was a common theme: at one time we prioritized the resources (people, money, and “things”) to identify and engage the right audiences.

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Getting a handle on Strategic Communication

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 2 Comments

I have been in many discussions over the past few weeks concerning DoD’s efforts at “Strategic Communication.” In one discussion I was asked, “just what is ‘strategic communication’ and why can’t DoD get a handle on it?”

A fair question and one I’ve heard often. I thought it time to put this down in print. “Strategic Communication” is the deliberate application of information and boils down to: Who do I need to know What, Why do I need them to know it, When do I need them to know it, Where are they, and How do I reach them. A relatively simple task that scales with the complexity of the goal you are planning to achieve. It is also a matter of situational awareness as a friend of mine pointed out, “As I reflected on our discussion, I thought about my old commander, Maj. Gen. John H. Admire, Commander of the First Marine Division, and his saying for good situational awareness. He told us to ask ourselves, ‘What do I know? Who needs to know? and Have I told them?'”

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BBG Meeting

~ Matt Armstrong

On Friday, August 20, I participated in an off the record conversation with five of the new members of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Joining me were Kristin Lord of CNAS and and Paul Foldi of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We met to discuss the status and future of U.S. Government broadcasting. While I cannot get into details, it was clear the Board is very interested in moving quickly to take advantage of clean start, a reset of sorts, for the Board and endeavor to make well-informed decisions to support smart, strategic requirements.

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Interested in the culture and history of Afghanistan from 1842 to the present day?

~ Matt Armstrong

image Too little is known in the US about the history of Afghanistan. History is something Americans tend to ignore, often to our detriment. We forget our history and ignore the history of others. Precedence is, in the American mind, reserved only for the law and not to the shaping perceptions or forming public opinion. This is a defect in our approach to global affairs. Such is the case with Afghanistan, where we failed to grasp (and ignored sage advice on) the impact of history on modern events.

Enter The Great Game: Afghanistan, an epic 3-part play (nine hours total) from the UK’s Tricycle Theatre, which explores the “culture and history of Afghanistan since Western involvement in 1842 to the present day.” This play begins its US tour in Washington, DC, next month. It then goes to Minneapolis, San Francisco, and New York. (Why no Los Angeles date? SF does not count.) Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, the US tour is sponsored by the British Council in an example of cultural diplomacy.

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Event: Information Operations, the New Frontier in Full-Spectrum Warfare

~ Matt Armstrong

Information Operations: The New Frontier in Full-Spectrum Warfare is a continuing education course taught by Chris Paul through the Organizational Effectiveness Institute. It will be held September 20-21 in Washington, DC. From the course description:

Information Operations (IO), as currently practiced by the U.S. Military, encompass a broad range of capabilities designed to inform, influence, persuade, or deceive target audiences, and a collection of technical capabilities focused on impacting systems for storing or transmitting information. Formally, IO capabilities include Psychological Operations, Electronic Warfare,Computer Network Operations, Operations Security, and Military Deception. The relationships between the IO capabilities and other activities including conventional military operations, related and supporting capabilities, and strategic communication are not always well understood, nor are they optimally organized for specific undertakings. This class explores these relationships and presents clear definitions for all the elements as they appear in the formal doctrine, and as they function in practice. The implications of the different approaches are discussed in depth.
You will benefit by enhancing your understanding of the:
  • History and evolution of IO and its component capabilities.
  • Practice and the potential of IO capabilities.
  • Ways to organize IO and how these impact relationships between capabilities and operational effectiveness.
  • Power of information for influence in pursuit of campaign objectives.
  • Efforts related to IO, such as public affairs, strategic communication, and public diplomacy.

The course outline and online registration is available here.

Chris Paul is Full Social Scientist at the RAND Corporation, frequent contributor to MountainRunner, colleague, and author of the textbook Information Operations: Doctrine and Practice.

Yemeni YES participant discovers “real” America does not correspond to media image

~ Matt Armstrong ~ 1 Comment

Written by Lisa Retterath of the Alliance for International Education and Cultural Exchange, where this post originally appeared.

In a recent Huffington Post article, 17-year old Maad Sharaf shares his thoughts about how a year abroad in the United States through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program has changed his life. Originally from Aden in the Republic of Yemen, Sharaf came to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where he quickly learned that the image he had gotten about the United States, based mainly on media coverage in Yemen, did not correspond to reality:

“I thought America was all about huge buildings, exciting places, drunken people everywhere and going to war with every country. That was what we saw every day on television and in American movies. Unfortunately, we never saw the nice things about it or the very respectful people.”

Sharaf also had to learn that many Americans had negative images of Yemen and the Muslim world in general that they, too, ascribed to the media. When realizing this, he felt he had to become active:

“It was then that I decided I was responsible for teaching the American people in my community who we (Muslims) are as real people, and showing them that we are not the bad people they see in the news. I felt like I was not only representing Yemen, but also the Middle East and all the Islamic countries in the world.”

As Sharaf explains, he never got over the culture shock entirely but nevertheless considers his travel to the U.S. to have changed his life for the better. He discovered “that the best way to reflect a good image of your country, your family and your religion to people who don’t have any idea about where you are coming from is to be who you really are, wherever you are.”

Conflict Resolution and Prevention: The Role for Culture Relations

~ Matt Armstrong

Earlier this year, the British Council co-hosted an event in Brussels with Security Defence Agenda and NATO to discuss how “cultural” projects facilitate dialogue between groups, play a part in preventing conflict, healing post-conflict wounds, and potentially avoid conflicts based on misunderstand or mistrust. The video below are the highlights from this conference that I attended. It includes a post-event interview with British Council Chief Executive Martin Davidson.

I strongly recommend it to those interested in creating and supporting culture-based engagement pathways that to some may be “alternative” but are ultimately fundamental. One cannot hope to successfully engage in a struggle of minds and wills if one does not understand or empower the actors or their solutions to their circumstances.

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