Science and Technology for Communication and Persuasion Abroad: Gap Analysis and Survey

Since 9/11, the U.S. Government has invested heavily in technology-based solutions to understanding, informing, and influencing people around the world and across a variety of mediums. Many of these efforts were sponsored by the Defense Department for reasons that include major appropriations by the Congress, a capability (and culture) of contracting, a capability (and culture) of development, and an imperative for action (non-action may result in an unnecessary death). In 2009, the Defense Department’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) surveyed the landscape of science and technology programs intended to support Strategic Communication with the purpose of identifying gaps between capabilities and requirements as well as suggesting areas of improvement.

In 2011, the RRTO commissioned the Center for Naval Analysis to update the 2009 report. The new report, written by CNA’s Will McCants and entitled “Science and Technology for Communication and Persuasion Abroad: Gap Analysis and Survey,” (7mb PDF) is now available.

The 2012 report is based on interviews with experts inside and outside government, surveying programs, and reviewing academic and professional literature. Gaps identified in 2009 have not been closed over the past few years, according to this new report.

McCants further identified areas where the Government has made limited research & development investments not addressed in the earlier report. There additional areas include technologies for facilitating and managing online engagement and persuasion campaigns. The specific report headings are:

  • Survey and validation theories and techniques for influence in the digital realm
  • Target audience analysis, trend monitoring, and source criticism
  • Online measures of effectiveness
  • Training in techniques of communication and persuasion in the digital realm
  • Immersive virtual environments and simulation games for non-military purposes
  • Persuasive technology on mobile devices for encouraging positive behavior
  • Crowd sourcing for problem solving and accountability
  • Studying adversary use of social media
  • Technology for promoting freedom under repressive regimes
  • Expanding investment in emerging technologies

This report acknowledges the importance of engagement, empowerment, and cultivating relationships over simply better targeting of messages. The report reinforces the 2009 statement that there are no silver bullets.

“Despite the focus of this report on technology for communication and persuasion, such technology will only succeed in advancing U.S. interests if it serves well-informed policies; if the senior makers of those policies use and understand the technologies themselves; and if the practitioners carrying out those policies remember that putting a human face on an institution’s words and actions and establishing positive relationships — on and offline — with people working toward shared goals matter more than the substance of any particular message. Ironically, digital technology is making this human connection more possible now than at any time in the modern era.”

The survey of current programs included in the report continues to use the taxonomy of program developed for the 2009 report: Collaboration, Discourse, First Three Feet, Infrastructure, Modeling and Forecasting, Psych Defense, Social Media, and Understanding. The inventory reflects an increased understanding of the communication environment and suggests. Out of the some 30 programs listed, only one is at the State Department (the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication, or CSCC) and arguably a benefactor of S&T investment rather than a product of S&T investment.

(Full disclosure: I was a co-author of the 2009 report and consulted on the 2012 report.)

Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 to the next level

In the realm of public diplomacy reports, there are too few that should be on your required reading list. “Social Media Strategy: Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 to the next level” (820kb PDF) is an exception. Written by Carolijn van Noort, a former intern at the Department of Public Diplomacy, Press & Culture of the Consulate General of the Netherlands, this 53-page report is a terrific analysis of the challenges of public diplomacy in today’s Now Media environment.

Intended to explore the new public diplomacy of the Royal Embassy of the Netherlands, and its various Consulates, the “public diplomacy 2.0” activities of the United States are also included .

Carolijn rightly states that “Social media asks for an hybridization of open and closed communication practices.” In this statement, she eloquently captures the dilemmas facing both public diplomacy and online engagement. She continues,

To engage with foreign audiences through social media services, diplomacy has to innovate itself. The social media services ask for openness and transparency, which contradicts traditional closed communication practices in diplomacy.

Carolijn also (rightly) notes that for the US, the modern constraint of the Smith-Mundt Act means “opportunities in the digital space are lost or postponed in the mean time [sic].”

The resulting document is both smart literature review and smart analysis. Do read the report: Social Media Strategy: Bringing Public Diplomacy 2.0 to the next level (820kb PDF)

It is available at MountainRunner with the permission of Floris van Hövell, Head of Department Public Diplomacy, Press and Culture, Royal Embassy of the Netherlands, Washington D.C.

Freedom to Connect

By Jerry Edling

“You will not be able to stay home, brother.

You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.” — Gil Scott-Heron, From the album “Small Talk at 125th and Lennox” (1970)

“The revolution will not be televised…but it may be tweeted.” Posted on weeseeyou.com

January 28, 2011

Freedom to ConnectIn some ways, Gil Scott-Heron’s song “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was ahead of its time. The lyrics were recited rather than sung, accompanied by congas and a bongo drum, making it either a vestige of beat poetry or one of the first examples of rap. His point, which must be understood in the context of domestic unrest in the late 1960s and early 1970s in the U.S., was that the revolution was not a pre-packaged bit of pop culture, sanitized for your protection and brought to you with minimal commercial interruption by Xerox. The revolution, in his opinion, was real; or, as the final line of the song reads,

“The revolution will be no re-run, brothers; The revolution will be live.”

Little did he know that in the 21st century a revolution of a different sort would be live and it would be televised. And yes, as the quip on weeseeyou.com vividly notes, it would be tweeted. As of this writing, the Biblical land of Egypt is illuminated with cell phone lights and fireworks as mobs with no definable leaders spill into the streets to celebrate the resignation of Hosni Mubarak as president after weeks of protest and unrest. The revolution was televised, and the power to bring those images to the world was in the hands of the revolutionaries themselves.

Continue reading “Freedom to Connect

Revamping Public Diplomacy at the State Department (updated)

imageSince the abolishment of the United States Information Agency, the State Department has struggled to balance the need of the embassies with what Washington perceived was needed. This challenge has been particularly acute on the Internet where the resulting mix of information and voices can undermine the very purpose and effectiveness of engagement.
On January 28, I spoke with Dawn McCall, Coordinator for the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), to discuss the recently announced reorganization of the Bureau. IIP is responsible for developing and disseminating printed material, online information and engagement efforts, and speaker’s programs (a kind of offline engagement using subject matter experts). It is half of the operational capability of the Office of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs to engage people outside of the United States.

The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) completes the other half of the Under Secretary’s toolbox. While most observers like to imagine (or don’t know better) that U.S. public diplomacy is a monolith, the reality is that these two offices are the Under Secretary’s only direct reports. Other cogs in the public diplomacy machine exist within – and report to – the geographic bureaus (such as Western Hemisphere Affairs, European and Eurasian Affairs, and Near Eastern Affairs) and posts in the field.

Continue reading “Revamping Public Diplomacy at the State Department (updated)

Event: International Broadcasting and Public Media

Checkout this event of potential value at the New America Foundation, “International Broadcasting and Public Media.” The event’s description is promising, as are the panelists (described as ‘participants’ but surely the audience will be allowed to participate as well, right?).

In an increasingly digital media landscape, people across the globe are relating to their news outlets in new ways. The missions of media producers are changing, as technological innovations reshape news networks into communities. The assumption is that U.S. public media institutions and international broadcasters are also transforming themselves to serve the emerging public interests in media. How should these institutions be changing to meet the needs of audiences that expect to engage in news and information, not just passively receive it? Even amid the explosion of information, there are information gaps. If foreign coverage one of them, how best is it produced and by whom?

I will not be there, unfortunately, but below are questions off the top of my head I’d like asked and discussed (are there really ‘answers’?).

Continue reading “Event: International Broadcasting and Public Media

Sharing links with mri.to

You’ve used bit.ly, nyt.ms, fb.me, huff.to and probably a whole slew of other URL shortners. Now, there’s one more: mri.to. MRI.to is MountainRunner & the MountainRunner Institute’s own shortener service. Friends of MountainRunner and the MountainRunner Institute are welcome to use the shortner. Just email me and I’ll provide the API key.

A URL shortner reduces URLs into a much shorter set of character so they can be easily shared, tweeted or emailed to friends. For example, the URL for my article on the BBG at Layalina is http://www.layalina.tv/Publications/Perspectives/MattArmstrongSeptember.html. Using mri.to, it becomes more friendly to Twitter, Facebook and even email: http://mri.to/cBr3o4.

Go on, email me and start to use it.

Congratulations Melanie Ciolek!

imageCongratulations to Melanie Ciolek on winning the USC Center on Public Diplomacy’s Prize for Best Student Paper for 2010. Melanie’s paper, How Social Media Contributes to Public Diplomacy: Why Embassy Jakarta’s Facebook Outreach Improves Understanding of the Limitations and Potential for the State Department’s Use of Social Media, was published on this blog back in June.

Melanie wrote “How Social Media Contributes to Public Diplomacy” as a student in my Public Diplomacy and Technology (PUBD510) last semester. (See and comment on the draft syllabus for Spring 2011.)

Event: The hidden geopolitics of cyberspace

From the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism:

The Annenberg Research Seminar series, the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and the USC Master’s in Public Diplomacy program welcome Dr. Ronald Deibert for a conversation about “The hidden geopolitics of cyberspace.” Deibert is an associate professor of political science and director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. The Citizen Lab is an interdisciplinary research and development hothouse working at the intersection of the Internet, global security, and human rights. He will be speaking about his current project which monitors, analyzes and investigates the impact of power in cyberspace as it relates to public diplomacy. This is the last in a series of Canadian-US Fulbright Chair in Public Diplomacy talks. This talk is a presentation of the Annenberg Research Seminar series. Lunch will be served. RSVP requested. To RSVP, click here.  If you are having problems submitting your RSVP, please contact cpdevent@usc.edu.

Checkout Ron’s website and follow him on Twitter: @citizenlab.

Political News and Social Media with Politico Editor Jim VandeHei

Eric Schwartzman interviews Politico editor Jim VandeHei on Politico and his views social media. As always, Eric is an able interviewer who asks smart, well-researched questions. The result is a good “brain-picking” of VendeHei on the “future of grassroots diplomacy, the growth of emerging communications channels like social and mobile for news consumption,” in particularly how “Politico amalgamates the old media values of fairness and accuracy with the speed and immediacy of new technologies.”

Listen to the interview at On the Record Online. Eric provide a helpful timeline of the interview (copied below). Just before the 17 minute mark in the interview, just after the commercial, is a question the Broadcasting Board of Governors will have to wrestle with as they necessarily open to social media: who to do deal with vitriolic comments.

Also, Eric asked VandeHei a question from Don Kilburg, a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Dept. of State, on the hijack of the agendas of global media, online and offline, and global leaders by an individual who previously had an audience of at most fifty.

Continue reading “Political News and Social Media with Politico Editor Jim VandeHei

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

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.

See also:

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

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.

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

State Department and Social Media

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.

See also:

Discussions on Digital Diplomacy

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.

Continue reading “Discussions on Digital Diplomacy

Pursuing Human Rights through Public Diplomacy

image The latest issue of PD is available. PD is a bi-annual magazine that focuses on one particular subject area in each issue. The theme this time around is “Pursuing Human Rights Through Public Diplomacy“, a complex area not often explored by public diplomacy researchers. As the editors note, “Nonstate actors [in the area of human rights] do not necessarily consider themselves public diplomacy practitioners, and thus are not always aware of the public diplomacy power they wield.”

A small selection of the articles in the current issue are:

Continue reading “Pursuing Human Rights through Public Diplomacy

Twitter’s impact on public diplomacy

On July 16, 2010, The Huffington Post published an opinion piece authored by John Brown, former U.S. Foreign Service officer and currently Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown University.

In the op-ed titled "What’s important, what’s happening, and what’s public diplomacy," Brown discusses the limitation of social media as an intellectual or political tool. Instead of heavily focusing on using social media such as Twitter to engage with target audiences, public diplomacy practitioners should execute public diplomacy via person-to-person contact where they can speak freely beyond 140 characters.

Brown says, "Much of what twitterers say is as significant as that Viagra ad aired on the corporate evening news. ‘Now’ is not ‘wisdom.’" He scoffs at the U.S. State Department’s pop approach to using social media to promote U.S. public diplomacy, identifying insignificant discussions roaming on Twitter. Rather, he supports Evgeny Morozov, who skeptically views new media as a reliable platform to engage with international audiences.

(In a Dec. 1, 2009 Wired article, Morozov said, "The problem is that doing something online doesn’t work that well with populations that are predominantly offline and predominantly illiterate… For the next twenty years, the battle for ‘hearts and minds’ in regions that really matter geopolitically will still be fought using what social media gurus call ‘legacy media’: radio and, to a lesser extent, television.")

Separately, the Dutch Foreign Ministry approached the MountainRunner blog on a survey project involving the importance of social networking in public diplomacy. Feel free to share your thoughts to these questions below in the comments and email Carolijn van Noort, the researcher, directly with details.

Continue reading “Twitter’s impact on public diplomacy

Engaging in a Now Media Continuum

By Chris Dufour

image This post is based on Chris Dufour’s presentation at the MountainRunner Institute’s Now Media 6 July 2010 seminar. This seminar will be held again in 2010, so stay tuned.

This past Tuesday, July 6th, 2010, I got the opportunity to speak as part of the MountainRunner Institute‘s “Now Media” seminar at the National Press Club. For the less sharp-eyed out there, I’ve been proud to call Matt Armstrong (MRi President and a highly AWESOME blogger) a friend for some time… even before he provided the first forum for Must. Be. AWESOME!!! in its proto-stage. A few months ago, Matt asked me to help him transform his blog, MountainRunner, into a full-fledged nonprofit institute devoted to the study of and conversations about public diplomacy and strategic communication.

One of MRi’s key offerings is a seminar Matt honchos about “Now Media,” his concept of understanding the existing and emerging media environment as it relates to influence and engagement. These seminars give us an opportunity to wrap up everything we learn into something useful for communication practitioners. At this particular event, we had attendees from the U.S. Marine Corps public affairs team, the State Department, and even a contingent of Indonesian bloggers visiting the States on a State Department exchange.

Continue reading “Engaging in a Now Media Continuum

Now Media: Engagement based on Information not Platforms

mri_sm_300

On July 6, 2010, the MountainRunner Institute, a not-for-profit non-partisan think tank, with the support of InterMedia, presents a one-day training event to prepare you and your organization for today’s cyber and non-cyber challenges. Now Media: Engagement Based on Information not Platforms will help you gain a better understanding of the capabilities, capacities, and authorities necessary to be effective in today’s global informational and physical environment. Registration and more information may be found here.

Topics include:

  • The Convergence of “old media” and “new media” into Now Media;
  • Mobilizing and even creating “diasporas” that facilitate engagement pathways and challenge traditional views of nationalism;
  • Moving from “target audiences” to “relevant participants”;
  • Adversarial use of online media;
  • Frank discussions on the organizational, doctrinal, and legal challenges (real and imagined) facing the US today.

Date: July 6, 2010 
Time: 8:30a – 5p (light breakfast at 8a, lunch and refreshments will be provided) 
Location: National Press Club in the McClendon Room 
Cost: $300 before June 27, $400 June 28 and after; group discounts are available for 3 or more; credit cards are accepted.

Speakers:

  • Matt Armstrong, President, MountainRunner Institute; publisher of the blog MountainRunner.us
  • Adam Pearson, White Canvas Group
  • Duncan MacInnes, Acting Coordinator, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State
  • A representative from InterMedia;

Attending the second half of the event are four Indonesian bloggers, including the "father of Indonesian blogging", that are in the United States under the auspices of the Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

Questions should be directed to Matt Armstrong at blog@mountainrunner.us.

Register today.

Understanding Social Media’s Contribution to Public Diplomacy

This is part of an ongoing series of journal-style peer-reviewed articles featured at www.MountainRunner.us (and soon at www.MountainRunnerInstitute.org) on subjects and issues related to public diplomacy and strategic communication, U.S. or otherwise. Submit articles to info@mountainrunnerinstitute.org.

Understanding Social Media’s Contribution to Public Diplomacy: How Embassy Jakarta’s Facebook Outreach Illuminates the Limitations and Potential for the State Department’s Use of Social Media

by Melanie Ciolek

View the article or download the article (251kb PDF).

As social media platforms have grown in popularity around the world, calls for the U.S. State Department to utilize them have also increased. The perception that these new technologies “redefine how foreign ministries communicate and collaborate with publics” by enabling interaction has become widely accepted, even though far fewer understand how platforms like Facebook and Twitter actually create opportunities for engagement. While the State Department has embraced the concept of using social media tools as another way to engage with audiences around the world, there is confusion about using social media as a public diplomacy tool and skepticism about whether or not its use can prove effective.

This paper intends to demonstrate that social media tools can contribute to public diplomacy when their use responds to the audience and considers the overall information landscape. While President Obama’s visit has yet to occur, it’s possible to see how the Embassy’s effective use of Facebook helps advance U.S. public diplomacy objectives while producing visible interaction with its audience and building a basis for continued engagement. By recognizing both the limitations and potential of social media within Indonesia’s information environment, Embassy Jakarta’s Facebook outreach provides valuable lessons for developing future State Department outreach efforts. Improving comprehension of social media’s contribution to public diplomacy can help State Department practitioners and policymakers communicate its value to Congressional lawmakers who ultimately determine the financial resources allocated to public diplomacy efforts.

Melanie Ciolek is a second year student in the Master of Public Diplomacy program at the University of Southern California, and interns for the public diplomacy evaluation project at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy. Before arriving at USC, Melanie worked for the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) in Washington D.C., a global public opinion research think tank which manages the WorldPublicOpinion.org project.

Changes at State Public Diplomacy

Dan Sreebny has joined the Office of Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale as a Senior Media Advisor. Dan joined the Foreign Service in 1980 and served as a Public Diplomacy officer in Bahrain, Oman, Hong Kong, Israel, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Washington.  He can be followed on Twitter at PD_Dan. Dan was previously acting coordinator of the Bureau of International Information Programs (IIP), a position now filled by Duncan MacInnes, also as “acting”.

Speaking with a senior source, there was some excitement with the soon-to-be-announced permanent Coordinator. While the position should still be an Assistant Secretary, perhaps there’s a reason to be thankful it is not considering the Senate’s failure to confirm virtually every nominee – including the not-controversial Ann Stock to be Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Event: understanding the information-based global environment

We live in a complex world. Concepts of “foreign” and “domestic” are merely myths as traditional gatekeepers and barriers of information are bypassed or manipulated as today’s battlefields over minds or territory are increasingly transparent. The past walls – be they costs, political, cultural, or geographic – are crumbling, circumvented, or simply gone. This has democratized influence, as well as destruction and disruption, as individuals and non-state actors can wield strategic power on par, and too often in excess of, with states.

On July 6, 2010, the MountainRunner Institute will, with the support of InterMedia, present a one-day training event to prepare you and your organization for today’s environment. Titled Now Media: engagement based on information not platforms, this discussion is designed to help you gain a better understanding of the capabilities, capacities, and authorities necessary to be effective in today’s global environment. While the emphasis is on actors and audiences relevant to national security, knowledge from the course will be readily applied in other areas. More information can be found here.

Topics include:

  • The Convergence of “old media” and “new media” into Now Media;
  • Mobilizing and even creating “diasporas” that facilitate engagement pathways and challenge traditional views of nationalism;
  • Moving from “target audiences” to “relevant participants”;
  • Adversarial use of online media;
  • Frank discussions on the organizational, doctrinal, and legal challenges (real and imagined) facing the US today.

Date: July 6, 2010
Time: 8:30a – 5p (light breakfast at 8a, lunch and refreshments will be provided)
Location: National Press Club in the McClendon Room
529 14th St. NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC 20045 (map)

Cost: $300 before June 27, $400 June 28 and after; group discounts are available for 3 or more; credit cards are accepted.

Speakers: Matt Armstrong, President, MountainRunner Institute; Adam Pearson, White Canvas Group; a representative from InterMedia; and a special guest.

To register, send an email to Matt Armstrong at blog@mountainrunner.us.