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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

TRANSFORMATIVE MOBILIZATION: FROM OBAMA’S CAMPAIGN TECHNIQUES TO PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
NOV 9, 2008 - 6:33PM PDT
Posted by Monroe E. Price
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It may be peculiar to comment on one’s own blog. But, having just provided a post on possible directions for Obama’s international broadcasting and public diplomacy strategy, I realized I had missed the elephant (or donkey) in the room.

In thinking about a strategy for the new administration, the obvious question (so obvious that it’s already three-quarters asked) is: what would it mean to harness, for global understanding, the Obama campaign’s approach to “movement” thinking and its brilliant exploitation of the potential of the Internet?

International broadcasters have been struggling with the question of how to adjust to new technology.... FULL TEXT
 
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CHANGING INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING IN THE OBAMA ERA?
NOV 6, 2008 - 4:44PM PDT
Posted by Monroe E. Price
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Can two late thinkers, a French philosopher and British media scholar, point the way to a new American public diplomacy— or at least an American international broadcasting strategy— for the Obama era?

Let’s start with two unarguable points. The very election of Barack Obama shifts the world of public diplomacy and automatically alters the dynamic of U.S. messaging abroad. As Timothy Garton Ash put it in the Guardian, “Obama is himself a weapon of mass attraction.”

Second, as commission after commission and report after report found this decade, without addressing underlying foreign policy initiatives, attention to the form and technique... FULL TEXT
 
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PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTERNATIONAL ENGAGEMENT IN AFGHANISTAN
OCT 31, 2008 - 6:07PM PDT
Posted by M. Ashraf Haidari
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I had heard many good things about Wilton Park's conferences, and was finally able to participate in one entitled "Public Diplomacy: Meeting New Challenges" on October 7, 2008. The conference consisted of several sessions, including one on Afghanistan that generated much discussion by a number of publicly renowned diplomacy experts and practitioners from some of the countries with forces in Afghanistan. We discussed challenges and opportunities for public diplomacy in my country in the context of international stabilization and reconstruction efforts.

In my remarks, I pointed out three key opportunities for international engagement in Afghanistan that have been underutilized. I... FULL TEXT
 
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RUSSIA TODAY: VIEWS FROM MY HOTEL ROOM
OCT 30, 2008 - 2:33PM PDT
Posted by Nicholas J. Cull
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When awake with jet lag in a hotel far from home, the traveler naturally turns to the TV remote. So it was for me in Moscow this week, when a few absent minded clicks brought me face to face with Russia Today (RT)– the English language news channel and flagship for contemporary Russian public diplomacy. The channel did not come highly recommended. It had raised eyebrows with recent magazine advertisements adorned with a portrait of Stalin holding a quill and that caption: “Stalin wrote romantic poetry” and the tag line “Proud to be different”. (Type Russia Today Stalin into Google... FULL TEXT
 
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ENTERTAINMENT, POLITICS & CULTURAL DIPLOMACY
OCT 23, 2008 - 1:44PM PDT
Posted by Johanna Blakley
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When it comes to entertainment, leisure and play, people generally exercise more freedom of choice than in any other realm of modern life. They choose to watch a movie, play chess, go to a concert, or go shopping because they find it amusing. In short, look at the way people entertain themselves and you’ll discover what people wish to do for one's own sake. If you’re looking for a window into the global village, to assess its condition and its attitudes toward every imaginable aspect of contemporary life, there can be no better portal than global entertainment.

Last month, the... FULL TEXT
 
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