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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.

Posts by Alvin Snyder

THE ENGLISH INVASION
DEC 15, 2005 - 12:57PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
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The latest international television satellite channel, Russia Today, debuted this week, after securing a bank loan of $30 million to cover start up costs. It will broadcast in English, as do satellite networks from the BBC, the Chinese government, and the proposed Al Jazeera channel. The satellite news bandwagon is getting more crowded all the time and English will be the language of choice as new channels develop.

Russia Today is a 24/7 all-news channel, with a staff of more than 300. It began beaming English-language programs to the United States, Europe and Asia to provide a modern-day image of... FULL TEXT
 
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THE GREAT ALHURRA DEBATE
DEC 7, 2005 - 12:51PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee conceded that its recent call for a debate on Alhurra's effectiveness should have happened before America’s Arabic television channel went on the air. But the oversight committee is too late. The dispute rages daily in Washington and the Middle East, and battle lines have been drawn on two major issues.

One is who is watching Alhurra, and the other is what they see there.

Audience ratings are important because the message means nothing if no one is there to receive it, as noted by Norman Pattiz, who founded Alhurra and Radio Sawa, the United States... FULL TEXT
 
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USIA’S TOP GUNS
NOV 29, 2005 - 12:44PM PDT
Posted by Alvin Snyder
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Karen Hughes is America's Top Gun communicator. But how will her job performance be rated 25 or even 50 years from now by her team in the State Department, elsewhere around the world and in the many politico-history books that will be written about her?

Of course it's too early to tell, as she is just finding her way as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. But does she have the qualities that helped raise some former directors of the defunct U.S. Information Agency to legendary status?

There were more than a dozen USIA directors during the agency's... FULL TEXT
 
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