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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 Kristin M. Lord

REFLECTIONS ON U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
NOV 24, 2008 - 8:22PM PDT
Posted by Kristin M. Lord
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With help from USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy and hundreds of other individuals and groups, I recently authored a Brookings Institution report on public diplomacy and what it should look like in the coming years and decades. That report is available on-line at Voices of America: U.S. Public Diplomacy for the 21st Century.

This blog won’t retread that ground. Instead, I’d like to share some personal reflections you won’t find in the text.

Reflection Number 1: I always knew that Americans were patriotic and cared about America’s image in the world, but I was stunned by the incredible outpouring of... FULL TEXT
 
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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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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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BRAVO, BURLINGTON: A SMALL VICTORY FOR AL-JAZEERA ENGLISH, A SYMBOLIC VICTORY FOR THE UNITED STATES
JUN 27, 2008 - 2:14PM PDT
Posted by Shawn Powers
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It is about time that the Al-Jazeera Network received some good news from America. Having been accused by the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of inciting terrorism and assisting Iraqi insurgents, and then allegedly considered as a potential target of a U.S.-led military strike, Al-Jazeera has not exactly felt welcome here in the United States since the beginning of the war in Iraq. When Americans hear the words "Al-Jazeera", many immediately associate it with Osama bin Laden, the world's most recognized face of terrorism. It is thus easy to see why Al-Jazeera English has had trouble finding room in... FULL TEXT
 
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