Main Page | Month Archive | Email Updates | RSS Feed

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.

AMERICAN PD: MISSION STILL NOT ACCOMPLISHED
DEC 15, 2008 - 12:10PM PDT
Posted by Rob Asghar
All posts by this author

If we consider public diplomacy in the narrower sense, as one government's efforts to speak to the public of another nation, President Bush's visit to Iraq this weekend would be a, well, "fitting" symbol of the state of American PD. He narrowly ducked rage that was aimed at him by a new manner of shoe bomber, one equipped with both ninja skill and ferocity.

So as the leader of the world's sole superpower attempted one simple soft-power victory lap amidst the hard-power effort that defines his tenure, the lasting image is even more ironic than that from his "Mission Accomplished"... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

INDIA REFRAMES THE WAR ON TERROR
DEC 15, 2008 - 11:33AM PDT
Posted by Adam Clayton Powell III
All posts by this author

MUMBAI -- Following the attacks here two weeks ago, much of the coverage on local media looks familiar: red banner stripes and logos with such phrases as "26/11 Fight against Terrorism". But it is not quite the same as US networks' "War on Terror".

There are "Indians of the Year", mini-package profiles of the soldiers and others who died during the fighting that occurred the week before last just down the street from my hotel, and live coverage of vigils and demonstrations. Also, the attack on Mumbai has been framed as attack on modernity. So far, again, it looks quite... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (1) | Add Your Own

LET’S NOT FORGET PUBLIC DIPLOMACY 1.0
DEC 8, 2008 - 5:46PM PDT
Posted by Mitchell Polman
All posts by this author

In the new movie "Slumdog Millionaire" there is a poignant scene that all public diplomacy experts should have etched in their minds. It's of a classroom full of boys in a Mumbai slum inhabited by Moslems passing around one copy of the "Three Musketeers" as part of their English lesson. Later we watch one of those boys evolve into a gangster. He could just as easily have joined Al Qaeda. The scene takes place in the early 1980's, but I suspect that in spite of India's growth that similar scenes can be found today. I say public diplomacy experts should... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

CONNECTIVITY AND NETWORKS RULE: VIRTUALITY, PUBLIC DIPLOMACY AND THE FOREIGN MINISTRY
NOV 26, 2008 - 10:40AM PDT
Posted by Daryl Copeland
All posts by this author

When USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy embarked on its Virtual Worlds project a few years ago, I admit to being somewhat sceptical. The undertaking seemed, at the time, just too ephemeral, too abstract, too distant from the machinations of realpolitik and the grind of bureaucratic process which I experienced daily as a diplomat.

My thinking, not unlike internet applications, has since migrated.

Since its popular inception in the early 1990s, the epicentre of the internet has continually moved. In less than a decade it has shifted from Web 1.0 — which can be thought of as read/write/broadcast mode — to... FULL TEXT
 
Read Comments (0) | Add Your Own

REFLECTIONS ON U.S. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
NOV 24, 2008 - 8:22PM PDT
Posted by Kristin M. Lord
All posts by this author

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
 
Read Comments (3) | Add Your Own

Previous posts  <  1 2 3 4 >  Last »