November 17

"[T]he Middle East broadcasting projects ... need to be blown up."

--Professor Philip Seib, Toward a New Public Diplomacy: Redirecting U.S. Foreign Policy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), p. vii; image from; see also

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Professor Bruce Gregory Public Diplomacy Bibliography #48

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

International Students Come to United States in Record Numbers, 16% Increase in New Foreign Student Enrollments is Largest Since 1980 - Office of the Spokesman Washington, DC November 16, 2009: "The number of international students at colleges and universities in the United States increased by 8% to an all-time high of 671,616 in the 2008/09 academic year while the number of 'new' international students — those enrolled for the first time at a U.S. college or university in fall 2008 — increased by 16%. This represents the largest percentage increase in international student enrollments since 1980/81. Those findings and more were released today in Open Doors 2009, the annual survey report published by the Institute of International Education (IIE)

with funding from the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. 'The all-time high number of international students who studied here in the 2008/09 academic year testifies to the quality and diversity for which American higher education is known around the world. The Department of State actively promotes the benefits of an American education,' said Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith A. McHale at a briefing today at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. She added, 'Our large network of more than 400 Education USA advising centers plays a key role in matching international students with a U.S. academic institution that’s just right for them.'” Image from IIE homepage

China leads surge of foreign students into US colleges: Education is becoming more globalized, with more foreign students coming to the US, while more American college students head abroad to new destinations such as India and China, according to two new studies: - Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor: "The State Department is also playing a role in the effort to attract foreign students to the US. It has established a network of offices around the globe where students can research US educational opportunities. There, foreign students can get answers to questions such as the differences between large universities and the typically American small liberal-arts college.

India sends most students to US as Americans look to India (Second Lead) - IANS:

"India sent over 103,000 students to the US in 2008-09, the maximum number from any country, a new survey said. At the same time, India became one of the favourite destinations of American students." See also (1) (2) (3) (4) (5). Image from

Strategic retreat from Afghanistan? – examiner.com: "What is the meaning of the varying signals that the administration is sending on Afghanistan while it continues its deliberations? The signals vary from a slow surge with a resulting 38,000 troop increase to the Biden supported focus on Al Qaeda with possible troop reductions, to the US Ambassador saying that there should be no additional troops until the Karzai administration cleans up its corrupt practices. It would appear that the stage is being set for a strategic retreat. ... The administration may be seeking to get a perfect strategy, but in the interim they appear to have forgotten the criticality of coordinated public diplomacy."

Even the Taliban Supports Local Radio - Alexia Parks, Huffington Post: "David Hoffman's InterNews,

a $35 million organization which has helped support the development of 4,800 news outlets in 30 countries, has just opened its 42nd radio station in Afghanistan, and over lunch, Hoffman had an interesting story to tell. It was about the response from the Taliban to this form of public diplomacy. Shortly after the station started reporting local news, says Hoffman, it received a phone call from a very polite member of the Taliban. 'Could you please take the little jingle off the air?' the caller asked. 'I want to listen to the news, but it starts with a jingle, and we're not allowed to listen to music.' The Taliban could burn us down, says Hoffman, but they don't, because we provide an important function in Afghanistan." Hoffman image from

Testing times for Pakistan-US relations - Maleeha Lodhi: Financial Times: "US secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s visit to Pakistan was a striking and impressive display of public diplomacy. Rarely has a visiting American official, much less a secretary of state, reached out to speak directly to such a wide cross-section of Pakistanis."

A Diplomatic Surge in Pakistan - Ziad Haider, The Moderate Voice:

"So how does the U.S. leverage diplomacy to strengthen its relationship with Pakistan based on 'mutual interest and mutual respect?' ... . First, U.S. diplomacy must focus on the Pakistani people. The Kerry-Lugar bill that tripled economic aid was an important start; patience and public diplomacy are required to reap the dividends." Image from

Howard Berman/Richard Lugar BIPARTISAN Team Call For End to Cuba Travel Ban – Steve Clemons, Huffington Post: "Bush Institute for Public Policy Director and former G.W. Bush administration Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy James Glassman has also argued that the travel ban and embargo undermine American interests."

Where's the value added here?- Matt Armstrong, MountainRunner.us: There's an interesting event tonight at Johns Hopkins, Communication Roundtable- Winning Hearts and Minds: American Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century . ... I'd say the biggest challenge for American public diplomacy today and the coming years is getting away from 'battle for hearts and minds',

a quaint concept ... . This is neither a battle to be 'won' or 'lost' nor do we care about their hearts and the implication of likability. The enduring struggle of the modern world is centered afar and is less about us than enemy propagandists would have us or their target audiences believe. We do not have the luxury of 'winning' or 'losing' and walking away to celebrate or mope. ... It seems to me, however, that the 'hearts and minds' sentences are throw-away statements that confuse and misdirect from the substance of the discussion. Of the top of my head, I think they should stick with the implied focus of technological outreach." Image from

U.S. Door Stays Open in Face of Swirl of Corruption - Ian Urbina, New York Times: "The nation’s doors are open to Mr. [Teodoro Nguema] Obiang, the forest and agriculture minister of Equatorial Guinea and the son of its ruler, even though federal law enforcement officials believe 'most if not all' of his wealth comes from corruption related to the extensive oil and gas reserves discovered more than a decade and a half ago off the coast of his tiny West African country ... . And they are open despite a federal law and a presidential proclamation that prohibit corrupt foreign officials and their families from receiving an American visa. ...

Daniel Whitman, who retired in September as the deputy director of the Office of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Bureau of African Affairs, agreed that the law should be used more forcefully. 'We just seem to lack the backbone to use this prohibition,' Mr. Whitman said. 'In the rare cases it is used, no one at State was willing to talk about it.'" Obiang image from

Don’t Forget Religious Freedom- Jennifer S. Bryson, thepublicdiscourse.com: "In 1998, Congress enacted the International Religious Freedom Act establishing and requiring appointment of an Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom and creating an Office of International Religious Freedom (IRF) in the State Department. Yet, in this effort to advance religious freedom the State Department’s IRF office faces several challenges. To begin with, it is structurally and culturally isolated inside the State Department bureaucracy. Outside of the IRF office itself, the Department of State IRF Fan Club is, alas, not vast. To correct this, the IRF office needs to establish long-term working partnerships with other sections in the State Department, such as Public Diplomacy, in order to extend integration of religious freedom into U.S. foreign engagement."

Germany's 'soft diplomacy' in D.C.: Exhibits, movies and electronic music try to woo Americans - Stacey Skotzko, congress.org: "The exhibit on the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Goethe-Institut is typical: old border crossing signs, fragments of the wall and posters. The reason is not. Unlike events at the German embassy or the German Historical Institute, this small show in a building near Washington's Chinatown is not just a commemoration. It's also a bit of cultural diplomacy. The country is not alone in its efforts. The British Council promotes cultural ties to the United Kingdom in the Washington area; the Confucius Institute, China; and the Alliance Française, France. They are prime examples of soft diplomacy, argues American University's director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, James Thurber. ... America even gets in the act itself through the U.S. Agency for International Development [sic].” Courtesy MP.

Public Diplomacy vs. Placido Domingo - Liz Romig, SIS640:

The Group Four Blogging Corps: "I clearly favor what Nye describes as the 'slow media of cultural diplomacy' – found through arts, books, and exchanges and resulting in a 'trickle-down effect', while much of what we learn about relates to the 'fast information media', promising 'more immediate and visible bang for bucks.' Technology certainly provides the means, but it doesn’t replace the need for effective communication." Image from

My A-Ha Moment! - Chemia_Woods, Group3SIS640: "Thank goodness for Joseph S. Nye, Jr.!!! I understood soft power and hard power thoroughly. In class, I had an idea of what was being referred to, but now I have a 'working knowledge' of the terms. I now know that soft power is more than influences/persuading someone to act favorably. It includes actual enticement and attraction toward the favorable side. Hard power in my understanding deals with more overt measures, so to speak. Is psyops an example of hard power??? Then comes public diplomacy, which is utilized by governments in order to attract other countries' publics. For instance, public diplomacy is used to present a nation's cultural values via various broadcasting resources."

Public Diplomacy 3.0? - - Jaxiecracks, SIS 640 Communiacs: "The Creative Domain Of The Fall 2009 Sis 640 [AU]: It's interesting to see web 2.0 being touted as the future of public diplomacy, and the philosophy upon which America should build its public diplomacy efforts. ... That said, in the internet world, 2.0 is already passe. Even as Twitter and Facebook, the epitomic models of web 2.0, still struggle to find a reliable revenue model, internet movers and shakers are already at work on web 3.0, or the 'semantic web'.

This internet model is about intelligent searching, personalization, how the vastness of the world wide web matters to you as a unique individual, rather than as one of the masses. For the government to be putting their eggs in the Public Diplomacy 2.0 basket would be to invest in something that will likely feel dated and irrelevant by the time it comes to full fruition." Image from

Soft power, public diplomacy and technology...what next? - nikole.fernandez, SIS640: The Group Four Blogging Corps: "Public diplomacy helps disseminate soft power efforts through broadcasting, subsidizing cultural exports, and arranging exchanges. ... In talking about the internet and face-to-face interaction, it is important to mention the Public Diplomacy 2.0 (PD 2.0) approach which James Glassman describes in his speech, 'Public Diplomacy 2.0'. He first emphasizes that PD 2.0 is not a new technology; it is an approach to public diplomacy which uses social networking technologies to its advantage and in keeping up with the changing information age."

Challenges for Arab and American PR - Satu-Maria, Public Relations in Arab countries: "There are lot of challenges for Arab and American public relations and public diplomacy. Ray Eldon Hiebert (2005) says that 'both Arabs and Americans have developed negative opinions about each other, increasing the need for good public relations and public diplomacy between the two publics'. This kind of situation where people have build up one-sided views and strong emotions, is a challenge for the public relations professionals."

"Only connect" says brand strategy author on new one-day course for London entrepreneurs - cambridgenetwork.co.uk: "Simon Middleton, known as 'The Brand Strategy Guru', ... works at a senior, strategic, level as a completely independent strategic advisor: helping organisations to understand their brand challenges and opportunities, and to maximise their brand reputations. ... Simon is a member of ... The Association for Place Branding & Public Diplomacy.”

Words of support for the exile radio stations broadcasting to North Korea (updated) - Kim Andrew Elliott discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy

RELATED ITEMS

Few Allowed To Watch As Obama Prods China To Increase Openness [no link] - Bulletin News, LLC: Most coverage of President Obama's trip to China (which included reports on all three network newscasts) focuses on comments he made at a Shanghai town hall event yesterday. The President's discussion of Internet freedom and his disavowal of censorship are said to have been couched in diplomatic terms -- meant to avoid unnecessary friction with his hosts. Most media reports note that the Chinese government strictly limited dissemination of video and transcripts of the President's remarks. Far fewer reports contrasted this degree of censorship with the Chinese government's more relaxed approach to former Presidents Bush and Clinton, whose speeches were allowed to be broadcast nationally. ABC World News reported Obama "used a town hall style forum with students to prod the Chinese government on human rights. The government called the forum quite lively, though it was apparently too lively to allow many Chinese to see it." NBC Nightly News said the town hall event "gave the President an opening to gently prod the Chinese to be more open." The AP reports Chinese officials "put the event on the eastern fringes of the city" and "only local Shanghai TV carried it live, though it was streamed on two popular Internet portals and on the White House's Web site, which is not censored." The Washington Post, in an article titled, "Obama Backs Non-censorship; Beijing, Apparently, Does Not," reports that "most Chinese never got to hear or read what Obama said" and "his talk to the students was never mentioned on China's main official 7 p.m. news broadcast."

The New York Times says, "Most of those who attended...turned out to be members of the Communist Youth League, an official organization that grooms obedient students for future leadership posts," while "some Chinese bloggers whom the White House had tried to invite were barred from attending." Peter Ford, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, says, "After a string of softball questions from officially selected students, Ambassador Jon Huntsman read out a question that someone had sent in to the US Embassy website, asking bluntly what the president thought of Internet censorship in China." Obama "stressed that he had 'always been a strong supporter of open Internet use' and 'a big supporter of non-censorship.'" The AP reports that President Obama "may have been hoping to set a personal example for China's leaders when he said he believes that free discussion, including criticism that may be annoying to him, makes him 'a better leader because it forces me to hear opinions that I don't want to hear.' Image from

Welcome, China? President Obama's bet on partnership with an undemocratic power – Editorial, Washington Post: The United States has no choice but to recognize China's rise as a great power, and Mr. Obama may be right that a policy of containment would be counterproductive. But "welcome" a dictatorship to global influence? It's hard to see why that is a necessary or sensible stance for the U.S. president.

Obama is right to acknowledge China's might:For better and worse, the U.S. and Chinese economies are intertwined, and that makes America stronger, not weaker – Editorial, latimes.com:

The U.S. and China surely will face many political, economic and possibly military challenges in the future. It would be best if they resolve them through a dialogue -- one global power to another. Image from

China and the American Jobs Machine China's export policy is really a social policy, designed to maintain order – Robert B. Reich, Wall Street Journal: China wants to become the world's pre-eminent producer nation. It also wants to take the lead in the production of advanced technologies. The U.S. would like to retain the lead, but our economy is oriented to consumption rather than production.

The Nation of Futurity – David Brooks, New York Times:

The Chinese, though members of a famously old civilization, seem to possess some of the vigor that once defined the U.S. Image from

To die for an exit strategy- Tony Blankley, Washington Times: This president, and this White House staff, do not have the stomach to continue the war in Afghanistan. They are trying to avoid it. If the Taliban and al Qaeda retake Afghanistan, the world (and America) will have hell to pay for the consequences.

Iran issue is key to Obama's other foreign policy goals: His administration hopes to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world and achieve global nuclear disarmament - Gary Schmitt, latimes.com: In Cairo and at the U.N., Obama laid out bold ambitions for the world and a new profile for American leadership. The road to realize those ambitions, however, runs directly through Tehran.

Getting Iran right is, of course, important in its own right. But solving the Iranian nuclear issue is no less important to the president's larger vision. Image from

It's no way to fight a war on terror:Prosecuting suspected 9/11 terrorists in civilian court -- as President Obama and Atty Gen. Eric J. Holder Jr. plan to do -- is wrong on several levels - Meanwhile, the war on terror lives. Just don't tell that to Barack Obama - Jonah Goldberg, latimes.com

A Mideast Truce - Roger Cohen, New York Times: The president tried to rekindle Israel-Palestinian peace talks by confronting Israel on settlements, coaxing Palestinians to resume negotiations, and reaching out to the Muslim world. The effort has failed Obama, who has his Nobel already, should ratchet expectations downward. Stop talking about peace. Banish the word. Start talking about détente.

“Strangers in Sight -- Photo Albums from the Second World War” - actuphoto.com: "The exhibition 'Strangers in Sight -- Photo Albums from the Second World War' ... show[s] the inhabitants, landscapes and cultural monuments of the occupied countries as seen through the eyes of German soldiers.

Yet the exhibition investigates not only the photographic motifs and related pictorial aesthetic, but also the influence of war propaganda on amateur photography."

ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY

"Thus all Art is propaganda and ever must be, despite the wailing of the purists. I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy. I do not care a damn for any art that is not used for propaganda. But I do care when propaganda is confined to one side while the other is stripped and silent."

--From The Criteria of Negro Art by W.E.B. DuBois