"To be honest, I'd chosen Public Diplomacy because it sounded glamorous and sexy. But, in reality, that's not me."
--Future Diplomat, writing in her blog of the same name, which specifies that "This Blog Is Not Endorsed by Peace Corps, the Foreign Service, or the U.S. Government. It Is, However, Endorsed by Awesomeness." Image from blog
EVENT
Exploring a Comprehensive Approach to Public Diplomacy - Heritage Foundation (Tuesday, September 18, 2012, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM). Via PDC
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
The need for more US public diplomacy in the Middle East - Eric Davis, east.blogspot.com: "The US needs a much more robust public diplomacy program in the Middle East. The very fact new-middle- that most of the youth who are currently demonstrating against the United States have a complete lack of knowledge of the manner in which our democracy functions underscores the need for a stronger public diplomacy program. Many Middle Easterners believe that the US government could have prevented the distribution of the offensive film, 'The Innocence of Muslims,' not realizing that neither the Obama administration nor any other American administration has the power to prevent freedom of expression, however repugnant. What is called for is a greater effort to bring the reality of the US to the peoples of the Middle East, especially youth, who constitute an excessively large percentage of the region's population. ... As part of a more robust public diplomacy initiative, one strategy to offset lack of knowledge of the American political system and institutions is to offer more scholarships for students from the region to study in the US. I was struck when conducting research in Iraq while Saddam Husayn was still in power how many Iraqis had been positively influenced by their study in the US. ... Another initiative should entail offering educational opportunities for those students who cannot come to study in the US. Education offered through video conferencing and Internet based education provides another means by which youth in the Middle East
could be made aware of the tremendous benefits of an American university education while giving them exposure to our values and open political culture. Still another initiative should engage the clerical community of the three Abrahamic religions, Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The Obama administration should form a Committee of Religious Engagement which would include prominent clerics in the US drawn from theses three major faiths. ... Creating bonds between the US and the peoples of the Middle East can be promoted through establishing more 'sister cities.' Such relationships already exist but could be dramatically increased. ... These efforts would not entail considerable costs. The US State Department should ask the Congress to allocate funds so that these efforts could bear fruition. While the term has been overused, the need to win 'hearts and minds' in the Middle East - especially in light of the growing instability in the region - is more important than ever. Time is of the essence. The Obama administration should begin immediately to expand its use of public diplomacy as a central tool of our foreign policy in the Middle East." Image from entry
Obama's Fleeting Cairo Moment - George Abraham, newamericamedia.org: "Cairo was on [Obama's] mind again this past week after the Egyptian government appeared less than keen to stop repeated attacks on the U.S. embassy there. A clearly frustrated President Obama said of Egypt on Thursday, 'I don't think we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy.' It was a stunning public rebuke of a nation that has received $2 billion in aid annually ever since Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David accords in 1979 and ranks with Israel, Australia and Japan as a 'major non-NATO ally.' As a venue for his first major address on America’s public diplomacy, Cairo was meant to be a leitmotif for a new overture to the Middle East, one designed to balm the Bush-era campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. All of that came to naught last week with the killing of Ambassador Stevens and the disapproval delivered by Obama himself to newly-elected Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. It took Morsi another 24 hours to realise that he had to be more forthcoming if he wanted the aid to continue. ... If Bob Woodward’s latest chronicle The Price of Politics is an indictment of President Obama’s economic policy, the death of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the continuing anti-American tumult in the Middle East are a similar black mark on the foreign policy front. To paraphrase Woodward, Obama has not worked his will – neither in economic policy, nor in public diplomacy."
America’s Shi’a Problem - Ryan Suto, commentary-analysis.insct.org: "The Arab Spring has been the dominant narrative about the Middle East since February 2011. However, a deeper current runs to which the US must pay attention. That is of the Shi’a Crescent. The Shi’a Crescent informally consists of all the
states whose concentration of Shi’a Muslims is greater than the global percentage of Shi’a, about 15%: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kuwait, and Bahrain. ... Some commentators have predicted a clash of civilizations, evidence of which may be visible in Benghazi, Cairo, and Sana’a. However, the Sunni-Shi’a divide, exposed most dramatically by the Arab Spring, has lead to a clash within a civilization. In Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and Bahrain the US is clearly situated in conflict with Shi’a (only in Iraq have our actions proved more favorable for them). For domestic viewers America’s actions—and inactions—toward Lebanon, Iran, Syria, and Bahrain paint a picture of concern toward expanding Iranian influence. However to some Shi’a they paint a picture of anti-Shiism. Because of this, many Shi’a will likely continue to view the US as kingmaker, leading to more of the same resentment which has fueled terrorism over the past two decades. When considering the views of the ‘Shi’a street’, it is in both America’s national security and public diplomacy interests to explicitly connect our foreign policy decisions with our powerful ideals of self determination and religious liberty. The next president must construct this preventative foreign policy, which is necessarily cognizant of this ancient fault line which has reawakened in the region." Image from entry
The Death of U.S. Public Diplomacy and Lessons on How to Resurrect It - Helle Dale, blog.heritage.org: “'The death of
Study looks at use of social media in public diplomacy - phys.org/news: "Shahira Fahmy, an associate professor in the University of Arizona School of Journalism, and a colleague from the
government and foreign policy analysts have shown great interest and enthusiasm in exploring how to increase the efficiency of using social media for more effective public diplomacy. However, studies on the issue have been rare. By the time my colleague and I initiated this research in 2009, a search in the scholarly database ProQuest with key words 'diplomacy' and 'social media' or any type of the social media such as 'blog,' 'YouTube,' 'Twitter,' or 'Wikipedia' generated no results,' Fahmy said. ... In terms of types of social media used, Twitter ranked quite low. Public diplomacy practitioners indicated they mostly used social networks (i.e. Facebook), intranet, followed by video sharing sites, blogs, video conferencing, text messaging, Wiki, instant messaging and then Twitter. The least used were Second Life (or another virtual world) and social bookmarking. 'The low-ranking of use of Twitter (ninth) is interesting given that we live in an era in which micro-blogs such as Twitter could be faster and more influential than any intelligence entity,' Fahmy said. 'Just consider that Twitter in recent years has reportedly played significant roles in the recent citizen upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa including Iran, Tunisia and Egypt. One explanation could be that public diplomacy specialists might prefer the use of other social media tools that can disseminate longer messages that exceed 140 characters.'" Image from article
Keep on Tweetin': The embassy debacle shouldn't end 21st-century #diplomacy - "The notorious tweet reaffirming a statement that condemned 'the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims' has been deleted by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, but the incident raises a question that lingers: Is blasting out 140-character messages on Twitter a good way to conduct diplomacy, given the political, and even mortal, risks? As the official who led the State Department's venture into social media toward the end of President George W. Bush's administration, I am certain the answer is yes. In fact, my worry is that the Cairo tweeting affair will make already risk-averse diplomats even more gun-shy. That would be a shame. U.S. officials need more autonomy to use social media, not less. ... [T]weeting is precisely what diplomats should be doing. Tweets put American ideas smack into the center of a neutral, unmediated conversation -- the best environment for persuasion in an age in which audiences are skeptical of official pronouncements and hard to fool. Less substantive tweets and other social media messaging ... can humanize diplomats and lay the groundwork for more substantive efforts at influence.
To be effective, social media require more personal authority and less bureaucratic oversight. Yes, the State Department should restrict who can tweet and absolutely stick to a rule of no freelancing on policy. Your job as a tweeter is the same as your day job: promoting America's interests as the president sees them. But, except in the case of truly sensitive matters, clearance should not be necessary. If someone screws up, fix it afterward -- and quickly -- and hold the messenger responsible. ... Effective public diplomacy begins with clear ends (which, as an aside, I am not so sure the United States has in Egypt or other parts of the Middle East), and leaders have the responsibility to communicate up and down the line both those ends and the right messages to achieve them. Get that right, and then liberated diplomats on the ground can use the amazing tool of social media -- a gift, really -- to powerful effect. James K. Glassman served as undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and as chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors in U.S. President George W. Bush's administration. He is now executive director of the Bush Institute." Image from article. Via LJB
More on Twitter Diplomacy - Sean Aday, takefiveblog.org: "There are several aspects of social media that make them particularly tricky for diplomats. First, they move in rapid, real time speed, with shelf lives and attention spans that are often even shorter than that of traditional media. This is at odds with a bureaucracy’s desire to vet all communications before making them public. By the time a 140 character tweet has made it up the administrative food chain, the subject has changed and State has lost the opportunity to engage in the conversation. Recognizing this, State has slowly allowed for a more spontaneous approach to social media at its embassies, especially when it comes to posting on Facebook walls and tweeting.
As former Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy James Glassman writes in a smart post at Foreign Policy, Ambassadors are ultimately responsible for tweets from the Embassy, but staff is trusted to proceed with the understanding that no communication can question or contradict U.S. policy. Generally, this is never a problem. That doesn’t mean, however, that tweets and wall postings can’t cause embarrassment. ... Twitter, Facebook, and the like are simply tools in the strategic communication utility belt diplomats can use to engage with foreign publics. But like all forms of communication, they are ultimately meant to serve the strategic ends of, in this case, the U.S. government. The real value of social media, for instance, is a combination of mass information delivery system, and a way to humanize the U.S. government for potentially skeptical audiences who see America as aloof, or worse. Measuring effectiveness of these communications is difficult, to say the least."
See also John Brown, "Twittering; or, Where Are the Emily Dickinsons at the State Department?" Huffington Post (2009). Top image from entry; below Dickinson image from
Latest advice: VOA should dispense "our side," and is "too newsy." Need "funny media" to "ridicule al Qaeda" - Kim Andrew Elliott reporting on International Broadcasting
Economic engagement must for foreign ties: Anand Sharma - twocircles.net: "Noting that economic diplomacy has become integral to bilateral and regional relations, the government Sunday stressed the need to strengthen commercial engagements with emerging economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America. 'Economic engagement has become integral to bilateral and regional relations. The country needs to strengthen commercial engagements with emerging economies of Asia, Africa and Latin America and embrace the world through mutually beneficial trade and investment linkages,' Minister of Commerce, Industry and Textiles Anand Sharma said at the end of the three-day conference of India's Heads of Foreign Missions here. ... The conference saw discussions on non-traditional but crucial aspects of foreign policy practice, including public diplomacy, role of think tanks, cultural and commercial diplomacy besides multi-lateral negotiations on environmental and climate change. Terming India a 'cultural super power', president of Indian Council for Cultural Relations Karan Singh emphasised the role and importance of cultural and public diplomacy tools in projecting the country's soft power."
Will Topless Kate Middleton Photos Cause a Diplomatic Crisis? - jhelsi.com: "Any chance that the printing of Kate Middleton’s topless photos in Italy will cause a diplomatic crisis with England? — Amy K., via Facebook ... . Philip Seib, director of the Center on Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California, thinks 'the diplomats may huff and puff briefly, and then move on to other things.
I’m sure there are people in the British government and the royal family who are not happy about the publication, but they have other things to do. 'It’s one of these one-day-wonder stories,' Seib concludes. 'There is enough bad stuff going on in the world that this is almost comic relief.' Sure. As long as you’re not
Kate Middleton." Above image from; Seib image from
Public Diplomacy in Context – conference in Helsinki and Turku, April 2013 - theogreofthetale.wordpress.com: "Just a quick post to emphasize a conference we are organizing with colleagues in Helsinki. The Call for contributions came out, here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/8w2xl2uo9arii55/Call%20for%20papers_Pub_Diplo.doc
There is also a blog, where information will be given and papers will be circulated:
http://publicdiplomacyincontext.blogspot.fi/ To give you an idea of the main thrust of the conference, here are a few words: The conference would like to emphasize innovative approaches towards the historical study of public diplomacy activities in Northern Europe. Participants are encouraged, in their presentations, to examine those in a chronologically wide and geographically comparative way. The main trend of research on 'public diplomacy' has been infused with the notion that 'public diplomacy' emerged late in the 20th century as a result of technological change, globalization, and a widening of the scope of international relations. This conference would like to suggest that what recent research calls 'public diplomacy' is in fact a much older process of 'national image management' by different actors – in several national settings there seems to be a historical continuum between early 20th century 'image management' activities, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, public diplomacy, and the 'nation branding' activities of the 1980s-1990s. This historical continuum will be under study during the conference. As well, one of the goals of this conference is to unravel generalities about 'public diplomacy' and to contextualize national image management activities in various Nordic and Baltic contexts and at various times; to highlight the variety of practices, actors, methods, incentives, interests involved in public diplomacy, and especially to consider the specificity of public diplomacy in small Northern European states and nations. National image management activities will be considered mostly as a part of foreign policy, with a strong involvement of state authorities, but it will also be seen as a part of complex, multilevel international relations – an activity 'in context', not a set of theoretical visions. We will acknowledge that public diplomacy is stuck in and determined by national, historical, intellectual, linguistic, administrative contexts, which give it a different feel at different times and in different places."
Dr. Peladeau of Provalis Featured Speaker at COTELCO Brown Bag - cotelco.net: "Dr. Normand Peladeau, President of Provalis Research, will be the featured speaker in the next installation of
COTELCO’s Brown Bag Series (#BBSeries) on Tuesday, 18 September 2012 from 12:00pm – 1:30pm EST. Dr. Peladeau, the man behind the Provalis Research Suite, will provide COTELCO research associates and students at American University and Syracuse University (SU) interested in quantitative and qualitative research with an overview of the research suite, as well as a review of new software features. The Provalis Research Suite, which includes the analysis software programs QDA Minor 4, WordStat 6, SimStat 2, is used in several COTELCO projects including the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and the Public Diplomacy Project. The software packages focus on mixed methods qualitative analysis, content analysis and text mining, and statistical analysis, respectively. Tuesday’s Brown Bag will also welcome the students of SU’s Doctor of Professional Studies in Information Management (DPS-IM) program, who are currently participating in the fall 2012 DPS-IM residency. The Provalis Research Suite will be extremely useful to the students as they prepare to conduct their doctoral research this semester. This installation will be the third COTELCO Brown Bag
of the 2012 school year. The next Brown Bag will be held on 25 September 2012 and will feature GWU Public Diplomacy Professor Dr. Steven Livingston. Visit our Facebook page for details and updates. To participate virtually in this Brown Bag, please view the Blackboard Collaborate link. Follow COTELCO and Dr. Normand Peladeau on Twitter!" Top Image from; below image from
Road Runner Travels - Paul Rockower, Levantine: "My brother Harry has begun his blog: http://hrockower.blogspot.com as he traverses around the states conducting public diplomacy on behalf of his alma mater He is visiting all sorts of fun places like Erie, Harrisburg, Rochester and Roanoke to convince the aspiring collegians to come to the crown jewel of the South and study at its finest bastion of academia. It helps that he is selling a school with a 70-30 female to male ratio. Harry is loving his travels, and getting to see America in a way I envy. He is truly a people person (he has always been 'friend of the world') and loves connecting on a real p2p level in Middle America. He is a great listener, which is a quality necessary of all good public diplomats. So have a follow as he bounces around parts mostly foreign to me, and I'm sure we can all enjoy the tales I expect he will have about beating away cougars at Middle America hotel bars. Journey on, Harry!"
RELATED ITEMS
Beyond religion in the Middle East: Violence in Egypt and Libya is more about local politics than Islam - Mimi Hanaoka, latimes.com: Anti-American demonstrations are not necessarily exhibitions of generic Muslim theological rage as much as they are outbursts occurring for specific reasons in the particular and destabilized local contexts of the post-Arab Spring Middle East and North Africa.
The embassy protests and the Arab uprising - Marc Lynch, Foreign Policy: The US embassy attacks do not present the "true face" of the Arab uprisings.
They do not mean that the hopes for democratic change have failed, and we have not entered an "Islamist Winter." The Obama administration has maintained its poise through a difficult week, despite the crisis abroad and the partisan polemics at home. Image from article
Terrorists, White House Agree: It's the Video - Anne Jolis, Wall Street Journal: On Sunday Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., doubled down on the Obama administration's line that "what happened this week in Cairo, in Benghazi and many other parts of the region was a result, a direct result, of a heinous and offensive video." It's definitely no reason to question the administration's broader handling of American interests overseas. Either that video's been online longer than we know or—just maybe—America has bigger problems in the world.
Mr. Obama's 'War' Game: The embassy attacks reveal the weakness of a foreign policy based on pretending people who are at war with us aren't - WIlliam McGurn, Wall Street Journal: In the week since our ambassador to Libya was murdered along with three others from our consulate in Benghazi, the president has studiously avoided using the "w" word to describe what was plainly an attack on the United States.
America foreign policy, adrift on the Middle East - Michael Gerson, washingtonpost.com: The largest failure of Obama’s approach to the Middle East is its apparent geopolitical randomness. Support for Iran’s Green Revolution was late and grudging — as though courageous reformers were intruding on Obama’s engagement of the regime. The president dramatically escalated the Afghan war before conveying an impression of heading for the exits. After wringing its hands, the administration took needed action in Libya. After wringing its hands, it has remained on the sidelines in Syria. The main consistency has been the wringing part.
The myth of Barack the liberator - Marc A. Thiessen, washingtonpost.com: The failure of Obama’s policies in the Middle East is not the fall of dictators in Cairo and Tripoli; it is the failure of leadership in Washington. On taking office, Obama promised to usher in a new era of popularity in the region. Well, ask yourself this: Are we more popular now than we were four years ago?
The price of Obama’s leading from behind - Richard Cohen, washingtonpost.com: “Leading from behind” was the phrase coined in reference to Barack Obama’s reluctance to take the lead in the NATO air campaign that toppled the dictatorship of Moammar Gaddafi. beyond the very Obamaness of Obama himself — the quality that made him a Nobel Peace Prize winner in the pupal stage of his presidency — lurks a foreign policy that has been more sentiment and aspiration than hard reasoning. Leading from behind is not a nifty phrase. In Libya, it’s an indictment.
How Many More Will We Kill Mr. President? - Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: Adnan Latif died of Guantanamo, the ninth prisoner to die in U.S. custody there. There are about 167 men left in Gitmo. On August 1, 2007, Obama said that “As president I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.”
Protests Spread, Embassy Warnings and Temporary Suspension of Public Services - Domani Spero, DiploPundit: The Atlantic Wire’s John Hudson mapped on Google the protests breaking out across the globe due to a 14-minute YouTube clip of an anti-Muslim movie. The protests are directed primarily against U.S. embassies, but also against institutions and businesses like the American International School in Tunis (burned and looted, also photos here of the US Embassy Tunis from an Arabic website), and the Kentucky Fried Chicken and Hardee’s in Lebanon (burned and ransacked).
Can the U.S. keep diplomats safe without turning embassies into fortresses? - Joshua E. Keating, Foreign Policy: In the end, of course, diplomatic postings in politically sensitive regions will always carry risks, and embassies will always be targets for demonstrators or militants angry at
Interview: Pakistani Journalist Urges Muslims to Unite to Counter Western Propaganda - farsnews.com: Pakistani journalist and former advisor to Kuwait Air Force Raja G. Mujtaba
believes that the recent blasphemous movie against Islam has been produced to provoke the anger of Muslims around the world so that the Western propaganda machinery may have the excuse to depict them as extremist and fanatics. Mujtaba image from article.
Historic First For Condi - Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog: Condi was at some pointless diplo-confab in Yalta on Friday, so she decided to chastise her hosts for their imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko for, I think, being boring when her hairdo made her seem so exciting at first. How disdainful was
OMG, snub city: Earlier in the day, Rice ignored a photo opportunity with Yanukovych, who delivered a speech at the same conference earlier in the day. Condi ignored a photo opportunity. Let that sink in. Condoleezza Rice ignored a photo opportunity. That, Pony Pals™, has GOT to be a first. Perhaps it was the Disneytronic Condibot, and its photo-op detect-o-lert was malfunctioning? And if that was the Condibot, ew, they should fix its hands, or else it'll poke out one of Condi's invisible friend's eyes. Rice image from entry
AMERICANA
Photos: Cheerleaders from around the NFL - USA Today. Among the photos:
MORE AMERICANA
State obesity rates could skyrocket by 2030 - Nanci Hellmich, USA Today: About two-thirds of adults in Mississippi and several other states will be obese by 2030 if obesity rates continue to climb as they are now, an analysis reports today.
The levels of obesity, defined as being roughly 30 or more pounds over a healthy weight, will be highest in these five states: Mississippi with 66.7%; Oklahoma, 66.4%; Delaware, 64.7%; Tennessee, 63.4%; and South Carolina, 62.9%. Mississippi has the USA's highest obesity rate at 34.9%. Image from
ONE MORE QUOTATION FOR THE DAY
"We have free speech in America because nobody listens."
--From an anonymous PDPR subscriber
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