Still an Inspiration: The Four Freedoms
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
In The News
1. ON CAPITOL HILL
1A. Hearing, Russian Interference in the 2016 Election, Select Committee on Intelligence, United States Senate, June 21, 2017
1B. Statement of Jeh Charles Johnson, Before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, June 21, 2017]
Instruments of Informational Power
2. PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
3. PUBLIC AFFAIRS
4. BROADCASTING
Professional Topics
5. SOCIAL MEDIA ▪ INTERNET
6. CYBER
7. PROPAGANDA
8. DISINFORMATION, FAKE NEWS
9. INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION
10. SOFT POWER
11. HYBRID WARFARE
12. GRAY ZONE
13. INFORMATION WARFARE
14. COUNTER-RADICALIZATION
15. MESSAGING
16. NARRATIVES
17. HISTORICAL NARRATIVES
18. CONSPIRACY THEORIES
19. IDEAS, CONCEPTS, DOCTRINE
Countries and Regions
20. RUSSIA
21. CHINA
22. CHINA-AUSTRALIA
23. NORTH KOREA
24. PHILIPPINES
25. PAKISTAN
26. MOROCCO
27. PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
28. ISLAMIC STATE
Toolkit
29. EXCHANGES
30. SPORTS DIPLOMACY
31. INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
Precepts
In The News
● . . . we have not seen any credible evidence that vote casting or counting was subject to manipulation in any state or locality in the 2016 election cycle, or any reason to question the results. While still alarming, there is a big difference between manipulating VOTERS and manipulating VOTES.
● I don’t know how far the Russians got in their effort to penetrate our election infrastructure, nor whether they interfered with equipment on election day. (As far as the public knows, no voting equipment has been forensically examined to check whether it was successfully attacked.) But there is no doubt that Russia has the technical ability to commit widescale attacks against our voting system, as do other hostile nations.
● Russia’s 2016 Presidential election influence effort was its boldest to date in the United States. Moscow employed a multi-faceted approach intended to undermine confidence in our democratic process. Russia’s activities included efforts to discredit Secretary Clinton and to publicly contrast her unfavorably with President Trump. This Russian effort included the weaponization of stolen cyber information, the use of Russia’s English-language state media as a strategic messaging platform, and the mobilization of social media bots and trolls to spread disinformation and amplify Russian messaging.
● Throughout spring and early summer 2016, the U.S. IC warned that the Russian government was responsible for the compromises and leaks of emails from U.S. political figures and institutions. This activity was part of a decade-long campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. Government and its citizens. As awareness of these activities grew, DHS began in August 2016 to receive reports of cyber-enabled scanning and probing of election-related infrastructure in some states.
● Cyberattacks of all manner and from multiple sources are going to get worse before they get better. In this realm and at this moment, those on offense have the upper hand. Whether it’s cyber-criminals, hacktivists, or nation-state actors, those on offense are ingenious, tenacious, agile, and getting better all the time. Those on defense struggle to keep up.
* * *
To my current knowledge, the Russian government did not through any cyber intrusion alter ballots, ballot counts or reporting of election results. I am not in a position to know whether the successful Russian government-directed hacks of the DNC and elsewhere did in fact alter public opinion and thereby alter the outcome of the presidential election.
Elements of Informational Power
● . . . the full range of the Public Affairs Section’s operations, including media outreach, alumni engagement, exchanges, English language programs, and social media platforms. In collaboration with other consulate general sections and agencies, the section used these tools to promote a better public understanding of U.S. policy. OIG found the section supported [Integrated Country Strategy] goals with an emphasis on youth empowerment, interfaith dialogue, conflict resolution, and progress toward the resumption of final status talks.
Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of State, Broadcasting Board of Governors, June 2017
● This week, for the first time in 25 years, the US government did not send public greetings to Moscow on the occasion of Russia’s national day, a move already sparking comment in Russia but one the US State Department says simply reflects a new Trump Administration policy not to publish such declarations but rather to allow the addressees to do so.
Paul Goble, Window on Eurasia – New Series, June 14, 2017
● In American Muslim Portraits, the judges noted that “VOA did an incredible job tackling a big subject of tremendous importance. Their ability to bring a relatable face and voice to a community that is the subject of intense discrimination was impressive, and it’s a critical story to tell.”
Voice of America, June 9, 2017
● Out of the approximately one billion USD the Kremlin allocates annually for the media it controls, around one third finances foreign language outputs, such as Sputnik and Russia Today (RT). The remaining two thirds are spent on ensuring that the Kremlin’s political line reaches Russia’s 145 million strong population.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 8, 2017
● . . . those working for RT and Sputnik find themselves under increasing scrutiny, and whistle blowers begin to appear more frequently. Thanks to testimonies that surface from inside the RT and Sputnik newsrooms, we can gather a picture of how stories are produced, how they are prioritised, and, crucially, how they are subject to political control from the Kremlin.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 7, 2017
Professional Topics
● The inability by various social media companies to crackdown on this phenomenon leaves the information space created by their platforms vulnerable to manipulation for both monetary and ideological gain.
Digital Forensic Research Lab, June 19, 2017
● Social media—a permanent marinade for the human brain—is causing a vast, mysterious transformation of how people process experience, and maybe someday a future B.F. Skinner will explain what it has done to us. Impossible to miss, though, is how jacked up emotional intensity has become in American politics.
Daniel Henninger, The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2017
● For several years I’ve noticed the growing impact of the persistent, dependent link between the majority of our soldiers and the internet, often enabled by and embodied in the smartphone. * * * Social media divides units over inappropriate online sexual behavior in garrison, and while on deployment, as one officer reports, the “band of brothers” is coming apart due to “too much connectivity.”
ML Cavanaugh, Real Clear Defense, June 6, 2017
● New international agreements should be introduced to regulate the internet in the light of the London Bridge terror attack, Theresa May has said. The Prime Minister said introducing new rules for cyberspace would “deprive the extremists of their safe spaces online” and that technology firms were not currently doing enough.
Jon Stone, Independent, June 4, 2017
● . . . as Russians become increasingly captivated by video blogs — and with an upcoming election and recent anti-government protests — the Kremlin is looking to get in on the act.
Ola Cichowlas, The Moscow Times, June 2, 2017
● Option #1: States can define cyberattacks causing physical damage, injury, or destruction to tangible objects as prohibited uses of force that constitute “acts of war.” * * * Option #2: Expand the definition of cyber force to include effects that cause virtual damage to data, infrastructure, and systems.
Michael R. Tregle, Jr., Divergent Options, June 5, 2017
● With ransomware like "WannaCry" sowing chaos worldwide and global powers accusing rivals of using cyberattacks to interfere in domestic politics, the latest edition of the world's only book laying down the law in cyberspace could not be more timely.
Michael Moutot, Phys.org, June 3, 2017
● Last week, the Director of the French Institut de recherche strategique de l’Ecole militaire (IRSEM) . . . researched: how to combat pro-Kremlin propaganda without falling into the trap of doing counter-propaganda? Counter-propaganda would be an ill-suited means for Western democracies to fend off the effects of disinformation activities, argues Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer. It would also require more means than “any European government is ready to bring up”.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 14, 2017
● Invest more resources in countering the Kremlin's propaganda efforts. Russian propaganda seeks to confuse, sow doubt, and ultimately create paralysis. Lies don't need to last in order to do lasting damage. In the Middle East, Russian propaganda fuels conspiracy thinking, feeding on the region's existing proclivities. Rather than always being on the defensive, the United States should work harder at creating first impressions.
Anna Borshchevskya, The Washington Institute, June 15, 2017
● In fairy tales, things have to be black and white and easy to understand. The villain is always cruel, horrible and insidious; the hero is pure, fair, and honest. A look at the pro-Kremlin disinformation campaign shows us a similar picture. * * * Pro-Kremlin disinformation can't leave Ukraine alone for a week. This time drugs were in the disinformation limelight. We learned that the Ukrainian secret services are supposedly using drug addicts for espionage in the East of Ukraine – there is nothing substantiating this claim EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 15, 2017
● [One of the fake stories logged by Disinformation Review.] The story about Russia's involvement in the DNC hack is finally debunked, the leaked DNC emails were given to Wikileaks by a DNC staffer Seth Rich, who got killed for that.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, Issue No. 71 – June 8, 2017
● This week, one of the most infamous of disinformation stories in the pro-Kremlin echo-chamber made it back to the headlines: the tragedy of flight MH17. As we have shown before, some key disinformation narratives often come back after a time in the shadows. . . . This time round, we learn that some new documents supposedly prove that it was the Ukrainian Secret Service that was responsible for the downing of the plane – another one of the many theories spread by pro-Kremlin outlets.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 8, 2017
● The Federal Communications Commission is being inundated with fake comments supporting net neutrality from foreign countries, including Russia. . . . "A forensic analysis of comments received between May 24th and May 30th shows that the FCC was flooded with 236,999 comments from domains in France, Russia and Germany," the group said.
Elizabeth Harrington, The Washington Free Beacon, June 7, 2017
● Liberal democracies across the globe are under attack. They are being attacked not by traditional weapons of war but by disinformation—intentionally false or misleading information designed to deceive targeted audiences. While these attacks may not pose a threat to the physical safety of democratic citizens, they do pose a threat to democracy.
Max Bergmann and Carolyn Kenney, Center for American Progress, June 6, 2017
● “Almost 10% of people in Central and Eastern Europe trust online disinformation outlets as relevant sources of information on world affairs,” the authors say. The highest percentage was found in Romania (37 per cent), followed by Slovakia (12 per cent), Poland and the Czech Republic (both 9 per cent). A significantly higher number of people in this region consider the message delivered by mainstream media to be untrustworthy.
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 2, 2017
● “Information” continues to demonstrate the vital and preeminent role it plays in enabling all of our sources of national power. From a military perspective, it must be adequately utilized and capitalized on to succeed in shaping the cognitive/human domain (the ultimate goal of all military activities). - - - - -Effective communications, which is an essential aspect of understanding and engaging the cognitive domain, is often made up of narratives in foreign languages that are written and spoken by individuals and groups from other cultures. If we are going to understand these narratives and the history, values, beliefs, behavior patterns and context they provide, we must examine communications from the perspective of ‘the other’.
Dr. Gwyneth Sutherlin, Executive Editor, Geographic Services, Inc., May 2017
● The aggressiveness Moscow has shown in its relations with countries in the former Soviet space reflects Russia’s loss of influence via “soft” power channels. At the same time, the Kremlin’s demonstrated bellicosity simply exacerbates that loss. Consequently, if President Vladimir Putin is going to rebuild Russia’s sway over the region, as he hopes, he will increasingly have to rely on “hard” power, including military and economic pressure.
Paul Goble, Real Clear Defense, June 14, 2017
● Russia’s brand of hybrid warfare is a whole-of-government approach. It operates along a spectrum of conflict ranging from covert action to overt combat . . . . All the while, Russian hybrid warfare makes use of information, cyber and electronic capabilities as tools of applied force. Russia uses the construct of the “Russian Identity” to justify action and to enable covert and partisan action.
* * *
Russia devised an operationalized definition of the “Russian Identity,” which is malleable and can be manipulated to suit its political and strategic interests. The Russian Identity is marked by five characteristics: ethnic Russians; speakers of the Russian language; practitioners of Eastern Orthodoxy;Slavic people; and the geographical expanse of the Russian Empire, Russian Federation or Soviet Union. Russia’s use of history is intertwined with the use of geography,
Thomas E. Ricks, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2017
● General Votel was invited as a special guest to address SOF efforts in the “gray zone” and SOF-embassy relations at last year’s State Department chief-of-mission conference. A fellow speaker, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, praised the effectiveness of special operations activities in countering Russian propaganda in that country.
Steven Kashkett, Foreign Service Journal, June, 2017
● Accordingly, the future war will be one of anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD), where the enemy will employ high-tech weapon systems in and against all domains (some though are focusing the challenge more on the information domain).
Shmuel Shmuel, War on the Rocks, June 20, 2017
● Russia’s cyberattack on the U.S. electoral system before Donald Trump’s election was far more widespread than has been publicly revealed, including incursions into voter databases and software systems in almost twice as many states as previously reported.
Michal Riley and Jordan Robertson, Bloomberg, June 13, 2017
● …the known facts do not support a Russia-Trump plot to defeat Hillary Clinton. Russia’s actions are consistent instead with an attempt to turn Americans against each other and sow distrust between the president and the American intelligence services.
David Satter, Hudson Institute, June 12, 2017
● Both Egypt and Libya can rely on some lessons learned from previous examples of de-radicalization and counter-radicalization efforts that took place within their borders a decade ago.
Sara Brzuskiewicz, The Washington Institute, last accessed June 26, 2017
● . . . these successes stem from focusing consistently on simple, clear, easily digestible messages: Jews’ longstanding ties to Jerusalem, the anti-Semitic nature of BDS, Palestinian incitement, and the way Europe enables it. For too long, Israeli diplomacy has tried to convey complex, nuanced messages while the Palestinians endlessly repeated simple sound bites (“end the occupation”). But when shades of gray compete against black and white in the arena of public opinion, the latter usually wins.
Evelyn Gordon, Commentary, June 7, 2017
● . . . “right-wing news” is oxymoronic. There is no such thing, because the right represents olds, not news. By definition, news is new, and new is progressive. That conservatives view this as a bias is fine, but elevating that to some evil command-and-control mechanism for political liberals is a false narrative.
Terry Heaton, Huffpost, June 16, 2017
● The story of how a massacre of U.S. soldiers came to be remembered as an instance of American abuse of defenseless Nazis is the subject of Steven Remy’s rigorously researched new book . . . . previous histories have largely accepted the myth of U.S. malfeasance, The Malmedy Massacre convincingly corrects the record. In so doing, Remy offers a timely study of the process of historical mythmaking—how false and distorted accounts come to constitute their own durable reality.
Lawrence Douglas, Foreign Affairs, June 17, 2017
● . . . if America slides toward a rendezvous with 1968, the tendency of the establishment to only see one side’s dangers — to treat Marine Le Pen as uniquely terrifying but Jeremy Corbyn as merely dotty, to “remember” that Loughner was a Palin fan or that right-wing hate killed J.F.K. — will make things more dangerous overall.
Ross Douthat, The New York Times, June 17, 2017
● Cultures are held together by stories. We define who we are — as individuals, families, organizations, and nations — by the stories we tell about ourselves. These stories express hopes, fears, and values. They create coherence out of complexity by emphasizing some things and ignoring others. Their moral worth lies not in their absolute truth or falsehood — all narratives simplify reality — but in the aspirations they express and the cultural character they shape.
Virginia Postrel, Bloomberg, June 3, 2017
● From all over the world, likeminded people congregate around the same comforting lies, explanations that validate their ideas. “Things seem a whole lot simpler in the world according to conspiracy theories,” writes Rob Brotherton, in his book, Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories. “The prototypical conspiracy theory is an unanswered question; it assumes nothing is as it seems; it portrays the conspirators as preternaturally competent; and as unusually evil.”
Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, June 17, 2017
● . . . the inaugural Friday prayers at Berlin’s Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque came to a close — offering a different vision of Islam on a continent that is locked in a bitter culture war over how and whether to welcome the faith. Toxic ills like radicalization, Ates and her supporters argue, have a potentially easy fix: the introduction of a more progressive, even feminist brand of the faith.
Anthony Faiola and Stephanie Kirchner,The Washington Post, June 16, 2017
● History is the product not of mysterious forces beyond man’s and mankind’s control and power. History is the product and result of ideas – ideas about the nature of man, conceptions of how men could and should live together, and the political and economic institutional order of things that will best benefit humanity as the sum of the individuals making it up.
Richard M. Ebeling, Foundation for Economic Freedom, June 16, 2017
● As [Donald Trump’s] rallies grew, the coverage grew, which made for an odd dynamic. The candidate nobody in the media took seriously was attracting the most people to his events and getting the most news coverage. Newspapers got in on the game too. Trump, unlike most of his opponents, was always available to the press, and could be counted on to say something outrageous or controversial that made a headline. He made news by being a spectacle.
Michael Goodwin, Imprimis, May/June 2017
● In explaining why the new Russian Guard plans to restore the red banner and the name Feliks Dzerzhinsky in its operations, Col. General Sergey Melikov told Izvestiya that such moves were entirely appropriate because veterans have asked for this and because his organization is “the heir of the NKVD.” Those words were included in the original article but then taken down when someone recognized the dangers of drawing a direct link between an organization that repressed millions of Russians and Putin’s new Guard.
Paul Goble, Windows on Eurasia – New Series, June 4, 2017
Countries and Regions
● Homeschooling in Russia? An increasing number of families are choosing this method of education in the former Soviet state. . .
Claire Balkan, Juicy Ecumenism, June 14, 2017
● [Natalia] Sharina was “inciting ethnic hatred” via the circulation of books among the readers. The court paid attention neither to the testimonies of the library staff who said they had seen a number of supposedly “extremist” books being planted by Russian law enforcers nor to the conspicuous fact of absence of library stamps on their pages.
Ihor Vynokurov, Euromaidan Press, June 14, 2017
● At a first glance, the talk show format on pro-Kremlin TV can seem to provide audiences access to a diversity of viewpoints. Indeed, as a rule, a small number of “dissidents”, e.g. an opposition activist, a Ukrainian or even a “token American” will be invited into the studio, but these will always be massively outnumbered and yelled at by the majority of talk show participants, who hold pro-Kremlin views . . .
EU East Stratcom Task Force, Disinformation Review, June 13, 2017
● After a brief break from its “besieged fortress” rhetoric, the Kremlin has returned to the idea that Russia is surrounded by hostile forces which are seeking to destabilize it in advance of the presidential election in the hopes that it will help Vladimir Putin put down his opponents, mobilize voters and achieve a breakthrough with the West.
Paul Goble, Window on Eurasia – New Series, June 12, 2017
● Russian information operations are exercises in perception management, designed to create a new reality. This creates three kinds of harm to free societies -- subversion of our institutions, propaganda and disinformation - that the UK must find ways of managing.
David Omand, Wired, June 9, 2017
● The Russian Federation Council met and made a series of allegations against the West and suggested a series of actions to resist, deter, and stop Westerners from ‘interfering’ in Russia. They are creating an enemy and will then seek ways to stop them.
Joel Harding, To Inform is to Influence, June 8, 2017
● The fraudulent nature of Russia’s 2011 parliamentary election is no longer an opinion of a partisan political group, a reputable NGO, or even international monitoring organizations like the OSCE, but an official verdict by Europe’s highest judicial body.
Vladimir Kara-Murza, World Affairs, June 6, 2017
● Combining a cyber-militia with official state-sponsored hacking teams has "created the most technically advanced and bold cybercriminal community in the world".
John Leyden, The Register, June 6, 2017
● The Putin regime increasingly is relying not on a careful analysis of the facts but rather on the conspiracy thinking its propagandists disseminate as a guide to action, Fyodor Krasheninnikov says, with increasingly disastrous consequences for Russia and its place in the world.
Paul Goble, Window on Eurasia – New Series, June 5, 2017
● [Vladimir Putin:] . . . hackers may be anywhere. They may be in Russia, in Asia, in America, in Latin America. There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can’t you imagine such a scenario? In the middle of an internal political fight, it was convenient for them, whatever the reason, to put out that information. And put it out they did. And, doing it, they made a reference to Russia. Can’t you imagine it happening? I can.
Megyn Kelly, NBC, June 5, 2017
● . . . this is the goal of the billions of dollars that the Russians have spent in media and news — to get what is obvious disinformation and propaganda from propaganda platforms into other media with very little question ... this is something we should all be concerned about."
Kerri Miller and Elizabeth Shockman, MPR News, Jun 5, 2017
● Chinese authorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang have banned dozens of baby names with religious meanings that are widely used by Muslims elsewhere in the world, RFA has learned. . . . Islam, Quran, Mecca, Jihad, Imam, Saddam, Hajj, and Medina are among dozens of baby names banned under ruling Chinese Communist Party's "Naming Rules For Ethnic Minorities," an official confirmed on Thursday.
Radio Free Asia, June 20, 2017
● Here’s what you need to know about the Chinese internet and how it’s influencing the rest of the world. 1. Chinese aren’t clamoring to bypass government internet filters to visit websites such as Google, YouTube and Facebook. * * * 2. Even when foreign apps aren’t blocked, Chinese competitors win because so many people are using their products that they become indispensable.* * * 3. Once a technology or a business model is out there, Chinese nimbly adapt it to the local market—which in China is known as “micro-innovation.” * * * 4. Rapid adoption is creating demand for new products and business models. * * * 5. Now the copying has reversed—in some ways.
Li Yuan, The Wall Street Journal, June 8, 2017
● Through coercion or favour, the Chinese authorities have created financial and political imperatives for overseas Chinese media outlets to toe the party line and "tell the China story well" on behalf of the party.
Chongyi Feng, ABC News – Australia, June 5, 2017
● President Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris climate change accord drew criticism from leaders around the world. In China, the government seized the moment to cast doubt on American democracy and promote an image of China as a responsible superpower. Here’s how the state-controlled news media covered Mr. Trump’s decision and what the portrayal suggests about China’s efforts to extend influence across the globe.
Javier C. Herandez, The New York Times, June 4, 2017
● The Chinese Communist Party exercises sovereignty over 1.4 billion people. In doing so, it suppresses free speech, regulates political activity and exercises a pervasive program of propaganda in education, the arts and the news media.
Real Clear Defense, June 8, 2017
● China’s investments in advanced EW systems, counterspace weapons, and cyber operations—combined with more traditional forms of control such as propaganda and denial through opacity—reflect the priority the PLA places on information advantage.
Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2017
● When Malcolm Turnbull, Australia’s prime minister, urged China earlier this month to respect “the sovereignty of others”, many took it as criticism of China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea. But the comment might just as easily have been a reference to Australia’s political parties. All of them face questions about donations from businessmen linked to China’s government. A parliamentary inquiry in March called for a ban on political donations from foreign sources…
The Economist, June 15, 2017
● The Chinese Communist Party is waging a covert campaign of influence in Australia – an aggressive form of “soft power” – and while loyalists are rewarded, dissidents live in fear.
Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, Sashka Koloff, and Chris Uhlmann, The Canberra Times, 2017
● The National Security Agency has linked the North Korean government to the creation of the WannaCry computer worm that affected more than 300,000 people in some 150 countries last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
Ellen Nakashima, The Washington Post, June 14, 2017
● U.S. special operations forces, to include Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, SEALS, Marine Raiders, and Air Commandos as well as Special Forces (which has been the dominant force) have provided training, advice, and assistance for decades to assist the United States’ longest-standing treaty ally against a very complex combination of threats.
Col. David Maxwell, The Cipher Brief, June 16, 2017
● Before and after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, Pakistan . . . quickly resumed its duplicitous and deadly games by supporting regeneration of the Afghan Taliban and, working with and through the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and others of similarly fanatical cloth, directing armed propaganda and terrorism in Afghanistan, India, and Kashmir.
Robert Cassidy, The National Interest, April 6, 2017
● Morocco is illustrative of a rising power that has cannily deployed its soft power toolbox, including investments, human development projects, media, culture and religion to boost stability in the Sahel and Africa.
The North Africa Post, June 5, 2017
● New polling data indicates that West Bank and Gaza residents are not as hostile to President Trump's posture as Americans probably assume.
David Pollock, The Washington Institute, June 7, 2017
● US Forces-Afghanistan announced yesterday that Jawed Khan, a “senior director of media production” for the Islamic State’s Wilayah Khorasan (ISIS-K), “was killed in an airstrike in Achin, Nangarhar Province on June 3.”
Thomas Joscelyn, FDD’s Long War Journal, June 17, 2017
● Ramadan is traditionally peak season for television viewing across the Arab world with stations offer¬ing a large variety of new productions, mainly comedies and romantic series. This year, however, large audiences are hooked on a no-easy-viewing drama — Al Ghara¬beeb Al Soud (Black Crows), de¬picting the life of women under the Islamic State.
Samar Kadi, UPI, June 12, 2017
● The group’s propaganda machine used to be confident, promising that its self-declared caliphate would be “lasting and expanding.” But in recent months, as the group’s territory has shrunk, its messages have as well. Far from the boastful, self-aggrandizing videos of the past, the group is now urging fighters to resist and not run away from the battlefield. The quality of the videos has dropped as well after some of the extremists’ most prominent propagandists and producers were killed.
Bassem Mroue, SFGate, June 10, 2017
● Stolen footage and copied scenes from films like 'American Sniper' and 'Hunger Games' are being incorporated into the terror group's recruitment efforts.
Paul Bond, The Hollywood Reporter, May 31, 2017
Toolkit
● By enabling participants to learn from and share with one another, the Professional Fellows Program offers the best of what an exchange program can be. Fellows from around the world benefit from a unique professional experience in the United States and, in turn, have the opportunity to host an American in their own workplace and community. In the process you all build enduring professional ties and lasting partnerships between the United States and the other nations of the world.
Bruce Wharton, Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State,
June 1, 2017
● The Sports Diplomacy Division of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs employs only five staffers and spends only .0001 percent of the Department budget. And yet, it has still managed to recruit some of the country's most celebrated athletes to the cause, and its programs have reached thousands of people in more than 100 countries over the past 15 years.
Anya Alvarez, Vice Sports, June 16, 2017
● When the [University of California, San Diego] first announced [the Dalai Lama as] its choice of commencement speaker back in February, Chinese students (who make up around 14% of the school's student body) reacted with outrage, saying that the decision "contravened the spirit of respect, tolerance, equality, and earnestness -- the ethos upon which the university is built" and protesting . . . . The school's Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA), a group with ties to the Chinese consulate, led the opposition to the Dalai Lama's invitation.
Alex Linder, Shaghaiist, June 19, 2017
● Spotlight on Success: The Public Affairs Section promoted privately funded study for Ghanaians in the United States through its educational advising (EducationUSA) programs, which contributed to Ghana’s status as Africa’s second largest source of students to the United States in 2016.
Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of State/Broadcasting Board of Governors, June 2017
Precepts
This is a compilation of news, articles, essays, and reports on strategic communications, Public Diplomacy, public affairs, U.S. government international broadcasting, and information operations. The editorial intent is to:
● share with busy practitioners the academic and policy ferment in Public Diplomacy and related fields ● from long speeches, testimonies, and articles, flag the portions that bear on Public Diplomacy
● provide a window on armed forces thinking on the fields that neighbor Public Diplomacy such as military public affairs, information operations, inform-influence-engage, and cultural learning, and
● introduce the long history of Public Diplomacy by citing some of the older books, articles, reports, and documents that are not available on the internet.
Public Diplomacy professionals always need a 360-degree view of how ideas are expressed, flow, and gain influence. Many points of view citied here are contentious, partisan, and/or biased; inclusion does not imply endorsement.
Edited by
Donald M. Bishop, Bren Chair of Strategic Communications, Marine Corps University
Jeffery W. Taylor, University of Mary Washington, Assistant
1 comment:
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