Monday, August 15th 2011
August is a time for reflection. International broadcasting, among many U.S. funded national security institutions, is immersed in questions this summer about its mission, its reach and its cost effectiveness. Our pioneer publicly-funded overseas network, the Voice of America, is just a few months shy of its 70th anniversary. What is its role and impact in the ever widening galaxy of U.S. government funded overseas broadcast entities?
Read More
Saturday, July 30th 2011
That authoritarian presidents are suppressing news and information in Latin America is no surprise. But add the factors of international criminal syndicates and the Government of China, and the effect is a threat to press freedom in the Hemisphere. That was the takeaway from a panel of experts on July 28 at the National Press Club. Advancing freedom of expression is a frequent task for public diplomacy and international broadcasting, and the job appears far from done.
Read More
Friday, July 22nd 2011
We just posted Council Member Alan Heil's "LANDSCAPE OF INTERNATIONAL BROADCASTING: VOA and the BBC at a Crossroads", which also appears in the current edition of Public Diplomacy Magazine (USC Annenberg School.) In six pages, the former VOA deputy director gives a concise, well-documented snapshot of two international broadcasters on the cusp of big change.
Read More
Tuesday, June 21st 2011
You’ve heard of the State Department’s $70 million dollar assistance fund to defeat censorship of Internet and cell communications? The New York Times’ James Glanz and John Markoff detailed one interesting approach on June 12: mesh networks.
Read More
Wednesday, June 1st 2011
If you want to hear a global communicator whose livelihood depends on getting it right, listen to Arjun Sethi. He has to sell the same basic story, Ravenwood Fair, to audiences all over the globe, modifying language and plot details to match local customs. He always asks a key question: “How much do men and want to share about themselves?” His audience: 300 million (he says) and growing (next big push is Latin America.)
Sethi was the lead-off speaker at Serious Games, presented on May 27-28 by the State Department’s Tech@State program, a quarterly conference sponsored by the eDiplomacy Office. (Full disclosure: I was the Office’s first director back in BT -- Before Twitter.)
Read More
