Academic study of public diplomacy and related topics
If you have voted for a new parliament in Afghanistan, or are a U.S. citizen planning to cast your ballot November 8, pause — and consider the contrasts. These came to mind at a briefing by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which surveys its audiences and shares results. In Afghanistan, half of eligible…
In my view, Public Diplomacy has also become the farm team for development, where it is up to Public Diplomacy to organize programs to reform journalism, run scholarship programs, and provide opportunities to the dispossessed. Let’s be candid: Public Diplomacy doesn’t have the resources to make a lasting dent in any of these areas. And…
Fresh from his world order wrecking tour of Europe in July 2018, President Donald J. Trump has clarified what diplomatic culture is by displaying the countercultural variant at every turn. At his prizefight in Helsinki, he delivered the final blow to the essence of diplomacy which former American Ambassador Chas W. Freeman calls: “the processes…
On Friday morning, January 18, 1957, Arthur Larson gave a lengthy and wide-ranging presentation on the United States Information Agency to President Eisenhower’s cabinet. After 22 months as under secretary at the Labor Department, and now one month as USIA Director, Larson used charts, maps, and film clips to describe the barely four-year-old agency. The nearly three dozen attendees…
Nontraditional U.S. Public Diplomacy: Past, Present, and Future, edited by Deborah L. Trent, Ph.D., originally published by the Public Diplomacy Council in 2016, is now available online. Soon after 9/11, the late Representative Henry Hyde, Chairman of the House International Relations Committee, saw something was awry in America’s Public Diplomacy. “Few would assert,” he said,…
What can public diplomacy staffers learn from a data scientist? A new book by a Google alumnus sheds light on how Big Data differs from opinion surveys, and how statisticians and social scientists find and use digitized public records to tease out insights on human behavior. State Department public diplomacy staffers are learning to pay…
In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the Soviet Union published a journal, Soviet Military Review, aimed at English-reading military audiences in the developing world. The January, 1976, issue included an article, “Ideological Inroads of Imperialism in the Developing Countries,” that discussed Public Diplomacy. Reading the article today recalls the contest of ideas during the Cold…
In his State of the Union Address of January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress for authority to provide Lend-Lease assistance to the United Kingdom. To strengthen his appeal, FDR traced a vision of “a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.” “The Four Freedoms” eventually became shorthand for the war aims of…
This link includes a 40-page guide – quotes and links to articles, essays, opinion pieces, and reports — on North Korea’s information environment. Intended for strategic communication and Public Diplomacy practitioners, it focuses on information, broadcasting, cyber, internet access, propaganda, the activities of defectors, policy debates, and related topics. This is a special number in…
A few years ago, Walter Russell Mead, professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College and editor at large of the American Interest, proposed a “strategy to counter democracy’s global retreat.” “Produce inexpensive, good translations of Burke, Locke and other thinkers, and spread the texts widely,” he urged. His call to action should be…