28 August 2008
Ideas Abound for Improving U.S. Public Diplomacy Effort
U.S. national security tied to success in public diplomacy
Washington -- Debate continues on how America can best present its image abroad, with many proposals put forth to improve both the U.S. public diplomacy effort and to define the goals of that effort.
The bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said in its June 2008 report Getting the People Part Right that the United States can “significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of our nation’s outreach to foreign publics by recruiting for the public diplomacy career track in a more focused way.”
The commission, created by Congress, said public diplomacy -- “the effort to understand, inform and influence foreign publics in support of foreign policy objectives -- has never been more important” to American security than it is now.
It recommended that the State Department work harder to recruit people “who have experience and skills that are more directly relevant to the conduct of public diplomacy.”
Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain each have offered ideas on the course U.S. public diplomacy should take. (See “U.S. Election Helping America’s Image Worldwide.”)
Matt Armstrong, author of the MountainRunner blog, told America.gov that James Glassman, who became the State Department’s under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs in June, is “really revising public diplomacy and taking it in the right direction.”
Glassman understands presenting America’s image abroad is “not a popularity contest” but rather a “struggle for minds and wills,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong, whose blog focuses on public diplomacy and strategic communication, said the U.S. public diplomacy effort “has never been about selling” America’s story, but instead is one incredibly important tool for bettering America’s image abroad. A key function of public diplomacy, he said, is countering misinformation spread about the United States.
Armstrong said he supports calls to provide professional development training for specialists in public diplomacy.
IMPORTANCE OF FACE-TO-FACE CONTACT
Another report, called The Collapse of American Public Diplomacy, surveyed former officers of the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) who conducted U.S. public diplomacy. (USIA was consolidated into the State Department in 1999).
The report’s author, Kathy Fitzpatrick, told America.gov that USIA’s integration into the State Department was a mistake.
Fitzpatrick, a professor of public relations at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, said the United States needs a public diplomacy entity that is independent of the State Department and provides the “kind of autonomy, flexibility, and freedom of movement that the USIA had.”
The professor, who is writing a book about the future of public diplomacy in the United States and worldwide, said that to depoliticize the public diplomacy effort, the United States must “figure out a way to transcend administrations with public diplomacy rather than have it reflect the current administration’s policies.”
One problem with U.S. public diplomacy today, she said, is the “emphasis on ‘selling.’ Public diplomacy should be about relationship building, not selling particular messages.”
Fitzpatrick said that even though new media have “created new challenges and opportunities for U.S. public diplomacy, the fundamentals of good public diplomacy remain the same.”
In this respect, she said, USIA “had it exactly right in its focus” on what that agency’s director from 1961 to 1964, Edward R. Murrow, dubbed “the last three feet” -- interpersonal relations with people abroad.
The “tools of mass communication can be useful but they do not replace the need for personal dialogue and engagement with foreign publics,” Fitzpatrick said.
Joseph Nye, an international relations professor at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, told America.gov that he also considers the demise of USIA a mistake.
Nye, author of Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics, said that recreating USIA would cost a new U.S. president political capital. Nye said that capital would be better invested in a White House coordinator and strategist for public diplomacy. (See “U.S. Election Helping America’s Image Worldwide.”)
Using new media in public diplomacy poses the danger that slick messaging will come across as propaganda, Nye warned. He said the most important part of public diplomacy is “face-to-face relations,” and that “catchy stories help draw attention, but slick production values do not produce credibility. A broad range of opinions, including dissent, creates credibility.”
Nancy Snow, associate professor of public diplomacy at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in New York, told America.gov that her employment with USIA in the 1990s made her a “fan of having an independent agency of the U.S. government responsible for telling America's stories to the world.”
Snow, whose books include Propaganda, Inc.: Selling America's Culture to the World, said USIA and the State Department “have different objectives.” USIA, she said, was a “bit of a water carrier” by delivering, rather than creating messages; the State Department makes policy. “The intermixing of the two doesn't seem to be working.”
“We need to study what other countries are doing” on public diplomacy, Snow said, “and not copy their ways, but put together a toolkit of best practices.”
For additional information, see Armstrong’s blog posting, “Glassman reaches out to bloggers,” and Glassman’s briefing on U.S. public diplomacy goals.
The reports “Getting the People Part Right,” and “The Collapse of American Public Diplomacy” also are available on the Internet.
