Intermap

by Craig Hayden

I just posted a somewhat lengthy blog essay over at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy blog. It promotes Robin Brown’s argument for a social network approach to the practice and study of public diplomacy.

As academics from various disciplines begin to look more aggressively at theoretical frameworks for public diplomacy scholarship, I think that social network analysis will be prominent. This insight isn’t exactly new -see the interesting work of Ali Fisher and Steven Corman – but I think it bears repeating. More importantly, I think that a social network approach isn’t just a programmatic way to study public diplomacy. It’s a valuable tool for evaluation and measurement that can directly impact how PD is both assessed and formulated.

There’s of course “room” for other theoretical perspectives and contributions (especially in normative, media, and critical theory), but social networks will increasingly offer compelling empirical measures that can speak to immediate concerns over the structures of influence – the terrain that PD and diplomacy must navigate in an informed way.

Good question. Intermap has been silent for a few months, as its contributors (namely, Shawn and myself) have been busy with professional obligations that somehow preclude blogging. You may also note a new design. The reason for this new look is that our theme template was pretty badly hacked by some malicious code and we’re still trying to work out the bugs.

We now return you to our fairly regular, periodic blogging.

Evidently, my webhost and word press account are causing me some reader relation problems. Therefore, I’ve reposted a comment that would have been available on the last post in a perfect world where all websites run smoothly. Donna Oglesby, a veteran Foreign Service Officer (USIA) and Diplomat in Residence at Eckerd College, had this to say about “Public Diplomacy Debate Reflects Bigger IR Questions“:
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