Much ado about Soft Power

As the ever-eloquent and incisive Donna Oglesby recently commented, there’s been a minor dustup in that small corner of the blogosphere dedicated to topics related to public diplomacy. Oglesby notes the reaction to Amy Zalman’s recent essay in the Globalist, which faults the imprecision of the term “soft power.” Zalman’s critique is both analytical and prescriptive. It faults the ways in which soft power has been used in policy discourse as a kind of floating signifier of non-coercive means – a resource and solution that is unnecessarily separated from other aspects of power. Zalman also proposes a more pragmatic optic for policy-makers seeking to understand how power works. In my opinion, I think Zalman makes the case for a more thorough understanding of soft power – and no...

Talking about Soft Power on RT “CrossTalk”

Here I had the opportunity to talk about soft power on Russia Today. The same skepticism still seems to hold over the notion of soft power – what is it? Does it work? Is it worth it? As I said, I think we need to amend the concept before we discard it. ...

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Public Diplomacy & Strategic Communication

Much ado about Soft Power

As the ever-eloquent and incisive Donna Oglesby recently commented, there’s been a minor dustup in...

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Media & Technology

Twitter credibility

Quick take on the July 29 New York Times article about the twitterific musings of the State Departme...

A Conversation on Media Technology and Diplomacy

I had the good fortune to attend a discussion last week between Alec Ross, the Senior Advisor for In...

Theory & Research

Much ado about Soft Power

As the ever-eloquent and incisive Donna Oglesby recently commented, there’s been a minor dustup in...

Terministic Compulsion

The title to this post comes from 20th century literary and rhetorical critic Kenneth Burke. It sugg...

Politics, Culture & Policy

Talking about Soft Power on RT “CrossTalk”

Here I had the opportunity to talk about soft power on Russia Today. The same skepticism still seems...