Intermap

by Craig Hayden

Here are some questions I pose to Matt Armstrong, and others who support a serious rework of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. What kind of benefits could the United States expect if it abolished, amended, or otherwise changed Smith-Mundt? If U.S. citizens could see what their government was broadcasting to other countries, would this result in better public diplomacy and strategic communication? Would international broadcasting improve if its content was open to public scrutiny?

I am on board with the argument that Smith-Mundt is a dated piece of legislation. The realities of media globalization and ubiquitous information networks reflect a very different world from the time it was passed into law. But I wonder if these very same realities obviate the need to change the law. American citizens can already communicate directly, access government materials indirectly, and remain connected to foreign publics through networks sustained by global information technologies. Do we need a new law to say, “okay, we get it, now here’s what your government is doing?”

Of course as a researcher, I am all for removing barriers to study public diplomacy. Given the tenuous status of FoIA requests these days, I think there are important reasons to increase transparency in public diplomacy and strat comm programs. Not only will some scholars gladly contribute to “improve the messsge.” Others could provide informed, critical perspectives that check group-think assumptions that can infiltrate foreign policy thinking. And I think there is a need for truly critical, ethically-minded research that balances the research of enthusiasts. Such pluralism could only help reflect the values that the U.S. is trying to communicate. Why not expand the range of input and scholarship?

But I think what Matt is getting at is more than just exposing U.S. message strategy to academics and policy wonks. It’s about involvement in a larger process of policy awareness, feedback, and input with synergistic effects on outflow of U.S. messages to the rest of the world. Implicit in Matt’s rethinking of Smith-Mundt is an invitation for Americans into the process of crafting, conducting, and implementing public diplomacy. It’s putting the public back into public diplomacy. (Ok, that was cheesy).

This implicit expansion of the policy community, however, would be a fundamental shift in how policy is crafted and implemented in this country. Unlike domestic policy, the constituents for foreign policy (let alone public diplomacy) are less than obvious. Sure, we know generally that public opinion does matter to policy leaders, and that interest networks can shape policy construction. But foreign policy shaped by public opinion doesn’t necessarily make it democratic. And an open-sourced public diplomacy goes against historical trends in the domestic sources of U.S. foreign policy.

And what about the troubling trends in poor reporting of international affairs? Does an invitational public diplomacy correct or account for the state of public awareness of international or global issues? We will suddenly become more informed citizens, capable of contributing to the “effort” of communicating to the rest of the world? We already know that there’s a demographic of people, interest publics, that represent the principal audience for foreign news. Maybe a broader, more inclusive public diplomacy would not only involves these people, but activate previously untapped networks of those who would like to “contribute” in some way.

In any case, I’d certainly like to see some more elaborate scenarios of a post-Smith Mundt public diplomacy for the U.S.