by Craig Hayden

Shawn Powers, a fellow Intermap blogger, wrote over at the USC Center on Public diplomacy Blog about about the implications of transparency in journalism for public diplomacy and international broadcasting. In highlighting the shift from objectivity to transparency – he notes that governments should capitalize on how information is legitimated in today’s hyperlinked global media landscape.

The rapid erosion of journalistic credibility evidences a more fundamental challenge to the standards of legitimacy that people use to judge material they consume via media. But what does this mean for public diplomacy and state-based advocacy in general?

It’s one thing to say that governments should embrace the modes of social media. The U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense have multiple initiatives that begin to leverage the benefits of these media. They all recognize the shift in information direction and how information gets processed as credible or relevant. Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Judith McHale justified the use of social media (instead of typical routes through the mainstream media): “This is the way people now get their news, they get their information,” she said. “It’s not as if there’ll be a big black hole. That hole will be filled with other information.”

The basic wisdom here is that governments should attend to the structure of media flows that make up the ecologies of opinion. The two-step flow model of influence may not be irrelevant, but rather refracted in webs of referentiality – how we use and evaluate the multiple streams of info and opinion we get from the internet and beyond.

But does that mean that governments can circumvent the criticism currently leveled at journalism’s brittle objectivity? The implicit solution offered by Powers is that transparency reveals bias, and it demonstrates a willingness to be accountable for the argument moves made to persuade and inform. If embraced as an ethical standard for U.S. PD, it would mean that it is not only in the business of providing truth or factual based information, but that it highlights its information sources, providing open access to the reasoning behind communicative intent.

The problem is, of course, that much of the challenges facing U.S. PD are precisely about intent and bias. Attempts to advocate and persuade, or even demonstrate through exposition (the fact-based journalism of VOA, etc.), are inevitably a presentation of a particular perspective or selection of reality. They are meant to influence – and thus are far from objective in the purest sense. But are they really transparent, and will that matter ultimately in how publics judge information presented to them about the U.S.? If the U.S. puts up a facebook page (like the eJournal USA facebook page managed by the State Deparment) – does that perform the values of transparency that lend credibility to the U.S. perspective?

Or, does it cynically appropriate the social function of social media to insert the agenda and information serving U.S. foreign policy objectives?

In celebrating the value of genuine, individually created content, we create expectations about the value of social media as somehow more authentic. But this authenticity does not necessarily mean communication without intent to persuade or manipulate. I think the conflation of social media with transparency needs to be further explained.

So what happens when social actors (like the United States) perform the acts of social media communication? What becomes the markers of the legitimate and credible when international actors set to influence attempt to muscle in on the terrain of social media? How will we know when we are being manipulated, influenced, or otherwise being “sold” on something? I’m not sure this matters – except for PD planners anticipating how their intended audiences may yet dismiss or disregard attempts by states to leverage social media as part of their PD.

I am asking a lot of questions here to tease out the outlines of why states use social media for PD and whether this constitutes a more ethical or less propagandistic set of activities that might make for a more “effective” PD. I am also concerned that the embrace of social media PD may provide yet more “evidence” for those concerned about being propagandized by states.
To return to the central topic – transparency – can transparency be an effective route to persuasion for nation-states saddled with persistent prejudice about their motives?

Social media may be an answer to develop a sense of community between stakeholders and constituents, but that strategy is not without risks. Regardless, I think that PD commentators and planners need to be honest about the purpose of the activity. As Matt Armstrong stated directly, PD is about influence. To expect political actors (whether they are states or irate Live Journal users bent on agenda-setting) to not attempt to move opinions is to not see why communicative activity is engaged in the first place.

Euphemisms for public diplomacy – engagement, uncertainty reduction, dialogue, information clarification, education, etc. are all secondary routes to the ultimate goal of influence in PD – and thus even the use of social media must be assessed with the kind of influence envisioned. Transparency does not necessarily mean dialogue, respect for other opinions, or some normative template of rational deliberative discourse. It is form of presentation that emphasizes clarity and the maximum disclosure of information and bias. What remains to be seen is whether a public diplomacy that utilizes social media can actively perform and convey the requirements of transparency. In the process we may come to know the purported value of transparency, whether it actually reflects the demands of global media and communication audiences over other communicative values.

Be Sociable, Share!

•