I finally got around to reading the new strategic template for US public diplomacy as put together by the State Department – ostensibly the agency tasked with managing and directing US public diplomacy. The strategy is in a handy powerpoint presented by US Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Judith McHale. She spoke of it again on March 10, 2010 before the Senate Foreign Relations committee. A few things from the document and the speech stand out in my mind.
I admit I came to the document a bit skeptical. Supposedly, it took many months to prepare – and feedback was kept to a minimum (bloggers were invited to talk about the plan AFTER it was released). And indeed my initial reading was somewhat disappointing. It read like McHale’s crack team of strategic planners had planned to step out of the TARDIS time machine in 2001 rather than, say, 2010. Simply put, the document reads too much as a dated conception of message management designed to counter or compete with the actions of other actors like China, Russia, and extremists groups (nevermind that their respective programs are for decidedly different objectives and have questionable effectiveness – they are doing stuff, so should we!). Aren’t US public diplomacy planners done with the “there’s a media war going on” kind of talk?
Archive for March, 2010
Reaction to the new US Public Diplomacy Strategy – Part I
March 22nd, 2010 | by Craig Hayden | published in Public Diplomacy & Strategic Communication
Some more thoughts on theory, networks, and PD
March 10th, 2010 | by Craig Hayden | published in Public Diplomacy & Strategic Communication
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.
Where have we been?
March 10th, 2010 | by Craig Hayden | published in Intermap Info
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.