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John Brown aggregates all the most recent public diplomacy related news, including current issues in U.S. foreign policy, international broadcasting and media, propaganda, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, anti-Americanism, and the reception of American popular culture abroad.

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, DECEMBER 31, 2007-JANUARY 2, 2008
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, DECEMBER 31, 2007-JANUARY 2, 2008 “Inside the country, in the virtual world, ... an empire is, indeed, being created. This is very good and it is to the credit of the current president. The next goal is to expand this public relations campaign beyond Russia’s borders.” —Igor Panarin, a Russian expert on information wars; cited in Victor Yasmann, “Russia: Putin’s Plan To Become ‘Father Of A New Country’” (RFE/RL, December 20) http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2007/12/5eaf156c-f162-46c0-b216-08f9da92c5ca.html “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” —A senior Bush administration official (summer 2002); cited in Ron Suskind, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush” (New York Times, October 17) LINK VIDEOS a) Stalin/Soviet Propaganda! LINK b) 2007: The Year in Videos (Reason Magazine) LINK A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, 1-13 1. The battle of ideas - Daniel L. Davis (Washington Times, January 1): It is imperative that our national leaders concede the fact that part of the reason we’re not winning the global battle of the mind is our past behavior, our insistence on having things our way and our unwillingness to compromise on non-critical issues to our friends and allies. LINK 2. A Hunger For America - Moisés Naím (Washington Post, January 2): The demand for a new brand of American global leadership is there. Increasingly, the supply to satisfy this demand will also be there. LINK 3. Report: Seven Pillars – Adam Elkus (Rethinking Security: Asymetric Analysis, January 1): Information warfare has changed since T. E. Lawrence’s day. Lawrence and his Arabs would blow up telegraph lines in order to throw the Turks’ brittle communications apparatus into a state of disorder. The Iraqi insurgency doesn’t have the ability to destroy Coalition communications, but they’ve made up for it by dominating the information war—not only outgunning us in the public diplomacy struggle for “hearts and minds,” but by evolving a complex and efficient decentralized command and control system. LINK 4. Kim Andrew Elliott Discussing International Broadcasting and Public Diplomacy, latest edition) LINK 5. Hip Hop Counter-Publics, or the academic utility of Christmas presents - Marc Lynch (Abu Aardvark, January 1): “A few weeks ago in a New York bar, I had a long, fascinating conversation with the outstanding ‘counter-publics’ theorist Michael Warner about whether there was such a thing as a ‘hip hop counter-public’. (We had just finished a long day’s workshop on whether there were such things as ‘religious counter-publics’, so it’s not as pathetic a bar conversation as it sounds. I think.) It’s something I’ve been chatting with people about ever since that piece I did for the Guardian about hip hop in the Middle East—turns out there are quite a few more people interested in Middle Eastern (Arab, Israeli, Iranian) hip hop and its possible public diplomacy functions than I thought. Warner surprised me a bit by suggesting that there could be a politically and culturally significant hip hop public sphere, but now there mostly isn’t.“ LINK 6. Restrictions on Press…... FULL TEXT
 
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