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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, JANUARY 21-22, 2008
by John H. Brown

PUBLIC DIPLOMACY PRESS AND BLOG REVIEW, JANUARY 21-22 “Because I have no legs.” —3-foot-1-inch tall Montana State University film student Kevin Connolly, answering the question “Why are you on a skateboard?” from a young girl in a Bozeman (Montana) grocery store; cited in Ray Sikorski, “A legless artist documents the world in 32,000 stares: Tired of gawkers, Kevin Connolly traveled by skateboard, capturing their sheer human curiosity” (Christian Science Monitor, January 20) LINK US PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: THE VIEW FROM CANADA Canadian author Chris Wood comments on US public diplomacy. Please scroll down to Section F. FORTHCOMING BOOK Nathan Gardels and Mike Medavoy, “The Global Battle for Hearts and Minds: Hollywood, Public Diplomacy and America’s Image.” LINK IMAGES A ruined Statue of Liberty as perhaps the quintessential icon of disaster since the 1940s. LINK via LINK DISAPPEARING LINK The link to the following quotation has become inoperative since its appearance in PDPBR, January 18-20:  “I am also considering switching cones [career paths at the State Department], from Public Diplomacy to Consular ... you don’t put in nearly the amount of extra hours in consular work that you do in the other cones,” Foreign Service Officer “schohn,” “Thinking about stuff…,”(Life After Jerusalem blog, January 19). A) PUBLIC DIPLOMACY (1-15) 1. The Case for Non-Violence Against Terrorists - Lionel Beehner (Huffington Post, January 21): Public diplomacy efforts have an abysmal track record in the Muslim world. If locals are not fond of American foreign policy, no amount of cultural exchanges is going to sway them. Rather the best policy is one of restraint that seeks to win over locals by integrating them into the fabric of the state socioeconomically, culturally, and politically. LINK 2. One party can’t defeat jihadism - George Weigel (USA Today, January 22): The war against jihadism must be fought on many non-military fronts. Bipartisan agreement on a radical reform of the U.S. intelligence community and its capacities to get “inside” the worlds that produce jihadist terrorism is imperative. Then there is public diplomacy, the effort to explain our view of the just society to Muslim audiences. Surely, there can be bipartisan agreement that spending tax dollars broadcasting Britney Spears into the Middle East is a waste of money. It’s also a diversion from what we ought to be doing, which is demonstrating by radio and TV programming for the Islamic world that robust political debate is good for society and can lead to agreement, not chaos. Then there is the Internet. Has anyone begun to think through a comprehensive strategy for countering the jihadist propaganda (and worse) readily available online? Sputnik scared Americans into taking math and science seriously in elementary and secondary education; why hasn’t 9/11 spurred a similar revolution in the way we teach and learn languages, at all levels of the educational system? LINK 3. Alliance of the elite - Anjum Niaz (News - International, Pakistan, January 22): “[The] Bush administration after 9/11 when it began a battle for the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Muslims.…... FULL TEXT
 
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