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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.

FINE TUNING BROADCAST PUBLIC DIPLOMACY
JAN 6, 2009 - 9:04AM PDT
Posted by Kim Andrew Elliott
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I am happy to see that Alvin Snyder is contributing again to the CPD Blog. I have always learned from his experience and have found his views to be interesting and provocative. His return commentary, about a revival of Worldnet, accordingly provoked me to add some thoughts about the possibilities for a public diplomacy television service. When it was created in 1985, Worldnet billed itself as the “first global satellite television network.” Despite its head start, Worldnet was soon eclipsed by CNN International and BBC World, which were much more successful in getting access to cable systems around the world. I think Worldnet’s problem was that it tried to be both a news service and a public diplomacy vehicle. The audience has always been much more interested in the news: real news, credible news, especially news accompanied by video from the scene of the news. Such video is useful to audiences even if they don’t understand English. There would be nothing wrong with a 24-hour channel devoted to public diplomacy, consisting of the advocacy and official representation of U.S. policies abroad. It must, however, not attempt to disguise its content as news. If it does, it might be confused for Voice of America or other U.S. international broadcasting services that actually do news. Also, audiences would soon enough discern that the “news” is not really news. This could make them even more annoyed with the United States than they already are. The public diplomacy channel could contain speeches by future-President Obama, the secretary of state, and other U.S. officials, along with press conferences and occasional persuasive productions like the old “Let Poland Be Poland.” The video stream could be accompanied by audio tracks in multiple languages, similar to EuroNews. The popularity (at least at the outset) of Barack Obama notwithstanding, this fare won’t usually attract large audiences, and thus won’t be carried by many cable systems or direct-to-home satellite bouquets. Fortunately, a lack of cable outlets is not as much of a problem as it used to be. These days, many people who want to see official U.S. policy on video can use the internet to do so. And instead of filling a channel 24 hours with public diplomacy content, which might be a stretch, the content could more conveniently be available on demand through a website. Indeed, something like this is already available. There is a video section at the public diplomacy website America.gov. It could usefully be expanded, offering more content in more languages. As for Worldnet’s “interactive TV capacity,” that also still exists through the American Embassy TV Network, “the Department of State’s global television network and a direct U.S. television resource for international broadcasters.” Al Snyder’s source says that State Department’s television dialogues have “lost their traction” since the days of Worldnet and the U.S. Information Agency. If that is the case, regaining the traction does not necessarily require a new, or revived, bureaucracy. It would be gentler on the taxpayers to do a better job…... FULL TEXT
 
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