VIRTUAL PUBLIC DIPLOMACY

Virtual Worlds and Public Diplomacy: How Does it Work?

Public Diplomacy is all about creating dialogue between people of different cultures and nationalities in order to facilitate mutual respect and understanding. Governments, private individuals, and institutions practice public diplomacy when communicating with foreign nationals. Whether it is deliberately initiated or occurs inadvertently, the key component is dialogue; both parties must participate in the conversation to convey their own perspective, which is critical to establishing a genuine foundation for understanding.

This dialogue can exist across multiple mediums such as radio, television, and the internet. Virtual worlds, by creating global communication networks, provide yet another platform for public diplomacy, functioning as communication networks in three different ways:

1. As one-to-many networks (developer to community):
Since virtual worlds are created by a team of developers, they inherently include assumptions, values and beliefs in the structure, design, and art of the game.

2. As many-to-many networks:
Virtual worlds allow for interactive chat, internal email, and private and public messaging. Thus, communication can occur among and between any of the online participants in a multitude of configurations.

3. As one-to-many networks (individual to community):
Virtual worlds also offer individual members increased access to a new form of 'broadcasting' from things as basic as avatar appearance and selection to the ability to create and display objects or messages in public forums or virtual space.

Early research has confirmed that within these spaces, there is a unique opportunity to create, foster and sustain intercultural dialogue and that perception of national values, ideals, and character are both reinforced and altered by the real time interactions that occur in these spaces.

Virtual worlds exceed the capacity of other internet-based technologies like websites, chat rooms, blogs, video conferences, etc.; not only do virtual worlds such as Second Life encompass and integrate most, if not all, of these other internet-based technologies, they also encourage creative thought and technological innovation by providing the tools and space for members to build the society. As individuals participate in this communal development effort, the digital contributions to the society will often bear some reflection of the individual creator and its culture, thus generating an ever-evolving world of collaborative cultural fusion for all to experience.

Douglas Thomas
Associate Professor
USC Annenberg School for Communication

Shawna Kelly
Research Associate
USC Center on Public Diplomacy

Student Support
USC Center on Public Diplomacy