A curated selection of public diplomacy-relevant news from a global cross-section of English-language media outlets, including independent, corporate-owned, and state-sponsored sources. The stories featured don't necessarily represent CPD's views nor have they been verified by CPD.
Kremlin Fights Back in PR Battle Over Georgia
Russia easily won its brief war with Georgia, but despite a media blitz to project its side of the story, it concedes it still has a way to go to win the propaganda battle. Facing an international outcry, the Kremlin finally weighed into the war of spin, granting a flurry of interviews with President Dmitry Medvedev to foreign media about Moscow's gamble in the Caucasus.
Albert Kahn and the ‘Archives of the Planet’
Between 1908 and 1930 the millionaire banker and philanthropist Albert Kahn used his vast fortune to compile what he referred to as ‘The Archives of the Planet’. Utilizing cutting edge ‘autochrome’ technology Kahn spared no expense in sending photographers to every corner of Earth in order to record the customs, beliefs and day-to-day lives of peoples – indeed entire countries – still very much regarded as ‘foreign’, ‘alien’ or ‘strange’ by the peoples of Europe.
Romanian Ambassadors’ Annual Meeting To Focus On Economic Diplomacy
Unlike the previous years, when foreign ministers of other countries would be invited to deliver speeches to the meeting, this year the meeting has a working character and it will be carried out in workshops that will tackle such issues as the response of diplomacy to the current global economic challenges; energy diplomacy; promoting Romanian products on foreign markets; positioning Romania in the world's investment flows; the Lisbon Strategy; the part of public diplomacy and cultural diplomacy in the management of worldwide challenges and the conduct of political dialogue.
Chinese Nationalism
In an age in which the meaning of socialism seems to have lost much of its substance, the Olympics have, without a doubt, proved that nationalism can be used as a basis to unite the people as one country.
Welcome Back From Beijing
The thinking of the West might have been that in hosting the Olympics, China would; at least, reveal an appreciable amount of her hidden parts like, for instance, the motivations of her philosophy, or the projection of her ideologies. Well, the Beijing Olympics have come and gone, as they say, and what have we discovered?
China’s Image
The Beijing Olympics are now part of history. The question is how they will be viewed. Olympic history has had some extraordinary highs and lows, and of course Chinese leaders would like the just concluded extravaganza to take its place among the soaring successes. The category in which China competed, that of major leading international nations and the gold medal prize, was "the respect of the world." When it comes to spin control, image crafting, and all of the arts of the PR business, the Chinese won hands down.
Ideas Abound for Improving U.S. Public Diplomacy Effort
Debate continues on how America can best present its image abroad, with many proposals put forth to improve both the U.S. public diplomacy effort and to define the goals of that effort. The bipartisan U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy said in its June 2008 report Getting the People Part Right that the United States can “significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of our nation’s outreach to foreign publics by recruiting for the public diplomacy career track in a more focused way.”
Lessons of a Postmodern War
In the Georgia crisis, those nation-states and international bodies that defended the global rules, that condemned Russia for breaking them, and that used the soft power of public diplomacy to restore their effectiveness were all forces that could ultimately call on hard power and/or serious national self-interest to support their words. Practitioners of hard power were able to use soft power; advocates of soft power ended up wielding no power.
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