Game On, Public Diplomacy

From viral video campaigns to social media apps, headlines this week in PD News explored how new media technologies have bridged the real and virtual worlds. In Turkey, mobile app developers are creating real-time translation apps to help Syrian refugees forge new lives abroad, while in the United States, a new virtual exchange program seeks to overcome “international boundaries through virtual spaces” by digitally connecting youth in the U.S. and MENA (Middle East and North Africa). Other headlines this week looked at modern reboots of a popular 1990s video game (Pokémon) and pop song (the Spice Girls, ‘Wannabe’) to engage new generations of public diplomacy practitioners in global discourse. 

• At 20 Years Old, Pokémon Pushes Interactions with the Real World—The Asahi Shimbun
• China's New Weapon? Video Games—Bloomberg
• How Real-Time Translation Apps and Online Tools Are Helping Refugees in Turkey Forge New Lives—Smithsonian Magazine
• Promoting Peace through the “Third Place”—Diplomatic Courier
• 'Wannabe' Video Draws Attention to UN Sustainable Development Goals—The Christian Science Monitor

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Photo by Bill Dickinson | CC BY-NC 2.0