Send in the Mousketeers!

In 2006 the modestly budgeted Disney Channel film High School Musical unexpectedly became a world-wide smash hit, with some 200 million mostly 9-14 year old “tweener” female viewers spread across some 100 countries. Just last week Disney rolled out the blockbuster sequel, “High School Musical Two,” in the US and kicked off a global marketing campaign with a 24-hour series of conference calls with Disney partners in, once again, over 100 countries. Read More

We Need a Public Diplomacy Strategy for Russia

Since September 11th much of our nation's public diplomacy efforts have been focused, appropriately enough, on the Middle East and the Islamic world. However, while much energy and attention has gone to improve understanding of America and its policies in those regions another important sphere has been neglected. The Russian government is now clearly conducting a concerted effort to indoctrinate its people, particularly its young people, in anti-Americanism. America is hardly the Kremlin's only target. Indeed, the list is a long one -- Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Britain, etc. Read More

An Interview with James K. Glassman, Chairman of the BBG


Aug 6, 2007 | Comments:  4

As the new Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, James K. Glassman is the U.S. government's number one broadcaster. An accomplished journalist, Mr. Glassman oversees all U.S. government non-military international broadcast channels. The BBG Chairman provided his unvarnished observations to Worldcasting this week. Read More

Listening to the Public in Diplomacy

On July 19th Avaaz.org and Chatham House hosted Britain's new Foreign Secretary, David Miliband as he gave his first speech on "A New Diplomacy." Mr. Miliband is one of the youngest ministers in Britain's history. He is the first to keep a blog, and he has an avatar in Second Life. Read More

The Jihadist Bee, Hamas’s Strategic Communicator

There’s a new “bee” character on a Hamas TV children's show that encourages viewers to be martyrs. Nahoul the bee wants kids to follow him into “martyrdom” along with his Mickey Mouse look-alike “cousin” Farfur, who was beaten to death by an “Israeli” in a previous episode, reports BBC monitoring. Read More

Public Diplomacy Goes ‘Pubic’

No, the above title doesn’t have a typo, a typo that occurs (to the embarrassment of those responsible for it, and to the amusement of those noticing it) when referring to that increasingly widespread international activity, public diplomacy (PD) -- which can be defined, to cite the U.S. Read More

Iran’s English Satellite Channel Debuts, Further Crowding Competition for Coveted American Viewers

Iran is the latest entry in the international satellite news channel sweepstakes. Its 24-hour English service, "Press TV," debuted July 2. It is funded by the Iranian government, and one supposes by each of us when we gas up our cars. But Press TV is sharing attention today with a planned Middle East "Adult" channel, which is said to be in the works. Read More

The Iraq War’s Arabic YouTube

Sunni insurgents in Iraq have found a way to get their message to the world. It's via Internet, of course, but just look at this, from a new U.S. Government report released today. Read More

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