March 2010: The View From CPD

Among other activities during the past month, I have used several forums to question the Obama administration‘s commitment to public diplomacy.  In a speech at Chatham House in London, in CPD and Huffington Post blogs, and other venues, I have called for changes in the U.S. approach to public diplomacy, such as placing greater emphasis on new media rather than broadcast, making U.S. public diplomacy less Middle East-centric, connecting more consistently with diasporic communities, and generally rethinking the substance and form of American outreach to the rest of the world.

I do not doubt the good intentions of President Obama and Secretary Clinton, but I worry that their personal global clout is being wasted by a public diplomacy that is unsophisticated and unimaginative.

In this month‘s PDiN Extras section, we have assembled the CPD Blogs that assess the State Department‘s new Public Diplomacy Framework and have highlighted nearly a dozen other editorials on the topic.

The March feature contributed by Rob Asghar reviews the latest headlines and discusses the strengths and limitations of cultural affinity to facilitate diplomacy in India and Pakistan. In the PDiN Spotlight, Nicholas J. Cull analyzes several recent articles on cinema diplomacy and film‘s intrinsic PD value for public diplomats.  And as always, we have aggregated news, commentary, event information and recent publications in one convenient place for your perusal.

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