media
The British Council announced at the start of February, that we have had to suspend our operations in Iran. A sad day for the British Council, and also for tens of thousands of Iranians who have engaged with our cultural and education programmes in recent years. So far so uncontroversial. However, let’s not forget the deeper loss – the loss to the people of the UK.
It doesn’t count as public diplomacy — not yet. But the way in which the Iranian authorities have permitted foreign media visits, especially coverage by major American media (e.g., NPR and the NYT) , not to mention official Iranian comments on bilateral relations, suggests a whiff of change toward caring what the Western world thinks.
In the battle of Internet websites to attract the most user traffic, the one site has emerged as the most popular in the entire world. At the other end of the spectrum, of course, is the inevitable loser, with the dubious honor of being ranked one millionth in website popularity. It could have been worse, as there are almost 110 million active websites, but only the top one-million are ranked in order of their daily traffic by Alexa.com.
Students of public diplomacy and propaganda are quick to point out the difference between the two, but sometimes it’s not so easy. One man’s strategic government effort to communicate with foreign publics can be another man’s tendentious information blitz to smear the reputation of another country.
I think my son was disappointed at what he got this year. After opening his gifts, he started throwing shoes at me.”
-David Letterman, December 29th