Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel discussed the Islamic State’s influential social media presence and how the U.S. can counter it on campus Thursday. The 90-minute discussion [...] focused on the work of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), a State Department anti-extremism initiative, which Stengel oversees. 

Despite China’s economic progress, the latest developments suggest its leaders still believe that propaganda and censorship are its two main tools of rule. Sadly, such leftist campaigns to curb free speech and the free flow of information will ultimately constrain China’s development, which today depends on technological advancement, creativity and innovation.

So far, American public diplomacy efforts directed at the North Korean people have remained almost entirely focused on radio broadcasting. [...] It is important to remember that the main focus would not be propaganda, but rather entertainment with an underlying goal to provide accurate, trustworthy information – the type of information can create change, particularly in such a closed-off environment.

A historically-grounded narrative is needed to counter China’s charges, which have real implications for American and other national policies. The PRC plays the “victim” card to its advantage [...] to indoctrinate internal opinion to support the regime, to stoke “nationalism” for leverage, and to arm psychological warfare that positions Beijing as “just.”

A new global “soft power” ranking recently reported that the democratic states of North America and Western Europe were the most successful at achieving their diplomatic objectives “through attraction and persuasion”. Countries such as the US, the UK, Germany and Canada, the report claimed, are able to promote their influence through language, education, culture and the media...

THERE ARE SOME rather remarkable aspects of the increasingly heated debate about China’s influence in Australia. First, the idea that China actually has any “soft power” to exert is actually rather surprising. Soft power, after all, is something that has generally been associated with our cousins in the U.S. — not “Communist China”.

Though the Taliban has relied on technology for over a decade in the name of propaganda and public relations, its relationship with social media has only taken root in the last few years, in parallel with the rise of ISIS. Just as terrorist organizations in the Middle East have made Facebook pages, Telegram channels, and Twitter accounts, the Taliban has expanded the breadth and depth of its outreach to the international community in general and the news media in particular.