Nowadays, video games have become a dominating entertainment medium. The industry alone creates tens of billions dollars for other industries, every year. Like other pop culture staples, people have noticed the cultural influence of video games. By releasing online game featuring Hollywood characters, Taiwan's innovation and soft power are manifested.

Over the years, the “public” at which U.S. public diplomacy was aimed was carefully limited to exclude the Islamist community. However, the events of 2011 have turned the Islamists who were once viewed as adversaries by American policymakers into the mainstream of Arab politics. It's high time U.S. public diplomacy caught up with this new reality.

The US state department, already established as a major provider of English language teaching support through its international public diplomacy strategy, is seeking to promote more aggressively US ELT skills and expertise to meet the growing global demand for language learning.

For years, Hosni Mubarak and other Arab leaders relied on a straightforward mantra: “It’s me or the Islamists.” American presidents and other Western leaders shuddered at the word “Islamists” and embraced their thuggish allies. What could be worse than Islamists?

U.S. public diplomacy followed that pattern. Over the years, there was some splendid rhetoric from Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, and a few others, but the “public” at which public diplomacy was aimed was always carefully limited to exclude the Islamist community.

The Chinese government is encouraging domestic publishers of foreign-language periodicals to target the overseas market as part of the country's strategy to boost its media presence abroad, a major step to build China into a big player in the world media and publication market and make the cultural sector a pillar industry in the country.

Art is often the vehicle of choice in building bridges in cultural diplomacy. The “Ahh” moment is one of appreciation when our imagination has been captured. Cultural diplomacy can take the inherent power of art and transform it from an “Ahh” moment of appreciation found in one cultural setting to an “Aha!” moment of delight and wonder in other cultural settings.

In previous Culture Posts, I talked about the goal of developing an “in-awareness” approach to culture in public diplomacy. In the comments section, as well as other CPD posts, important observations have been raised about the challenges of cultural diplomacy. Developing a stronger “in-awareness” approach may be the key to designing and implementing rewarding cultural diplomacy initiatives.

In this post I discuss the idea of thinking about culture as a concrete noun as one way to develop awareness.

Culture as a Concrete Noun

The conspicuous failure of American hard power — in Iraq and Afghanistan — obscured the way American soft power has flourished over the past decade. For a while soft power was undercut because the U.S. reputation was tarnished, but the Arab awakening has demonstrated how powerful American-driven social media are in opening up closed societies.