public diplomacy

DreamWorks Animation has become the second Hollywood studio to enter into a distribution agreement with China's top online video site, Youku.com. Youku said Monday that it had signed a deal with the Glendale-based animation studio to distribute the "Kung Fu Panda" movies in China, marking the first time that DreamWorks releases have been made available in that country through the Internet.

The emergence of Weibo promotes public interaction to an unprecedented level and enables limitless discussions on topics like the bullet train crash and the scandal surrounding the Red Cross Society of China. Weibo serves as a watershed mark for China's media environment.

The Consulate General of the Netherlands in conjunction with the City of Los Angeles and the L.A. County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) are hosting ThinkBike Los Angeles, "a unique, bi-national bicycle promotion and design workshop." Teams of L.A. designers and community stakeholders will collaborate with the foreign experts on project proposals to meet L.A.'s needs as a growing bicycle-friendly city.

Since 9/11, the documentation of conflict...often by civilians carrying camera-equipped mobile phones, whose footage can be viewed almost instantaneously across the globe—actually takes precedent in the public mind over context and analysis. In 2011, when history happens, it is more often than not a nonjournalist with a pocket camera, a blog or a Twitter account who files the initial dispatch.

August 29, 2011

As anticorruption crusader Anna Hazare put an end to his 13-day hunger strike on Sunday, tens of thousands of citizens celebrated what many described as the triumph of his anticorruption movement. Bollywood also joined the celebrations. From superstar Amitabh Bachchan toBollywood singer Lata Mangeshkar, Twitter was flooded with posts congratulating the 73-year-old Gandhian activist.

Chinese regulators have shut down 6,600 websites in their efforts to clamp down on “illegal public relations deals” that employ similar tactics for commercial gain. Telecommunications authorities shut the websites down as part of a campaign against bad public relations practices launched in April by the State Internet Information Office and several other government agencies.

The government should have used the white paper to hone "smart power", the term coined by Joseph Nye Jnr. in his book, The Future of Power. Nye says that countries using smart power have "the ability to combine hard and soft power resources into effective strategies". South Africa's foreign policy should be calculated to produce desired outcomes and benefits for the country, especially on the continent.

With the twin crises of the American budget deficit and the European public borrowing emergency, China has ample worries. China is nonetheless active in bilateral relations with EU member states, and this involves commercial diplomacy, high-level visits and public diplomacy. The last increasingly revolves around the notion of “helping friends,” whether these are nations in need of investment or simply cash.

Pages