soft power

The US Embassy is inviting university students to apply for its Foreign National Student Intern Programme. In a press release, the embassy said the voluntary programme is designed to introduce university students (non-US citizens) in Guyana to the work of the mission in the Public Affairs Section of the embassy while providing short-term educational experience.

This week was actually a double-victory for Barak Obama, who won both the White House and the title of first Western leader to survive re-election for some time. According to the polls, it was also a victory for America's international appeal.

YouTube and the Public Diplomacy Division of the Ministry of External Affairs of India launched a unique initiative last night. Titled ‘India is...a visual journey’, this initiative is a global short film-making competition which invites filmmakers as well as amateurs from across the globe to make a short film celebrating India and her diversity.

China launched its first cultural industry index on Friday to provide an indicator of how the sector is performing... Experts said that OCT index will indicate the development level and trends of China's cultural industry, and reflect the operational and profitability situations of listed culture-related firms.

Soon, I realized that the event was not intended for Americans. It was to impress people from here in Jakarta: Invited Indonesians and Indonesians who read the news from the invited press. It was a showcase of American “soft power”, a term popularized by Joseph Nye, a professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

What can branding in the commercial sector teach us about nation-state image communication?

November 9, 2012

A case study on Israeli citizen diplomacy. 

Communist Party general secretary Hu Jintao highlighted the need for China to become a global cultural power - matching its rising economic clout - in his report to the party's 18th national congress yesterday. "Cultural strength and competitiveness symbolise a country's economic strength and its national revitalisation," he said.

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