In his seminal work \"The Clash of Civilizations\" and the \"Remaking of World Order,\" Samuel Huntington argued provocatively and presciently that with the end of the cold war, \"civilizations\" were replacing ideologies as the new fault lines in international politics.His astute analysis has proven correct. Now Professor Huntington turns his attention from international affairs to our domestic cultural rifts as he examines the impact other civilizations and their values are having on our own country.America was founded by British settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of immigrants that later came to the United States gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of primarily Hispanic immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the \"denationalization\" of American elites.September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism and a renewal of American identity. But already there are signs that this revival is fading, even though in the post-September 11 world, Americans face unprecedented challenges to our security.\"Who Are We?\" shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans. Nothing less than our national identity is at stake.Once again Samuel Huntington has written an important book that is certain to provoke a lively debate and to shape our national conversation about who we are.\\

Diasporas, Foreign Governments, and American Politics: An Excerpt from "Merging America with the World," in Who Are We? the Challenges to America's National Identity

Public diplomacy is a term much used but seldom subjected to rigorous analysis. This article—which draws heavily on a report commissioned by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the sprin...

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Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories

The Tahrir Data Project gathers empirical data on media use during the Egyptian revolution of January and February 2011. The Project consists of three data sets documenting media use by protesters, by coordinators, and by transnational audiences. Preliminary descriptive analysis of the data suggests that social media use was not dominant in demonstrations, but may have played an important role in connecting and motivating protesters. Metrics for media use by protesters indicate a strong presence of activities and characteristics commonly associated with communication in protests to social media and social media users. These metrics, along with preliminary data on coordinator strategies and preliminary analysis of the #jan25 tweet set, suggest an important but complex role played by social media in the Egyptian revolution of 2011. The data and preliminary analysis are presented here, together with a number of research questions for further study.

The Arab Spring| Digital Media in the Egyptian Revolution: Descriptive Analysis from the Tahrir Data Set

Soft power in its current, widely understood form has become a straitjacket for those trying to understand power and communication in international affairs. Analyses of soft power overwhelmingly focus on soft power ‘assets’ or capabilities and how to wield them, not how influence does or does not take place. It has become a catch-all term that has lost explanatory power, just as hard power once did. The authors argue that the concept of strategic narrative gives us intellectual purchase on the complexities of international politics today, especially in regard to how influence works in a new media environment. They believe that the study of media and war would benefit from more attention being paid to strategic narratives.

Strategic narrative: A new means to understand soft power

This article draws on a decade of research in strategic communication and especially on the contributions in this special issue to propose a new and more comprehensive definition of strategic commu...

Strategic Communication: Defining the Field and its Contribution to Research and Practice

The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: THE COLD WAR AND THE UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY

Prologue: the foundations of US information overseas 1. Getting the sheep to speak: the Truman years, 1945-53 2. Mobilizing 'the P-Factor': Eisenhower and the birth of the USIA, 1953-6 3. In the shadow of Sputnik: the second Eisenhower administration, 1957-61 4. Inventing truth: the Kennedy administration, 1961-3 5. Maintaining confidence: the early Johnson years, 1963-5 6. 'My radio station': the Johnson administration, 1965-9 7. Surviving detente: the Nixon years, 1969-74 8. A new beginning: the Ford administration, 1974-7 9. From the 'two-way' mandate to the second Cold War: the Carter administration, 1977-81 10. 'Project Truth': the first Reagan administration, 1981-4 11. Showdown: the second Reagan administration, 1985-9 Epilogue: victory and the strange death of the USIA, 1989-99 Conclusion: trajectories, maps, and lessons from the past of US public diplomacy.

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The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989

Routledge handbook of public diplomacy

The United States has a long history of deploying new technology as a mechanism for public diplomacy (the conduct of foreign policy by engagement with foreign publics) but it was relatively slow to make full use of the on-line technologies known as Web 2.0. This essay reviews the early work of the US Information Agency (1953–1999) in the field of computer and on-line communications, noting the compatibility of a networking approach to USIA's institutional culture. The essay then traces the story forward into the work of the units within the US Department of State which took over public diplomacy functions in 1999. The article argues that this transition deserves a large part of the blame for the difficulty which the risk-averse State Department displayed in embracing first the web and then the full range of qualities associated with Web 2.0. The State Department has emphasized one-way broadcast media rather than two-way relational media and functions connected with listening and exchange diplomacy were subordinated to advocacy. The essay also notes the challenge of a non-diplomatic agency—the Department of Defense—playing a dominant role in digital and other forms of outreach at some points in the process. The essay ends by noting the recent evolution of the State Department's approach to digital media and the emergence of a non-governmental model for American digital outreach (known by the acronym SAGE) which may overcome many of the institutional limits experienced thus far and provide a way to bring together the relational priorities of the New Public Diplomacy with the relational capacities of Web 2.0 technology.

Nicholas J. Cull

Papers

Public Diplomacy: Taxonomies and Histories

The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: THE COLD WAR AND THE UNITED STATES INFORMATION AGENCY

The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945-1989

Routledge handbook of public diplomacy

The Long Road to Public Diplomacy 2.0: The Internet in US Public Diplomacy