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.

background

Battles to Bridges

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

States use public diplomacy (PD) to transmit information, ideas, and values that support their interests. Despite the centrality of emotion to early academic accounts of propaganda, emotion has not yet been addressed in contemporary PD studies, even in the context of the field's recent engagement with relational communication models. This oversight leaves the current scholarship on PD with an underspecified account of what PD actually does when it works—when it influences and persuades—because emotion is involved in these functions. At the same time, investigating these questions shows that PD practices deserve greater attention in debates within International Relations (IR) about language, power, and persuasion. Drawing on theories of emotion within constructivist IR and political theory, this article reviews two key functions of PD and asks how they engage public emotions. I show that emotions are present in argument, reasoning, and persuasion—particularly in the context of discourse about values. I then show how emotional expression reflects cultural difference, thereby influencing cross-cultural dialogue, and how emotion constitutes collective identities.

Emotion and Public Diplomacy: Dispositions in International Communications, Dialogue, and Persuasion†

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Public diplomacy: a conceptual framework

This conceptual article explores the role of international corporations as non-state actors in the process of public diplomacy as the global environment for diplomacy becomes increasingly multi-directional and networked. It provides an operational definition of the concept of corporate diplomacy and depicts potential contributions of the private sector, particularly the role of corporate social responsibility, in public diplomacy outcomes. The private sector has vast resources to contribute to public diplomacy, but corporations may be more willing to support, rather than to directly engage in public diplomacy in order to protect their economic self-interest. Key issues for research about the role of the private sector in public diplomacy are motives and intentionality of corporate efforts and strategic coordination between business and governments.

Battles to Bridges

Citations

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

Emotion and Public Diplomacy: Dispositions in International Communications, Dialogue, and Persuasion†

Public diplomacy: a conceptual framework

Exploring the role of private-sector corporations in public diplomacy

The Boundaries of Public Diplomacy and Nonstate Actors: A Taxonomy of Perspectives

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