Evolution of Strategic Communication and Information Operations Since 9/11: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Emerging Threats & Capabilities of the H. Comm. on Armed Services, 112th Cong., July 12, 2011 (Statement of Rosa Ehrenreich Brooks)

I know that members of this sub-committee are deeply committed to ensuring that reform of strategic communication organizational structures and policies remains a top priority for the executive branch. I have to confess that in my former role as a Defense Department official with responsibility for a range of SC and IO issues, I was not always wholly grateful for your interest: you and your colleagues on the House Appropriations Committee put the Department through the ringer with quite a lot of different reporting requirements. As a citizen, however, I am deeply grateful to you for having kept us on our toes— and occasionally held our feet to the fire. This is a vital area, and we can’t afford either to ignore it or rest on our laurels. I would like to begin today by looking briefly at the emergence of the concept of “strategic communication” within the US government, and talk about some drawbacks to the term itself. I’d then like to highlight some of the lessons we can draw from the decade since 9/11, and I will close by offering some thoughts on the future

Promoting Public and Private Reinvestment in Cultural Exchange-Based Diplomacy

Makes the case for renewed investment in public diplomacy and cultural exchange. Analyzes trends in government, foundation, and other private support for cultural diplomacy, the benefits and obstacles, and models of engagement. Details recommendations

Soft power and its audiences: Tweeting the Olympics from London 2012 to Sochi 2014

The ‘Tweeting the Olympics’ project (the subject of this special section of Participations) must be understood in the context of efforts by host states, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other actors involved in the Games to cultivate and communicate a set of meanings to audiences about both the Olympics events and the nations taking part. Olympic Games are not only sporting competitions; they are also exercises in the management of relations between states and publics, at home and overseas, in order to augment the attractiveness and influence or the soft power of the states involved. Soft power is most successful when it goes unnoticed according to its chief proponent Joseph Nye. If so, how can we possibly know whether soft power works? This article reviews the state of the field in thinking about public diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and soft power in the period of this project (2012-14), focusing particularly on how the audiences of soft power projects, like the London and Sochi Games, were conceived and addressed. One of the key questions this project addresses is whether international broadcasters such as the BBCWS and RT used social media during the Games to promote a cosmopolitan dialogue with global audiences and/or merely to integrate social media so as to project and shape national soft power. We argue first that the contested nature of the Olympic Games calls into question received theories of soft power, public and cultural diplomacy. Second, strategic national narratives during the Olympics faced additional challenges, particularly due to the tensions between the national and the international character of the Games. Third, the new media ecology and shift to a network paradigm further threatens the asymmetric power relations of the broadcasting paradigm forcing broadcasters to reassess their engagement with what was formerly known as ‘the audience’ and the targets of soft power

Branding the nation: Towards a better understanding

This paper aims to clarify some misunderstanding about nation branding. It examines the origins and interpretations of the concept, and draws a comparison between nation branding and commercial branding. A new definition is offered that emphasises the need to shift from “branding” the nation to nation image management

Global Answers to Global Problems: Health as a Global Public Good. 1/2007

Address by Jorge Sampaio, UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Stop Tuberculosis and former President of Portugal, on the occasion of the 8th Hendrik Brugmans Memorial Lecture to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Hendrik Brugmans, sponsored by the College of Europe, the Madariaga Foundation and the Alumni Association of the College of Europe, Brussels City Hall, 14 December 2006

Mapping networks of influence: tracking Twitter conversations through time and space

The increasing use of social media around global news events, such as the London Olympics in 2012, raises questions for international broadcasters about how to engage with users via social media in order to best achieve their individual missions. Twitter is a highly diverse social network whose conversations are multi-directional involving individual users, political and cultural actors, athletes and a range of media professionals. In so doing, users form networks of influence via their interactions affecting the ways that information is shared about specific global events. This article attempts to understand how networks of influence are formed among Twitter users, and the relative influence of global news media organisations and information providers in the Twittersphere during such global news events. We build an analysis around a set of tweets collected during the 2012 London Olympics. To understand how different users influence the conversations across Twitter, we compare three types of accounts: those belonging to a number of well-known athletes, those belonging to some well-known commentators employed by the BBC, and a number of corporate accounts belonging to the BBC World Service and the official London Twitter account. We look at the data from two perspectives. First, to understand the structure of the social groupings formed among Twitter users, we use a network analysis to model social groupings in the Twittersphere across time and space. Second, to assess the influence of individual tweets, we investigate the ageing factor of tweets, which measures how long users continue to interact with a particular tweet after it is originally posted. We consider what the profile of particular tweets from corporate and athletes’ accounts can tell us about how networks of influence are forged and maintained. We use these analyses to answer the questions: How do different types of accounts help shape the social networks? and, What determines the level and type of influence of a particular account

Are we talking the Same Language? Challenging Complexity in Country Brand Models

The purpose of this paper is to review recent research into country brand models and identify the most common and shared dimensions. Based on the literature review, this study establishes a conceptual framework to consider the complex interaction between the core constructs of country branding, country brand models and country image. This paper attempts to show that there is no acceptable, concrete and universally theoretical-recognised definition either in the academic literature or in the business and trade arena. The paper is divided into three parts with the first focusing on country branding constructs, branding strategies as well as the importance in the global economy and competitive arena worldwide of the country brand. The second part reviews the conceptual origin of the main country brand models in the last decades. The third part discusses the country image construct, and identifies this as the country brand reflection. The paper summary draws the analysis together to present the exploration of the country brand model dimensions. The purpose of the paper is to determine the most common dimensions in the main country brand models. The findings are that: tourism is the most supported by five models; followed by governance and investment by four models); and exports and immigration are supported by three models. Despite its exploratory nature, this study offers insight for researchers, country brand strategists and communications professionals to rethink the country brand being adopted to comprehend a country image and to invest in either public relation, promotion and advertising worldwide. The country brand models discussed in this paper may be applied to other future investigations regarding the need for a conventional and consistent country brand model, including new dimensions related to the multiple stakeholders and specific country variables

Introduction: Commercial Diplomacy and International Business.

International business has always been intimately linked to the politics of the global economy. Expansion and investment strategies of business play a key role in de?ning the architecture of the global economy. The shifting dynamic of the global economy such as the emergence of fast growing economies in, for example, India, China, South Africa and Brazil can be partly explained by the emergence of new market players such as the India transnational car manufacturer Tata, as well as the adaptation of established international businesses in the West to the new market opportunities in the South and the East. Equally, the recent (and in places ongoing) economic crises of the West owes as much to the failures of international business — notably the banking and investment industry — as it does to the failures of government policy. At the same time the international political dimension to the global economy explains the regulatory forces which also determine the architecture of the global economy. The far reaching policy liberalization of international trade through international (namely the World Trade Organisation) and regional treaties and rule- making, and the global deregulation of the investment and ?nancial services sector of the global economy driven by the neoliberal policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have created economic risks and opportunities for international business by opening up and creating new markets. The strategies of nation states and international business determine the architecture of the global economy and create both economic crises and dynamic growth at one and the same time in the contemporary global economy. So it is that for much of the ?rst decade or so of the new century the West has endured an age of austerity brought on by sustained economic decline and high indebtedness. The once market dominant economies of the United States and West European economies are now struggling to reverse negative economic growth. By contrast large previously peripheral under- developed economies in Africa and Asia are enjoying remarkable and sustained growth rates and their exports and investments now fuel an overall growth in the global economy

Integrating Diplomacy and Social Media: A Report of the First Annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology

This report is a result of the first annual Aspen Institute Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology, or what we call ADDTech. The concept for this Dialogue originated with longtime communications executive and Aspen Institute Trustee Marc Nathanson. Since his tenure as Chairman of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Nathanson has been concerned with how American diplomacy could more rapidly embrace the changing world of social media and other technologies. He is also a graduate of the University of Denver where former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's father, Josef Korbel, namesake of the Josef Korbel School of International Relations there, was his professor. Thus, Albright, another Institute Trustee, was a natural partner to create the first Dialogue on Diplomacy and Technology. The cast is ably supplemented with Korbel School Dean and former U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill and Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson, who himself was also recently the chair of the BBG.The topic for this inaugural dialogue is how the diplomatic realm could better utilize new communications technologies. The group focused particularly on social media, but needed to differentiate among the various diplomacies in play in the current world, viz., formal state diplomacy, public diplomacy, citizen diplomacy and business diplomacy. Each presents its own array of opportunities as well as problems. In this first Dialogue, much of the time necessarily had to be used to define our terms and learn how technologies are currently being used in each case. To help us in that endeavor, we focused on the Middle East. While the resulting recommendations are therefore rather modest, they set up the series of dialogues to come in the years ahead