Fixing America’s Voice to Enhance Foreign Policy

One of the US federal government’s most notoriously troubled agencies, the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), suffered a serious public relations setback in early March 2015 when its newly hired CEO, Andrew Lack, quit after only 42 days in the position. Lack, famous for taking on tough jobs, once declared “I’m usually offered jobs where there is something big and broken.” He is now headed back to his previous employer, NBC, where he is tasked with damage control following the Brian Williams fiasco. Meanwhile, “big and broken” remains a decidedly apt description of the BBG. And that is a big problem for the United States and its foreign policy

Will U.S.-Japan Friendship Survive Uncertainty in Asia?

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will meet with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Largo on April 17 and 18, 2018. The relationship between these two leaders’ countries may help shape the U.S. approach to upcoming talks with North Korea. Those talks will likely be focused on denuclearization and regional stability. The U.S.-Japan relationship since World War II has rested on economic and military cooperation. It is sustained through a complex network of institutions that facilitate interactions between the two countries. But interactions among U.S. and Japanese citizens themselves – a form of “soft diplomacy” – also play an important role in furthering relations between the two countries

Is It the Medium or the Message? Social Media, American Public Diplomacy and Iran

This article discusses communication concepts associated with the practice of public diplomacy 2.0, applying those concepts to analysis of American implementation of PD 2.0 directed toward Iran, a country with which the United States has lacked formal diplomatic relations for more than 30 years. Although interaction between the United States and the Iranian people may be limited, may not always take place in real time, and certainly cannot serve as a substitute for the interactions facilitated by a bricks-and-mortar embassy on the ground, the Virtual Embassy Tehran and its social media accouterments represent an interesting application of American public diplomacy priorities. The effort is consistent not only with the goals of 21st Century Statecraft, but also with the Administration’s stated preference for engagement while still pursuing vigorous economic sanctions toward the Iranian regime. The effort also has potent symbolic value given the United States’ promotion of global internet freedom as a foreign policy goal. The case of American engagement with the Iranian people as examined here is a unique study in the practice of public diplomacy 2.0 and it offers an opportunity to test some of the more idealistic arguments associated with application of social media to diplomatic efforts

U.S. "Flyover Country" Sends Election Signal

Exit polls from West Virginia’s presidential primary in May 2016 revealed a surprise: Many voters who had opted for Democrat Bernie Sanders said that, should he fail to win his party’s nomination, they would likely support Republican Donald Trump in November’s U.S. election. That sentiment left pundits along the country’s East and West coasts scratching their heads. But it makes perfect sense in middle America, a region derisively called “flyover country” by those who pass over it while traveling between the East and West coasts

On Missed Opportunities

In late June, The Washington Post had an article highlighting efforts by the American Embassy in Islamabad to correct the record when inaccuracies about the United States appear in the Pakistani press. Then, last Friday, the weekly public radio show On the Media had an interview with the lead spokesman for the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Larry Schwartz to discuss the effort reported in The Washington Post’s earlier article. Both media items offer valuable insight into the challenges official Americans face overseas as they work to present policy accurately while simultaneously acknowledging the range of opinions often held by Americans on those same issues. Both media items also shed light on the frustrations U.S. officials feel as falsehoods, misrepresentations and malicious interpretations of actual facts about the United States are presented to often already suspicious foreign populations. For American diplomats serving abroad, addressing these challenges is part of the job description. But the recent appearance of those two items in national media also highlights a few facts about the importance of context, or lack thereof, in reporting of international issues in American media. And this in turn points to the need for expanding our understanding of the practice of public diplomacy – both abroad and at home

PD Academic Research: Journalism & Mass Communication Scholars Consider Opportunities

In November 2016, for the first time ever, there was a panel dedicated to discussion of public diplomacy at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC). Held in Washington, DC the conference, and this panel in particular, offered an opportunity for scholars to talk about the emergence of public diplomacy as a subject of study in the discipline. The session was well attended and the audience was populated with both scholars and practitioners interested in advancing discussion about public diplomacy in both theoretical and applied contexts.The panel consisted of six scholars, each of whom offered a different perspective for the discussion

Fixing the Strategic Dysfunction

The House Foreign Affairs Committee came out swinging in November of 2016 in its hearing titled “Broadcasting Board of Governors: An Agency ‘Defunct.’” Chairman Ed Royce laid the groundwork in his introductory remarks, offering an overview of the BBG’s legislative origins and the proud history of U.S. government broadcasters that helped the West win the Cold War. The point – much like the hearing’s title – was not subtle, but it was important: The salad days of U.S. international broadcasting (USIB) are long past and the current administrative structure, under the purview of the BBG, does not work

This is What Public Diplomacy Looks Like

The Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program has been around since 1987. This program, the largest component of which places native English speakers in Japan’s junior and senior high schools for year-long tours of duty as Assistant Language Teachers (ALTs), has thousands of alumni from around the world – more than 20,000 from the United States alone. Run as a jointly administered program by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs & Communications (MIC), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology (MEXT) and the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR), JET has faced tough talk at home in recent years as Japan’s political leadership seeks ways to control government spending. The value of a program bringing so many young people to Japan for one, two, three and even four-year stays has been questioned

Promoting Japan: One JET at a Time

There is broad recognition that the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program is an important project undertaken by the Government of Japan. Such assertions are based on raw numbers of participants, diplomatic and academic intuition, and collected anecdotes. There is, however, no publicly available research considering the JET Program as a public diplomacy endeavor evaluating what effects former participants attribute to the JET Program. This study presents a theory- and data-driven foundation on which to stake claims about JET as a public diplomacy program. Introducing original survey data collected by the author in 2011, this study evaluates the responses of more than 500 American JET Program alumni and begins shedding light on the value of JET as a long-term, government-sponsored, public diplomacy program