Rebirth of Public Diplomacy after 9/11

We’ve spent a lot of time recently, especially after attending the conference at GW, discussing public diplomacy. We read in Hanson’s chapter about “War and Peace in the Information Age” about how public diplomacy first became important during the Cold War. It was a war of ideas, battling the basic tenets of communism. Public diplomacy became an extremely important part of U.S. foreign policy for the first time. After the Cold War though, public diplomacy was somewhat abandoned. Cultural centers closed and the U.S. government seemed to think that since we were the “super-power” of the world that either everyone liked us, or it just didn’t matter.

9/11 quickly proved that was disillusioned thinking.  The US realized that maybe we weren’t as loved by all as we had assumed. And public diplomacy did once again become a much more important part of US foreign policy. Some actions seemed to work like Radio Sawa, a radio station aimed towards Arabic speaking youth in the Middle East. They mix popular music with news from an American viewpoint. Although it is a public diplomacy effort, the website says it is “committed to the highest standards of journalism.” I think it’s a little conflicting for something to be considered a public diplomacy effort and journalism. 

Another effort that wasn’t as successful was the Office of Strategic Influence in the Pentagon. They had plans to plant news items in the media in foreign countries and even considered planting false news to put the US in a better light. When information about these plans leaked, the office closed within four months. The New York Times reported at the time that it was hard to get information about this fairly secretive office. The Times did report on what critics of the office said though. One of the main criticisms was that if news was planted for Reuters or a similar news agency, then news could make it’s way back to the U.S. very easily. And by law, the Pentagon and CIA are not allowed to engage in propaganda in the U.S.

Many were not satisfied with the supposedly amped-up efforts and the Council on Foreign Relations put together a task force made up of former ambassadors, academics, global business leaders, representatives from global NGOs and representatives from international think tanks. They released recommendations that are really interesting, even though many of them never took effect.

First they overall, just wanted to make public diplomacy a more crucial part of U.S. foreign policy, predominantly by placing more attention on leadership within public diplomacy. They also wanted to enhance training for ambassadors and build congressional support for public diplomacy.

The most interesting aspects of the proposal included partnerships with the private and non-profit sectors. They really wanted to create a Corporation for Public Diplomacy, modeled after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. This organization would work on private funding and help foster new, creative ideas for public diplomacy from the private sector. They wanted to reach out to foreign media, which is also something that probably would have been more effective if done by NGOs already working in the area.

For the most part, the extension of public diplomacy didn’t spread to the non-profit or private sectors, like CFR’s task force recommended. And that’s not too surprising. The U.S. government, like many other governments and international organizations like the UN are reluctant to allow the private sector in, but I think it could have been helpful public diplomacy in the post-9/11 days.

Defeating Terrorism with Network Theory

The study of networks was not the easiest concept of the semester to understand. According to Amelia Arsenault in “Networks: Emerging Frameworks for Analysis,” one of the predominant reasons for this is the confusion of networks as a social construct versus networks as a form of network technology. But looking at networks as a way that people connect is an interesting way to examine the connections that bind different groups together.

One of the most interesting groups Arsenault applies Network Theory to is a terrorist group. Much criminal activity can now be classified as Netwars. This means the strength of the relationships or connections within the network are what decide the outcome. If a terrorist group has a star-format network, the hub will have to be taken out to defeat the cell. If they are built as a mesh network, meaning all the nodes are interconnected to each other and not just to a few central nodes, it becomes infinitely more difficult to take down a terrorist group. The government and military should use this information to be better equipped to take down terrorist organizations. This information can show them where to strike to eliminate the most important nodes in a network.

Another way networks can be used to battle terrorism is by tracing and connecting the nodes of a network to find the next node. In a 2006 New York Times magazine article, Can Network Theory Thwart Terrorists?, Patrick Radden Keefe examines how the National Security Agency uses Network Theory to make connections between terrorists to locate other members of a cell. Keefe writes about a Cleveland consultant, Valdis Krebs, who created a network map connecting all of the 19 terrorist involved in the 9/11 attacks within just a few links, using shared addresses, phone numbers, frequent flier numbers, etc. Most of these men were linked to each other through one leader. In retrospect, it has more of a reflective value, but if found beforehand, this time of work could provide preventative measures.

An issue that occurs with this kind of network mapping though is surveillance of everyone, even just innocent, everyday citizens. Because we are all supposedly linked within six degrees of separation, most of us are probably surprisingly close on network maps to people we wouldn’t expect, such as terrorists and criminals. That means many innocent people will end up being watched because of such linkages. This topic quickly morphs into the much-discussed, hot-topic battle of national security vs. individual privacy. 

Fine Line Between Nationalism and Ethnocentrism

September 11^th has obviously been on everyone’s mind over the last week. An issue that keeps coming to mind is ethnocentrism vs. nationalism. How do you differentiate between these two terms that can often be used very vaguely? In Dr. Gary Weaver’s address to the 2005 Ayoma Symposium on International Communication, he talks about the field of International Communications when he was in school for his PhD in International Relations. His major issue was the way domestic and foreign affairs were kept completely separate. They were treated as two separate entities with little or no overlap. Part of the reason for that was that we had not in modern times fought a war on our own soil. We had lost plenty of lives in war, but these men and women didn’t die on American land. That made it easier to keep up this illusion that war was completely a part of foreign domain and domestic issues were a whole different ball game.

Dr. Weaver also speaks about the birth of International Development and International Communications programs and how they were based on the ideals of ethnocentrism. These programs often took the stance that development meant becoming more Americanized. Obviously we have, for a large part, overcome ethnocentrism in these academic programs. But is ethnocentrism still a large part of our culture?

Though this is by no means academic, there was an unsourced quote going around facebook this weekend:

At this moment more than 100 times the amount of people who died on 9/11 are starving in Somalia. In Syria countless thousands are being tortured behind closed doors. In North Korea, Israel, Zimbabwe, and all across the world, people's freedom and dignity as human beings are constantly stomped upon by those with might. While today we should solemnly remember the 9/11 victims, tomorrow we should turn our attention to the multitudes who are still in need.

This quote implies that the U.S. is still ethnocentric as a country and as a culture. But it got me thinking… yes, there are more people dying worldwide from a huge and terrible array of tragedies. But 9/11, from an American viewpoint, was our tragedy. It happened in our backyard and it was mostly our fellow countrymen who were killed. Isn’t it natural that a country feels its own losses more than those happening halfway across the world? But in this increasingly global world, I’m not sure how these definitive borders stand up anymore. How does a country balance what happens within its own borders with what is happening in other places? It goes back to Weaver’s comments on the separatism between domestic and foreign affairs. What is nationalism and what is ethnocentrism? I’ve proposed a lot of questions, none of which I have the answers for.

But I have to believe there is a way that we can have national pride but also be more globally aware. I think other countries actually set some beautiful examples of this over the weekend. A CNN article reported on events worldwide that commemorated the 10^th anniversary of 9/11. In Sydney, firefighters climbed 80 flights of stairs in Sydney Tower to remember the climb that 9/11’s first responders did. In Paris a remembrance ceremony was held and a French mother interviewed said “she felt the need to be there to support the United States.” She remembered a headline from Le Monde from ten years ago that read “We are all Americans.”

My favorite story is another one CNN reported. It’s of a young Kenyan warrior who was in New York ten years ago and felt like he needed to do something. In his tribe’s tradition, a cow is meant to provide comfort and is the most valuable thing one can have. So his tribe managed to give the U.S. a herd of cows. Because of all kinds of problems, the cows could not be brought to the U.S. so this tribe is now caring for a herd of “America’s cows.” They all have Twin Towers brands on their ears.

I feel like these stories show national pride, but they are about reaching out to another country and to the global community. I see them as good examples of taking nationalism to a place where you can’t even compare it to ethnocentrism.

                                                                                                                                   

9/11 and the Case for Inter-Nationalism

We know media has nation-building characteristics. As our readings from “The Information Revolution and World Politics,” “The Historical Context of International Communication” and “The Emergence of Technical Networks” have discussed, the introduction of a communication technology to a group will assist in beginning to build a sense of connectivity. These connections can be facilitated through similar language, affiliation, cultural background, a common authority or other contributing factors.

However, with the advancement of technology in the modern day, where groups can form beyond international borders under the umbrellas of similar interest or experience (i.e. Internet forums, Facebook groups, blogs) the question arises: can there be inter-nation building through international media?

I would like to preface this notion by clearly defining how I plan to use the term internationalism. This term is often referenced as more of an antithesis of nationalism where there is cooperation between nations for their common good. I would like to bend this definition to include nations that may perhaps devote as much or more attention to the interests of another nation rather than their own.

The recent 10-year anniversary of the Sept.11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States could stand as an example of this internationalism. Upon a quick search of some of the more commonly known international news sites (Xinhua News, Times of India, The Australian, Guardian, Le Monde, BBC, Al Jazeera), all noted the anniversary of the attacks as the top story on their page, some even running multi-story packages on the subject. Given what we have learned from our readings, is it possible that these regions of the world are consuming from their respective outlets and thereby assigning priority to events in the US over their home countries?

Certainly the annual remembrance of the attacks bolster nationalism within the US in the form of symbols of patriotism, reaching out to one another, charity, etc, but are citizens of these other nations feeling the same enthusiasm toward the US because they are exposed to the same media coverage?

There are some caveats to this case. First, the US media landscape has historically dominated internationally, as our readings from Elizabeth Hanson and Daya Thussu noted. According to these readings, the US was the frontrunner in wireless telegraphy/radio broadcasting, telephone communication, television broadcasting and the advent of the Internet, all of which are now utilized internationally. This created a media landscape that was heavily US-dependent, then US-centered as regional media developed. Also, the attacks took place at the World Trade Center in New York City, a location and area that is perhaps not best described in the context of just the US, but as an international center in itself.

I would be intrigued to research whether this is only an observation with the US or if this could be applied to other groups of countries. For example, do smaller Asian countries such as Bhutan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal rely heavily upon media from India in their respective news outlets and thereby exhibit nation-building characteristics for India as well as their own nation?

This is yet to be examined in depth, but I thought to raise this particular question in light of our discussion on international communication power and influence and the timely example of the 9/11 attacks. I’d welcome any thoughts on the subject.