Recognizing the Need of 'The Other'

I'd like to build upon the brief mentioning of "Postcolonial Approaches to Communication" and Edward Said's Orientalism and perhaps extend it to the more recent discussions on public diplomacy and strategic communication.

As Said noted, there has been a historical recognition of the West as a colonial and postcolonial power, including in academic thought. This has created an unbalanced view of Eastern thought by both West and East alike. Up until very recently, strategic thinking involved putting the Western ideals at the forefront of economics, politics, communication, science and other fields. Only with Said's insight has their been existential pondering of how this thought process affects both Western and Eastern societies.

Perhaps one of the most thought-provoking notions Said delved into was the concept of 'the other'. This is something we have touched upon in class before, as we have discussed the dynamics of how international communication applies to global governance, marketing and other relevant topics. In these cases, it can oftentimes be advantageous to conceptualize one culture/group/nation etc dominant or superior to another for purposes of enriching nationalism. Said brings up the fascinating prospect that 'the other' is an absolutely necessary concept - that one culture/group/nation etc cannot be dominant if it doesn't have a lesser, oppressed other.

This seems to make logical sense, but how does this play into international relations, especially public diplomacy? Public diplomacy, in its most glossy definition, is about forging relationships with other countries and working towards strategic partnerships. How are Western countries supposed to engage in public diplomacy with Eastern partners when they are actively immersed in scholarship that has historically framed them as inferior?

This dated approach is changing as we speak. As of late, there have been some strategic moves made by the United States regarding Asian countries and their rising power. One of the earlier markers of this movement was President Obama's decision to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference in Hawaii in November to meet with leaders in the Pacific Islands. Then, Obama ramped up efforts to secure American presence in the South China Sea by deploying Marines to Australia. This was seen as a major warning signal to China. Finally, these events have been complimented in recent weeks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's historic visit to Myanmar(Burma) in a diplomatic effort to reach out not only to the national government but to reformists as well.

These individual steps are amounting to what could be seen as a new strategy in Asia that hasn't been attempted before. For the first time, the US is recognizing Asian powers as a threat to their own space on the global stage and, after years of ignoring diplomatic efforts as a whole, are now reaching out to remain on top.

When comparing this to Said's notions on 'the other' and Orientalism vs Western thought, we could see these events in two different lights. This could be seen as the US finally nodding to Eastern countries as a competitor and casting thoughts of them as 'the other' away. However, I tend to lean on the other, more interest-based thought that the US is reaching out diplomatically in Asia in order to keep the suppression of Eastern influence going. In the macro context of Western vs Eastern thought, these "nice on the face of it" acts by the US may be well received in Western countries (and Eastern countries as well, given the previous discussion of Western concepts of Eastern permeating Eastern countries' considerations of themselves), but it is actually a strategic way of ensuring Western dominates Eastern.

Because China has yet to react to the moves the US is making, it will be interesting to see if they retaliate by flexing their own muscles against Western influences or if they quietly operate their own diplomatic strategies throughout the region.

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.

New Media Technology: A Help or Hindrance?

Media technologies that utilize network theory to become successful gain a network power or authority. Forget everything you read in my last post about the role of the individual in these technologies, this time we're talking about the powerhouse organizations themselves and what they can have influence over.

Sangeet Kumar gave a fantastic example of this in his article about Google Earth. To briefly summarize his work, he asserts that Google's international use of its Maps and Earth features have had heavy hands in international conflicts, serving as a tool of warfare in both India and Israel-Palestine. The 2008 bombings in Mumbai were strategically placed with the help of these Google tools, according to an article in The Telegraph. And we thought it was worrisome that Google may be peeping on us in the shower (although that has its fair share of concern too). This is on another level entirely.

While reading this piece I cannot help but think back to the Public Diplomacy Forum at George Washington University that our class attended. In particular, I recall hearing former Foreign Service Officers in Bahrain and Iraq speaking of media technologies and their use in these still hostile areas. These workers operated Facebook pages that became vital sources of information for locals, who could then interact with one another. However, they could not control the arguments and slurs that would eventually develop between parties and were displayed publicly for all to see. Even if the embassies did decide to exercise their power to remove certain rabble-rousers, what is to stop more from flooding in?

I think these two instances are connected in that Google and Facebook are what could be considered new, supra-national entities that sometimes can function like another form of nation-state, as Kumar notes. These technologies can pull significant and self-sustaining profits, organize a digitally connected citizenry and employ the ability to spur political debate and action...it certainly seems like a recipe for its own nation. This becomes troublesome because these "nation-states" are governed under the principles of business, not democracy or any other system we've discussed in a sixth-grade civics course. Regulation of these bodies is becoming less and less rigid, especially when governments themselves are relying upon these technologies to do international outreach and development. I can recall the conference mentioning the use of everything from iPads to mobile devices to spread diplomacy around the world.

As these technologies become the bread and butter of connecting our world, are we even going to think of regulating it?

I hate to ruminate on this positively, but I think there is something to be said when a nation-state does reaffirm its authority over some of these supra-national technologies, if anything to keep them from monopolizing. China has opted out of using Google. Yes, China is poor example because of its restrictive media policies and government authoritarianism, but regardless, it is a state exercising power over a supra-national entity, which I think is important to note. This struggle is more evident in the Kumar article. He mentions a host of countries that protested the invasion of Google's satellites and cameras into their cities. Not too long ago, Germany opted out of Google Maps for pure privacy reasons, with many other countries thinking the same way.

I think it will be interesting to see where this power struggle will head. As these technologies become more important and even alluded to as nation-states in their own right, I'd like to see how sovereign states respond. It is very much a conflict of interest because these corporations are so widely used and are quite useful, but with these high rewards come high costs. You can't censor a street map for a terrorist and un-censor it for a traveling couple. In this all-or-nothing battle, there truly is not clear winner as of yet.

Social Media in Public Diplomacy

This week’s Public Diplomacy conference at GW, The Last Three Feet, was a really interesting way to consider some of the theories and methods we have been discussing in class. One thing that was mentioned over and over was diplomacy as an act of understanding. Many of the panelists and Thomas Shannon, the ambassador to Brazil, said diplomacy is not just about talking and emoting communication. They said it’s also about receiving communication, which means hearing, listening and responding.

I was surprised by how much the talk revolved around social networking as an official Public Diplomacy method. Obviously the internet and new media have become an important tool for anyone in any sort of communications role, such as someone in public diplomacy. But I was surprised to find how much they used Facebook and Twitter on an extremely regular basis. They also had a few small, but detailed and creative ideas to make social networking more personal. Aaron Snipes, the Deputy Director for the press and Public Diplomacy and Spokesperson for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said that when he and his team posted things on their Facebook page, they would always sign it as “Facebook team.” It made people feel like they were communicating with a real person instead of a nameless, faceless government actor. Some other innovative ideas included Apps4Africa and the use of Facebook and Twitter in China even though it’s blocked.

There was actually less focus on traditional Public Diplomacy tactics. It was all about the hypable and exciting ideas. The @American storefront in Indonesia that Dr. Michael Anderson spoke about is something very innovative and easy to promote, whether it works or not. The same applies to the Youth Filmmaker program in Turkey. While it was great to hear about these innovative ideas, there was little to no mention of what else fills the days of a Foreign Service officer in Public Diplomacy… because I can hardly imagine they spend the entire day on Facebook!