Public Diplomacy is a mechanism that states use to promote their country in other countries. It can be done in different ways, via television or media such as the voice of America, the Alliance Française (which is a charity that promotes French language worldwide), the Fulbright program (cultural and educational exchange), websites or even radio.
As Berridge pointed out, Public Diplomacy is the new term given to white propaganda because government tend to avoid the word propaganda for its reputation of spreading lies amongst people to achieve an objective, per say, brainwashing. Many however, find this definition inadequate and reflecting on old diplomacy.
Public diplomacy cannot be talked about without mentioning the country that had received most attention in this sector, the United State of America. The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 on public diplomacy for example, provided that public diplomacy’s legislation involves propaganda but do not allow the government from distributing within its information intended for foreign audiences, other legislations theoretically reinforce the ban of publication of taxpayer using publicity or propaganda purposes, the appropriation bills is one example that reinforce these ban (Farserra: 2009).
Nevertheless, public diplomacy has been successful in the past year (2009) with the image that President Obama gave to the world. He created dialogue between himself and states, particularly Muslim countries, which saw the Bush administration as evil. The US has now a positive image throughout the world, in Latin America, Middle East and Africa.
President Obama used public diplomacy to campaign his election by communicating with the US citizen through Facebook, television and many more. Not to mention the fact that in most of his speech, he always talked about “the United States of America working to improve his image abroad”, this illustrate the importance of public diplomacy. (Dale: 2009)
A recent event on public diplomacy was taken place in Tanzania where a donation of a dozen of books was given to university students. Thanks to a Fulbright scholar, please read full article on the following link. (U.S. Department of State: 2008)
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Hi Camara,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you when you states Berridge's idea of public diplomacy simply being the name for white propaganda. I believe there is a fine line between public diplomacy and propaganda and it is not often easy to distinguish the two. You mentioned the example of Obama's presidency in 2009. The public diplomacy used by Obama was definitely successful, as with his term the image of the U.S. has improved. But at the same time it is about selling a positive image of the U.S. (propaganda?). I think public diplomacy and propaganda are linked in some way and it is a grey area.