The purpose of this paper is to interpret an American military media strategy designed for the Iraq war from a perspective drawing on recent theoretical discussions of space and time. The material consists of a short white paper that was declassified under the Freedom of Information Act and published by the NSA in 2007. It outlines a ‘Rapid Reaction Media Team’ which was tasked with designing and implementing the US-led media system at the onset of war in March 2003. Despite aiming to create a ‘balanced and fair’ public service television network equivalent to the BBC or PBS, the $100 million budget was derived from the $87.5 billion military budget, with the Department of Defense overseeing implementation. Hence there was a fundamental contradiction between the stated intentions of the network as a provider of balanced news and its broader position within US military objectives. The RRMT plan reveals a series of strategies, inherent conflicts, and assumptions which can be seen to enact forms of symbolic violence complimentary to that of the military. By this, I mean that it sheds light on sophisticated strategies for the ‘transposition’ of military force to the discursive sphere; for the exertion of violence by other means in US attempts to manage perceptions of the war. In a fundamental sense, the RRMT strategy uses media as an extension of warfare, and this paper will look at how ‘actual’ violence was transferred from the military battlefield to the discursive.
While the terms soft power, public diplomacy (PD) and nation brands have cemented their place in academic discourse during the early 21st century, the evaluation of these activities has not been given anywhere near the same level of attention. When describing how campaigns are evaluated, scholars tend to make assumptions based on the goals or outputs of an initiative rather than on the basis of reliable, empirical data on its results. Strong positivist tendencies within current scholarship usually lead to evaluation being considered in terms of methodology and best practice, typically with the assumption that certain preferred outcomes will be demonstrable if an ideal model is followed. Most significantly, such approaches seem to underplay the interests and objectives that inform and constrain choices surrounding modes of communication and evaluation. I argue here that PD activities are rarely the product of rational choices about communication options, and nor is PD evaluation the result of applying the "best" methodology. Rather, questions of PD and evaluation practices are bound together in complex organizational and power structures that generate pragmatic responses both to the "problem of influence" and the reporting of results. Through use of the concept of articulation, this article outlines a framework for interpreting evaluation practices from a contextualized perspective, which grasps how and why soft power practices assume certain forms.
Contemporary diplomacy is subject to the same pressures of globalization as many other communication industries. However, insights from different areas of Media and Communication Studies have only been partly explored in the context of diplomacy. This article applies theories of transmedia storytelling, transmedia engagement and surveillance upon a case study of the recent Campaign to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. The aim is to investigate the ways in which contemporary diplomatic advocacy campaigns cope with fundamental problems such as media repertoires, co-created content, collective intelligence, digital convergence and stakeholder management. The article contends that co-creation and co-option of shared values through transmedia engagement techniques perform a disciplining role for stakeholders that may be linked to theories of surveillance and biopolitics. This study will be of much relevance to those interested in the significance of participatory culture theories to contemporary international advocacy, including its policies, strategies and mediating practices.
The purpose of this paper is to explore and develop understandings of philosopher-sociologist Henri Lefebvre’s approach to communication. Lefebvre wrote extensively on everyday life, semiotics, the state, globalisation, and space and time, and these remain vital areas of investigation. As Lefebvre’s influence has filtered through to contemporary discussions within communication studies of a ‘spatial’ or geographical turn, it seems appropriate to re-situate his writings on communication within his key philosophical and sociological principles. The article discusses: dialectics, space and time, everyday life, his perceived-conceived-lived triad, his approach to semiotics, the concept of the semantic field, and his later – and crucial – theory of texture. Finally, the discussion shifts to globalisation and explores the relationship between his approaches to communication and the development of the nation-state and the world market. The article aims to provide a resource for communication scholars and social scientists looking to engage with his sociological approach to communication.
This article investigates innovations in public diplomacy and nation brands through the example of Sweden s Embassy in Washington, DC, the House of Sweden (HoS). The analysis explores the styles of communication and public outreach made possible by the interaction between its architectural design, brand values and public diplomacy applications. Aimed at practitioners and scholars with an interest in public diplomacy and nation brands, this article assesses the activities, impact and implications of the House as a platform for public diplomacy. In addition to using the HoS as a case study in its own right, the article discusses some of the unique events hosted there, as well as related experiments such as the Second House designed for virtual world Second Life
Development Communication and Public Diplomacy are twin products of U.S. political science and Cold War foreign policy. As contemporary diplomatic and development policies continue to converge, new ways of interpreting the relationship between the fields are necessary. This article analyses the 2 fields' emergence out of modernization policy and their reliance on a common conception of process: namely, that information propagated through media channels alters how foreign citizens know the world around them, and that this transformation can lead to positive social change. More recent paradigmatic shifts toward participatory communication models demonstrate that both fields have moved toward inclusive conceptualizations of influence and social change, but key differences suggest that they still have much to learn from each other.
The GREAT campaign is one of the most ambitious national promotion efforts ever undertaken.Timed to make the most of Britain's raised profile during Olympic year, the aim was to promotetrade, investment and tourism under a unified identity emphasising British achievements.However, the campaign raises a number of issues. The first is how and why GREAT emerged as analternative to established structures for soft power, public diplomacy and marketing in the UK. Thesecond is the ways GREAT engages with collective identity through the nationalisation and com-modification of symbolic resources. Third is the practices used to include and exclude specific targetgroups and stakeholders. Fourth is the interaction between economic and symbolic resources,including public-private collaboration and the evidence used to determine impact and value. Thesethemes contribute to an analysis of GREAT that will be of interest to scholars of politics and IR inthe UK and internationally.
This article investigates strategic communication in the context of the wider adoption of âcampaignâ approaches to public diplomacy at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The three case studies are the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United Kingdom, the marriage of HRH Prince William to Kate Middleton, and Queen Elizabeth IIâs visit to Ireland. The analytical framework seeks to situate strategic communication theory within a politicalâeconomic environment pervaded by a dependence on the media and its institutions for sociopolitical knowledge. Therefore, while affirming the growth and influence of strategic communication as a social phenomenon, this article questions how processes of mediatization impact strategic communication, its organization and practices. The case studies reveal characteristic techniques such as managing mediated spaces for meetings and discussion; shaping the salience of target groups, stakeholders, and participants; an emphasis on values and norms that may be tailored efficiently to different circumstances; and, a strong focus on achieving strategic consistency across diverse messages and messengers. The results will be of interest to researchers and students interested in better understanding how organizations utilize complementary communicative techniques to shape knowledge and steer experiences of political events in ways supportive of their overarching goals. © , Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.
The notion of legacy was intrinsic to London's 2012 bid, drawing upon the Olympic spirit in the form of personal challenges designed to motivate and mobilize individuals and communities in Britain and around the world. However, with the economic crisis and change in government in 2010, a distinct discourse of economic legacy also emerged. This increasingly saw the citizen mobilization associated with the Games in terms of the opportunity to promote the UK as a partner for trade investment. This article explores the state, citizen, and corporate mobilizations motivated by the Olympics. It analyses the structures and discourses supporting a changing conceptualization of legacy, with particular reference to the international communication strategies designed to co-brand national promotion with the Olympic spirit.
The new public diplomacy is a major paradigm shift in international political communication. Globalisation and a new media landscape challenge traditional foreign ministry ‘gatekeeper’ structures, and foreign ministries can no longer lay claim to being sole or dominant actors in communicating foreign policy. This demands new ways of communicating foreign policy to a range of nongovernmental international actors, and new ways of evaluating the influence of these communicative efforts. But where do the lines between old and new public diplomacies actually meet? How much current PD policy and practice conforms to older styles of communication, and how much can truly be considered new? What are the practical constraints upon the adoption of an entirely ‘new’ PD?
This PhD thesis investigates the methods and strategies used by 5 foreign ministries and cultural institutes in 3 countries as they attempt to adapt their PD practices to the demands of the new public diplomacy environment. The question is not simply of how government actors have phased out their archaic old PD practices, but of how the continual need for short-term influence – for discernable impact, outcomes, value-for-money – complicates the paradigm shift. The case studies are based around an analysis of US, British, and Swedish strategies. Each chapter covers national policy, evaluation methods, and examples of individual campaigns. Material consists of 25 interviews with PD practitioners, detailed policy studies, reconstructions of 5 PD campaigns, and analysis of communication models and evaluation methodologies.
This article examines the relationship between theories of the ‘new’ public diplomacy and recent attempts by foreign ministries in the United Kingdom, United States and Sweden to develop public diplomacy strategies for the early twenty-first century. It provides a summary of policy debates in each nation alongside analysis of the evaluation methods that have been designed to support them. The article argues that expressions of a new public diplomacy are best explained within the constraints of different institutional and national cultures. Innovations in public diplomacy have typically taken place within the context of domestic demands for public accountability and value for money, pressures for empirical data to inform policy-making, and the increased centralization of public diplomacy activities. Evaluation plays an important role in improving actors’ capacities for newer forms of public diplomacy, but often by measuring the public diplomacy institution and its objectives, rather than whether the needs of foreign publics are met. This suggests that any paradigm shift from old to new public diplomacy has in practice centred on domestic and organizational concerns rather than the achievement of normative goals such as increased dialogue with foreign citizens.
The impact of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and other emerging economies on the field of international development has seen traditional donor nations wrestle with fundamental shifts in the geometry and makeup of the donor community. This has resulted in asymmetrical power relations in organizations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) finding new modes of expression, as the one-way flows of cultural imperialism have given way to the multidirectional uncertainties of globalization. We question how the traditional aid donor community has taken this new geometry into account using discourses surrounding South-South cooperation as a focal point for analysis. The analysis engages with evolving discourses of indifference, skepticism, fear, integration, and conciliation, revealing complex tensions between the OECD's Development Assistance Committee membership, BRICS, and the motivations for aid effectiveness debates.