The original testing ground for new possibilities
One of the obvious divisions within international actors (but particularly countries) conducting public diplomacy is between those that employ staff from the local community and those that ‘import’ staff from their home country. Each approach presents particular opportunities and challenges worth considering. For those that use local staff, one advantage is the ability to communicate … Read More “Conducting PD through national staff or local staff?” »
It is rarely a good idea to mix up an image of your home town with another one of the same name… yet that’s exactly what Birmingham in the UK did… getting an image of Birmingham, Alabama, instead. BBC News covered the Story
The many different approaches to communication can both compete with and enrich other areas of communication. The combination of communication and development work, as organisations such as PANOS have done, demonstrates much from which others can learn. Equally the experience of health promotion over the years provides useful insight. To reiterate, while many may practitioners … Read More “KAP Gap” »
Picking up on the last discussion of power and the articulation of power in relation to ‘allies’, it is also worth considering the power relationship with the potential target community when planning PD activities. In Options for Influence, we discussed the options which exist between telling and listening. At the ‘telling’ or message orientated end … Read More “Powering PD” »
James Glassman’s first speech on his vision for Public Diplomacy, hosted at the Council for Foreign Relations, provides an interesting view of the tensions that arise when the US perspective on Public Diplomacy is articulated. To be fair to Glassman, the tensions he faces are not unique to the US. They are problematic for any … Read More “Is there a glass ceiling in “network engagementâ€?” »
A key part of the Dispersed Networks project is considering them as networks of influence – When engaged in any form of international communication, public diplomacy, cultural relations, or whatever other label practitioners or theorists wish to put on the work, the aim of the activity is not just changing people’s perceptions, but rather influencing … Read More “A short note on influence” »
As I’ve starting to pull together the elements for a project on dispersed networks of influence, I thought I’d better start by thinking about the idea of networks in Public Diplomacy and then more specifically dispersed networks. Within the study of public diplomacy there has been various discussions about networks vs. hierarchies. For example RS … Read More “The meaning of networks” »
The publication of Mapping Iran’s Online Public: Politics and Culture in the Persian Blogosphere by John Kelly, and Bruce Etling at Harvard demonstrates the way in which mapping the networks of bloggers can provide and insight into the way they cluster around certain topics. This is the image that study produced; Both image and report … Read More “Looking at the Iranian Blogosphere” »
The rapid development of new technology has enabled the creation of mass instant communication and rapid information dissemination. This technology also allows rapid collection of data and the production of data maps and network diagrams. While I’ll pursue the important variations of network diagrams another day, today I’ll focus on highlighting the potential of these … Read More “of networks and data maps” »
Each community, particularly online, has its own cultural and social expectations. To be able to engage successfully, the international actor has to navigate not just the practical barriers, for example learning how to upload videos, but also these cultural and social barriers. (Options for Influence, p. 43) Recognising the social and cultural expectations online will … Read More “Engaging with the social and cultural expectations online” »