Issue #7

Alan HeilVoice of America: A History, Columbia University Press, 2003.

Public Diplomacy Council Members in Print and on the Web

Wilson Dizard, Jr. “Telling America’s Story,” American Heritage, August/September, 2003. With anecdotes, pictures, and the perspective of 30 years in USIA, Wilson looks at the Agency’s mission and continuing influence.

Wilson Dizard, Jr. “Remembering USIA,” Foreign Service Journal, July/August, 2003. A retrospective on the occasion of the Agency’s 50th anniversary. Available online in pdf format.

Princeton Lyman. Interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, online consulting editor for the Council on Foreign Relations, cfr.org, July 14, 2003. Lyman, the Council’s Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies, discusses President Bush’s July 8-12 trip to Africa, Liberia, and requests from U.N. and African leaders for American peacekeepers.

Sherry Mueller and William Rugh. Panelists at the Heritage Foundation Forum, “Regaining America’s Voice Overseas,” July 10, 2003. Other participants included Seth Cropsey, Edwin J. Feulner Jr., Alan Heil, Mark Helmke, and Steve Johnson. Available on Real Audio/Real Video at the Heritage website.

A print version of Sherry’s remarks on exchanges, the International Visitor program, and the April 16 PD Forum Sustaining Exchanges While Securing Borders is available on request in MS Word.

Other Books, Articles, and Websites

Anne Applebaum. “Parallel Universes,” The Washington Post, July 23, 2003. Looking at coverage of Tony Blair’s speech to Congress, Applebaum argues media in different cultures reflect “alternative versions of reality” not just different opinions on the news — with consequences for how we think about globalized information and “real time” information.

Council on Foreign Relations. “Embedded Journalists in Iraq: Reality TV or Desert Mirage?” July 29, 2003. Moderated by New York Times Pentagon correspondent Thomas Shanker. Panelists: Lt. Col. Richard Long, Coordinator of embedded journalists for the U.S. Marine Corps. William Branigin, Washington Post correspondent, embedded journalist, and John Donvan, ABC News Nightline correspondent, non-embedded journalist.

Robert Dodaro. “Eloquent Lies, Just War and the Politics of Persuasion: Reading Augustine’s City of God in a ‘Postmodern World,'” Augustinian Studies, 25, 1994, pp. 77-138. Dodaro puts Augustine’s critique of deception for political and military ends in the context of his “often missed” critique of Roman religious and social institutions as carriers of ruling class ideology. Contains an analysis of Augustine’s views on Rome’s use of “mass media” in the context of ethical writing on the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Dodaro atypically casts Augustine in politically progressive tones and situates Noam Chomsky in the Augustinian tradition.

Greta Morris. “Morris Confirmed as US Ambassador to Marshalls,” East-West Center, July 2, 2003. Greta moves from PAO Jakarta, where her work included the US/Indonesian Telecast “Common Values, Common Challenges” (co-sponsored by State and GWU’s Public Diplomacy Institute, February 2003) to arranging appointments for journalist Tom Friedman that led to good columns on public diplomacy.

John Gittings.“Beijing is Losing the People’s War in Cyberspace,” YaleGlobal Online, July 21, 2003. Gittings contends an emerging civil society is gaining more freedom and “the sheer volume of people taking to the Web to discuss taboo subjects is overwhelming the government.” YaleGlobal Online, a publication of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, is an excellent website for articles and papers on globalization issues.

Walter Isaacson. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2003. Isaacson’s biography follows Edmund S. Morgan’s Benjamin Franklin published in 2002. Both books discuss Franklin’s years as a public diplomat in London and Paris. Isaacson, former Chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine, devotes attention to Franklin’s media relations, use of anonymous press items, association with philosophical and scientific organizations, “gambit of drawing power from American idealism” as a “public diplomacy strategy,” and role in the high culture and high politics of 18th century Europe. Morgan is useful for his chapter length analysis of Franklin’s thinking on “the importance of public opinion.”

Anthony Kuhn. “Chinese Learn True Scope of SARS From the Internet,” USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, May 28, 2003. How the government-controlled media downplayed the extent of the epidemic and the number of fatalities. (Former VOA staffer Josh Fouts is co-founder and executive editor of the Online Journalism Review.)

Yale Richmond. Cultural Exchange and the Cold War: Raising the Iron Curtain, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Drawing on scholarly literature, Russian archives, interviews with Americans and Russians, and his years of foundation and Foreign Service experience, Yale provides a comprehensive, thoughtful, and penetrating analysis of the influence of exchanges on the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. (Courtesy of McKinney Russell)

U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. The New Diplomacy: Utilizing Innovative Communication Concepts that Recognize Resource Constraints, July, 2003. This 6-page Commission report contains recommendations on American Presence Posts, American Corners, and Virtual Consulates. Online at the Commission’s website.

U.S. Department of State. State’s International Information Programs website has a new look. Intended for overseas audiences, this valuable website continues to be an excellent resource for U.S. students and journalists.

Students also use the periodic “Issue Focus” reports on State’s Foreign Media Reactionpage.

State’s Foreign Press Centers website is useful for its links to: briefing transcripts, Congressional Reference Service and other government reports, a new page on the 2004 elections, and weblinks for journalists,

U.S. Department of State. Outcome Assessment of the Institute for Representative Government (IRG) Program. Evaluation of programs “to enhance understanding of the US political system and the US Congress among foreign parliamentarians and government officials from developing or newly established democracies.” Study conducted by the American Institutes for Research of Washington, DC. Available online in pdf format. (Courtesy of Ted Knicker, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.)

— One page summary

— Executive summary (8 pages)

— Summaries for other program evaluations

R.S. Zaharna. “The Unintended Consequences of Crisis Public Diplomacy: American Public Diplomacy in the Arab World,” Foreign Policy in Focus, Interhemispheric Resource Center, June 2003. Zaharna argues that unless Washington officials address why initial public diplomacy efforts failed after 9/11, the same result may occur in future but with greater consequences.

R.S. Zaharna and Mark Heaphy. “Letters and Comments,” Progressive Response. Exchange on Zaharna’s article. Interesting conversation on cognitive styles, cultural differences, how Americans and others perceive and sequence facts — and grasp “truth.” (Courtesy of Ellen Frost)

— “Letters and Comments” [Scroll down page to “Analytical Shortcomings in Analysis of Public Diplomacy.”]