Category: Bruce Gregory’s Resource List

Kenneth Bacon. “Hiding Death in Darfur: Why the Press Was So Late,” Columbia Journalism Review, September/October, 2004. The President of Refugees International and former Pentagon Spokesman Ken Bacon analyzes Sudan President Omar al Bashir’s media strategy and delays in press coverage of genocide in Dafur.

Benjamin Barber. Fear’s Empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy, W.W. Norton, 2003. The author of Jihad and McWorld challenges core assumptions of current strategic doctrine, military force as an instrument of democratization, and policies that confuse the spread of McWorld with the spread of democracy. Barber urges a strategy of “preventive democracy” — an America that promotes “cooperation, multilateralism, international law, and pooled sovereignty.”

John Brown. Changing Minds, Winning Peace: Reconsidering the Djerejian Report. The creator and editor of Public Diplomacy Press Review offers a critique of the report by the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World a year after its release. Brown finds seven serious drawbacks in the report and provides four recommendations to improve America’s cultural and informational programs.

Thomas Carothers. Critical Mission: Essays on Democracy Promotion. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2004. A collection of Corothers’ best essays organized around four themes: democracy promotion in US foreign policy, democracy assistance, the state of democracy in the world, and US efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East. The director of Carnegie’s Democracy and Rule of Law project also includes a comprehensive general bibliography on democratization with separate sections on civil military relations, civil society, decentralization, elections, legislatures, media, the Middle East, political parties, rule of law, and trade unions.

Center for Arts and Culture, Cultural Diplomacy: Recommendations and Research, July 2004. The Center’s 32-page report examines general principles of cultural diplomacy and makes recommendations on government policies, the need to increase federal funding and strengthen existing programs, and best practices in cultural diplomacy. The report summarizes five research papers previously published by the Center and contains a timeline of public and cultural diplomacy events.

The Fog of War. Errol Morris’s Academy Award winning documentary film on former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s reflections on his life and work is available in DVD. A Teachers Guide with eight lesson plans and links to primary sources are available online.

Google’s Public Diplomacy Images. Google’s image website contains approximately 500 .jpg and .gif images linked to the term public diplomacy. The site includes images of several Public Diplomacy Council members.

Gary Hart. A Grand Strategy for the United States in the Twenty-first Century, Oxford University Press, 2004. The former Senator and co-chair of the Hart-Rudman Commission advances a strategy based on democratic principles to replace containment. Hart contends America’s purposes are best achieved through principles and persuasion — “America’s fourth power” — including representative government, Constitutional liberties, press freedom, new collective security structures, and forms of collaborative sovereignty.

House International Relations Committee. Chairman Hyde addresses specific legislative provisions outlined by the 9-11 Commission. The following relate to the State Department’s conduct of public diplomacy:

— Require State to develop an annual public diplomacy strategy in coordination with appropriate agencies.
— Enhance public diplomacy recruitment and training.
— Require a public diplomacy assignment as a condition for promotion to Senior Foreign Service.
— Provide grants to American-sponsored schools in Arab and other predominantly Muslim countries.
— Include promotion of press freedom and professional journalism in the US public diplomacy strategy.
— Increase exchanges in Muslim countries (sense of Congress).

Chairman Hyde’s proposals are included in H.R. 10, 9/11 Implementations Act, Sections 4021 – 4024.

Thomas Kean and Jamie Gorelick. Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations (Rep. Christopher Shays, Chair), August 23, 2004. Two 9/11 Commission members focus on the Commission’s findings relating to public diplomacy as a neglected element of national power and its recommendations on “the struggle of ideas.”

The Shays Subcommittee also heard from Patricia Harrison, Acting Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; Kenneth Tomlinson, Chair, Broadcasting Board of Governors; Charlotte Beers, former Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs; Haves Al-Mirazi, Washington Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera; Tre Evers, member, US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy; R.S. Zaharna, American University; and Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, US General Accountability Office. Each of their prepared statements is available.

Gilles Kepel. The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West, Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2004. Kepel examines the impact of global terrorism, the breakdown of Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the “neoconservative revolution in Washington,” military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and radical Islamist doctrines of Bin Laden and Zawahiri. He concludes the most important battle in the war for Muslim minds during the next decade will be fought not in Palestine or Iraq but among second-generation Muslim immigrants in London, Paris, and other European cities who have experienced personal freedom, liberal education, and economic opportunity in democratic societies.

Michael Liedtke. “Google Conforms to Chinese Censorship,” AP, September 25, 2004. AP business writer Liedtke reports that Google’s recently launched Chinese language news service does not display information from websites blocked by Chinese authorities, including such websites as VOANews.com. Google acknowledges and defends its decision. [Courtesy of US Institute of Peace Virtual Diplomacy listserv]

J.D. Lasica. “Transparency Begets Trust in the Ever-Expanding Blogosphere,” USC Annenberg Online Journalism Review, Posted August 12, 2004. The author discusses niche expertise, transparency in motives and process, adjacent posting of corrected information and other reasons why many find Weblogs more credible than traditional media.

Jarol B. Manheim. Biz-War and the Out-of-Power Elite, Lawrence Earlbaum Associates, Inc., 2004. George Washington University’s media and strategic communications professor examines the emergence of a new American “Progressive Movement” founded on a network of foundations and advocacy groups. Chapter 9. “From Networks to Netwar” is a useful overview of power in the information age and tactical uses of networking.

{Manheim’s 1994 book, Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press) remains useful for teachers, especially its case studies on public diplomacy strategies of other countries.}

Colin Powell. “The Craft of Diplomacy,'” The Wilson Quarterly, Summer 2004, pp. 60-67. The Secretary of State provides a thoughtful assessment of diplomacy as a craft (not a science or an art) based on three core principles: “persuasion in the shadow of power,” coalitions as diplomacy multipliers, and allowing adversaries honorable means of retreat. The Secretary’s article makes no reference to public diplomacy.

Sherri Riccardi. “Missed Signals,” American Journalism Review, August/September. Riccardi examines failures in news gathering, the “administration’s skill at information management, and other reasons for the media’s delay in reporting on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse story.

The article has a link to AJR’s Abu Ghraib Time Line.

Lori Robertson. “Images of War,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2004. AJR’s managing editor examines news organization standards and issues relating to cultural sensitivities in the use of graphic images.

US Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. 2004 Report, September 28, 2004. The Commission’s readable and well-designed 40-page report reinforces broad themes central to its reporting for decades and makes numerous tactical recommendations in areas it defines as “short term communication,” “long term communication,” and “broadcasting.” The Commission does not adequately address strategic issues: whether and how public diplomacy can be effective when global attitudes toward US policies are overwhelmingly negative; leveraging private sector skills and imagination; estimates of funding requirements and program priorities; and achieving strong public diplomacy leadership, direction, tasking, and evaluation.

US General Accountability Office. State Department and Broadcasting Board of Governors Expand Post-9/11 Efforts, Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, August 23, 2004. GAO’s 16-page statement summarizes its previous studies of State Department public diplomacy and the BBG’s Middle East and Central Asian broadcasting services in the context of the 9/11 Commission’s report. GAO finds “there is no interagency strategy to guide State’s. BBG’s, and other federal agencies communication efforts. The absence of such a strategy complicates the task of conveying consistent messages to overseas audiences.”

{GAO is currently working on a report on developing an interagency strategy for public diplomacy expected in February 2005.}

YaleGlobalOnLine. “Bush Administration Launches Latin Outreach Program,” September 28, 2004. YaleGlobal posts Pablo Bachelet’s 9/28 Miami Herald article on State Department efforts to brief Central American community organizations in the United States on US policies toward their home countries in an effort to address negative views of the United States. YaleGlobal puts the effort in a domestic political campaign context, stating that “In addition to warming the voters to the current presidency, government officials say this project is at heart a ‘public diplomacy strategy to improve the image of the United States.'”

R.S. Zarhana. Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International Relations, August 23, 2004. American University communications scholar Zarhana argues the US is pursuing an inappropriate, rather than nonexistent, public diplomacy strategy. America needs to switch strategies from fighting an information battle to building communication bridges.

Zogby International. Impressions of America 2004: How Arabs View America; How Arabs Learn About America, July 2004. In this second six nation study, Zogby measures changes in attitudes since a previous study in 2002. Favorable ratings toward the US have declined sharply. Attitudes toward US policy are extremely low. Attitudes toward American “science and technology,” “freedom and democracy” “movies and TV,” “products,” and “education” remain higher.

“Recommendation: Just as we did in the Cold War, we need to defend our ideals abroad vigorously. America does stand up for its values. The United States defended, and still defends, Muslims against tyrants and criminals in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. If the United States does not act aggressively to define itself in the Islamic world, the extremists will gladly it for us.

— Recognizing that Arab and Muslim audiences rely on satellite television and radio, the government has begun some promising initiatives in television and radio broadcasting to the Arab world, Iran, and Afghanistan. These efforts are beginning to reach large audiences. The Broadcasting Board of Governors has asked for much larger resources. It should get them.

— The United States should rebuild the scholarship, exchange, and library programs that reach out to young people and offer them knowledge and hope. Where such assistance is provided, it should be identified as coming from the United States.” (p. 377)

“Recommendation: The U.S. government should offer to join with other nations in generously supporting a new International Youth Opportunity Fund. Funds will be spent directly for building and operating primary and secondary schools in those Muslim states that commit to sensibly investing their own money in public education.” (p. 378)

• Campaign 2004 — Council on Foreign Relations Website:

Samuel R. Berger. “Foreign Policy for a Democratic President,” Foreign Affairs, May/June 2004, pp. 47-63. The former NSC Advisor’s views for the next President include policy changes, preventive diplomacy, pragmatic multilateral approaches, restoring “America’s global and moral authority,” and “influence through persuasion.” The “war on terrorism” calls for “a third military transformation,” and a “major retooling of our intelligence agencies.” Berger does not discuss terrorism in the context of a struggle of ideas or changes in the direction and conduct of public diplomacy.

Chuck Hagel. “A Republican Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 2004, pp. 64-76. Senator Hagel outlines seven foreign policy principles. The seventh principle “is the importance of strong and imaginative public diplomacy.” Hagel contends public diplomacy requires strategic direction, renewed exchange programs “that pay due weight to both security and openness,” and more public affairs officers “to engage publics in their host countries . . . listen to what they have to say, and coordinate this information into an effective public diplomacy strategy.”

Bill Clinton. My Life, (Random House 2004). Clinton’s autobiography contains very little on public diplomacy. There are brief references in the context of his overseas trips. In discussing his association with Senator William Fulbright, he mentions the Fulbright scholarship program and Fulbright’s thinking that politics is about the power of ideas. References to former USIA Director Joseph Duffey relate to his Senate Democratic primary campaign in Connecticut and mention his appointment as USIA Director. One sentence deals with USIA’s merger into the Department of State:

“I spent most of the month [April 1997] in an intense effort to convince the Senate to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention: calling and meeting with members of Congress; agreeing with Jesse Helms to move the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the U.S. Information Agency into the State Department in return for his allowing a vote on the CWC, which he opposed . . . .” (p. 753)

Ariel Cohen. “War of Ideas: Combating Militant Islamist Ideology,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring, 2004, pp. 113-121. Heritage Foundation Research Fellow Cohen urges an integrated strategy of public diplomacy and political action directed at radical organizations and governments that support Islamist political violence. The author discusses targeted audiences, broadcasting, publications, cultural exchanges, education reforms, political covert action, strategic planning through a high level interagency task force, and coordination with allies.

Control Room. Documentary film directed by Jehane Nouaim, Magnolia Pictures, 2004. Control Room looks inside Al Jazeera and portrays complex issues relating to media coverage of the Iraq war and the throughtful views of several Al Jazeera journalists and one military public affairs officer at the U.S. Central Command. When available on DVD, Control Room, (84 minutes) will be useful in courses with topics on satellite television and foreign affairs, media and the military, and cross cultural communication. See also a review by Julia M. Klein, “Whose News? Whose Propaganda?” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August, 2004, pp. 54-55.

Stephen Cook. “Hearts, Minds, and Hearings,” The New York Times, July 6, 2004. Council on Foreign Relations Fellow Cook suggests the U.S. government transform its Al Hurra Arabic language satellite television network “into a kind of C-Span for the Arab World.” Available on CFR’s website.

Wilson Dizard. Inventing Public Diplomacy: The Story of the U.S. Information Agency, (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004). Public Diplomacy Council member Wilson Dizard’s history of USIA begins with its World War II antecedents and takes the story to the Agency’s merger with the Department of State in 1999. Wilson’s study of USIA’s activities, strengths, and limitations is complemented by his analysis of public diplomacy concepts, USIA’s role in facilitating cultural exchanges, parallel influence activities of the CIA and the Department of Defense, and thoughts on the future of public diplomacy. Anecdotes drawn from personal experience and his views on changes in the information environment enrich the narrative.

Francis Fukuyama. “The Neoconservative Moment,” The National Interest, Summer 2004, pp. 57-68. Fukyama provides a critique of Charles Krauthammer’s 2004 AEI lecture on democratic realism and American unipolarity. Fukyama is concerned about the “great suspicion” with which American power is viewed and finds “excessive realism,” “excessive idealism,” and failure to appreciate the harm brought by America’s “legitimacy deficit” in the neoconservative argument.

Douglas McCollam. “The List: How Chalabi Played the Press,” Columbia Journalism Review, July/August, 2004, pp. 31-37. McCollam examines the Iraqi National Congress’s influence campaign directed at prominent U.S. and British news organizations and the INC’s relations with the State Department, CIA, and other U.S. agencies. McCollam concludes from interviews and media analysis the INC heavily influenced Western press coverage in the run up to the Iraq war. He is less certain as to why so many journalists were unable to resist “the lure of the INC.”

House CJS Appropriations Committee. Report 108-221, July 2004. Title IV of the Fiscal Year 2005 appropriations bill includes public diplomacy programs, educational exchanges, and international broadcasting. The CJS Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), notes “alarming public opinion polls;” calls public diplomacy “a vital element in U.S. foreign policy;” and voices support for “American Corners,” new State Department websites, English teaching to non-elites, Fulbright student and scholar exchanges, International Visitors, cultural exchanges, Middle East Television and Radio Sawa, and maximum use of creative talents in the private sector.

— State Department

— Broadcasting Board of Governors

Azar Nafisi. Reading Lolita in Tehran, (Random House, 2003). Nafisi’s powerful novel about a group of female students who risked much in 1995 to read Western literature in a reading group in Iran is now available in paperback. Barry Fulton used it this year in his graduate seminar on public diplomacy at George Washington University’s Public Diplomacy Institute.

John Hallett Norris. “Jaded Optimists: The Young Guns of Foreign Policy,” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Winter/Spring 2004, pp. 79-87. Norris, who served with State and USAID and is now with the International Crisis Group, interviewed 40 U.S. foreign policy experts between the ages of 25 and 40 in universities, NGOs, and think tanks. He concludes that adulation of the post-World War II generation of policymakers and much of the current conventional wisdom about the next generation is “remarkably wrongheaded.”

Stanley R. Sloan, Robert G. Sutter, and Casimir A. Yost. The Use of U.S. Power: Implications for U.S. Interests, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, 2004. The authors look at ways the U.S. has used its hard and soft power since 9/11, the consequent adverse impact on America’s image abroad, the potential for strategic failure in the Middle East and South Asia, and weakened U.S. positions with key allies in Europe and Asia. They offer recommendations and suggest priorities for the next Administration. ISD’s monograph will be discussed in a public session at Georgetown, 12 pm to 2 pm, September 9, 2004 on the seventh floor of the University’s Intercultural Center.

Government and Independent Organization Studies of Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy, September 2001 – September 2004

Following is an updated and consolidated alphabetical list of studies available through identified websites:

Building Public Diplomacy Through a Reformed Structure and Additional Resources, Report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2002.

Changing Minds, Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim World, Report of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, Submitted to the Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives, October 1, 2003.

Finding America’s Voice: A Strategy for Reinvigorating U.S. Public Diplomacy, Report of an Independent Task Force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, September 2003.

How to Reinvigorate U.S. Public Diplomacy, The Heritage Foundation, April 2003.

Managed Information Dissemination, Report of a Defense Science Board Task Force sponsored by the Department of Defense and Department of State, September 2001.

Public Diplomacy: A Strategy for Reform, Report of an Independent Task Force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, July 2002.

Reclaiming America’s Voice Overseas, The Heritage Foundation, May 2003.

The Need to Communicate: How to Improve U.S. Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World, The Brookings Institution, Analysis Paper #6, January 2004.

The New Diplomacy: Utilizing Innovative Communication Concepts that Recognize Resource Constraints, Report of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy, 2003.

Strengthening U.S.-Muslim Communications, Report of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, July 2003.

The Rise of Netpolitik: How the Internet is Changing International Politics and Diplomacy, Report of the Eleventh Annual Aspen Institute Roundtable on Information Technology, 2003.

U.S. International Broadcasting: Enhanced Measure of Local Media Conditions Would Facilitate Decisions to Terminate Language Services. Report of the U.S. General Accountability Office to the Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, February 2004.

{Note: on July 7, 2004 the name of the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) changed to the U.S. General Accountability Office.}

U.S. International Broadcasting: New Strategic Approach Focuses on Reaching Large Audiences but Lacks Measurable Program Objectives, Report of the U.S. General Accountability Office to the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, July 2003

U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department and Broadcasting Board of Governors Expand Efforts in the Middle East but Face Significant Challenges, Testimony of the U.S. General Accountability Office before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, Committee on Government Reform, U.S. House of Representatives, February 10, 2004.

U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department Expands Efforts But Faces Significant Challenges, Report of the U.S. General Accountability Office to the Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, September 2003.

U.S. International Broadcasting: Challenges Facing the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Testimony of the U.S. General Accountability Office before the Subcommittee on International Operations and Terrorism, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, April 29, 2004.

David Caute. The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War, Oxford University Press, 2004. A lengthy (788 pp.) history of a cultural contest shaped by ideology, global media, rival claims to a shared Enlightenment tradition, and the influence of writers, dancers, playwrights, poets, artists, musicians, film-makers, arts organizations, and government agencies on aesthetic and propaganda debates within and between the US and the Soviet Union.

Michael Kimmelman’s review (“The Cold War Over the Arts,” The New York Review of Books, May 27, 2004, pp. 33-35) calls Caute’s “excellent” book “a sane rebuke to . . . that revisionist generation of American cultural critics . . . [who allege] a web of capitalist intrigue involving Abstract Expressionism, with its rhetoric of heroic individualism; the Rockefeller family, which had helped to found the Museum of Modern Art; the United States Information Agency, which exported American culture; and the CIA.” (USIA alumni will enjoy a 1977 photo of Rudolph Nureyev in the Capitol with three “young” lawmakers, Rep. Dante Fascell and Senators Patrick Leahy and Bob Dole.)

John Lewis Gaddis. Surprise, Security, and the American Experience, Harvard University Press, 2004. In this brief, well written book Yale historian Gaddis examines America’s response to 9/11; US national security strategy; and preemption, hegemony, and consent as long standing themes in American history. Gaddis argues the US should seek to “make the world safe for federalism” and offers thoughts on balancing leadership with alliances and ways to wield power while minimizing arrogance.

Glenn Guzzo. “First Person: Thinking Big,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2004. The former editor of the Denver Post believes the definition of local news has changed. The Post expanded its overseas staff and finds covering international stories can pay for regional papers.

Stephen Johnson and Helle Dale. Iraqi Prisoner Crisis: Correcting America’s Communication Failure, The Heritage Foundation, June 2, 2004. Johnson and Dale find the US has no comprehensive public diplomacy strategy for Iraq and that coordination of America’s global public diplomacy is in disarray. Their paper includes recommendations on making better communication a Presidential priority, improving military public affairs operations in Iraq, developing a military-civilian public diplomacy strategy, and strengthening public diplomacy leadership at State.

Sunil Khilnani. “Nehru’s Faith: India’s Contribution to Liberalism,” The New Republic, May 24, 2004, pp. 27-33. Johns Hopkins SAIS professor Khilnani reviews Katherine Frank’s new biography of Jawaharlal Nehru and discusses Nehru’s efforts to find a “non-religious bedrock” for practical politics and morality. Khilnani examines Nehru’s views on reason, politics, religion, and tolerance as expressed in his books and letters from prison.

Sook-Jong Lee. “Growing Anti-US Sentiments Roil an Old Alliance with South Korea,” YaleGlobal Online, June 8, 2004. Memories of America’s defense of South Korea and deployment of South Korean troops to Iraq notwithstanding, Lee finds “the massive wave of anti-American feelings that have accompanied recent US actions in Iraq and South Korea is unprecedented in Korean history.”

David Morey and Scott Miller. The Underdog Advantage: Using the Power of Insurgent Strategy to Put Your Business on Top, McGraw-Hill, 2004. David Morey, DMG CEO and Public Diplomacy Council member, and his partner Scott Miller offer pratical strategic communication advice to business, political, military, and organization leaders. Their insurgency model and understanding of the information environment draw on their work as consultants to political campagins abroad, to US Congressional and gubernatorial campaigns, and to corporate clients.

Pew Research Center. Views of a Changing World 2003: War With Iraq Further Divides Global Publics, June 3, 2004. New findings from the Pew Global Attitudes Project show that opinions of the US are markedly lower than a year ago. “The war has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans, further inflamed the Muslim world, softened support for the war on terrorism, and significantly weakened global public support for . . . the U.N. and the North Atlantic alliance.”

William A. Rugh. Arab Mass Media: Newspapers, Radio, and Television in Arab Politics, Praeger, 2004. Former AMIDEAST President and Public Diplomacy Council member Rugh provides a comprehensive examination of Arab print, radio, and television media and how they function in the political and social structures of 18 Arab countries. Topics include liberalizing trends in Arab media, a typology of media environments, “off shore” pan-Arab print media, and his reasoning on why Arabs are not likely to use Internet-based technologies in the near future.

William A. Rugh. “Comments on Radio Sawa and al Hurra Television,” Statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 29, 2004. Ambassador Rugh describes the Arab broadcasting environment and discusses Arab reactions to US government Arabic language broadcasting initiatives.

Shibley Telhami. “Hearing on the Broadcasting Board of Governors: Finding the Right Media for the Message in the Middle East,” Statement to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, April 29, 2004. University of Maryland Professor Telhami offers five perspectives on the role of the US government’s al Hurra television station, contends al Hurra will not gain a significant market share in the Middle East, and compares al Hurra with limited spending on other public diplomacy initiatives.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Broadcasting Board of Governors: Finding the Right Media for the Message in the Middle East, April 29, 2004. Includes online statements by Senator Joseph Biden; BBG Chair Kenneth Tomlinson; BBG member Norman Pattiz; Mouafac Harb, News Director, al Hurra; Jess Ford, General Accounting Office; Shibley Telhami, University of Maryland; William Rugh, Associate, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University; and Edmund Ghareeb, School of International Service, American University.

Anne-Marie Slaughter. A New World Order, Princeton University Press, 2004. The Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs harnesses ten years of work on global networks and global governance. In her analysis, states are still the most important international actors, but states increasingly are disaggregated into component institutions, which interact with foreign counterparts through horizontal networks of national government officials. Slaughter examines the implications of her thesis for changing concepts of sovereignty, national security, the global economy, the environment and other issues — and for the projection of soft power and conduct of diplomacy.

Tom Wolfe. “McLuhan’s New World,” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring, 2004, pp. 18-25. Novelist Tom Wolfe reflects on the continuing impact of McLuhan’s thinking and the intellectual influences he frequently acknowleged (Harold Innes) and did not acknowlege (Teilhard de Chardin). Wolfe discusses McLuhan’s “tremendous debt” to Teilhard’s concept of “noosphere” and the reasons McLuhan never made this debt public.

Sean Aday. The Real War Will Never Get on Television: An Analysis of Casualty Imagery in Television Coverage of the Iraq War. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 17, 2004. A team led by GW Professor and Public Diplomacy Institute board member Sean Aday analyzed 200 hours of television coverage from March 20 – April 9, 2003. The paper concludes the media presented an almost entirely bloodless war to viewers emphasizing “video game” aspects of military technology rather than human aspects of U.S. military power.

Cheryl Benard. Civil Democratic Islam: Partners, Resources, and Strategies. Rand Corporation, 2003. In this 88-page study, Benard examines Islam’s internal and external struggle over values, identity, and place in the world. She distinguishes four groups — fundamentalists, traditionalists, modernists, and secularists — and offers a strategy to encourage change compatible with greater democracy, modernity, and world order.

Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit. Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, The Penguin Press, 2004, and “Seeds of Revolution,” The New York Review of Books, March 11, 2004. Buruma and Margalit examine the impact of Western ideas in revolts against imperialism and links between religious zealotry and modern ideology. They suggest fault lines in the struggle of ideas do not “coincide with national, ethnic, or religious borders,” but between those in all societies and religions who favor civil liberties and freedom of thought and those who do not.

Anthony H. Cordesman. Hostages, Murders, and Desecrated Corpses: Iraqi Political and Psychological Warfare, Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 11, 2004. In this brief paper (11 pages), Cordesman analyzes how factions in and out of Iraq are using asymmetric armed force, terrorism, psychological warfare, and global media platforms to achieve political goals.

Barry Fulton. Taking the Pulse of American Public Diplomacy in a Post-9/11 World, Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 18, 2004. Public Diplomacy Institute Director Barry Fulton summarizes common themes in recent studies of public diplomacy and causes of anti-Americanism. He finds consensus that American public diplomacy lacks strategic direction, adequate resources, and proper coordination. The paper offers seven propositions for transforming the conduct of public diplomacy.

Barry Fulton. “Communications Researchers and Policy-Making,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 48(1), 2004, pp. 151-154. In his review of Sandra Braman, ed., Communication Researchers and Policy-Making (MIT Press Sourcebooks, 2003), Fulton examines essays by academicians and policy analysts linked by Braman’s introduction and transitional chapters. He looks at how the U.S. government’s support for communications research during World War II led to its development as field of study, issues that have kept research and public policy communities apart in the decades since, the “Djerejian report’s” focus on a nexus between research and public policy, and the need to reestablish trust and collaboration between academe and government.

William P. Kiehl. “Speaking Out: The Weakest Link in our Foreign Policy Arsenal,” Foreign Service Journal, April 2004, pp. 15-17. Public Diplomacy Council Executive Director Bill Kiehl analyzes problems that have weakened public diplomacy and calls for “basic reform and restructuring of the public diplomacy function of the State Department.”

Samuel P. Huntington. “Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite,” The National Interest, Spring, 2004, pp. 5-18. Huntington argues “the central distinction between the public and elites is not isolation versus internationalism but nationalism versus cosmopolitanism.” Elite concerns increasingly include participating in the global economy, supporting trade and migration, building international institutions, promoting American values abroad, and encouraging minority identification and cultures at home. He contends the public overall is concerned with physical security and sustaining “existing patterns of language, culture, association, and national identity.” Excerpt online. Go to Spring 2004 issue.

Samuel P. Huntington. “Letters,” Foreign Policy, May-June, 2004, pp. 4-13 and 84-91. In an extended exchange, Roberto Suro, Fouad Ajami, Minxin Pei, and others challenge Huntington’s “The Hispanic Challenge” (Foreign Policy, March-April, 2004). Huntington replies. The letters are not yet online. His article is posted at the website below.

Dirk Kinnane. “Winning Over the Muslim Mind,” The National Interest, Spring, 2004, pp. 93-99. Kinnane argues U.S. international broadcasting’s Radio Sawa and Al Hurra lack influence and credibility, and the “Djerejian report’s” public diplomacy recommendations are insufficient to address root political problems of powerlessness and humiliation in the Muslim world. The “only really effective approach,” he contends, is to “provide an international platform for those Muslims who seek to reconcile Islam and the modern world.” Kinnane cites the Congress of Cultural Freedom as precedent and makes a case for covert funding as “the cost of doing business.”

Susan Moeller. Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM), March 9, 2004 and “Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Failure of the Media,” YaleGlobal, April 14, 2004. In her 101-page CISSM study, Moeller reviews U.S. media coverage of weapons of mass destruction in May 2003 (Iraq), October 2002 (Iraq and North Korea) and May 1998 (South Asia). She asserts that U.S. media (1) accept the political formulation of WMD as a single category of threat, (2) inaccurately associate mass destruction with terrorism, and (3) operate in ways that permit incumbent Presidents to dominate news coverage by setting the terms of public discussion. In her short YaleGlobal article, Moeller contends that U.S. media, caught in patriotic fervor, did not adequately cover the government’s claims before the war in Iraq.

NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. “A New Voice {Al Hurra},” April, 15, 2004. The NewHour’s Terrence Smith looks at the U.S. government’s Arabic language satellite television station. Interviews include Broadcasting Board of Governors members Ken Tomlinson and Norman Pattis, Al Hurra’s Mouafac Harb, and Ambassador Edward Djerejian. Available in text, streaming video, and streaming audio.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. “The Decline of America’s Soft Power: Why Washington Should Worry,” Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2004, pp. 16-20. Nye applies discusses his soft power concepts in the context of the struggle against Islamist terrorism, increased funds for public diplomacy, greater support from the White House, and development of short, medium, and long term public diplomacy strategies. Excerpt online.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr. “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics,” Council on Foreign Relations, April 12, 2004. Nye discusses his recent book on Soft Power and related issues with Joseph Lelyveld, former executive editor of The New York Times. Transcript (15 pp.) available online.

Pippa Norris, Montague Kern, and Marion Just, eds. Framing Terrorism: The News Media, the Government, and the Public, Routledge, 2003. This collection of essays looks at theories and cases of media framing. Chapters by Doris Graber, Robin Brown, Brigitte Nacos, and others focus on perceptions of terrorism, how governments and dissident groups seek to manage the media, ways in which journalists construct news, and how citizens respond to news coverage of terrorist events.

Susan Raines. “Evaluating Cross-Cultural Exchanges for Peace Building: How Much Bang for the Buck?” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Montreal, March 17, 2003. Kennesaw State University Professor Raines summarizes attempts to evaluate exchanges and measure benefits to individuals and societies in such programs as Seeds of Peace, Global Children’s Organization, and Search for Common Ground. She pesents tentative findings from current exchange evaluation efforts.

Glenn Reynolds. “The Blogs of War: How the Internet is Reshaping Foreign Policy,” The National Interest, Spring, 2004, pp. 59-64. Reynolds, a University of Tennessee professor of law and Instapundit.com blogger, looks at ways the Internet is undermining the role of news organizations as gatekeepers and the role of free lance writers with laptops in the Iraq War.

Walter R. Roberts and Barry Fulton. “Rebuilding Public Diplomacy,” National Strategy Forum Review, Spring 2004. In this 3-page paper, Roberts and Fulton discuss challenges facing public diplomacy, lessons from history, and offer proposals for change.

Paul Starr. The Creation of the Media: Political Origins of Modern Communications, Basic Books, 2004. This sweeping history by Princeton sociologist Paul Starr shows how political choices have shaped modern communications as much as technology. Starr compares the American experience with sharply different patterns in Europe. In a narrative that ends in 1941, he demonstrates how communications structures in the United States have become a source of economic growth, cultural influence, and military advantage — and how the power of the media has challenged traditional views of the press in a democracy.

Gabriel Weimann. “www.terror.net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet,” United States Institute of Peace, Special Report 116, March 2004. USIP Senior Fellow Weimann examines eight ways that terrorists use the Internet “ranging from psychological warfare and propaganda to highly instrumental uses such as fundraising, recruitment, data mining, and coordination of actions.”

Alan Wolf. “Native Son: Samuel Huntington Defends the Homeland,” Foreign Affairs, May/June, 2004, pp. 120-125. In his lengthy review of Huntington’s new book, Who Are We? The Challenge to America’s National Identity, (Simon & Schuster, 2004), Wolf contends that Huntington in his study of the challenges of immigration has abandoned the “clear eyed realism” of earlier writings in favor of “moralistic passion” and a “nativist hysteria.”

Useful Tools and Research Projects

Newseum: Today’s Front Pages. An online version of the Newseum’s daily collection of front pages from more than 250 newspapers around the world. (Courtesy of Steve Chaplin)

John Brown is preparing a bibliographical essay on public diplomacy and an article on public diplomacy as carried out by countries other than the United States. John also puts out a daily public diplomacy press review, which is available on request. He was in the foreign service from 1981 to 2003 and served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow. He has given courses on public diplomacy at Georgetown University and is the author of “The Purposes and Cross-Purposes of American Public Diplomacy.” He can be reached at johnhbrown30@hotmail.com.

Pamela Smith has prepared a bibliography on public diplomacy, broadly defined, for her spring 2004 graduate course on public diplomacy at Georgetown University. Her bibliography draws on her own research, her examination of syllabi for courses taught by Public Diplomacy Council members, and other sources. Now on a two-year assignment at Georgetown, she previously served as U.S. Ambassador to Modlva, Minister-Counselor for Public Affairs in London, Press Attache in Jakarta, and Cultural Attache in Belgrade. She can be reached at phs5@georgetown.edu.

Hady Amr. The Need to Communicate: How to Improve U.S. Public Diplomacy with the Islamic World, Analysis Paper #6, The Brookings Institution, January 2004. This 66-page report looks at deficiencies and opportunities in U.S. public diplomacy. Its findings and recommendations track other recent reports on public diplomacy.

John Brown.Is the High Noon Over: Reflections on the Declining Influence of American Popular Culture. Brown, a retired Foreign Service Officer and Public Diplomacy Council member, reflects on the reasons American popular culture is losing its global influence. He is editor of a daily “Public Diplomacy Press Review” available on request at:johnhbrown30@hotmail.com.

Bill Clinton. Closing Address at the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, Doha, Qatar, January 12, 2004. The former President talks about economic, technological, and cultural interdependence and offers observations on mutual understanding, improved capacity for self-criticism, identification of common interests, and ending the habit of demonizing those who are different. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

Stephen P. Cohen. Statement to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. February 10, 2004. The President of the Middle East Peace and Development Institute and a member of the “Djerejian Advisory Group” looks at the need for both media and intensive exchange programs with emphasis on young people in the Arab and Muslim worlds.

David Dadge.Casualty of War: The Bush Administration’s Assault on a Free Press, Prometheus Books, 2004. Dadge, editor at The International Press Institute, examines goverrnment-press relations from the perspective of challenges to press freedom. Contains accounts of VOA’s relations with the State Department, VOA’s Wei Jingsheng and Mullah Omar broadcasts, U.S. government relations with Al Jazeera, Hill & Knowlton’s Citizens for a Free Kuwait campaign, and the Defense Department’s short-lived Office of Strategic Influence.

Amy Hawthorne. Middle Eastern Democracy: Is Civil Society the Answer? Democracy and Rule of Law Project, Carnegie Endowment, March 2004. Carnegie Associate Hawthorne calls for clearer understanding of civil society in Arab countries, effective ways to help civil society organizations contribute to democratic change, and awareness of the limits of U.S. influence in seeking to transform the Middle East into a zone of liberal democracies.

House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. Hearing on Public Diplomacy in the Middle East, February 10, 2004. Online statements by Subcommittee Chair Christopher Shays; Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs Margaret Tutwiler; Broadcasting Board of Governors Chair Kenneth Tomlinson; Harold Pachios, member and former Chair, U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy; Jess T. Ford, Director, International Affairs and Trade, U.S. General Accounting Office; David Morey, President and CEO, DMG, Inc.; Stephen P. Cohen, President, Institute for Middle East Peace and Development; and Stephen C. Johnson, The Heritage Foundation.

A.T.Kearny. a href=”http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=2493” rel=”nofollow” class=”external exitstitial”>Foreign Policy Globalization Index.Foreign Policy, March/April, 2004, pp. 54-69. This fourth annual ranking of political, economic, personal, and technological factors in 62 countries finds that as the world economy slowed, Internet growth in poor countries and increased cross-border travel deepened global links. Ireland, Singapore, and Switzerland lead the combined category list. A surge in Internet access in developing countries is narrowing the digital divide. Internet use in the Middle East, the least connected region, grew by 116%. Worldwide, mobile phones per capita moved ahead of telephone lines for the first time. The U.S. ranked first in number of secure servers and Internet hosts per capita. The index finds women tend to be better off in more globally integrated countries.

Chris Mooney. “The Editorial Pages and the Case for War,” Columbia Journalism Review, March/April 2004, pp. 28-34. Mooney looks at how editorial support for Secretary of State Powell’s UN speech on February 5, 2003 in six major U.S. newspapers helped frame the case for war in Iraq: The New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Chicago Tribune, and The Wall Street Journal. His analysis examines the strength of the combined power of elite media and the administration’s messages to shape public opinion and whether leading news organizations set the bar too low in reaching judgment on a preemptive war.

David Morey. Statement to the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations. February 10, 2004. Morey, a co-chair of the Council on Foreign Relations Independent Task Force on Public Diplomacy and Public Diplomacy Council member, discusses the Council’s report, “insurgent communications” in today’s communications environment, and ways to leverage private sector support for government public diplomacy.

George Packer, ed.The Fight is for Democracy: Winning the War of Ideas in America and the World, HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. Packer, a staff writer for The New Yorker, edits this collection of nine views on America’s democratic ideals and the importance of ideas in the war against terrorism. Includes essays by Paul Berman, Todd Gitlin, Michael Tomasky, William Finnegan, Susie Linfield, Laura Secor, Vijay Seshadri, Kanan Makiya, and Jeff Madrick. (Courtesy of Donna Oglesby)

The Pew Research Center.A Global Gap,February 24, 2004. Pew finds older Americans and West Europeans are more likely to have reservations about globalization, to feel their culture is superior, and to support immigration restrictions. This generation gap is less pronounced in Eastern Europe and virtually non-existent in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Majorities in all regions agree on the importance of children learning English. Majorities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom support children learning languages other than English.

Adam Clayton Powell, III. Statement to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 26, 2004. Powell, Visiting Professor of Journalism at the University of Southern California’s Public Diplomacy Center and Public Diplomacy Council member, discusses independent media, civil society and transparency in emerging democracies.

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Hearing on Public Diplomacy and International Free Press. February 26, 2004. Online statements by Senators Richard Lugar, Chairman; Joseph Biden, Ranking Member; Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs Margaret Tutwiler; Gene Mater, The Freedom Forum; Adam Clayton Powell III, Visiting Professor, University of Southern California; and Kurt A. Wimmer, Covington & Burling.

John F. Stack. “Hard Times for Hard News: A Clinical Look at U.S. Foreign Coverage,” World Policy Journal, Winter, 2003/04, pp. 12-21. Stack, a former Time Magazine deputy managing editor and recent biographer of James Reston, examines trends in television, print, and web-based coverage of foreign news.

Philip Taylor. Munitions of the Mind: A History of Propaganda, Third Edition, Manchester University Press, 2004. University of Leeds Professor of Communications Philip Taylor has revised and expanded his well known text on the history of political communication to include a new preface, new chapters on the 1991 Gulf War, information age conflict after the Cold War, and the terrorist attacks of September 11, and bibliographical essay.

Philip Taylor’s Website. Professor Taylor also manages a comprehensive international communications website, a rich source of articles, papers, lectures, slides, and other materials on propaganda, military-media relations, public diplomacy, psychological operations, information warfare and information operations. His frequently updated collection has been reorganized and has a new look.

Daya Thussu and Des Freeman, eds. War and the Media: Reporting Conflict 24/7, Sage Publications, 2003. The editors bring together 19 contributions from scholars and war journalists from three continents offering critical perspectives on the media’s treatment of war. Articles discuss humanitarian interventions, high-tech warfare, Al Jazeera, psychological operations in Afghanistan, the impact of round-the-clock news coverage, the “war on terrorism,” and changing cultures of journalism.

Lester Thurow. Fortune Favors the Bold, HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. MIT economist Lester Thurow’s latest examination of globalization’s challenges includes two discussions relevant to public diplomacy: (1) a brief analysis of a decline in the export of American TV programming and the U.S. as an importer and modifier of culture and a “re-exporter of a new global culture,” and (2) the case for Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs) in business and government.

U.S. General Accounting Office.U.S. International Broadcasting: Enhanced Measure of Local Media Conditions Would Facilitate Decisions to Terminate Language Services, Report to the Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, February 2004. GAO’s third report on public diplomacy in the past year looks at the BBG’s criteria for developing broadcast language priorities.

U.S. General Accounting Office. U.S. Public Diplomacy: State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors Expand Efforts in the Middle East but Face Significant Challenges, Statement of Jess T. Ford, Director of International Affairs and Trade, U.S. General Accounting Office, February 10, 2004. GAO’s testimony before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations updates findings and recommendations in GAO’s 2003 reports on U.S. public diplomacy and international broadcasting.