PDx podcast – The Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication

April 17, 2024May 16, 2024

The Digital Double Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East

By Yvonne Oh, IPDGC Program Coordinator

In his latest book, IPDGC Visiting Scholar Joe F. Khalil explores the interplay of digital technology and socio-political shifts, providing valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape of the Middle East. His presentation of “The Digital Bind: Change and Stasis in the Middle East,” co-authored with Mohamed Zayan.

Khalil explores how the Middle East’s digital turn intersects with complex political, economic, and socio-cultural dynamics. Drawing on local research and rich case studies, they show how the same forces that brought promises of change through digital transformation have also engendered tensions and contradictions. With this book, Khalil and his co-author contend that the ensuing disjunctures have ensnared the region in a double bind, which represents the salient feature of an unfolding digital turn. The same conditions that drive the state, market, and public immersion in the digital also inhibit the region’s drive to change.

Publishing house Oxford Press describes The Digital Double Bind as a book that reconsiders the question of technology and change, moving beyond binary formulations and familiar trajectories of the network society. It offers a path-breaking analysis of change and stasis in the Middle East and provides a roadmap for a critical engagement with digitality in the Global South.

Listen to the podcast on PDx.

February 20, 2024February 20, 2024

How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order

On Tuesday, February 6, IPDGC hosted a book talk by Prof. Bilge Yesil. She discussed her forthcoming book, Talking Back to the West: How Turkey Uses Counter-Hegemony to Reshape the Global Communication Order. This podcast is a recording of her book talk.

In her talk, Prof. Bilge Yesil examines Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, AKP’s English-language communication apparatus – focusing on its objectives and outcomes, the idea-generating framework that undergirds it, and the implications of its activities. Dr. Yesil is an associate professor of Media Culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island.

August 2, 2023

PDx Podcast: Visiting Scholar Ben O’Loughlin Discusses a New Paper

2023 IPDGC Visiting Scholar Ben O’Loughlin, Professor of International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London, spent the spring term with IPDGC. Recently, he published a theoretically groundbreaking new paper with co-author Adam B. Lerner: “Strategic Ontologies: Narrative and Meso-Level Theorizing in International Politics.” It ran in International Studies Quarterly.

Our latest PDx podcast features IPDGC William Youmans speaking with O’Loughlin about the paper, which he presented at an IPDGC workshop.

PDx · Ben O’Loughlin , Visiting Scholar: On Strategic Ontologies

June 15, 2021April 23, 2024

Summer support for GW students

By Yvonne Oh, IPDGC Program Coordinator

Six GW students receive Walter Roberts Endowment grants for PD internships

The Walter Roberts Endowment (WRE) and the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC) is pleased to announce that our $15,000 internship grant has been successfully awarded to six GW students to support them in their Public Diplomacy internships over summer 2021.

Walter R. Roberts, former diplomat and foreign policy and public affairs expert

Adeniyi Funsho will be working with IPDGC on the Public Diplomacy Examined (PDx) podcasts and the institute’s online engagement.

Other recipients of the grants are Kevin Cao and Charles Shapiro who will be working at Global Ties US; on the World Expo pavilion, and on membership and development.

Nikki Hinshaw will work for the Public Affairs office at the US Embassy in London.

Evelyn Adams will be with the Alliance for International Exchange, where she gets training on activities that promote the growth and impact of exchange programs.

Sophie Van Gilder will work on developing marketing and communication products for Strategies for International Development (SID). SID helps poor farmers graduate from poverty by helping them build successful farm businesses that increase their income. Their work is centered in communities in Guatemala, Peru and Bolivia.

WRE and IPDGC wish our GW students well as they embark on their public diplomacy experiences this summer.

March 5, 2021April 23, 2024

In PDx: Vermont meets the world

Promoting global awareness and understanding

By Yvonne Oh, IPDGC Program Coordinator

In 1952, Vermont native Warren Austin, a former U.S. Senator and the first U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, founded the Vermont Council on World Affairs (VCWA) to promote awareness and understanding for world affairs through education and engagement.

For almost 70 years, VCWA has managed to welcome visitors from 75 countries and through these programs have contributed over $1 million in economic impact to Vermont’s economy.

In conversation with VCWA’s Executive Director, Patricia Preston (on left), PDx interviewer and SMPA graduate student Victoria Makanjuola learns more about how these public diplomacy programs build Vermont’s global reputation and enhances US interests by building relationships with leaders and communities overseas.

VCWA was also the recipient of a grant given to honor Sen. Patrick Leahy, the 2019 recipient of the IPDGC Walter Roberts Award for Congressional Leadership in Public Diplomacy. The grant of $5000 was used for a “reverse-exchange” program to Tanzania. Here are some of Patricia’s photos and recollections from that memorable program: 2019 Changemakers Summit in Dar Es Salaam.

To find out more about the Vermont Council of World Affairs and its programs, go to https://www.vcwa.org/

Enjoy the latest PDx podcast with Patricia Preston and the Vermont Council on World Affairs: Connecting the World to Vermont

February 5, 2021April 23, 2024

In PDx: Sports diplomacy and leadership

Using sports to change the world: one high-five at a time

By Yvonne Oh, IPDGC Program Coordinator

At the inaugural Laureus World Sports Awards in 2000, former South African president and anti-apartheid revolutionary Nelson Mandela said, “Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair.”

In total commitment to that idea, the Center for Sport, Peace and Society plans to create a more peaceful, equitable, and inclusive world through sports. CSPS is based at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and led by Dr. Sarah Hilyer.

Through mentorship and exchange programs, CSPS has taught leaders how to develop Action Plans for sport-based social change in their communities. These plans have contributed to the creation of national sports leagues and federations for women and people with disabilities and impacted legislation to make countries more inclusive and accessible.

In 2018, as part of the recognition of Sen. Bob Corker’s support for U.S. public diplomacy, CSPS received a $5000 grant from the Walter Roberts Endowment to support a public diplomacy project. Read more about that project HERE.

This year’s recipient of the Walter Roberts Award for Congressional Leadership in Public Diplomacy is Sen. John Boozman (R-Arkansas). Read about his active backing of the Fulbright program, the globally recognized U.S. Cultural Exchange Program with the goal to improve intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and professional competence: HERE.

Find out more about the Center for Sport, Peace and Society and its programs, go to https://sportandpeace.utk.edu/

Enjoy the latest PDx podcast with Dr. Sarah Hilyer: HERE