Public Diplomacy is a form of the so called “New Diplomacy” which is to the best of my knowledge not that new. Public Diplomacy at its hub is the communication with the public’s of foreign countries, in contrast to the traditional diplomacy, which consists of communication involving governments. [Waller M.J., 23, 2007]. For most people, Public Diplomacy is a form of PR or propaganda, which is applied by foreign offices through the mass media for political purposes. [Berridge G.R., 179, 2010]. The person at the fore front of Public Diplomacy is usually the foreign secretary, other people like foreign ministers are also been appointed to make the job of the foreign secretary easier.
Different governments are meeting up demands for “Propaganda or PR Diplomacy” by employing the use of media services, 24hours BBC News services in the United Kingdom, and the CNN or VOA in the United States of America. And there must be evidence to show that it is working because it is now the other of the day, for a government to give a media broadcast prior to a foreign trip or whilst on the trip. A recent event that demonstrated the effectiveness of Public Diplomacy could be President Obama’s foreign trips prior to his election as a President; this helped improve his image abroad and portrayed him as a peace maker, in contrast to his predecessor, President Bush. More evidently, just ten months after his inauguration, President Obama was given a Nobel Price for Peace. (He hadn't brought peace to the Middle East but he shows that he is willing to work towards peace by visiting and talking to the people).[Sky News online].
Further to this progress, others may argue that Public Diplomacy is just like a charade, where Core States want to impose their decisions on Peripheral State’s public thorough their governments, and also use the media for their PR stunts. A good example is the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change held in 2009. The BBC listed out 9 reasons why the Conference ended without an outcome, which included that developed nations arrived arguing for a wide range of desired outcomes; during negotiations, positions converged, and a negotiated deal was done, they also pointed out that no deal was reached because of the 24hour News culture.
Before the Copenhagen Conference started, the Obama White House used the media to his advantage, this saw the president announcing a deal live on TV before anyone, (even most of the governments involved in the talks) knew a deal had been done. The news went first to the White House lobby journalists traveling with the president. After the event, of course, journalists pored over the details, but the agenda had already been set; by the time those articles emerged, anyone who was not particularly interested in the issue would have come to believe that a deal on climate change had been done, with the US providing leadership to the global community. Although the 24-hour live news culture did not make the Copenhagen Accord, but its existence offered the White House a way to keep the accord's chief architect away from all meaningful scrutiny while telling the world of his triumph.). [BBC News online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8426835.stm].
In conclusion, just like everything that has an advantage will have a disadvantage, Public Diplomacy can work in some cases, whilst it doesn’t work in most cases, especially when the other party discovers that the intentions behind it is not genuine, as we saw in the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference 2009.
Hello, I like your post, specially your conclusion as this is absoultely true that the updates from behind closed doors suggested in Copenhaguen in which none of the countries bind themselves to any of the proposals was disastrous; for instance, did not catch up with the intentions and perspectives of the international community.
ReplyDeleteClxx
I do agree with what you demonstrate in your text, but don't you think that it's probably due to the lack of practice of the New Diplomacy?
ReplyDeleteAs Berridge suggests, head of state should not meet. In the case describe above, they should not be under the spotlight. Still, by the past, "High diplomacy" did work, like during Nixon's presidency between the US and China. So, public diplomacy could also be the clue for diplomatic progress in the future. We should also balance the positive and negative effect of making pressure over the politics to make thing change.
Therefore, I think that even if public diplomacy is not "an absolute gain", practice through time and experience will sharp it usefulness.
Sincerely, it is difficult to distinguish public diplomacy and propaganda, hence it is easy to say that public diplomacy is also propaganda as it is always the rich countries that try to manipulate the publics of other countries.
ReplyDeleteThe conflict in Tunisia is covered by Western media which is a good thing if it has genuine intentions, however with recent happens it could be because the UN are monitoring to see if there is need for UN troops.
Funny, but hei! I don't really trust the media this days because behind every continious covering, there is a hidden agenda. Have you heard anything about Republic of Congo? No I suppose, but the number of death in Congo in a week is more than the number of people that die within atwo months in Sudan.
Thanks for your comments though.