I'd like to welcome you, my name is Jane Twomey. I'm the program coordinator for
the MA in Communication program here at Johns Hopkins, in case you didn't notice.
I'd like to give a little pitch for our program if you're a professional working we do have
a master's program,
a professional program. We offer classes in the evening. I'm very happy and very pleased
to be able to present our panel
this evening. It's a very very distinguished panel. On my immediate left is Dr. Phil Seib.
He's a Professor of Journalism and Public Policy and a Professor of International Relations
and the Director of the Center for Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
Immediately next to Phil is Joan Mower.
Joan Mower is the Director of Development and Public Relations at the Voice of America
where she directs public affairs,
media outreach, public programs
for the agency around the world.
Next to her is Phyllis Eliott Oakley
She's currently an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies, that's our SAIS school.
Before retiring from the State Department in 1999, she served as the
Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
She also served as Assistant Secretary of State of the Bureau of Population,
Refugees, and Migration and she was also Deputy Spokesman of the State Department under Secretary
George shultz and she was the first woman to hold that position.
Next we have a very special guest with us. His name is John Dickson and
he's the Director of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs for the US Department of State.
We hear a lot about public diplomacy these days
but I'm not sure anybody really knows what that is
so my first question to the panel is
what exactly is public diplomacy?
What it is I think are three things:
one is
it's about communicating, it's about explaining to and engaging foreign publics about our policies
and the context of our policies.
So it has a communicating aspect
the other
there's a program aspect of it
in terms of programs that support
our policies and what we're trying to accomplish
and then finally there is a facilitating people-to-people exchanges, opportunities for
Americans to be in touch with
their counterparts around the world.
There are two phrases I think were true in the 1950s, that are true today.
Phrases that we use all the time.
One has to do with
the intersection between policy and public diplomacy
and that is that
it's an Edward R. Murrow phrase where
if we're going to
be involved with communicating the policy we have to be in on the ground
before takeoff
and before the crash landing.
So the idea is public diplomacy, you have to be thinking about communicating as your thinking about
developing the policy, how are you going to develop the policy.
Public diplomacy involves
listening,
understanding
informing
missed one, I wrote it down,
engaging,
any influencing.
And you can kind of stir those words up any way you want to
but that really does cover
quite a broad area and I think it
helps
to achieve a definition that maybe we would all be comfortable with although I doubt
we'd ever come out with
one small definition out of a group like this.
I'm in international broadcasting, US international broadcasting
and one of the figures is that the US government spends
about half it's
public diplomacy money on the broadcasting, on its broadcasting which is a
a network, voice of America,
Radio Free Europe, Middle East Broadcasting.
And then it spends another half on its programs that John was describing, that Phyllis was describing,
but really so half of your tax dollar is going to broadcasting and I think I think it may
be worth
in the Q&A we get into this a little bit
um
VOA
International broadcasting, the way it's described is say there's an umbrella with a number of spokes and
we are one of those spokes but our mission
is to deliver fact-based news and information.
We are congressionally mandated by Congress, and I'm talking about VOA now because I work
for VOA
But Congress has passed a congressional mandate saying that
you must have fact-based, fair, comprehensive news and information
about America
and about the world and about local and international events. So I'm kind of curious as to what is
it that we have to get right, what are the stakes here and
how do we go about now with all of the new technology and sort of
all of the
challenges that we're facing now,
how do we go about it?
one of the things about public diplomacy is you have to change with the times, change with
the nature of the audience
change with the nature of
the media environment
and I would argue that US public diplomacy has not done a very good job of that so far,
has not fully recognized the realities again I'll just stick with the Middle East as a
for instance
has not recognized the new realities.
And until that recognition takes hold
I think
public diplomacy particularly in that region
is not going to get much traction.
I'm going to disagree would you Phil a little bit
first off I agree that there is a much more competitive media environment
around the world and people are getting satellite, they're getting
all these different internet channels but
you can go around and let's take Iran.
I would I would tell you
that there is a hunger
and there particularly was a hunger for news and information in June when VOA
and and BBC frankly, the two satellite television channels played a huge role.
We've got an audience of one in four or five Iranians
are listening to our TV
and we we have an eight-hour day network and we're extremely successful.
I can assure you they want news about America
but it's not just news about America we're giving them, we're also giving them fact-based
news. They want news that's real that they can trust
and I would argue that our credibility is our greatest strength and that's the reason
we have an audience of 125 million
and we can go into, we do not broadcast in the middle east
but we can go country by country and we can debate what role we're playing,
and in some cases you probably are right there probably are other options,
but in many cases in these closed societies, in burma
in Vietnam even where we have a blogging operation going
this is this is news that people want and we have the figures to back it up.
The stakes are high right now
because of this great Spanish word: la coyentura
the juncture that we're in
right now where we're, there are two wars, where we have economic recession, where we have big issues
of climate change, where America's standing in the world
is really at stake in our influence that's why I think
when Judith McCale is talking about, she's saying the stakes are high because of all of that
put together.
The opportunities are high now too. Principally because we have
very well known
and well regarded
President and Secretary of State who can get out and communicate
and engage in using the language and words that do count.
We do have programs all over the world but we still have
an issue with extremism after 9/11 that really is very different from what we
seem to have had in the Cold War and I'm wondering
how we go about
that challenge?
The concern I think for people engaged in public diplomacy
is the the millions of
of people who are about fifteen years old now
and I'll stay again with with the Middle East
who are exposed to
who sit in cyber cafes and
are exposed to
really poisonous
material.
It's remarkable, you can find some of this on YouTube and elsewhere
that is
produced by Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda related
entities
and
it is it is hatred,
that that's what's there
Now to get around hatred, you need two things: you need to address if there are real policy issues
that are driving at that they need to be addressed,
but you also have to push back
and to a certain extent that's what public diplomacy does
So there was a lot of effort and emphasis placed on the issue of extremism.
I'm providing programs and through public diplomacy
and engaging the web of hate that you
talked about, Philip, particulary I see some colleagues from the
Bureau of International Information Programs that
has an office called a digital outreach team that is engaging
in that cyber
world and and another was to provide alternatives.
Soft power alternatives to you that some of you talked about
these are where the US has automatic advantage or worldwide recognized advantages
whether it's english teaching or sports
the arts, science and technology. These are areas that are non-controversial that the world wants
Is our popular culture a good tool to use then
for public diplomacy?
It's it's not
it's not a contest, I mean we're not trying to win
and it's not a we're right you're wrong sort of thing. If you pursue that path
bad things are going to happen. How could you possibly
go against the modern culture and all this technology that's out there? Our problem is
to keep up with it.