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Checkout my article over at ForeignPolicy.com, Censoring the Voice of America: Why is it OK to broadcast terrorist propaganda but not taxpayer-funded media reports?

Earlier this year, a community radio station in Minneapolis asked Voice of America (VOA) for permission to retransmit its news coverage on the increasingly volatile situation in Somalia. The VOA audio files it requested were freely available online without copyright or any licensing requirements. The radio station's intentions were simple enough: Producers hoped to offer an informative, Somali-language alternative to the terrorist propaganda that is streaming into Minneapolis, where the United States' largest Somali community resides. Over the last year or more, al-Shabab, an al Qaeda linked Somali militia, has successfully recruited two dozen or more Somali-Americans to return home and fight. The radio station was grasping for a remedy.

It all seemed straightforward enough until VOA turned down the request for the Somali-language programming. In the United States, airing a program produced by a U.S. public diplomacy radio or television station such as VOA is illegal. Oddly, though, airing similar programs produced by foreign governments -- or even terrorist groups -- is not. As a result, the same professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers whom we trust to inform and engage the world are considered more threatening to Americans than terrorist propaganda -- like the stuff pouring into Minneapolis.  …

In an age where a teenager with a keyboard can wield more influence than an F-22 Raptor, the time has long past for the United States to change its public diplomacy and communications strategy accordingly. …

Read the whole thing at ForeignPolicy.com. More information related to the article is below.

There was a lively discussion in June (primarily) among the “old guard” of public diplomacy sparked in large part by one blogger commenting on another’s lament. The result was a one-of-a-kind discussion posted here on the blog titled “Debating the Theory vs Practice of Public Diplomacy”. The discussion was deeper and better than most any you’d find at a conference today on the subject of public diplomacy. The conversation included (in no particular order) Bill Kiehl, Bill Rugh, Hans Tuch, Bruce Gregory, Yale Richmond, Len Baldyga, Doug Wilson, Kristin Lord, John Brown, Craig Hayden, Jack Harrod, Mike Schneider, Pat Kushlis, Brady Kiesling, Donna Oglesby, Dick Virden, Cynthia Efird, Jim Callahan, Greg Garland.... and now “Rachel”, who wrote:

As someone who is intensely interested culture and not necessarily policy, I have found the idea of graduate school incredibly daunting. In today’s climate, it is extremely difficult for a recent graduate to enter their chosen career path, and more and more jobs require at least a master’s degree if not many years of work experience. What sort of educational programs would be beneficial for those wishing to enter the field? I agree that academia is not the only component in PD, but for those of us looking to get our foot in the door, the degree can weigh more than our skills.

Is public diplomacy, as John Brown put it, “a down-to-earth, all-too-human activity”? Checkout the discussion if you missed it: Debating the Theory vs Practice of Public Diplomacy.

From BBC’s website a report from BBC Persian and Pashto:

The second front in the conflict between the Taliban and their enemies in government is the war of words - and in recent months that battle has intensified.

The Taliban have a sophisticated public relations machine which is making it harder for governments and their international allies to win the ever-important propaganda war.

The insurgents are keen to exploit a sense of alienation among people, fostered by "bad governance" and "mistakes" made during military operations.

Civilian casualties in American air strikes and the violation of local traditions including house and personal searches create an atmosphere where Taliban propaganda can take root.

Afghan political commentator, Rostar Tarakai, says that it is the simplicity of the Taliban's message that makes it most effective.

"They talk about occupation, they highlight the fact that foreign troops are killing Afghans and raiding their homes - and it works," says Mr Tarakai.

The whole article is well worth reading as it highlights the sophistication of the Taliban. Talk about multiple media, this is the first report I’ve seen that really gets at the expanse of Taliban communication techniques.

See also:

• Is Social Media More Trustworthy than Voice of America? 
• Washington Times Editorial: Fighting the War of Ideas
• House Appropriations Concerned Pentagon's Role in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy (updated)

Noah Shachtman’s post in Wired about the Defense Department’s review of social media use, see Pentagon Wrestles with Possible Twitter, Facebook Ban. Noah cites an active duty officer who inadvertently raises a Smith-Mundt related issue:

The American people deserve to know what their wonderful sons and daughters are doing overseas, in harms way. It is our job to tell that to you as military professionals.

Yes, the American public does deserve to know what is going on overseas. If, however, such information came from a professional working in the State Department’s public diplomacy department or one of America’s international broadcasting properties, it would be considered nefarious propaganda. Accordingly, we may logically conclude that information provided by individuals through social media is more complete and trustworthy than if it came from the professional journalists, editors, and public diplomacy officers with whom we place our trust to tell the truth about what is going on overseas and here in America to audiences beyond our borders.

Strongly recommend reading the unsigned editorial in The Washington Times titled “Fighting the War of Ideas: Congress leans toward unilateral disarmament in info ops”:

Information operations are known by many names -- public diplomacy, strategic influence, political warfare -- but the purpose is the point. It's vital for America to advance national security by changing the way people think about our country and challenging the negative messages spread by our adversaries. …

Ideally, the United States would pursue information operations through an integrated, coordinated interagency program following a coherent strategy aimed at achieving critical strategic effects. This would require a major presidential initiative, something President George W. Bush did not do but which President Obama may yet undertake. In the meantime, the Defense Department is the sole government agency adequately executing this mission. If the Pentagon goes silent, the field will be left to our adversaries. In the battle of ideas, Congress is forcing unilateral disarmament.

American public diplomacy wears combat boots. That was the first sentence of my chapter in the Handbook of Public Diplomacy published last year. I argued that public diplomacy and its related strategic communication had gone too soft and that the Defense Department necessarily, if unwilling and sometimes clumsily, stepped in to fill a gap left by an absent State Department. Today, the situation is different with Defense running increasingly sophisticated efforts, often with the collaboration and support of State and other entities within the Government. And of course, the Smith-Mundt Act has an effect here on public diplomacy and strategic communication.

I will be traveling and not posting until next week. Be sure to read the updated House Appropriations Concerned Pentagon's Role in Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy (a few additional comments plus the Senate Armed Services Committee’s from their report on the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2010). I will be on email.

Remember the post where I asked for help coding locations? The dataset was the Twitter followers of America.gov as of one day last week, publically available through the Twitter API. I suggest you read the comments on post Question: what does it mean if the demographic of two-thirds of your audience is not your target demographic?.

Recent posts be sure to read:

• Guest Book Review: Drugs and Contemporary Warfare
• Guest Post: Superfriends and the Strategic Communication Continuum
• Most popular entries on MountainRunner according to you
• What is the purpose of Public Diplomacy if not to influence?
• Broadcasting Board of Governors: empty seats at the public diplomacy table (which should have been in the popular entries list above if I updated that list)
• In America? Smith-Mundt means no SMS updates on the President's Ghana speech for you! (Be sure to read the comments)
• Guest Post: China's Image Marketing: How Well Can Confucius Do?
• Guest Post: Explaining Why Afghanistan Matters - Whose Job Is It? (Be sure to read the comments)
• Also of interest should be this 3-pager (if you print the PDF) titled Smith-Mundt: Myths, Facts, and Recommendations.

By Larisa Breton

Forget Smith-Mundt; the Hill’s call for a rethink padlocks the door on an empty barn. Americans already enjoy the gentle second-and third-order effects of an imported comic pantheon from Marvel Comics’ “The 99”, courtesy of private (or semi-private) commerce. New Yorker Dr. Naif Al-Mutawa, now Chairman of Teshkeel Media Group, commercialized “The 99” in 2006 as a way to promote and make relevant the historic virtues of Islam while peacefully reaching out to a burgeoning youth population in the Levant. (“The 99” refers to both the 99 attributes of Allah, and to 99 mystical gems which confer special powers to those who discover them in the comic series.)

By Chris Albon

In his latest book, Drugs and Contemporary Warfare, Paul Rexton Kan attempts to understand the relationship between drugs and armed conflict. Kan is not the first to connect the two topics, such as Gretchen Peters' book on poppies in Afghanistan. However, Kan's book is exceptional for developing an overarching theory on drugs and armed conflict in modern history. Kan knows what he is talking about. An associate professor at the U.S. Army War College, Kan's previous monograph explores the implications of drug intoxicated irregular soldiers on the battlefield (available for download free).

Drugs and Contemporary Warfare is organized into six chapters: Hazy Shades of War, Drugging the Battlefield, High at War, Narcotics and Nation-Building, Sober Lessons for the Future, and Shaky Paths Forward. Kan's first chapter summarizes the history of the drug trade's influence on warfare, with emphasis on conflicts after the Cold War. With insightful anecdotes, Kan both introduces readers to the topic and lays the groundwork for concepts presented later.

The list below are the most popular entries based on those who have clicked on the star that appears at the top of each post here on MountainRunner. Since some of you thought these were important posts, I’ll highlight them below for those who missed them. The highest rated is first.

• Senate Foreign Relations Committee Report on American public diplomacy centers and programs
• Broadcasting Board of Governors: empty seats at the public diplomacy table
• Comment on Judith McHale's talk at CNAS
• Judith McHale at CNAS: Public Diplomacy: A National Security Imperative
• RAND Report: Whither Strategic Communication?
• Going Global Means Thinking Domestic Too
• Comparing the Areas of Responsibility of State and Defense (Updated)
• Guest Post: How to win the GWOT - or whatever it's called today
• Guest Post: Congress Takes a Step Forward in Preparing Future Generations of America for the Global Age

An example of crowdsourcing, these aren’t necessarily the most read entries, but the most liked by those who knew the purpose of and took the time to click the star.

Briefly, as I explore different definitions for public diplomacy (see here and here and here), one thing is constant: the purpose of public diplomacy is to convince people of something. Thus, the below quote, with all due to respect, struck me as patently false:

"The aim of public diplomacy is not to convince but to communicate, not to declare but to listen." Manuel Castells (source)

I like Professor Castells (and not just because he gave me an A a few years ago) but this statement, shared by a surprising many, is part of what is wrong with America’s global engagement. It harkens to the (amazing) belief that you can inform without influence and is, I believe, a carry-over from decades of increasing passivity and misunderstanding of public diplomacy in which we failed to understand the global environment (who we were was self-evident) and a lack of insight and foresight into the global security situation (information as a weapon).

In the practice of public relations, public diplomacy, public affairs, or strategic communication what does it mean if 67% – 70% of your audience is a demographic you’re not supposed to target?

a) you’re filling a void

b) you’re not fulfilling your mission

c) the rule is bad

Your thoughts?

I have nearly 2,000 rows of data that I need coded to do some analysis. That is, I have some information that in its present form cannot be easily analyzed. The instructions are simple:

Enter a "1", "2", "3", "4" into the data entry box based on the the location. A "1" means the location is within the United States, "2" means outside of the United States, a "3" means the location indicates both inside and outside of the US, and a "4" means there is not enough information to determine which other number to use.

You will only see the location data and each entry could take as little as a second for you to process. Devote a minute and you could power through 40-90 records. If there are twenty volunteers, then the work will be done in less time than it takes to respond to a Tweet.

Your work, should you decide to help, will be the basis of a future post / analysis. All I will say now is the analysis is on the global audience of a social media application.

If you’re interested, simply go here and type a number between 1 and 4, depending on the data of course.

UPDATE: Thank you to those who helped out. All of the nearly 2000 rows have been coded and there were very few errors.

Congrats to Dan for figuring out the source of the data.

Here are the statistics: 982 of the rows were self-identified as in the United States, 149 did not give a location but selected a US time zone (likely US resident), 320 self-identified as outside the US (including apparent Americans who listed Tehran), 59 gave a location that was both US and outside of the US, 132 gave indeterminate locations (iPhone geocoding typically put here), and 159 had no location and no time zone specified.

Rough analysis: out of the 1908 records, three times more users are in the US as outside the US, add time zone data and the multiplier goes up to 3.5.

Right now:

Face-off to Facebook: From the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debate to Public Diplomacy in the 21st Century

Thursday, July 23, 2009
Jack Morton Auditorium, 805 21st Street NW
Washington, DC 20006

GW’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at the School of Media and Public Affairs, in partnership with the Carnegie Corporation, the Walter Roberts Endowment, and the Kennan Institute, is pleased to announce a conference devoted to the 50th anniversary of the American National Exhibition in Moscow, with its famous Khrushchev-Nixon “Kitchen Debate,” as well as to the new opportunities for U.S. public diplomacy in a Web 2.0 world.  

Conference details are here and watch the live stream right now here.

See also:

• Remembering Sokolniki Park by Hans Tuch over at Whirled View.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, or BBG, is the agency overseeing all United States public diplomacy broadcasting, that is non-military broadcasting for audiences outside of the territorial US.

It is also the name of the Board that governs those broadcasts that nominally consists of nine members, eight of which are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. By law, no more than four members may be from the same political party (in effect, four Republicans and four Democrats). The ninth member is the current Secretary of State (ex officio).

The BBG is also the agency everybody seems to love to hate.

In the spirit of the popular incumbency chart published here on the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, below you’ll find a unique chart and timeline on the membership of the Board that you won’t find anywhere else.