Recently I had the pleasure to participate in the Public Media Camp, an unconference focused on strengthening local and national public broadcasting. A good portion of the discussion focused on the disruptive and new opportunities being presented by Internet-based dissemination and social media.

Of Hubs and Spokes

While the focus on social media related well to my work in public diplomacy, the very structure of public media actually seems quite similar to the hub and spoke model of the central State Department in Washington and the various embassies, consulates and missions scattered around the world. As with public broadcasting, content is produced and disseminated in Washington and the very diverse missions overseas. Just as NPR or PBS in Washington balances the needs of their direct national audience with the needs of their affiliate stations, the State Department also has to support an international audience for its America.gov properties while meeting overseas mission needs.

Additionally, most public media outlets focus more on informing audiences and social change than increasing profits. Public diplomacy has similar goals: changing perceptions about the United States’ and its policies and creating a better environment for U.S. goals, such as democratization, improving religious freedoms and so on. Without profits as a baseline metric, both organizations aim for more intangible goals, such as those elucidated above. This makes measurement more challenging, with related knock-on effects.

Measuring Impact

Fortunately, public media and affiliated organizations are taking on a number of these challenges, most especially measurement. The Fledgling Fund, an NGO focused on helping social change projects get off the ground, has done quite a bit of work figuring out how to measure such an amorphous goal as creating social impact. Drawing from their experience, they’ve created a five-stage model which helps measure social impact of a program.

Here are the steps (scroll down for a diagram):

1. Media quality: Most basically, this stage asks if the subject is a quality piece of media? Are the characters strong and well defined? Is the story well-toned? Will it get press attention, resonate with viewers, generate online buzz and so on?
2. Raising public awareness: Where is the topic in the public consciousness? Some topics don’t need more more widespread attention, so media focused solely on raising awareness isn’t necessary. However, some topics are not well known, so a basic introduction or media focused on moving beyond the choir may be necessary.
3. Increased public engagement: There is the largest leap in the five stages, moving from awareness to engagement. Essentially, this is the leap from passive attention (viewing a film, reading a web site) to active engagement (promoting the film to friends, commenting on a web site). Reaching this state indicates a change in attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.
4. Stronger social movement: At this stage, people have moved from low level engagement to greater collective action. If the media engaged the choir, then they’ve become more creative or effective after engaging with your media. If the media reached new audiences, then they’ve joined existing organizations or created their own to reach the goals elucidated in your media.
5. Social change: This is the ultimate goal and, often, the most difficult to reach. At this stage the media has encouraged policy or legislative change, a tangible shift in the public dialog on the topic or influential changes in citizen or consumer behavior.

This model seems to suit public diplomacy media efforts well, though it would require some time spent on teasing out the specific measures, qualitative and quantitative, for each step. The Fledgling Fund has a good whitepaper on the model (PDF) that delves much deeper while also providing some useful real-world case studies.

There were a few more gems from the public media camp that I hope to write-up in the next week or so.

Visitors stream into the 1959 American National Exhibition. Moscow, USSR

Fifty years ago this month, on a muddy rain-soaked field in Moscow, a glittering pavilion quickly rose and a massive geodesic dome swiftly took shape. After only a few months of hectic construction the 1959 American National Exhibition opened to a curious Soviet public. The exhibit provided a unique window on American life to the millions of people who filed through the event over the next few weeks. The visitors saw examples of contemporary American life, from cars to homes to art. Young American guides, many barely out of college, led the curious Soviet public through both the general American story as well as their own deeply personal stories of life in the United States and, in many cases, how their immigrant families became American citizens.

Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev chats with a guide. Vice President Richard M. Nixon is at left.

Soon after opening the 1959 Exhibition hosted Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, who toured the exhibits with then Vice President Richard Nixon. In what became a touchstone of the early Cold War, these cold warriors verbally sparred in the kitchen of the model American home. Both leaders argued for the merits of each country’s unique civil and economic models in front of an inquisitive crowd and, more importantly, rolling news cameras. The “Kitchen Debate” as it came to be known, informed the opinions of the two leaders and provided one of the most compelling unscripted moments of the long conflict.

Beyond the statecraft practiced in front of the cameras, public diplomacy was the chief goal of the Exhibition. The hope was greater understanding brought about by the cultural exchange would lessen tensions between the two great nations, turning enemies into, at least, adversaries. The personal stories of the guides were meant to show the diversity of the country while the various displays sought to highlight the strength of a capitalist economy.

Was the event a success?

Did the Exhibition influence Soviet perceptions of the United States, and, by extension help America reach its policy objectives? Answering these questions, and many others, was the goal of the Face-Off to Facebook conference held last week at George Washington University. Opinions varied among the conference participants, who ranged from Exhibition staff members to representatives of the Moscow public to various academics, but most concluded the event was a qualified success.

William Safire, formerly a Nixon staff member, and now a New York Times columnist, took pains to expose the “gold colored fog” through which we now see the Cold War. At the time, American’s were quite apprehensive of how the conflict was proceeding and there were real concerns that the US could lose the war. In this context, the expo was quite successful in giving the United States a voice in Moscow, particularly when the kitchen debate gave Nixon a unique chance to speak directly for America on Soviet state-controlled television.

Guides to America

A guide demonstrates an American style kitchen

Many of the speakers and panelists focused on the unique role of the American guides, helping educate visitors about the United States. Barely out of college, these young Russian-speaking men and women discussed a wide range of topics with Muscovites, from the personal to the political. Importantly, they were not given strict talking points, allowing them to speak freely about their own perspectives and opinions, even if they ran counter (and they often did) to established American policy. Indeed, this freedom to speak meant the guides were personally engaging and underscored for the Exhibition visitors America’s willingness to support a multitude of differing voices, something quite unique in Soviet Moscow.

A Russian Perspective

Intriguingly, the conference also included representatives speaking to the Russian perspective. Sergei Khrushchev, son of Premier Nikita Khrushchev, and now a professor at Brown University, spoke both from his personal perspective as a young boy attending the Exhibition and on reactions from other Russian attendees he interviewed. For him and his peers, it was the handouts (pamphlets, books, samples of American drinks and food) that were the most tangible and memorable aspects of the expo. The cars, model American home, and other displays were simply out-of-reach to the average Soviet citizen, and, they assumed, were out of reach to the average American citizen as well. As such, while these items were interesting, Professor Khrushchev argued they were also largely dismissed.

Professor Khrushchev also emphasized the importance of the guides on helping to reframe perspectives on the United States, again speaking to the importance of personal engagement to public diplomacy. For Clay Shirky, a professor from New York University, it was this “convening” function that was the key aspect of the Exhibition, a function long at the core of truly successful public diplomacy programs.

Visitors in the glass pavilion. The Exhibition featured a wide variety of American modern art, from paintings to sculptures.

Amusingly, the Exhibition also highlighted some areas of agreement amongst the Americans and Russians, most particularly a shared distaste of the modern art. Soviet journalists routinely questioned the artists’ sanity, while American Congressman merely accused them of being, ironically, “card carrying communists”.

In the end, the Exhibition was a remarkable achievement. Considering the vast logistical and political barriers that stood in its way, it is a feat that if even took place. The sheer scope was also a triumph: a vast complex of buildings seen by 2.7 million visitors. More critically, it helped inform Soviet perspectives on the United State while also providing a venue for the historically important debate between Khrushchev and Nixon.

However, as noted by George Feifer, a writer and former guide, whatever progress was made by the Exhibition and related summits, proved short-lived. All the steps forward came crashing down with Gary Powers’ ill-fated U2 flight in 1960. For Feifer, these two events stress the United States’ dangerous, and counter-productive, dependence on military power and the under-emphasis on productive, peaceful public diplomacy.

Later this week, I will post part 2, which looks at public diplomacy in the 21st Century and explores parallels between the 1959 Exhibition and modern PD.

Recently I attended the Politics Online Conference put on by George Washington University’s Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. Although I was only able to sit in on a handful of sessions, there were a number of very useful gems on how you can use social media to further political campaign goals. I’ve focused on the lessons most useful for public diplomacy campaigns.

One of the major themes of the conference is the necessity to create authentic engagement when using social media. Without creating this authenticity, it is much more difficult to influence the intended audience since there is little personal connection with the message. Many lobbyists regularly emphasized that a handful of authentic, personal messages from constituents are more convincing than a mass quantity of relatively anonymous messages. Furthermore, genuine engagement between two parties (in this case politicians and constituents) can help create lasting communities and movements centered around specific causes, even if the engagement is conducted online.

Ideally this authenticity is created through direct personal engagement, a local focus and a tangible result. One example given was a campaign to influence legislation covering local food producers. To highlight the importance of these producers in local constituencies, a lobbyist organization used an online campaign to help local producers deliver care packages of non-perishable goods to their representatives. By using web-based technologies to make the constituent’s concerns tangible, the lobbyists were able to influence the final legislation to greater benefit local producers.

Many of the presenters also cautioned that campaigns can’t simply present themselves as grassroots and authentic, without actually engaging real people in the effort. Web users have gotten increasingly sophisticated and can often easily spot fake campaigns (otherwise known as “astroturfing”, a play on real “grassroots”). If a fake campaign is spotted, the repercussions can be serious and severely damage the credibility of the sponsoring organization.

A few other tips I found useful:

• If you can’t create your own parade, get in front of one. This was in response to a question asking if you didn’t have Obama, or a similarly motivational individual or cause, what can be done to get more attention to your campaign. One great suggestion was to track trends and get in front of ones that relate to your effort. This means it is important to track trends, such as through Twitter or Google, and see which ones are getting more attention. When adding related photos, Tweets, blog posts and so on, be sure to find out what tags are being used and label your content as such. For example, one of the sites I work on had put together a wealth of information on avian flu, pandemics, global health care and so on. While many of that was off the radar for many months, with the recent spread of H1N1, much of this content is now highly relevant to the global conversation on swine flu. As many have said before, “never waste a good crisis”.
• No media works in a vacuum. In basically every media market, no single form of media functions without at least some relation to other types. Newspapers influence TV and vise versa, while a scandal might break on Twitter or Facebook before making it to the nightly news broadcast. As such, you have to consider all dominant (and perhaps some not so dominant) media channels in your engagement programs. Ideally, all media campaigns should have integrated components across many forms of media, each tailored to the medium’s specific requirements. It is no longer possible to see a campaign as strictly a TV commercial, since that commercial may be recorded on a mobile phone, reposted on YouTube and then shared via Twitter. For that same reason, it is also important to monitor a wide variety of media for mentions, even if there isn’t any specific engagement taking place in them.
• Meeting in person is still – and always will be – the most influential type of engagement. It is far harder to be inauthentic, impersonal and non-transparent when meeting face to face. The sheer amount of information conveyed in the tone of a person’s voice, the way they present themselves and the messages they convey in the meeting makes personal connections far more moving than any other type of connection. As one presenter put it, “There is no substitute for a personal meeting with a member of congress.”

From Reader’s Digest, the challenges of Facebook Diplomacy.

Special thanks to Molly Moran (and her Mom) for sending this to me.

This post grew out of the recent Smith-Mundt Symposium, though since the conference was about a month ago, it is a bit late to the party. Several individuals have already written good summaries of the day’s discussion, so I direct you to those first.

That being said, there are a few points relating to the general conversation on Smith-Mundt and public diplomacy/strategic communications that are worth making (or reiterating).

First my general read-out of the event is that the issue remains quite contentious and with little overall agreement. Many argue the law should be kept, or even strengthened (and its remit expanded to the entire U.S. government) while others argue it should be completely repealed. A third group feel the argument is pointless since the law is out-dated and should be ignored, which can be done since, in the end, there are no “Smith-Mundt police” to arrest anyone for violating the law.

Smith-Mundt is a multi-faceted piece of legislation, dealing with the structure of public diplomacy, creating cultural exchanges, as well as the much argued ban on domestic distribution. Since the latter restriction has become the most contentious part of the act, I will focus my summary and comments here.

Position One: A Stronger Ban on Domestic Distribution

During the discussion, the first group pointed to several cases where the U.S. government attempted to “propagandize” the American public to argue for expanding the law. The two most prominent examples being the Department of Defense’s efforts to influence Iraq news coverage and the fictional reporter Karen Ryan who promoted government the Bush administration’s Medicare program.

Another camp that supports the continuation of Smith-Mundt are, interestingly, those working in the government on public diplomacy and strategic communication. For them, Smith-Mundt protects their from the over-zealous members of the public criticizing their products. For example, it allows the government to be self critical without being brought before Congress and accused of wasting tax-payer dollars on products that make the United States look bad. This is a consideration since the products produced by the U.S. government for public diplomacy are created with a foreign audience in mind and designed to their interests. So content tailored for an audience in Cuba may prove discordant to domestic Cuban-Americans. Having to please both a domestic and foreign audience, who may have widely divergent views of the United States and its values, is likely to result in material that resonates with neither audience.

Position Two: Abolishing the Ban on Domestic Distribution

For those who think Smith-Mundt should be abolished, there seem to be three main threads, two related to the lack of domestic oversight.

First, because there is no domestic distribution of these products, the work of these units in the government are pretty much invisible to the U.S. taxpayer. Unless you are in the intelligence business, you don’t want to be invisible to the hand that feeds you come budget time. Since there is no domestic awareness of these programs, there are no advocates for this type of work in Congress, so public diplomacy programs covered under Smith-Mundt are often marginalized and thusly poorly resourced.

The second side-effect of the lack of domestic oversight is you lose the expertise of the American public. This should not be understated, the U.S. is a diverse country with many first and second generation immigrants. These individuals have nuanced understanding of their originating country and culture. Having them contribute to information programs, either by commenting on existing products or suggesting new avenues of engagement, could make these efforts more relevant and resonant to focus populations.

The last argument for abolishing Smith-Mundt is that it restricts the ability of the U.S. government to engage the domestic population in public diplomacy programs. For example, many have pointed to public to public exchanges (either in person or online) as a key method for creating greater understanding between cultures. However, since helping to coordinate such efforts could include distributing government-funded information to domestic audiences, this activity could come under the perview of Smith-Mundt restrictions.

Position Three: Ignoring Smith-Mundt

The last group of commentators basically argue that Smith-Mundt is outdated and, since there is no history of enforcement, can safely be ignored. This contingent seems to be largely made up retired foreign service officers. In their work overseas, Smith-Mundt never came up and, as such, was soundly ignored.

Since there is little provision for enforcement, and no one has been prosecuted for running afoul of Smith-Mundt, those working in Washington can also safely ignore the act and go about their daily business.

My Take

The question of domestic distribution is a challenging one and I can appreciate the arguments on both sides. There certainly needs to be some restriction on domestic propaganda, as evidenced by the actions of the Department of Defense and the Bush administration’s fake reporter. However, in this increasingly transparent world, such a restriction should be largely unnecessary since dishonest efforts like these will almost certainly unmasked. Such programs make the government look underhanded and untrustworthy, thus doing more harm than good. Any agency that professes transparency while willfully trying to mislead the public (foreign or domestic) shouldn’t be communicating in the first place.

The question of oversight is, for me, more tricky. For every individual who’s unique cultural understanding can benefit information programs, there is another who will angrily disagree with a product, and quite willing to take this quarrel to their Congressperson. How to balance the positive and negative influences of domestic oversight is a key question without an easy answer. Much of it will come down to, first, education, explaining the methods and goals of public diplomacy, and, second, demonstrating the context in which an information campaign is being delivered.

In the end however, I feel Smith-Mundt does need to be revisited with new legislation for one key reason: information is global, in a way never envisioned by the original drafters of the act. Restricting the distribution of a book or movie was easy when it was intricately tied to a physical medium (a rivalrous good, to use an economist term). Now, something the government publishes on the web for a foreign audience, is available anywhere, easily recopied and quickly disseminated further. And that introduces significant ambiguity in those engaging in public diplomacy online. For example, could tailoring a website to rank higher in search rankings be considered domestic dissemination since all of the most popular engines have large numbers of American users?

Ultimately, I think the real goal here should be transparency. The main objective with the ban on domestic dissemination is to prevent the U.S. government from surreptitiously influencing the American public. If viewers, domestic and foreign, are fore-warned that the content they are viewing was created by the government, they can then make their own judgments as to its veracity. After all, when delivering information on United States’ policy, how is the work of public diplomats all that different from public affairs officials? Certainly public diplomacy and public affairs are two different activities, but, in the end, their goal is to inform, and thereby influence, public opinion.

Besides, to be a credible voice, the government needs to be honest and open. If something is produced by the government or with government money, it should be stated as such. Perhaps Smith-Mundt 2.0 should be one line: “Information programs funded by the government should be identified as such, and strive for honesty, objectivity and transparency.”

As Edward R Murrow, journalist and former director of the United States Information Agency once said, “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful.”

His presentation, and the following discussion, focused on his personal experience as a blogger, including his engagement with counterpart bloggers in the Middle East, and on the general history and landscape of blogging in the Middle East.

A History of Blogging in the Middle East

In his presentation, Professor Lynch focused on three main phases of blogging in the Middle East:

1. Initially, many of the blogs in the Middle East were written in English and focused on the American audience. Some commentators called them “bridge” bloggers, in that they provided a bridge between the perspectives of the Middle Eastern authors and the American readers. However, as these bloggers became more popular in the United States, they began to tailor their message to very specific audiences, typically either quite conservative or liberal. The same commentators then began derisively referring to them as “mirror” bloggers, since they often reflected what their audiences wanted to hear about, re-enforcing existing biases.

2. The second phase, which reached its zenith around 2005, saw many activists become prominent bloggers who focused largely on internal social change. These blogs were written in local languages and dialects and the audience was typically domestic. Often these bloggers were local elites, many Western-educated, and were already established activists before turning to blogging as an outlet.

   These activists wrote about police brutality, restrictions on protest or speech, government corruption and other examples of domestic oppression. Their focus was internal and generally paid little attention to the United States.

   Unfortunately, as the prominence of these activists grew through their blogs they increasingly gained the attention of local authorities. Unsurprisingly, once noticed by the oppressive political state, it oppressed them. Many were thrown in jail, some were tortured and the nascent ferment of this movement was crushed.

   Despite their hope that their prominence, both domestic and international, would protect them from this oppression, telling, few (or none) of individuals or countries with sufficient influence came to their defense.

3. Lynch classifies the latest and current phase as the “public sphere enterprise”. Basically this means bloggers engaging in public discussion and argument, but without the expectation that such activity will result in big changes. The bloggers in this phase were always active, but were over-shadowed by the “bridge” and activist bloggers. They are a very small minority, often young elites, and typically talk only to each other. Their blogging won’t be overthrowing oppressive regimes any time soon.

   Nonetheless, the ideas they are creating and shaping may have significant ripples in the next 10 to 20 years as many of these individuals rise to positions of power. Importantly, blogging has created channels of communication between some divergent, but equally oppressed groups. In Egypt, for example, blogging has created connections between secular activists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood, to the point that each side will advocate for the other when the state bears down hard.

   As important as these connections and ideas are however, the great open, democratic ferment written about in the main stream media is now dormant in the Middle East, successfully cowed by oppressive governments. More and more bloggers are coming online though, so a resurgence may be in the making, sometime in the future.

Public Diplomacy 2.0 in the Middle East: What do to?

Faced with the current Middle East landscape, with oppressive regimes in ascendancy and free-thinking bloggers driven out or to the margins, how should the United States approach web-based public diplomacy?

Lynch highlighted five key lessons and methods that should guide American public diplomacy efforts in the Middle East.

First: Work on broad principals

Most importantly, the United States needs to work on broad principals, such as press freedom and personal rights. It is preferable and almost always better to have local voices pushing for change, which is much harder under oppressive regimes. Furthermore, by picking winners, the U.S. risks turning them into losers and making the situation worse. For example, it makes little sense for the U.S. to create a social network for Arabs since they will, if given the latitude, create their own, better, network, free from U.S. government restrictions.

Second: Don’t be blinded by the tech

It is important not to let the technology blind practitioners to the basics of public diplomacy. It is pointless to depend on blogs, Facebook or other technologies to lead a revolution. Along this line, the U.S. government shouldn’t create exaggerated expectations on what individual bloggers can do. Public diplomacy efforts shouldn’t place too much burden on these voices, especially when there is no way to protect them from an oppressive regime.

Third: Listen

The United States needs to get better at listening. Too much of public diplomacy has been about “winning” and not enough about “understanding”. Developing this capacity to listen and understand should look at the wide range of public opinion, not just the loudest or scariest. Of the material that gets translated and circulated among the highest offices in the U.S. government, a majority is often pulled from jihadist web forums. While important from a security perspective, this massively misrepresents Middle Eastern public opinion, leading to poor understanding and, ultimately, poor policy. Similarly, it is important to listen to a wide array of data points, from newspapers to television, not just blogs (though blogs can suggest what topics are resonating in the wider audience).

Fourth: Understand that “Google rules the world”

It is important to be on the web and, most especially, have material that ranks highly on Google. Professor Lynch gave the example of Al Hurra, the U.S. government-funded Middle East broadcast channel, who refuses to publish their transcripts online and rarely pushes their video to YouTube and other popular outlets. Al Jazeera, in stark contrast, publishes everything, text and video, in a wide variety of venues. The result: Al Jazeera’s content lives forever while Al Hurra’s dies immediately.

Fifth: Encourage open, honest exchange

Lastly, when the U.S. does engage, it needs to be open, transparent and credible. Lynch praised three Department of State public diplomacy programs as fulfilling this requirement: the Digital Outreach Team, which engages in discussions with bloggers in the Middle East, the Democracy Video Contest, an open video competition to complete the phrase “Democracy is…”, and Fulbright and other exchanges.

I want to thank Marc for allowing me to share his thoughts with the wider community and highly suggest you subscribe to his new blog hosted by ForeignPolicy.com.

The Israeli Consulate in New York recently held the first Twitter-based press conference. While it was an interesting experiment, the technology was poorly suited for this sort of activity (read two good critiques from COMOPS and Columbia Journalism Review). As Rachel Maddow pointed out, they were trying to explain a conflict in 140 characters that authors have struggled to decipher in books. Many critiques have been written on this, so I will highlight a counter-example where Twitter proved an excellent medium for delivering press-type engagement.

Sean McCormack, the State Department’s spokesman, twittered (and photographed) his way through the recent negotiations and vote on the UN Security Council’s Gaza cease-fire resolution. His tweets noted the negotiation process all through to the final vote, which passed with the U.S. the lone country abstaining. His updates were interesting on their own, conveying a sense of insider information and a direct connection with the process.

What I found more interesting though, was immediately after the vote, several people asked McCormack, via Twitter, why the U.S. chose to abstain. At this point, the mainstream media had only just reported on the vote and provided little additional context (and none had explained the U.S. abstention). He fired off a few quick responses, including:

“@kmcurry support ceasefire but wanted more progress Mubarak initiative before a vote. That said, wanted to get to ceasefire.” – link

While he didn’t get into details, expectations were low (unlike the consulate event) and because this was so impromptu and immediate, a handful of sentences were all that was needed. More detailed explanation could come later. His quick replies really gave a real sense of openness, engagement and immediacy. Naturally, scale helped a lot here, this was informal and he probably only received a dozen questions (if that), most on the decision to abstain.

Social media as a multiplier

As I’ve said before, social media serves best as a multiplier in public diplomacy. Ideally, the foundation of any engagement should be face-to-face discussions (or other more “high fidelity” engagement, preferably in person). Twitter and other social media tools are useful as a support to this on-the-ground engagement, creating what some have called “ambient intimacy” between site visits.

For all the talk of coordinated outreach, the Israeli Consulate didn’t initially seem to tie their Twitter use to their other outreach efforts. Nonetheless, while the actual press conference failed, choosing to hold it was a publicity coup. Most of the criticism thus far has been focused on the use of the tool, not on the message being delivered, and anything that brings people back to the Israeli content channels, is a net positive for them. They (and everyone else) will learn from this, and the next try will be better, though less notable.

Indeed, it is obvious they recognized the shortcomings. If you look at their archive of the press conference, their replies are not the original stilted 140 character responses but paragraph long explanations of Israel’s side of the conflict.

After summarizing some of the commentary surrounding Deputy Assistant Secretary Colleen Graffy’s use of Twitter, I have a few points I think are worth adding. First off, I’ll admit a bias in favor of Twitter since I use the service and have come to like the unique interaction and community it can foster (not to mention my bias toward the State Department, where I earn my daily bread).

Nonetheless, I appreciate many of the criticisms levied against Graffy’s use of Twitter, particularly those that critique it’s usefulness as a public diplomacy tool. Indeed, I agree that Twitter’s usefulness – and social media general – is naturally limited by the inherently impersonal nature of the interaction. I really doubt any web-based mechanism will ever fully replicate the fidelity of live, person-to-person interaction. Furthermore, as many have pointed out, the web only reaches a small minority of the world’s population so television, books, radio and on-the-ground interaction will, for a long time to come, constitute the backbone of public diplomacy efforts.

Social media as a multiplier

What many of the commentators seem to be missing however is that Twitter comprised a very small part of her outreach. Just by reading through the tweets from her European trip, it is obvious that she spent much more time utilizing the oldest public diplomacy tool available: face-to-face meetings. Anyone who thinks we can replace person-to-person engagement with social media – and still maintain the relationships public diplomacy depends upon – will be sorely disappointed. It is in support and along-side this in-person engagement that social media is most useful – not in lieu of it.

Graffy alluded to this when she said “[c]ommunicating in this peppy, informal medium helped to personalize my visit and enhance my impact as a U.S. official”. For a marginal amount of extra effort, she was able to connect with a wide variety of individuals before, during and after her trip, giving them a chance to better see her as a person and not a random government official passing through. Her individual tweets (and photos and videos) provided a constant low-level engagement that help create regular awareness of Graffy and her work. It is through this sustained contact that the impact of her visit is then magnified. Leisa Reichelt calls this “ambient intimacy“, the ability to regularly keep in touch with people “you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible”. In addition to time and space, social media also flattens hierarchy, a barrier to interaction not easily surmounted in real-life interactions.

All about the personal

This leads nicely into my next point, that social media is, fundamentally, about the personal – just like the face-to-face interaction critical to effective public diplomacy. In an offline meeting, the personal touch is always there, how someone looks, the sound of their voice, the personal stories they tell and the give-and-take of conversation. This interaction helps make the representative a tangible, real person. Reaching this level of fidelity in online conversations is not easy and may appear awkward or banal, but perhaps no more-so than a third-party may find in an overheard in-person discussion. It is this “over-sharing” (intentional or no) that really brings a person to life, whether online or off.

It is for this reason that some have argued that brands or organizations don’t belong on Twitter in the first place. Social networks are, after all, places for people to interact. Notably, many well-known personalities also use social media solely to further their brands, focusing on broadcasting instead of creating real relationships.

I think the Obama campaign is a perfect example of this. It was omnipresent online. If there was a social media tool, you can bet Obama had a profile. Yet, for all the praise directed toward the campaign’s use of new media, much of it was aimed at disseminating campaign material and empowering users while comparatively little on personally connecting Obama with voters. The Obama campaign was certainly on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook (and everywhere else), but it would be a stretch to say Obama himself was.

In contrast, it is plainly obvious that Graffy is maintaining her own Twitter feed. Those who engage with her on Twitter can be reasonably confident they are having a real one-on-one conversation with her and not the unit’s media intern. Stripping the personal from her Twitter stream would turn her tweets into just another State Department outlet, of which there are already plenty.

Planning and policy

Taking a step back, I nonetheless concur with several of the criticisms, though perhaps not when specifically relating to Graffy’s use of Twitter. Ilan Berman’s second point, that Washington lacks an overarching communications and engagement strategy (particularly in regards to the Middle East and confronting our enemies), is generally accurate and regularly cited. Better coordination between public diplomacy efforts, particularly those using social media, would help present a more coherent image and more consistent engagement (while also improving efficiency).

Second, Charles Brown’s criticism that Graffy’s tweets lacked any sort of policy message is well-founded, but her avoidance of policy commentary is understandable, though not desirable. State has extensive rules on vetting public statements, whether online or off (occasionally for good reason). Hopefully the shift to social media will encourage greater freedom for Department staff members to speak on policy, but these restrictions will not disappear swiftly or easily.

Ultimately however, the worst outcome would be for State to give up and simply cede this ground. Not everyone will agree with efforts like Graffy’s use of Twitter, but they demonstrate a real willingness to go beyond merely pushing a message to really trying to foster real conversations (both online and off), which, in the end, is what public diplomacy is all about.

I have a few points of my own which I will make in a following post, but I thought a summary of the timeline and major critiques might be useful.

Graffy started Twittering in November, focusing mostly on her overseas travel, which included stops all across Europe. She touched on a number of the meetings and events she was attending on her trip, including meetings with school groups, government officials and others. She got an initial boost of attention when DipNote, the State Department’s official public affairs blog, highlighted her trip and Twitter feed.

Spencer Ackerman was one of the first to comment on her use of Twitter, criticizing her of over-sharing in several tweets relating to a visit to the Blue Lagoon, a spa in Iceland where she ran into the deputy chief of mission.

• “in Boston now boarding flight to Iceland! forgot gym clothes, forgot bathing suit (possible Blue Lagoon visit). advice: don’t pack in 30 min (link)
• Small world — ran into DCM [deputy chief of mission] Neil Klopfenstein just before plunge into Blue Lagoon. Bathing suit not my sartorial choice for first meet! Ack! (link)

Her Twitter thread received even wider attention when Al Kamen, the Washington Post’s (typically satirical) political correspondent, mentioned a few of her more frivolous posts, including the two above, in his column The Loop. His column was quickly picked up by a number of Twitter users, many of whom (including myself) defended Graffy’s use of Twitter and suggested that Kamen probably didn’t “get” Twitter.

Matthew Burton then noted in his Twitter feed that Wikipedia defines public diplomacy as starting “from the premise that dialogue, rather than a sales pitch”. Burton further weighted-in with a blog post in which he praised Graffy’s use of Twitter, noting her “personal touch is exactly how she should be using Twitter”. He also criticized commentators for poking fun at Graffy, arguing such ridicule will simply make it less likely public officials will be willing to experiment with social media in the future.

Charles Brown of Diplomatic Follies, while suggesting Graffy’s spontaneity on Twitter was a step forward, criticized the lack of opinion or policy in her tweets. Indeed, he notes Graffy “doesn’t even explain why she made the trip in the first place”. In a similar vein, Karen Nelson questioned whether twittering was an efficient use of Graffy’s time.

Ilan Berman, on the American Foreign Policy Council blog, provided a more historical perspective in his critique, arguing that strategic outreach during the Cold War helped provide “hope to captive audiences behind the Iron Curtain” and Graffy’s “email blasts” fell far short of those efforts. The main thrust of Berman’s argument is “public diplomacy and strategic communication are not about total transparency” but are “…intended to communicate ideas and values to the outside world. When America speaks, the words need to inspire and empower.”

The post sparked a very interesting comment thread, which included a reply from Graffy. While she raised the risk of mixing the personal and professional, Graffy noted that her tweets have “helped personalize the diplomatic role”, making her more accessible to her audience. Through her use of Twitter, she was able to connect with the youth in the locations she was visiting, giving them a chance to get to know her before meeting in person. Many of the following comments were supportive, the majority focusing on the humanizing aspect of the communication medium.

Berman provided the last comment, conceding that the “personal” diplomacy she was engaging in “indeed has a place as an adjunct to official outreach” but was not a “substitute for it”. Indeed, it was not the “marginal” usefulness of Twitter (or other social networks) that Berman had the took significant issue with, but rather the lack of over-arching strategy and clear, coherent messaging.

Graffy followed up her comments with an op-ed in the Washington Post, where she expanded on her point that Twitter allows people to get to know her better as a real person, enhancing the face-to-face meetings she was having on her trip. She noted: “One young Romanian student said: ‘We feel like we already know you — you are not some intimidating government official. We feel comfortable talking with you.’” She closed with the argument that public diplomacy practitioners need to engage in these new mediums since that is where the conversation is moving.

Lastly, Matt Armstrong (from MountainRunner) followed-up with several points. While touching on the importance of personal connections in public diplomacy, he places Graffy’s communication in line with more traditional public diplomacy which has long operated in a dynamic, crowded and very personal environment. What Anderson sees as the more fundamental problem however is not the lack of coordinated action or Graffy’s “over-sharing” but rather that there is “no understanding of the purpose of public diplomacy and equally important no leadership in the field”. The result is that many of the most critical participants in public diplomacy, the Secretary of State, Congress, the American media, academia and others, are not closely involved in the process.

I’ll post my reaction in a day or two.

Glassman focused a good deal on the “war of ideas”, basically idea that the U.S. needs to use public diplomacy (and strategic communications) more to encourage people to choose alternatives to violence instead of trying to make the U.S. more popular. Much as been written on this, so I will keep my notes in this area limited. Nonetheless, it is important to understand that much of the following was presented through this lens.

As I saw it, Glassman had two main points:

1. Not the technology: Public diplomacy 2.0 is not, and should not be, about the technology. Instead, public diplomacy 2.0 is a (somewhat) new process for communication and, more importantly, engagement. Indeed, Glassman noted that the State Department has long been doing web 2.0 style public diplomacy, just without (or with different) technology. He pointed to cultural exchanges and encouraging foreigners to study in the U.S. as exemplifying “web 2.0” type two-way engagement the U.S. government has long been involved with.

   One of the primary examples Glassman gave of this point was the Columbian movement against FARC which, by utilizing the social networking site Facebook, put millions of people on streets around the world to protest against the rebel group. While he noted that Facebook was important to facilitate the marches, there had to be a preexisting enabling environment.

2. Web 2.0 gives the U.S. a significant competitive advantage: This new conversational medium gives the United States a significant competitive advantage over our opponents, most specifically Al Qaeda. Glassman’s argument is that the U.S.’s fundamental message (democracy, personal freedom, etc) is more compatible with the web 2.0 world than Al Qaeda’s (war of cultures, global jihad, etc). Ultimately, Glassman argues that, to be successful, Al Qaeda needs to control the message, which is not possible in the web 2.0 marketplace of ideas. To quote directly: “There is a reason Al Qaeda blows up marketplaces”.

   To support this point, Glassman highlighted Al Qaeda’s difficulty with engaging on social networks and video sharing sites since that opens them up to direct criticism which then dilutes their message. In contrast, Glassman mentioned the Democracy Video Challenge, which encourages the public to submit a video on how they view democracy. Importantly, the winning video may not share the Department of State or U.S. government’s perspective on democracy.

Five best practices and three concerns

Glassman also highlighted the five best methods for conducting public diplomacy 2.0:

1. Indirect engagement usually works best: Having the message delivered through a third-party is often better than delivering it directly. Glassman used this example: Muslims often view the U.S. as hostile to their religion, despite the millions of Muslims who freely practice their faith in America. To address this dichotomy, Moroccan journalists were invited by the U.S. government to interview American Muslims on their lives and faith. This resulted in a multi-part documentary aired on Moroccan television. While the presentation did highlight some of the problems American Muslims face in the U.S., the overall impression conveyed was quite positive.
2. Convene and facilitate: The U.S. government is often an ideal avenue to find people and groups doing good things, put them in contact with each other and then to lend long-term support. Furthermore, as a facilitator, the U.S. government needs to be willing to release control, acting more as a steward for the conversation. Glassman noted the upcoming Alliance of Youth Movements as an example of this. The event, taking place later this week in New York City, will connect leaders of youth movements in a global network that seeks to empower young people to mobilize against violence and oppression.
3. Expertise resides in private sector: Significant innovation, experience and expertise resides in the private sector and public-private partnerships need to be formed to create a gateway to harness these resources. At the same time, Glassman was critical of some of the recent reports that suggest a non-governmental organization would be best equipped to create such partnerships, noting his concern about out-sourcing core public diplomacy functions.
4. Best public diplomacy has long been web 2.0, just without the name: As noted above, much of the public diplomacy already being taken place fits well within the web 2.0 environment, even if they are not utilizing the underlying technologies.
5. Speed is essential: Conversations and innovations are increasingly happening in real-time, so the U.S. government needs to be faster, more agile and increasingly entrepreneurial. Since this is likely to mean fewer checks on messaging, the government also has to be willing to back people up if and when they do make mistakes.

In addition to his best practices, Glassman also pointed to three concerns:

1. Everything we do must be strategic: Continuing his calls for better coordination, everything, whether public diplomacy 2.0 or 1.0, needs to be based on a strategic plan. Furthermore, this strategic plan needs to be based on specific goals, such as increasing domestic security and/or promoting freedom abroad.
2. Need to balance between the tried-and-true and the up-and-coming: While it is important to always keep looking for the next method of communication and engagement, tried-and-true programs (such as student/cultural exchanges and broadcast journalism) also need continual support.
3. Proportionality: Public diplomacy is only part of the way to achieve our goals and, in some cases, military force will be necessary. Soft power is never a substitute for hard power. The inverse is also true.

A number of the State Department’s programs were mentioned throughout the presentation and following discussion. Since much has been written on them already, I’ll just note those mentioned:

• America.gov and Blogs at America.gov
• Blogger roundtables
• Co.Nx Facebook group
• Democracy Video Challenge
• Digital Outreach Team
• DipNote (also on DipNote on Twitter)
• Exchanges social networks
  
• Second Life engagement (one, two, three)

Due to the Undersecretary’s tight schedule, the question and answer period was quite compressed so I’ve integrated many of the replies into the above notes. Many of the questions also touched on well-covered areas (persistent funding/resource constraints, power of words vs. deeds) or were somewhat off-topic (role of VOA/BBG, approach to the Arab media), so I’ve not addressed the responses here. For more on these issues, skim through my (very) rough notes (PDF).

I also had a few questions which, alas, there was no time for. Here they are:

1. How are public diplomacy 2.0 programs measured and evaluated? Quantitative questions are only useful to a point while qualitative measures are often difficult to systemize and institutionalize. How is success defined? (This is a regular issue I face in my work and I wonder if there is being addressed on an institutional level.)
2. With the focus on the “war of ideas”, is there too little emphasis on influencing perception of publics in friendly countries? The U.S. has substantial business with many of her closest allies and those nation’s public opinions matter. There are innumerable examples of how foreign public opinion can shape U.S. policies and goals, but here are a few: foreign troop engagement levels in Iraq or Afghanistan, settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or defining global warming or agricultural policy.
3. Are we coordinating public diplomacy and strategic communication efforts with our allies? With less focus on “Brand America” and more on providing alternatives to violence, there is much more scope for international coordination.