Everyone has seen the photo of the little Vietnamese girl running away from the napalm, the man in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square and the death of Neda during the Iranian protests.  UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave an inspiring talk at TED and explained why these images came to symbolize and publicize a movement for the rest of the world to see.  These moving photos evoke a strong emotional response and are testaments to the power of the image to inspire action and civic participation.

As I discussed in an earlier post, technology and social media are helping to give a voice to people whose stories might otherwise not be heard.  In his talk, Brown says:
Read the rest of this entry »

Brookings Fellow Cynthia Schneider has a great TED talk about how popular television shows like Afghan Idol and Poet of the Millions, which is broadcast throughout the Arab world, are changing tribal societies.  These merit-based competitions, with equal access to everyone and the winner selected via SMS voting, are reaching incredibly deep into society. People of all ages go to great lengths to watch the shows in private and public places, and become so engaged that they campaign for their favorite candidate.
Read the rest of this entry »

Jeff Mascott had a column yesterday in The Hill, a congressionally-focused Beltway newspaper, in which he talks about the State Department’s use of social media as a tool in diplomacy.

Mascott edits kstreetcafe.com, a blog about how technology and the Internet are changing the public affairs industry, and is managing director of the Adfero Group, a public relations firm. He highlights the Democracy Video Challenge – which we mentioned in a previous blog post – as a prime example of State’s use of social media:
Read the rest of this entry »

Jerome Gary led a brainstorming session on some of the issues for the 2010 iDiplomacy conference to discuss items such as who should sponsor it, who will attend, the agenda, location, etc. The conference will be held in Washington D.C., next year with exact date and venue still to be determined. Attendees later split up into four groups to discuss different elements of the larger conference, such as the legislative agenda, what mediums should be used, and who should be attending.

Some of the issues discussed included:
Read the rest of this entry »

On Nov. 11 the groups reconvened after a breakout session to present their ideas for public diplomacy initiatives (mostly with a social media angle).

Group 1 presented an extensive list of suggestions:
1.) A series of video shorts called “My America is” or have a touring film festival about “my America is”. This can include particular ethnic groups and immigrants talking about their experiences.
2.) Encourage local community voting to select local development projects, whether it’s a public art center or sports center. This will give local development projects more of a feeling of local buy-in, rather than Americans coming in to push something on the local community.
Read the rest of this entry »

Films can serve as a powerful medium to engage audiences, both U.S. and foreign. Jerome Gary and Leon Shahabian showed trailers for a couple of the film/television projects they have been working on through Visionaire Media and Layalina Productions.
Read the rest of this entry »

James Fowler, UC San Diego professor and author of Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, had a formative experience learning how social networks work when he went to Ecuador for the Peace Corps and helped a small town build a water system. He became frustrated after he was unable to duplicate those efforts in 29 other villages but he realized over his two years of living there that building infrastructure was not the most valuable aspect of his stint. “The real value of the Peace Corps is the connections I made with the people while I was there.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Joseph Assi was born in a Christian refugee camp in Lebanon and spent his entire life there until he was chosen to be a cast member of the second season of “On the Road in America,” a documentary-reality TV series about four young Middle Easterners traveling across the U.S. by RV. (On the Road in America, Season II, will air next year.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Colleen Graffy has an article, The Rise of Public Diplomacy 2.0, in the Fall issue of The Journal of International Security Affairs. Graffy is a professor at Pepperdine University’s law school and director of global programs. She recently served as the first deputy assistant secretary for Public Diplomacy to be appointed to the State Department, serving in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. According to her Pepperdine bio, “Professor Graffy was the first high level US government official to actively advance ‘Public Diplomacy 2.0’ using Twitter and other social media platforms to further U.S. communications.”

Traditionally, the State Department has been risk averse when it comes to getting its message out, Graffy says, with off-the-record, print-centric roundtables the primary means that U.S. embassies used to communicate. But audiences in those countries were increasingly shaping their views from watching television and listening to radio.

Read the rest of this entry »

Elan, a magazine on global Muslim youth culture, has compiled a Top 10 list for best Twitter accounts that Muslims should follow. According to Farrah Hamid, Queen Rania of Jordan is tops on his list, with over 950,000 followers and daily tweets. Her recent tweets include her state visit to Rome, Hillary Clinton’s support for global education (#1GOAL) and mini-movie reviews of District 9 and The Men Who Stare at Goats.

Read the rest of this entry »