The Glocalization of Diplomacy

Persuading with soft power is easier said than done. Hard power is accomplished with a gun or a law but the root of soft power's influence is much less concrete. However, as the readings noted, it is just as important.

Nye notes that a country's soft power stems from its culture, values and policies. The main vehicle for transmitting this is normally public diplomacy. The most crucial resource for soft power and pubic diplomacy lies in the credibility backing it. This credibility can be undercut by illegitimate policies or culturally unacceptable points of view. If this happens, the soft power of a country is diminished and it becomes more difficult to persuade a country or government to agree with them.

However, the flex of soft power is also being used by groups such as Al Jazeera. Powers & Gilboa discuss the current perception in Arab states of Al Jazeera's credibility and its overwhelming popularity. This has brought it influence and power over the Arab and international political agenda. Powers & Gilboa call Al Jazeera a new form of public diplomacy that is "blurring of traditional distinctions between public and traditional diplomacy and between cultural diplomacy, marketing and news management."

What I found most intriguing about this discussion is that Powers & Gilboa tie Al Jazeera's success to a form of glocalization. They say it is a blend of the local Arab perspective with the global western media method and technologies in a "sign of symbolic equilibrium between the Occident and the Other." We have studied this blending of global and local with products that the global corporations are trying to sell but it was new to hear it discussed in the field of public diplomacy.

Perhaps this is the way diplomacy is moving in general. It is no longer a dictation, as James Glassman called it but a conversation. The new diplomacy conversation must absorb and involve local perspectives in order to achieve a global dialog and understanding.

The media is a rather powerful entity. Internationally, the media (television mostly) provides the world with a view/opinion of the global public sphere. The media presents various perspectives, facts, and images of many global events. Wars are frequently covered and intepreted by the media, based on this week's readings. Governments use the media as a means of transmitting its message to its citizens and the world. Focusing mostly on the United States and its "War on Terror," Bush utilized the media to shape a perception that would defuse criticsim and mobilize support of the decisions he had made and were going to make after the 9/11 attacks. The Bush administration was very successful in framing the war. They used carefully selected terms such as "coalition forces" and "liberation" when presenting to the public. This part of the process is considered an approach to media management drawn from domestic politics. Basically, the administration was spinning the information to create favorable circumstances domestically. Spinning was not just synonomous to the Bush administration. Previous presidents have utilized the same practices. It is used internationally as well. Bin Laden catered his messages on Al-Jazeera; he attempted to persuade others that America was fighting against Islam because throughout the process America had to constantly reinterate that this was not a war against Islam. The media obtains much of its news via its local government, so it should be no surprise that the government uses the media as a tool of propaganda. However, it amazes me that so many involved parties just go along with the process and many times offer questions afterwards.

CNN is a prominent supplier of television news. The CNN effect is an idea the media function as a "conduit of a politics stuck in a rut and paralysed by special interests." The CNN effect suggest that the media simply focus on things relative to conflicts, elitism, regionalism, and/or politics. An example was how German television seemed to have forgotten about the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and focused more on the Iraq War because it had a higher level of resonance internationally.

Based on this week's readings, I view international media as propaganda. Sure anything that deals with politics is subject to consisting of some type of propanda, but I am still surprised. Various international television news networks are beginning to share information that will offer a more favorable view of their home country. (i.e. Al-Jazeera shares infor with other Western television networks). It was interesting to see the stair step of how international news trickles down from the government to the news agencies, media, and consumers. New communication technologies definitely have assisted by allowing news to travel at a much faster rate, but all of the news that travels is not meaningful, or should I say its significance has been skewed. Is it safe for me to say that it isn't news unless the current presidential administration allows it to be??

Setting the Frame

With the number of political international actors increasing along with their channels for communicating, the framing of messages becomes an important part of global communications, politics and diplomacy. Hanson described framing as the meaning or interpretation that is given to events so that they can be understood. She also noted that the ability to frame was affected by cultural congruence, the degree of consensus, the amount of control and the nature of event.

Examining the response to Sept 11th provides great insight into the power of framing. Brown discusses how this catastrophe could have been framed as a law enforcement matter or a cause for war. The Bush administration chose to use words like battlefields, beachheads, assaults - laying the groundwork for the 'war on terror.' Hanson says specifically that the War on Terror was framed as an open-ended and global conflict that could be directed against any adversary.

This framing was so widespread and effective that the national newspapers and media wholeheartedly accepted the frame and bolstered its messages by mainly reporting on topics that supported it. Alternative discussions were put in the back pages of newspapers or ignored. While this approach worked well in the USA, it was a more difficult sell internationally and did encounter resistance.

In response to the US framing of the war, Al Qaeda offered their own frame - a war on Islam. They too recognize the necessity of getting people to support their movement and would specifically counter messages that the Western media presented. In this example, both sides have fully engaged in what Brown calls 'perception management.'

How the media chooses to report on these different frames is the main point of concern. How does the public see past the framing and get the actual facts especially when the media agenda has many times been set by national governments in the past. Perhaps the increase in media outlets nationally and internationally will provide a more balanced view or perhaps it will be more of the same. Hopefully, the media and public have learn from the framing and blind following of Sept 11 and seek to question government framing to form their own conclusions.

Contextualization

This week's readings all dealt with the new ways and effectiveness of specific interest groups, including media outlets, NGOs and governments, trying to shape news stories, especially in crisis situations. As new developments in ICTs allow these groups to more quickly and easily communicate and to more readily obtain information, they also necessitate quicker decisions and responses from these actors in leadership positions. Also, these response actions and their consequences are made even more visible to the greater public through the use of new ICTs.

As a result, gaining public support for government policies has become more essential for politicians, even as this process has become more challenging due to the abundance and diversity of news sources available. The Brown piece and the Hafez chapter both mentioned topics that I thought resonated with two widely covered news events from the last week.

In Brown's writing on shaping public opinion of the War on Terrorism, she mentions that 'perception management' is becoming an increasingly important tool of political conflict. The concept of 'perception management' can be applied to the recent attack at Fort Hood. For the last few days, American government and Armed Forces officials have made many public statements to the media about how this attack should be perceived in light of the shooters ethnic, cultural, and religious background. I think that there has been a very cautious stance by the government and the media alike when framing this unfortunate and tragic event and that no one is interested in making any hasty conclusions about how the attacker's religious faith contributed to the carrying out of the shooting.

The second event that has gotten a lot of news coverage this week, especially in the print media, has been the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As someone who has studied German for the last 10 years, I have never seen this much high-profile news coverage of ANYTHING that has to do with Germany. Even when Angela Merkel, proclaimed by Forbes in 2007 as the most powerful woman in the world, won her second term as German Chancellor last month, it was barely a blip on the American news media's radar. In the Hafez chapter, he states that during the Cold War, international issues received greater attention than in the era of globalization. I thought it was ironic then that this week the American news media just so happened to be enamored with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, a throw-back (and major victory for the West) to Cold War era news.

The readings for this week really emphasize the great opportunities that governments, NGOs and media outlets now have to shape news coverage of both domestic and international events due to new ICTs. They also underscore the increased level of complexity that these actors have to deal with when gauging how their news messages will be received by audiences both at home and abroad.

Brown and Hafez

Both the Robin Brown and Kai Hafez readings stressed the importance of media in both conveying stories and in suggesting interpretations through language. Brown suggests that media is increasingly driven by a desire to produce appealing content, thus limiting the state’s role in production and utilizing professional media conglomerates to dictate story lines. This new dynamic encourages competition and urges “domestic broadcasters to offer a product that is attractive to audiences” (89). However, with an increasingly prevalent desire for appealing content, I wonder if this compromises the request for factual news media? Or can both exist simultaneously?

Just as another author has suggested in previous readings, Brown suggests that media is increasingly shaping us, along with our interpretations and assumptions. Brown emphasizes this by describing the consequences of word selection in public broadcasting. He argues that Bush’s “war against terrorism” precipitated specific connotations regarding war, religion, and terror. I agree with Brown’s hypothesis and have also noticed the influence of diction in public media. Not only does word choice demonstrate a bias, but it subtly infuses the viewer’s perception with either a positive or negative connotation.

The Hafez article discusses the national influence of media, and the partiality it creates. He uses the Olympics to comprehensively demonstrate nationalization that develops within even an international forum. However, here is where I found the two authors to differ. Where Brown discusses an increasingly international media base that threatens domestic production and encourages competition, Hafez seems to suggest that media has become too domesticized. It seems as if their arguments slightly contradicted each other, and presented an interesting debate. I haven’t yet decided which argument I agree with, but both authors present insightful arguments to support their claims.

Internet and Transnationalization

New communication technologies have and will continue to play a major role in the global society. In this week's readings, the internet and cellular phone technology contributed and ignited many social movements. Today, people can voice their opinions/discrepanices and mobilize a protest all by sitting at a computer desk or sending emails via a cell phone. A prolific example that was discussed is the ousting of Filipino President Estrada. The citizens and his administration became so upset and frustrated with his alleged corrupting behavior that he was forced to leave his office due to a protest that was orchestrated via mass text messages. Another example was the Nike "sweatshop" emails. Peretti sent an email to Nike requesting that a pair of personalized shoes be embroidered with the Nike-associated term "sweatshop." Nike officials denied the request, but Peretti forwarded the email threads. The communication threads spread vastly. Nike did not go out of business, but this example was classic because it exhibiting culture jamming. The significance of the internet technology allowed him to save his communication and send it to millions of people. In the end, Nike received negative feedback and press, and many associated the company with the unfortunate term. One last example that I want to emphasize is the North American Fair Trade Coffee Network. When I first glanced at the term, I thought it was NAFTA..lol...but that is beside the point. The network actually consisted of two other organizations that worked together to expose Starbucks environmentally harmful practices. All of the involved groups had individual intentions, but they all worked together for a common cause; everyone benefited. (Hanson said it best, "loose alliances of diverse groups with different agendas.") Starbucks "lifestyle" was being threatened by the coffee networks accusations that the coffee chain kills songbirds. Instead of using PR to battle the coffee network, Starbucks gave in and included the network's logo on many of its products. They also display many humanitarian posters at its locations.

The previous examples show the power that is associated with micro media, and its connection to mass media. When protests and the such become very successful via micro media collaboration, the mass media many times cover the story and the uniqueness of the events. Once this occurs, the world is exposed and becomes aware of situations occuring in Timbuktu, per se. Technology such as the internet allows for all interested parties to partake and remain informed about almost anything. The Nike incident may not have became known worldwide without the internet; it definitely would not have been common knowledge as quick. Hanson states that the internet provides the world with a bridge that connect everyone locally and globally. Coalitions can be built across great distances, and due to the internet transnational organizations have been successfully created (2008). The internet also provides a "global image" that is otherwise not available (Bennet, 2003).

This week's reading was very interesting yet informing. Who would've known that SMS was being used to ignite political movements and protests. I absolutely loved the text shorthand of the Filipino girl's friend, while she was on a date "I think ud betr go hme now!" Transnationalism...mmm think this word is more inviting that globalization..just a thought!

Hanson Chapter 6

This week's reading in the Hanson book discussed the various consequences of new ICT diffusion on the role of nation-states. Hanson does a great job in summarizing the different perspectives on how modern ICTs are affecting national sovereignty and in providing real world examples to illustrate the theories of international communication researchers.

In many of the readings we have done for this class, it is accepted as unavoidable that modern ICTs, especially the Internet, make it more difficult for national governments to control the information flows in and out of their countries, ultimately affecting the ability of national governments, particularly in authoritarian states, to effectively govern. In chapter 6, Hanson shows that this is not necessarily the case by highlighting the current ICT governance situation in China.

She notes that the Communist Party of China has attempted to control the flow of information on the Internet with an array of technical, legal, political, and psychological approaches. The restrictive infrastructure for the Internet system in China, referred to as the "Great Firewall of China," is one means of controlling this. The Chinese government also has implemented an extensive and monitoring system in order to enforce Internet regulations. Severe penalties and fines can be administered if prohibited web activities are detected. Hanson also mentions the establishment of a student-run Internet monitoring group pioneered by Shanghai Normal University. This kind of monitoring organization surprised me, since it is run by and targeted at young people. I was surprised by the effectiveness of this mechanism, since in the US, I think we are often led to believe that young people in China, especially young university students, are at the forefront of pushing for democratization and increased freedom and transparency of the Chinese government.

Although it appears that the Chinese government's strategy for regulating the content that Chinese citizens can access has kept much of the information that the government considers subversive off the Internet in China, the ability for savvy and determined Internet users to still circumvent the elaborate Chinese regulatory system exists, and as Hanson quotes one observer as saying, "total control of today's vast, borderless, redundant cyber-architecture is not possible." I wonder at what point will it become too costly for the Chinese government to maintain their expensive and complex system of Internet regulation?