Part 3
By Patricia H. Kushis and Patricia Lee Sharpe
USIA, as a communications agency, was quick to understand the usefulness of the computer, of the World Wide Web, of interactive press conferences and panel discussions first via telephone and later via satellite TV. USIA showed 16 mm films in the jungle, schlepped monitors and VCRs to provincial capitals where power often came from generators, and sometimes, for extra special 35 mm film occasions, rented whole theaters. When annual inventory time came around, it took more than a few hours time to account for all the communications equipment required to keep a USIA post running. Meanwhile, as radio technology improved, USIA kept urging that VOA signals be ever upgraded, though the integrity of VOA news, so hard fought for over the years, was eventually rather sadly compromised.
USIA wasn’t an early adapter in the trendy way the term is currently used, but once a new communications methodology looked as if it would perform reliably from Austria to Zimbabwe, USIA was ready to put it into service. What’s more, to keep it in service, USIS posts regularly employed highly competent, always available audio-visual specialists and, later, sysops, too, since there is no end to the upgrading of computer systems, once installed. Very seldom did a USIA program have to be delayed much less canceled for technical reasons. When USIA was ingested by the State Department, one of the glaring differences between the two cultures was USIA’s pragmatic embrace of communications technology and the State Department’s technophobia.
Lately however, it often seems as if the State Department is trying to make up for lost time, positioning itself precariously on the other extreme of the spectrum, as current public diplomacy recruits fall all over themselves to prove they can out-Facebook, out-tweet and out-text the most desperate friend-seeker on the block. But State has failed to hire (or train staff from within its thinning information specialist ranks) individuals conversant enough in information technology to handle Internet social networking while retaining its traditional knowledge workers - the reporters, writers, editors and reference specialists who cover the stories, provide the texts, and ferret out information on specialized topics needed by US Embassies abroad.
The Aura of the Newest Gadget
We Americans are so in love with gadgetry that, like serial monogamists, we find ourselves going gaga over each new electronic communications device, babbling on and on about the wonders of blogging, texting, twitter and who knows what’s next on the horizon. Camera-equipped cell phones enabling twitter, the latter a recent State Department infatuation, seemed to have come into their own as important electronic media during the aftermath of the Iranian presidential elections. Nevertheless, contrary to fonder expectations, there were some reliability problems. Reports from unknown witnesses, however fervent, can be hard to assess, and even pictures don’t always tell the whole truth.For example, when TV news channels showed shocking footage of a young woman bleeding to death on a street in Tehran, most everyone assumed she’d been demonstrating against a stolen election. The truth was otherwise—and even more poignant. She wasn’t a protester. She’d been returning home from a music lesson---or at least that was one report. And then her mother was interviewed. She had been involved with some of the protesting. And others weighed in. Thus, even as texting and instant photo transmissions were keeping a secretive regime more or less honest, a caveat emerged. Magical as our new gadgets sometimes seem to be, pictures and eye-witness data usually need contexting, analysis and info about the source who may or may not be well-informed or well-intentioned.
Film, radio, TV, the internet, video cassettes, VCRs, CDs and DVD, cell phones, even the land lines we grew up with—each of these also arrived with the aura of glamorous newness. Each breakthrough, Americans thought, would supplant all that had gone before. So far this has never happened. Though print is looking a little wobbly these days, especially here in the U.S., even the demise of our major dailies is probably not imminent. No gadget, it seems, is the be-all and end-all its entranced early adopters claimed it would be. That said, public diplomacy today is fortunate to have this vast array of communications media at its disposal, some one-way, some interactive, each ready to serve a specific communications need, each demanding verve, intelligence, field knowledge and general good sense in its application.
Real People Still Matter
Meanwhile, plain old person-to-person interaction is still the gold standard for sharing sensitive information, for explaining complicated issues to key players and for hammering out agreement. This is the stuff of traditional diplomacy, of course, though public diplomats can also be found at the receptions and cocktail parties where a telling conversation may actually occur. They’re also to be found chatting in an editor’s office or sharing telling anecdotes over dinner with contacts who are trustworthy informants even when they may not be close friends. Diplomacy, in fact, has always been about interaction. It’s about linking people and cultures, about talking, debating, mediating, explaining, persuading—and, yes, listening, listening carefully, another somewhat obvious, but mindlessly-iterated mantra these days.Let’s make it absolutely clear: geek monomania aside, the media are not the message; the media are useful public diplomacy tools. What’s more, however the message is conveyed, this computer age dictum always applies: garbage in, garbage out.
Talking to Whom about What?
Competent public diplomacy is always expressed in vocabularies and via media that are natural to those it’s aimed at, but what transpires isn’t chatter. It’s purposeful. It’s selective. Choosing an audience (or audiences) within any country is a three stage process. The first stage calls for identifying a country’s most important institutions, the second for knowing its most influential individuals; the third for establishing a tap into public opinion. Networks are also noted: who talks to whom; who likes or opposes whom; who influences whom and how. And ultimately this: who, in the end, makes what decisions. And when the list is narrowing, even this information comes into play: who likes music or books or movies—or sports. Then decision-makers and opinion-shapers can be invited to U.S.-sponsored cultural and social events that allow for serious talk around the edges.When USIA was an independent agency , public diplomacy strategies were informed by opinion surveys designed and analyzed by well-qualified in-house survey research specialists, although the data was collected by locally-experienced professional polling organizations. This critical who-thinks-what-and-why function is now located in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The perhaps unintended result of this bureaucratic decision is that survey design and results are divorced from the on-the-ground knowledge and program needs of field officers, who must have timely, regular feedback if their PD programs are to be relevant and effective. This needs to be changed.
Meanwhile, always in the public diplomacy world, there have been sincere attempts to measure effectiveness. In the old days it seemed obvious. An editorial appeared in a newspaper. Legislation was passed. A parliamentarian returned from a trip with a professedly deeper appreciation of the U.S. Such feedback is often dismissed as anecdotal today, but such verifiable outcomes should not to be minimized. Moreover, on any given day, let alone in the long run, there are so many variables, including the political impact of natural calamities as well as spillover from revolutions in neighboring countries, that any pretense to rigorous systematization of the effectiveness of public diplomacy efforts and results must surely be undertaken with a considerable degree of admittedly rare social science modesty. Public diplomacy isn’t a profession for the timid.
Antennae up 24/7
Good diplomats have always listened, attentively—to people, to radio, to gossip, to popular music. They keep their eyes open, too—to graffiti, to TV programs and commercials, to body language and facial expressions, to art, including the cultural underground, to the life styles of all social strata. They read up on history and literature, they understand religion and folk lore; they recognize recurrent myths and the symbols. Above all, they speak the language. If they can cuss in it, so much the better, so long as they also know when which colloquialisms are inappropriate.Those in tune with the exuberances and nuances of a culture can design and deliver messages that get through. The same alertness, seasoned with respect, makes every personal contact count. A local leader talking with a diplomat who’s sympathetic and impressively well-informed and who clearly won’t swallow garbage or spin, aka lies and distortion, is more likely to be candid and open to persuasion.
The Field Matters
Whatever the policy-related action or understanding needed, it must be articulated and delivered somewhat differently for each public, each culture, each country, each individual. The mass media may work well for starters, but close and personal closes the deal. Policy is set in Washington; its success depends on calibration and modulation in the field. And always the process works like a constant feedback loop, which is not the same as a playback loop. Even a great song needs a new twist from time to time. Otherwise the audience feels insulted, demeaned, undervalued, taken for granted. This is not good. A good PD officer makes the people he’s interacting with feel special, as if they are worth a personally-tailored message.And, for that matter, they are.