Debating Public Diplomacy

This book is a much-needed update on our understanding of public diplomacy. With influential academic voices exploring policy implications for tomorrow, this collection of essays is also forward-looking by examining unfolding trends in public diplomacy strategies and practices.

This book is a much-needed update on our understanding of public diplomacy. With influential academic voices exploring policy implications for tomorrow, this collection of essays is also forward-looking by examining unfolding trends in public diplomacy strategies and practices.

This book is a timely resource for the debate around “revitalizing” Canada’s public diplomacy, bringing together some of the top scholars of Canadian public diplomacy and practitioners past and present to build a one-stop shop for thinking on the past, present, and future of Canadian engagement with foreign publics. The volume builds on Justin Trudeau’s media profile and the success of Canada’s image in 2016 but does not stop at the Niagara frontier post. Canada is a significant and under-discussed case of public diplomacy, and its experience as a middle power is more likely to be applicable to others than the experience of the usual case of the United States. Offering a comprehensive discussion of a major non-US case in contemporary public diplomacy and soft power, contributors also explore new angles of public diplomacy, including city, gift, art, and archaeological diplomacy as well as digital diplomacy.

Grounded in public relations theory and steeped in common sense, this book advances the global debate on public diplomacy's future in rejecting a power-based, political approach to public diplomacy and proposing a relational framework designed to improve relationships among nations and peoples.

After 9/11, which triggered a global debate on public diplomacy, 'PD' has become an issue in most countries. This book joins the debate. Experts from different countries and from a variety of fields analyze the theory and practice of public diplomacy. They also evaluate how public diplomacy can be successfully used to support foreign policy.

"Losing Hearts and Minds? situates public diplomacy within the complex environment of U.S. government bureaucracy, and relates it to other instruments of national power, particularly diplomatic activities and military force. The book offers a comprehensive vision of this critical dimension of statecraft, prompting debate by analyzing obstacles to effective public diplomacy."--Résumé de l'éditeur

New technologies have opened up fresh possibilities for public diplomacy, but this has not erased the importance of history. On the contrary, the lessons of the past seem more relevant than ever, in an age in which communications play an unprecedented role. Whether communications are electronic or hand-delivered, the foundations remain as valid today as they ever have been. Blending history with insights from international relations, communication studies, psychology, and contemporary practice, Cull explores the five core areas of public diplomacy: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchanges, and international broadcasting. He unpacks the approaches which have dominated in recent years – nation-branding and partnership – and sets out the foundations for successful global public engagement. Rich with case studies and examples drawn from ancient times through to our own digital age, the book shows the true capabilities and limits of emerging platforms and technologies, as well as drawing on lessons from the past which can empower us and help us to shape the future. This comprehensive and accessible introduction is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in understanding or mobilizing global public opinion.

Many researchers and China observers would agree that understanding how China pursues global communication is critical for assessing its growing soft power. While soft power as a concept has, in many ways, become almost inextricably linked with the PRC's (People's Republic of China) international diplomacy of the twenty-first century, the specific role of global media within soft power diplomacy and the corresponding influence of Western mediated public diplomacy within China is a lacuna that has remained largely unexplored. Moreover, the different Chinese and Western perspectives on the influence of global media and public diplomacy on Sino-Western relations, and the changing role of global media on this crucial aspect of international politics, have not yet been critically examined. This volume presents a broad social science audience with recent innovative scholarship and research findings on global media and public diplomacy concerning Sino-Western relations. It focuses on the implicit nexus between global media and public diplomacy, and their actual utilisation in and impact on the shifting relationships between China and the West. Special attention is given to the changing nature of globalised media in both China and Western nations, and how globalised media is influencing, shaping and changing international politics. The contributions delve deeply into both theory and practice, and focus especially upon the analysis of several key aspects of the issue from both Chinese and Western perspectives. This combination of approaches distinguishes the volume from most other published works on the topic, and greatly enriches our knowledge base in this important contemporary field.