Options for Influence
Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 29th September, 2008
‘Soft power’ and ‘public diplomacy’ have become buzzwords in both international affairs and domestic politics as countries and political parties hone their image and message. So the appearance of a new short book on the theme, Options for Influence (Counterpoint, £11.95), is timely. As the joint authors, Ali Fisher and Aurélie Brockerhoff note, ‘the aim of public diplomacy is not just changing people’s perceptions, but rather influencing the way people act.’
We see that at its clumsiest sometimes in the hands of the Bush administration in Washington. The European Union and the United Kingdom as an individual country like to think that they are more subtle and more adept at soft power. But anyone in the business — including politicians — could usefully study this book, which proclaims itself to be an introduction to the field of exerting influence through overt international communications. The content specially focuses on the British Council and the BBC World Service, but there are interesting examples discussed of other bodies such as NATO and the Chinese Confucian Institutes.
R.S. Zaharna, Associate Professor of Public Communication at Georgetown University in Washington, has correctly noted that networking has replaced information dominance as the new model of pesuasion in the global communication era. This little study takes on board such changes and wise political parties are doing so as well.
Links: www.counterpoint-online.org and www.britishcouncil.org
This entry was posted on Monday, 29th September, 2008 at 9:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Tagged: Ali Fisher, Aurélie Brockerhoff, BBC World Service, British Council, Confucian Institute, Counterpoint, NATO, Options for influence, public diplomacy, R S Zaharna, soft power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Jonathan Fryer 
Luis Vega said
“Democratize me? لماذا؟ (Limada?)”
Like many expats in the Middle East I took a taxi to visit the closest ‘souk’ market to search for an affordable carpet to bring home at the end of a two year military deployment. The native Arab driver had a question waiting: Why do you want to give me Bush democracy?
After the initial shock, and wondering the wisdom of going alone to the center of an ancient Muslim market in the middle of the Persian Gulf at times of war, I reacted. “Sadiki (صديقي), democracy means you (the people) choose your own leader. Democracy is not a Bush invention. It’s about empowering people like you.”
“Well, I do not want it,” he said. “It brings chaos, lack of morals and foreign influence.” Then I realized part of the resistance to Western efforts to ‘democratize’ the Middle East rests in the misconception some Arabs have on how democracy has benefited our people. Democracy is not about Paris Hilton or Michael Moore or Madonna.
But as long as Hollywood excess and “nouveau rich” values dominate our culture it is rational for conservative traditional cultures to resist, even fight, our influence. Both sides are learning about each other from distorted media images that promote scandal and violence to win large audiences and big profits.
Unfortunately, we will not be winning any hearts and minds with a simple PR ploy to better communicate our view of things as long as the dominating image the Arab street – or the Thirld World – sees in our democracy not freedom but perhaps anarchy and a ‘laissez faire’ attitude. How can the world understand us better if even we, at times, do not understand ourselves well?
“R.S. Zaharna, Associate Professor of Public Communication at Georgetown University in Washington, has correctly noted networking replaced information dominance as the new model of pesuasion in the global communication era,” you wrote. It’s true. The ball is in our court.