The New "Networked" Public Diplomacy

With the realm of international relations entering into a new era of unprecedented globalization, public diplomacy is undergoing a significant paradigm shift. Traditional PD, with its emphasis on one-way communication spearheaded by governments, is transforming into a “new” PD that incorporates non-government actors to engage in dialogue, engagement, and cultural exchanges. Now, the new PD must contend with a highly “networked” world where the Internet is rapidly accelerating connections between individuals, businesses, opinion-leaders, and international organizations (Melissen 18-19).

Since foreign ministries are losing ground as the “gatekeeper” structures that communicate foreign policy, how are states evolving their organizational structures to keep up with PD efforts? The British government is increasingly incorporating non-government institutions such as the British Council into the fabric of the nation’s PD apparatus. In the United States, there is some disarray between multitudes of actors vying for different PD objectives. The Swedish model, heavily dependent on a strong national brand, pools all of the country’s government and non-government resources to support cultural, trade, and political promotions (Pamment 332-333). For all three nations, the era of new PD has brought forth greater efforts to coordinate government efforts with those nontraditional actors in order to communicate a cohesive message.

In the end, how an international actor defines their audience amid multiple transnational networks dictates how that actor practices PD. For the most part, states have moved away from viewing their audiences as “absorbers” of information toward a more holistic view in which foreign publics are co-communicators who receive input and also provide feedback. The feedback aspect is what is radically new to PD evaluation. As policies have shifted from uni-directional promotion toward behavior-based objectives, evaluation methods have transitioned from solely measuring foreign perceptions to assessing outcomes and behavior change (Pamment 320). In theory, the outcome and results-oriented approach uses research data to inform policy decisions and to improve PD implementation. However, PD is more of an art than a science, and quantitative analysis of its effectiveness is easier said than done.

Is this how countries should measure public perceptions?