Structure :In a 2008 survey of USIA alumni, Kathy Fitzpatrick surmised, "Notwithstanding increased funding for public diplomacy in the Middle East after 9/11 and despite dozens of reports by government and private organizations calling for substantial improvements in public diplomacy capabilities, American public diplomacy remains
underfunded, undervalued, and underutilized." :Since 1999, the
Foreign Affairs Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, also known as
The Consolidation Act, abolished USIA and transferred its functions (information, cultural, and educational operations) to the
United States Secretary of State and the
United States State Department. Specifically, these functions fall under the leadership of the
Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. :On the other hand, the Consolidation Act also established the BBG as an "independent entity within the executive branch." ::An organizational chart of Public Diplomacy within the Department of State is available on pg. 19 of the 2009 report by CRS (
Congressional Research Service) entitled
U.S. Public Diplomacy: Background and Current Issues available online at: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R40989.pdf ::On pg. 25 of that same report by CRS, there is an organizational chart of U.S. International Broadcasting under the BBG. Also Available at: https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/R40989.pdf
Issues Oversaturation :The drawback to modern technology is that there is an oversaturation of information which make it hard to reach and/or move your audience. As Kristin Lord writes,"Despite the extraordinary power of the U.S. government, its public diplomacy activities are, and increasingly will be, only a fraction of the many images and bits of information citizens around the world receive every day. Moreover, they are only one part of the many ways America – through its culture, products, services, philanthropy, people, and media – reaches foreign publics. That does not reduce public diplomacy's importance; perhaps it increases it. But we need to maintain our perspective."
U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Established under section 604 of the United States Information and Exchange Act of 1948, the Commission "appraises U.S. Government activities intended to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics." The charter is available online. The 2008 report, entitled
Getting the People Part Right, addressed the effect of human resources on public diplomacy. The report concluded: :::The Commission believes that we can significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of our nation's :::outreach to foreign publics by: recruiting for the public diplomacy career track in a more focused way; :::testing our recruitees more thoroughly and methodically for their PD instincts, knowledge and skills; :::training them more intensively in the core PD skill-set of persuasive communication; and evaluating them :::
more on communication and less on administration.”
V. extremist Islamic propaganda :The
9/11 Commission makes the following assessment:
The enemy is not Islam, the great world faith, but a perversion of Islam. The enemy goes beyond al Qaeda to include the radical ideological movement, inspired in part by al Qaeda, that has spawned other terrorist groups and violence. thus our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al Qaeda network and, in the long term, prevailing over the ideology that contributes to Islamist terrorism." :Steven Corman, professor at
Arizona State University and director of that school's Consortium for Strategic Communication (http://comops.org/) states that the U.S. must “engage the narrative in the new media. … We should be able to do that better than any terrorist group.” :The conflict between the U.S. and Extremist Islamic groups is fundamentally a conflict of ideas. It is a battle for truth. As
Patricia Harrison, assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, asserted, "if we do not define ourselves, others will do it for us."
U.S. v. China On February 15, 2011, a minority staff report was submitted to the
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. In the letter of transmittal, ranking member
Richard Lugar stated: ''In the same way that our trade with China is out of balance, it is clear to even the casual observer that when it comes to interacting directly with the other nation's public we are in another lop-sided contest. China has a vigorous public diplomacy program, based on a portrayal of an ancient, benign China that is, perhaps, out of touch with modern realities. Nonetheless, we are being overtaken in this area of foreign policy by China, which is able to take advantage of America's open system to spread its message in many different ways, while using its fundamentally closed system to stymie U.S. efforts.'' :In the arena of public diplomacy, the report cites China's continued
suppression of freedom of speech and freedom of information within their country esp.
via the internet. The key means of communication which remains open to the U.S., i.e. individual interaction, is an opportunity which the U.S. has failed to promote. The report cites two significant failures on the part of U.S. public diplomacy: • The U.S. has
five American centers in all of China. This compared to the
seventy some Confucius Institutes throughout the United States. • The
Shanghai World Expo was a brilliant opportunity for the U.S., however, while "more than 7,000,000" Chinese visited the U.S. Pavilion, the U.S. was criticized for its "hastily organized presentations and lack of a cogent message." In a survey of Arab youth conducted by a Dubai-based public relations firm in 2023, 80 percent of respondents considered China an ally of their country, while 72 percent considered the United States an ally. == Other government agencies exercising public diplomacy ==