Jeh Johnson, General Counsel for the US Department of Defense, has announced that the end of the armed conflict against al-Qaeda is fast approaching. He foresees how responsibility for engaging with terrorism will pass to 'the police and other law enforcement agencies.' Johnson has said: "... we must be able to say to ourselves that our efforts should no longer be considered an armed conflict against al-Qaida and its associated forces, rather a counter-terrorism effort against individuals who are the scattered remains of al-Qaida … for which the law enforcement and intelligence resources of our government are principally responsible." (See The Guardian's report US heading for point when 'military pursuit of al-Qaida should end')
There are several points to challenge in Jeh Johnson's assessment. The first is his optimism about the trajectory of the conflict with al-Qaeda, and draws attention yet again to the inadvisability of using the term 'War on Terror' to describe the response to 9/11. On this point, Johnson says:
"I do believe that on the present course there will come a tipping point, a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, such that al-Qaida as we know it, the organisation that our Congress authorised the military to pursue in 2001, has been effectively destroyed."
I do not need to repeat here the criticisms of claiming to launch a war on anything so ephemeral as a kind of terrorism whose perpetrators live and operate within decentralised networks. The organisation that carried out the atrocities on 9/11 may no longer be as much of a threat as it was in 2001, but this does not mean that the kind of terrorist activity undertaken by al-Qaeda and affiliated or sympathetic organisations/individuals do not remain a distinct possibility. You can't win a war on terror by simply killing terrorists, especially when you also kill civilians while hunting your quarry. Destroying homes, schools and devastating the land in executing 'war' is not only morally reprehensible, but also counter-productive: What feeds terrorist organisations and mobilises sympathy and recruitment more than the actions of their enemies against civilians? The actions taken in the name of the 'War on Terror' have merely reinforced al-Qaeda discourses that emphasise the crusader objectives of the US and its allies. These issues have been discussed fully in the literature, and particularly useful is Steven R. Corman, Angela Trethewey and H.L Goodall (eds.), Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Strategic Communications to Combat Violent Extremism (Peter Lang: 2008).
The concern about the discourses and the very labels used to explain and justify the use of military action leads to the next problem in Jeh's assessment, namely the absence of any mention of public diplomacy. The so-called war against terror is really an information war or competition of narratives. Joseph Nye (The Future of Power, 2011: 19) makes this point very clearly:
'In an information age ... outcomes are shaped not merely by whose army wins but also by whose story wins. In the fight against terrorism, for example, it is essential to have a narrative that appeals to the mainstream and prevents its recruitment by radicals.'
Passing responsibility to law enforcement agencies and intelligence organisations is an insufficient strategy in this environment. If the US is serious about defeating terrorism, Mr Jeh should be making room for the role of information, communications and public diplomacy. There should be an explicit recognition that dialogue is essential with communities in the affected areas, but also in the principal recruiting grounds of the terrorist networks - and especially the US and UK. There needs to be greater attention to addressing the issues that push young Muslims into believing that there is no solution to their problems other than violence, and this means coming to terms with the poverty, unemployment, alienation and general dissatisfaction that many feel with their lives. Bringing the Muslim youth into a conversation about problems and solutions would be a step forwards. I wrote about some of these issues in my 23 March 2011 blog post, A Marked Man in America. It is disappointing that, eighteen months on and at a time when senior members of the US administration are seriously discussing the end of the military phase of the battle with al-Qaeda, apparently there is still no room for understanding the role that public diplomacy and genuine dialogue and discussion can play.
Saturday, 1 December 2012
Friday, 23 November 2012
Beethoven and International Broadcasting
One of the highlights of this year's Ilkley Literature Festival was John Suchet discussing his new biography of Beethoven (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beethoven-John-Suchet/dp/190764279X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353670265&sr=1-1). John Suchet is a journalist, news-reader, a presenter on Classic FM and acclaimed Beethoven scholar, having written six books about his favourite composer.
During his talk in Ilkley, John briefly discussed the ways that Beethoven had not only touched, but had saved people's lives. I am sure he is aware that the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony match the morse code for the letter 'V'. So it is understandable that, in the final days of World War Two, British radio broadcasts used these musical notes to reassure those in Europe living under Nazi occupation that victory was at hand, and members of the resistance movement began to paint the letter 'V' on walls throughout France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Beethoven was a major contributor in the psychological war.
In August 1991, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, was the victim of a brief and unsuccessful coup d'etat (the August Putsch or August Coup). The leaders of this putsch were hardline members of the Communist Party who opposed Gorbachev's programme of reform and liberalisation (Perestroika and Glasnost, two buzzwords that became familiar in the late 1980s). The coup collapsed after only two days and Gorbachev returned to the government.
As a shortwave radio fanatic and student of politics I monitored Radio Moscow World Service (RMWS) throughout the coup. In those days the station was not difficult to find: RMWS broadcast on all shortwave bandwidths and the number of frequencies it used outnumbered any other radio station. The station's identification which sounded before the news at the top of the hour was very familiar: the chimes of the Kremlin, followed by Midnight in Moscow and an announcer with a pseudo-American announcer reminding us that we were listening to Radio Moscow World Service.
(This is a RMWS programme schedule. I actually received on of these in return for sending them a reception report)
On 19 August 1991, the tone and content of programming changed, and broadcasts contained far less news and more silences and music. One piece of music that the station repeated over and over convinced me that RMWS was broadcasting a signal to its listeners - the coup would not succeed. That piece of music was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with, in its opening bars, the distinctive morse code 'V' for victory. This was not the only signal. Those of us who obsessed about international radio broadcasting knew intimately the idiosyncrasies of each station. One unique characteristic of RMWS was that it only played music written by Russian composers, yet here it was at this dramatic and historic time playing the most famous work written by a German.
Of course it may all have been coincidental, the imaginings of a young mind convinced that shortwave radio broadcasts could and did play an important role in politics and international affairs (I was just starting my PhD research on this very topic). Yet I like to think that Radio Moscow World Service had made a conscious and strategic decision on that day - to use its power as a broadcaster to bypass the coup leaders and send a message to its listeners around the world: the coup will not succeed; everything is ok, and in the end it was - the putsch was defeated by popular resistance led by future Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, and by the disarray among the conspirators themselves. I also like to think that Beethoven played a small and significant role in the end of the coup and in the the dissolution of the Soviet Union as 1991 came to an end.
During his talk in Ilkley, John briefly discussed the ways that Beethoven had not only touched, but had saved people's lives. I am sure he is aware that the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony match the morse code for the letter 'V'. So it is understandable that, in the final days of World War Two, British radio broadcasts used these musical notes to reassure those in Europe living under Nazi occupation that victory was at hand, and members of the resistance movement began to paint the letter 'V' on walls throughout France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Beethoven was a major contributor in the psychological war.
In August 1991, the General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Mikhail Gorbachev, was the victim of a brief and unsuccessful coup d'etat (the August Putsch or August Coup). The leaders of this putsch were hardline members of the Communist Party who opposed Gorbachev's programme of reform and liberalisation (Perestroika and Glasnost, two buzzwords that became familiar in the late 1980s). The coup collapsed after only two days and Gorbachev returned to the government.
As a shortwave radio fanatic and student of politics I monitored Radio Moscow World Service (RMWS) throughout the coup. In those days the station was not difficult to find: RMWS broadcast on all shortwave bandwidths and the number of frequencies it used outnumbered any other radio station. The station's identification which sounded before the news at the top of the hour was very familiar: the chimes of the Kremlin, followed by Midnight in Moscow and an announcer with a pseudo-American announcer reminding us that we were listening to Radio Moscow World Service.
(This is a RMWS programme schedule. I actually received on of these in return for sending them a reception report)
On 19 August 1991, the tone and content of programming changed, and broadcasts contained far less news and more silences and music. One piece of music that the station repeated over and over convinced me that RMWS was broadcasting a signal to its listeners - the coup would not succeed. That piece of music was Beethoven's Fifth Symphony with, in its opening bars, the distinctive morse code 'V' for victory. This was not the only signal. Those of us who obsessed about international radio broadcasting knew intimately the idiosyncrasies of each station. One unique characteristic of RMWS was that it only played music written by Russian composers, yet here it was at this dramatic and historic time playing the most famous work written by a German.
Of course it may all have been coincidental, the imaginings of a young mind convinced that shortwave radio broadcasts could and did play an important role in politics and international affairs (I was just starting my PhD research on this very topic). Yet I like to think that Radio Moscow World Service had made a conscious and strategic decision on that day - to use its power as a broadcaster to bypass the coup leaders and send a message to its listeners around the world: the coup will not succeed; everything is ok, and in the end it was - the putsch was defeated by popular resistance led by future Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, and by the disarray among the conspirators themselves. I also like to think that Beethoven played a small and significant role in the end of the coup and in the the dissolution of the Soviet Union as 1991 came to an end.
Thursday, 22 November 2012
On Censorship
"All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently, the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship." - George Bernard Shaw, Mrs Warren's Profession
"Withholding information is the essence of tyranny. Control of the flow of information is the tool of the dictatorship." - Bruce Coville
Censorship is the flipside to propaganda; it is incredibly difficult to succeed in the latter activity without paying due care and consideration to the former. After all, the selective use and dissemination of facts, information, news and opinion - all characteristics of propaganda - requires familiarity with censorship. I am surprised, however, that while the study of propaganda continues to attract academic attention, censorship has fared comparatively less well. Histories of propaganda, especially of the Nazi and Communist eras, and broader studies of warfare from World War One to the 2003 Iraq War, have naturally analysed the use of censorship. It is a recognised technique of persuasion used by governments and militaries, though like propaganda it is now used only as a pejorative label to signify the suppression of truth and accuracy.
However, as far as I know there is not a comprehensive study of the theory and practice of censorship, though I do hope that readers of this post will provide references to the literature I may have missed.
I am inspired to write about censorship after reading in the Observer newspaper (18 November 2012) a short article entitled 'How to turn damning press reviews into PR gold'. This refers to those moments in literature, theatre or film when 'Ambiguously phrased criticism is seized upon and passed off as possible praise'. The Observer article calls this 'Contextonomy'. So, one example:
Philip French, the Observer's film critic, on Anthony Page's 1979 remake of The Lady Vanishes:
Actual Quote: An amiable entertainment and about as necessary as a polystyrene version of the Taj Mahal. Hitchcock's 1938 comedy/thriller is a near-perfect artefact ... attaining a precise balance between suspense and laughter.
Quote Used by the film's marketing team: "Near-perfect ... a precise balance between suspense and laughter."
I use similar examples to teach my students about censorship. A bill-board outside a theatre may say 'Must see ...' when the critic actually wrote 'Must see to understand how incredibly bad this show really is.' There are no lies involved here, just the careful selection of facts; and by omitting information and context, these are good examples of censorship at work.
In studying, writing and talking about Chinese media and propaganda I am often faced with explaining how censorship works, even to the Chinese. The guide on my personal tour of CCTV in 2007 was anxious to show me the foreigners tapping away to produce copy. 'Look,' she exclaimed, 'no-one is standing over them looking over their shoulder.' Recently at a seminar in London, an employee at CCTV (not present at the seminar) had explained to a Professor of marketing that there is no censorship in CCTV; no-one tells the journalists what they can and cannot write, and no-one diligently checks their copy. I pointed out that censorship does not work like that - or at least, should not work like that - but then I was accused of perpetuating the stereotypes about Chinese communications and propaganda.
To be effective censorship must be subtle; it must go unnoticed. If the censorship is too obvious, then it loses its power. We are naturally curious creatures, and as the history of propaganda reveals to us time and time again, when audiences know that some information or news is being kept deliberately from them, they grow all the more determined to find out about it. When I am in China and BBC World's transmission on my hotel television suddenly disappears for thirty seconds, I know that the broadcast is being censored. Inevitably the question becomes: What is so interesting/dangerous/subversive that the Chinese censors feel the need to prevent me from seeing this item of news?
"To forbid us anything is to make us have a mind for it." - Michel de Montaigne.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the Chinese government’s blatant media censorship only whets the popular appetite for forbidden information. When Zhao Ziyang, to many a hero of the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, died after fifteen years of house arrest in January 2005, the Chinese government controlled coverage of his passing and his funeral. Information was scarce: ‘I live in Guangzhou, and that night I wasn’t able to access two Hong Kong TV stations, so I realised immediately that something major had happened. …’; ‘ … today … my grandmother said, “Zhao Ziyang died, why isn’t the news or the papers reporting it?” I was curious, so I went searching on the Internet, but I found I couldn’t open many Web sites, which made me think something was strange. …’; ‘This morning, I couldn’t connect to any overseas web sites, and I realised that something had happened …’; ‘Putting aside Zhao’s merits and faults for the time being, we have already completely lost the right to speak, and to hear about him! What kind of world is this?’ (Emily Parker, “Cracks in the Chinese Wall,” The Asian Wall Street Journal,
David King's wonderful collection of censored photographs from the Stalin era, The Commissar Vanishes (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Commissar-Vanishes-David-King/dp/0805052941/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1353603294&sr=8-1), provides a whole book-full of examples of not-so-subtle censorship techniques.
As King's book shows, simply blacking out faces with ink or paint was a common method of censorship during Stalin's era in power.
Another example, this time from China. This photo was taken at the funeral of Mao Zedong in 1976 and shows the country's leadership lining up to pay their respects.
Spot the difference with the published version?
The so-called Gang of Four, including Mao's widow, all of whom were jailed (and some were executed) for their part in the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, were airbrushed from the official photo.
The Chinese - journalists and citizens writing on the internet - do find ways of circumscribing the official censorship architecture. A trawl through weibo, the Chinese twitter, reveals the code-words that users use to refer to otherwise sensitive topics, people and events. Journalists adopt strategies of self-censorship, and it is this that is a more worrying practice than overt forms of censorship. The laws on what can and cannot be said are so vague (I was told that there is no rule against talking about the Tiananmen Incident of 1989, but people just know you should not do it) that the perpetual climate of uncertainty prevents risk-taking.
However, it is clear that in an age of global media with information
immediately available to everyone with access to a computer – and despite the
Chinese government’s best attempts it is
possible to circumvent the Great Firewall - it is becoming less and less easy for governments
to manage information and the new public spaces that are materialising in
cyberspace. Michel Hockx is correct when he says that internet censorship ‘does
not necessarily confront Chinese writers and readers with an unfamiliar
situation. Censorship is the norm, rather than the exception.’[i]
But this should not and does not preclude value judgement of censorship or the possibility of change. Censorship may be ‘a fact of life’ and as observers we may be guilty of ‘foregrounding censorship’ which means ‘highlighting what does not appear on the Chinese internet’ and drawing attention away ‘from what does appear’.[ii] But the mechanisms of censorship reveal much about the architecture of government, elite opinion, and the perception of the power of communications. In accepting censorship as the norm we are in danger of overlooking one important detail: What is good for governance in China
While the old fashioned censorship of Stalin and post-Mao era China may have disappeared (though who needs ink and paint when you have photoshop?), censorship continues to be the tool of choice for some governments who wish to manage the flow of communication and information. Surely it is time for a new comprehensive study of its theory and practice?
[i] Michel Hockx, ‘Virtual Chinese
Literature: A Comparative Case Study of Online Poetry Communities’, in Culture
in Contemporary China Cambridge Cambridge University
[ii] Ibid, 149.
Sunday, 30 September 2012
John F. Kennedy's "soft power"
Last night the Ilkley Literature Festival hosted a talk by Sir Roger Carrick about his recently published memoirs, Diplomatic Anecdotage: Around the World in 40 Years (Elliott & Thompson, 2012). Sir Roger's first diplomatic posting was in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1962. He then spent time in Washington DC, Chicago, Paris, Singapore and Jakarta, before retiring as Her Majesty's High Commissioner to Australia.
Sir Roger talks in his fascinating book about the reaction in Bulgaria to President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963:
'The queue to sign the American legation's book of condolences was huge, perhaps a kilometre long and three or four deep. ... the terrible tragedy had so gripped the Bulgarians as they had heard the news on the radio, that they had flocked to express real grief and sympathy ... Now, the Bulgarians, of all repressed and depressed people, spontaneously, and in impressively large numbers, had made a singular and singularly important gesture and demonstration of genuine feeling' (p.15).
Nick Cull's masterful and definitive study of The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (CUP, 2008) also references global reaction to the news of Kennedy's death: 'USIA surverys of editorial opinion around the world revealed a surge of sympathy for the United States at the time of Kennedy's death' (p.229).
Listening to Sir Roger read from his book made me question the significance of President Kennedy as a symbol of America's values, principles and hopes at the start of the 1960s - what we may today call 'soft power'. Sir Roger provides a hint of an explanation in his book: 'We were of the generation,' he says, 'that, despite incipient, even growing cynicism, saw Jack Kennedy as a hope for the succeeding generations, the young people of the world, and not just the then Free World.'
I can't explain it, and I invite comments from readers who might have more insight into the reason for this swell of grief behind the Iron Curtain. We are all familiar with the Kennedy myth - youth, charm, Camelot, a sense of renewal and optimism, the New Frontier - but is this a narrative constructed with the benefit of hindsight and because of the way Kennedy was killed at such a young age? How widespread was this narrative accepted in those parts of the world that were ideologically opposed to the US and everything it stood for? My library on Cold War history is surprisingly quiet on this subject, though I did find the following passage in Michael R. Beschloss's Kennedy v. Khrushchev (Faber & Faber 1991): 'Peking schoolchildren applauded when told of the assassination. A Chinese editorial cartoon showed the President lying on his face, his necktie stamped with dollar signs: KENNEDY BITING THE DUST' (p.676). Beschloss tells us that it was a 'personal tragedy' for Khrushchev; Moscovites praised Kennedy and grieved that such a good man had been murdered; Russian poets penned their own eulogies; and Tatyana and Yegenya Scherbakov of Bryansk wrote, 'Let the thought that the grief is shared by one hundred million Russian women help Mrs Kennedy to survive her grief' (Beschloss, p.677-680).
Both Beschloss and Cull describe the aftermath of the assassination: The former recounts the need for the Johnson administration not only to continue Kennedy's style of managing US-Soviet relations, but also to capitalise in a strategic way on the shared grief in Moscow; Cull reveals how the United States Information Agency managed American public diplomacy to help create the Kennedy legend and present the Johnson administration as a credible successor.
So it seems that a considerable amount of American soft power was invested in Kennedy, and a huge quantity of resources was devoted to American public diplomacy in the immediate aftermath of his death. But what made this soft power so successful? His relations with the Soviet Union were stormy to say the least; he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco; and he was the reason the United States became involved in Vietnam. So is the explanation simply that he was Jack Kennedy - that it is all about the man and the fact the he generated a wave of hope and optimism among supporters and critics alike? Is it, as I have long suspected, because this youngest ever President was only 46 when he was murdered during his first term in office? I look forward to reading your views.
Sir Roger talks in his fascinating book about the reaction in Bulgaria to President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963:
'The queue to sign the American legation's book of condolences was huge, perhaps a kilometre long and three or four deep. ... the terrible tragedy had so gripped the Bulgarians as they had heard the news on the radio, that they had flocked to express real grief and sympathy ... Now, the Bulgarians, of all repressed and depressed people, spontaneously, and in impressively large numbers, had made a singular and singularly important gesture and demonstration of genuine feeling' (p.15).
Nick Cull's masterful and definitive study of The Cold War and the United States Information Agency (CUP, 2008) also references global reaction to the news of Kennedy's death: 'USIA surverys of editorial opinion around the world revealed a surge of sympathy for the United States at the time of Kennedy's death' (p.229).
Listening to Sir Roger read from his book made me question the significance of President Kennedy as a symbol of America's values, principles and hopes at the start of the 1960s - what we may today call 'soft power'. Sir Roger provides a hint of an explanation in his book: 'We were of the generation,' he says, 'that, despite incipient, even growing cynicism, saw Jack Kennedy as a hope for the succeeding generations, the young people of the world, and not just the then Free World.'
I can't explain it, and I invite comments from readers who might have more insight into the reason for this swell of grief behind the Iron Curtain. We are all familiar with the Kennedy myth - youth, charm, Camelot, a sense of renewal and optimism, the New Frontier - but is this a narrative constructed with the benefit of hindsight and because of the way Kennedy was killed at such a young age? How widespread was this narrative accepted in those parts of the world that were ideologically opposed to the US and everything it stood for? My library on Cold War history is surprisingly quiet on this subject, though I did find the following passage in Michael R. Beschloss's Kennedy v. Khrushchev (Faber & Faber 1991): 'Peking schoolchildren applauded when told of the assassination. A Chinese editorial cartoon showed the President lying on his face, his necktie stamped with dollar signs: KENNEDY BITING THE DUST' (p.676). Beschloss tells us that it was a 'personal tragedy' for Khrushchev; Moscovites praised Kennedy and grieved that such a good man had been murdered; Russian poets penned their own eulogies; and Tatyana and Yegenya Scherbakov of Bryansk wrote, 'Let the thought that the grief is shared by one hundred million Russian women help Mrs Kennedy to survive her grief' (Beschloss, p.677-680).
Both Beschloss and Cull describe the aftermath of the assassination: The former recounts the need for the Johnson administration not only to continue Kennedy's style of managing US-Soviet relations, but also to capitalise in a strategic way on the shared grief in Moscow; Cull reveals how the United States Information Agency managed American public diplomacy to help create the Kennedy legend and present the Johnson administration as a credible successor.
So it seems that a considerable amount of American soft power was invested in Kennedy, and a huge quantity of resources was devoted to American public diplomacy in the immediate aftermath of his death. But what made this soft power so successful? His relations with the Soviet Union were stormy to say the least; he was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco; and he was the reason the United States became involved in Vietnam. So is the explanation simply that he was Jack Kennedy - that it is all about the man and the fact the he generated a wave of hope and optimism among supporters and critics alike? Is it, as I have long suspected, because this youngest ever President was only 46 when he was murdered during his first term in office? I look forward to reading your views.
When the legend becomes fact, print the legend
(The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, 1962)
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Digital Diplomacy
The Economist this week (22-28 September) includes a brief discussion of what it calls 'virtual relations' and 'digital diplomacy'. The article reviews how 'Foreign ministries are getting the hang of social media.' We are told that the US State Department has 'spawned 194 Twitter accounts and 200 Facebook pages':
About 20 British ambassadors are now on Twitter. Russia's foreign ministry is said to have more that 40 Twitter accounts. Israel has announced it will make more use of e-diplomacy. Even China, which heavily censors social media at home, is interested in using them as a diplomatic tool abroad.
[Barack Obama's Twitter audience] of nearly 20m followers dwarfs the one of Venezuela's autocratic Hugo Chavez (3.4m) and Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev (1.5m).
I remain an e-agnostic. For one thing, these statistics tell us nothing about content: in public diplomacy does size really matter? I understand the motivation for wishing to participate in an already overcrowded information landscape, and I do not agree with critics who claim social media are another 'Trojan horse' for cultural or political imperialism. This is a naive argument that gives the social media too much power. Besides, audiences will always interpret messages in ways that may surprise the source and contradict the original motivation for the communication. In soft power, the power is rarely in the hands of the source and almost always resides with the audience.
When it comes to diplomatic activity and communications, I believe that we must be cautious in advocating the use of social media. Mere presence in the virtual sphere is meaningless without substantive content. Just as public diplomacy is not a panacea for bad policies, e-diplomacy is not a solution for poor presentation and communication. Governments looking to participate in the world of the social media must identify first the reasons for doing so, and second the expected outcomes. Mere presence in an overcrowded information environment is an insufficient reason. As Joseph Nye wrote in The Future of Power (2011: 103): 'Plentiful information leads to scarcity of attention. When people are overwhelmed with the volume of information confronting them, they have difficulty knowing what to focus on. Attention, rather than information, becomes the scarce resource, and those who can distinguish valuable information from background clutter gain power.'
Sifting the 'background clutter' is not easy when we are faced with both information overload and time scarcity. Gone are the days when we could casually 'surf' the internet in response to Microsoft's question, 'Where do you want to go today?' Authority, trust and credibility of information is far more important than ever before and training users of the internet - especially diplomats - to think critically about the authenticity of both the source and the message is more urgent than at any time in the past. Most of us access very few websites every day and tend to rely on established print and television media - even if we no longer buy a newspaper from a vendor but instead access it online - for our news and information. We will still depend on 'old' media to guide us: Wikileaks was most valuable when its cables were republished in the Guardian, the New York Times, El Pais, Le Monde and Der Spiegel. The second tranche of cables which were not published in the press met a more muted response: the newspapers were able to contextualise the information for its readers, analyse it and explain its importance. We had time and space to digest what we read. Without this process of mediation, the relevance of such information is lost.
Hence, it pays to be cautious and not be too optimistic about the contribution of the social media to the gathering of intelligence, especially about public opinion. Reading China's Weibo may offer a far more raw, accurate and thorough insight into how its users think and feel about certain topics than any of the official mainstream media. The Economist article calls this 'diplomatic preparedness.' While it will remain difficult to predict events, despite what the article thinks, monitoring seriously the social media does provide the extra information that can supplement the intelligence diplomats should be gathering from elsewhere. However, there is still a need to contextualise the information and understand its source: how representative is Weibo if the majority of its users are young, University educated Chinese living on the eastern seaboard? Diplomats will never find a perfect substitute for leg-work, for getting out into the streets and talking to people face to face. It sounds simple and easy: I wonder how many diplomats actually still do it?
A thorough discussion of how American diplomats use the social media as a source of information, and to facilitate public diplomacy activities, is provided in William Kiehl's edited volume, The Last Three Feet. See my blog http://wwwpdic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-last-three-feet-ed-william-kiehl.html.
About 20 British ambassadors are now on Twitter. Russia's foreign ministry is said to have more that 40 Twitter accounts. Israel has announced it will make more use of e-diplomacy. Even China, which heavily censors social media at home, is interested in using them as a diplomatic tool abroad.
[Barack Obama's Twitter audience] of nearly 20m followers dwarfs the one of Venezuela's autocratic Hugo Chavez (3.4m) and Russia's prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev (1.5m).
I remain an e-agnostic. For one thing, these statistics tell us nothing about content: in public diplomacy does size really matter? I understand the motivation for wishing to participate in an already overcrowded information landscape, and I do not agree with critics who claim social media are another 'Trojan horse' for cultural or political imperialism. This is a naive argument that gives the social media too much power. Besides, audiences will always interpret messages in ways that may surprise the source and contradict the original motivation for the communication. In soft power, the power is rarely in the hands of the source and almost always resides with the audience.
When it comes to diplomatic activity and communications, I believe that we must be cautious in advocating the use of social media. Mere presence in the virtual sphere is meaningless without substantive content. Just as public diplomacy is not a panacea for bad policies, e-diplomacy is not a solution for poor presentation and communication. Governments looking to participate in the world of the social media must identify first the reasons for doing so, and second the expected outcomes. Mere presence in an overcrowded information environment is an insufficient reason. As Joseph Nye wrote in The Future of Power (2011: 103): 'Plentiful information leads to scarcity of attention. When people are overwhelmed with the volume of information confronting them, they have difficulty knowing what to focus on. Attention, rather than information, becomes the scarce resource, and those who can distinguish valuable information from background clutter gain power.'
Sifting the 'background clutter' is not easy when we are faced with both information overload and time scarcity. Gone are the days when we could casually 'surf' the internet in response to Microsoft's question, 'Where do you want to go today?' Authority, trust and credibility of information is far more important than ever before and training users of the internet - especially diplomats - to think critically about the authenticity of both the source and the message is more urgent than at any time in the past. Most of us access very few websites every day and tend to rely on established print and television media - even if we no longer buy a newspaper from a vendor but instead access it online - for our news and information. We will still depend on 'old' media to guide us: Wikileaks was most valuable when its cables were republished in the Guardian, the New York Times, El Pais, Le Monde and Der Spiegel. The second tranche of cables which were not published in the press met a more muted response: the newspapers were able to contextualise the information for its readers, analyse it and explain its importance. We had time and space to digest what we read. Without this process of mediation, the relevance of such information is lost.
Hence, it pays to be cautious and not be too optimistic about the contribution of the social media to the gathering of intelligence, especially about public opinion. Reading China's Weibo may offer a far more raw, accurate and thorough insight into how its users think and feel about certain topics than any of the official mainstream media. The Economist article calls this 'diplomatic preparedness.' While it will remain difficult to predict events, despite what the article thinks, monitoring seriously the social media does provide the extra information that can supplement the intelligence diplomats should be gathering from elsewhere. However, there is still a need to contextualise the information and understand its source: how representative is Weibo if the majority of its users are young, University educated Chinese living on the eastern seaboard? Diplomats will never find a perfect substitute for leg-work, for getting out into the streets and talking to people face to face. It sounds simple and easy: I wonder how many diplomats actually still do it?
A thorough discussion of how American diplomats use the social media as a source of information, and to facilitate public diplomacy activities, is provided in William Kiehl's edited volume, The Last Three Feet. See my blog http://wwwpdic.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-last-three-feet-ed-william-kiehl.html.
Saturday, 15 September 2012
A not so subtle reminder ...
My friend and mentor, Phil Taylor, often explained to me why, despite being criticised for being 'inside' the system, of being too close and involved with his research subjects, he developed a close working relationship with the British and US militaries. For him, communications were a way of saving lives. It is always better to persuade and inform than to coerce and kill. Whenever a member of the British or US psyops teams was killed in action in Afghanistan or Iraq, Phil became depressed and withdrawn; he took each death personally.
Phil had been inspired when, during his PhD research, he found a record of an encounter at the end of the First World War between Lord Northcliffe, Director of Enemy Propaganda at Crewe House, and a General who asked Northcliffe what he had done during the war. Northcliffe replied, 'propaganda, that sort of thing.' The General growled, 'Filthy business,' to which Northcliffe replied, 'While you were piling up the casualty lists we were trying to cut them down. If I can persuade one German to throw down his rifle, I have deprived Germany of a soldier, without also having to kill the man.'
This had a profound impact on Phil and became the philosophical framework for his intellectual pursuits. All members of the military who paid tribute to him after he passed away remarked on his commitment to 'propaganda for peace.' His good friend, Professor Stephen Badsey, recalled how, on a visit to the Tyne Cot World War One Cemetery, Phil was angered by the sight of rows of white headstones: 'This just shows how important psyops are for us now,' he said.
I was reminded of Phil last week as I attended a wonderful conference organised by my colleagues in Taiwan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) London on the theme Globalisation and Security Across the Taiwan Strait. One panel was devoted to military matters and, following a theoretical paper about the possibility of conflict and an interesting discussion by American colleagues on cyberwarfare, an academic working in an American military academy took to the podium. His paper was little more than a salute to military hardware, and his powerpoint presentation showed a succession of photographs of the planes, trucks and missiles that Taiwan's military might use to defend itself in the event of an attack from the PRC. I became increasingly disturbed and ran through a gamut of emotions - distressed, nauseous, angry, repulsed - as we were told 'some arms races are affordable' and 'mines are beautiful.' Some of my fellow participants looked decidely uncomfortable. I decided to challenge the paper presenter about his comments.
I thanked the panel for reminding me how important it is to continue working on communications, soft power and public diplomacy so we can try to avoid having to use such hardware. I told the presenter that military hardware is not 'beautiful'; the pictures he had shown were of ugly, brutal machines designed to destroy, maim and kill humans. Children in parts of Africa, Central America and South East Asia who stand on landmines left over from conflicts in the last three decades see no beauty in the devices that wound or kill them. His failure to mention casualties at all in his presentation was a serious omission. Moreover, no arms race is affordable; every $1 million spent on such military hardware is $1 million that could have been spent on a hospital, a school, or improving the lives of the most vulnerable in our society. Which is more effective, someone asked, an F15 or an F16? Which should Taiwan prioritise? When you are the target of its missiles, is there really any difference?
This conference was a stark reminder to me that despite the often abstract and critical discussions we have about soft power, public diplomacy, and international communications in general, they can and do have an impact: such proccesses can play a central role to play in policy-making; in persuading governments that there really is an alternative to hard power; and that the academic labels we attach to such communicative activities is less important than their application and the recognition that it is always preferable to persuade than to coerce. I left the conference realising that it is more important than ever that we continue Phil's work and for the same reasons. Not such a 'Filthy business' after all ...
Phil had been inspired when, during his PhD research, he found a record of an encounter at the end of the First World War between Lord Northcliffe, Director of Enemy Propaganda at Crewe House, and a General who asked Northcliffe what he had done during the war. Northcliffe replied, 'propaganda, that sort of thing.' The General growled, 'Filthy business,' to which Northcliffe replied, 'While you were piling up the casualty lists we were trying to cut them down. If I can persuade one German to throw down his rifle, I have deprived Germany of a soldier, without also having to kill the man.'
This had a profound impact on Phil and became the philosophical framework for his intellectual pursuits. All members of the military who paid tribute to him after he passed away remarked on his commitment to 'propaganda for peace.' His good friend, Professor Stephen Badsey, recalled how, on a visit to the Tyne Cot World War One Cemetery, Phil was angered by the sight of rows of white headstones: 'This just shows how important psyops are for us now,' he said.
I was reminded of Phil last week as I attended a wonderful conference organised by my colleagues in Taiwan Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) London on the theme Globalisation and Security Across the Taiwan Strait. One panel was devoted to military matters and, following a theoretical paper about the possibility of conflict and an interesting discussion by American colleagues on cyberwarfare, an academic working in an American military academy took to the podium. His paper was little more than a salute to military hardware, and his powerpoint presentation showed a succession of photographs of the planes, trucks and missiles that Taiwan's military might use to defend itself in the event of an attack from the PRC. I became increasingly disturbed and ran through a gamut of emotions - distressed, nauseous, angry, repulsed - as we were told 'some arms races are affordable' and 'mines are beautiful.' Some of my fellow participants looked decidely uncomfortable. I decided to challenge the paper presenter about his comments.
I thanked the panel for reminding me how important it is to continue working on communications, soft power and public diplomacy so we can try to avoid having to use such hardware. I told the presenter that military hardware is not 'beautiful'; the pictures he had shown were of ugly, brutal machines designed to destroy, maim and kill humans. Children in parts of Africa, Central America and South East Asia who stand on landmines left over from conflicts in the last three decades see no beauty in the devices that wound or kill them. His failure to mention casualties at all in his presentation was a serious omission. Moreover, no arms race is affordable; every $1 million spent on such military hardware is $1 million that could have been spent on a hospital, a school, or improving the lives of the most vulnerable in our society. Which is more effective, someone asked, an F15 or an F16? Which should Taiwan prioritise? When you are the target of its missiles, is there really any difference?
This conference was a stark reminder to me that despite the often abstract and critical discussions we have about soft power, public diplomacy, and international communications in general, they can and do have an impact: such proccesses can play a central role to play in policy-making; in persuading governments that there really is an alternative to hard power; and that the academic labels we attach to such communicative activities is less important than their application and the recognition that it is always preferable to persuade than to coerce. I left the conference realising that it is more important than ever that we continue Phil's work and for the same reasons. Not such a 'Filthy business' after all ...
Tuesday, 11 September 2012
Comments on Weibo
At the weekend I was asked by contacts at China's English language newspaper, The Global Times, to comment on the way The People's Daily and Xinhua now use Weibo (China's major social networking site). The final report can be found here:
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/732364.shtml
However, my more provocative and critical comments were exorcised and so I publish my brief reply to the journalist here.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/732364.shtml
However, my more provocative and critical comments were exorcised and so I publish my brief reply to the journalist here.
The fact that official newspapers like the People's Daily and
government institutions like Xinhua have opened Weibo accounts is very
interesting, exciting and reveals a lot about what is happening in Chinese
attitudes towards the information space. We have a saying in English: 'If you
can't beat them, jon them,' and governments all over the world - including
authoritarian governments like China - are quickly learning that it is
preferable to engage with the information space rather than remain outside or
try to control it. They are also learning that today politics is about the
competition of narratives, and so by launching Weibo accounts the Chinese
government understands that it must try to spin the narrative. While controls
still exist - the Great Firewall is still an important method for the Chinese
state to manage the internet and its use (and remember that the media in China
have been subject to far greater and tighter controls under Hu Jintao and Wen
Jiabao) - thinking about, shaping and managing the story and its interpretation
is far more effective. Weibo and other social media allow for genuine dialogue,
and it will be interesting to see whether the People's Daily and Xinhua (ie the
Chinese state) uses Weibo as a genuine platform for more discussion with
Chinese civil society, or whether Weibo becomes simply another vehicle of
Communist propaganda. Weibo is a wonderful site for creative subversion by the
Chinese people and is fast becoming a space where criticism of the government is
voiced and civil society is mobilised. What will happen if this voice becomes
too loud or the users are mobilised in a political way that reminds us of the
so-called Arab Spring in 2011? At that time we saw that the government will
still use old-fashioned methods of coercion and control to close Weibo and
manage discussion on it. There is no reason why the state would not use its
authority in the same way in the future.
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