There are many occasions in this class where we spoke about the false search of many to find a message to serve as a magic bullet to convince the masses. We first heard about this idea in Weaver’s speech in Japan about the history of cross-cultural communication. He said that initially theorists and governments held similar beliefs – that there is a simple transfer of a message from the sender to the receiver, and that if the message is received in full by the receiver, then they will believe what they hear. Many other authors debated over whether or not people are simple minded in this way and are “cultural dupes.” Weaver showed that presently, cross-cultural communication has evolved to share many different factors that affect message success. Many authors have overcome this misconception that people are cultural dupes as well.
This week in Corman, Trethewey, and Goodall’s reading, we rehashed this discussion in a new light. Corman et al discussed the flood of information in a competitive present day world wherein constant fights for message-transfer success exist. They discussed how, unfortunately, the United States bases its public diplomacy strategy on an outdated Message Influence Model that uses the telephone as a framework. This model is littered with problems, some of which include the lack of acknowledgement that just simplifying a message and spreading it amongst a population as deeply as possible will prove to be successful. They fail to realize that there are flaws not just with their ignoring basic cultural differences and the role of the individual in message reception, but also that message consistency and coordination is another problem that needs to be tended to.
Corman et al propose a new model, the Pragmatic Complexity Model, which emphasizes a double contingency and mutual interdependence. They encourage the US government to break out of traditional narratives and to focus on the long term impact of a message over short term struggles.
The Pragmatic Complexity Model, to Corman et al and to myself, is a much more realistic model and one that should be applied. I don’t agree with, say, the CNAS's suggestion to consider abandoning public diplomacy all together, but on the contrary, I think that the US should have a public diplomacy reality check. I think that the overall answer can be pulled from the video we watched in class on Al Jazeera English. In it, two US soldiers made a statement about how people in the West need to understand that there are other world views and that there is not one correct way to govern and live. If, in this situation, the government would be more willing to understand that they need to do a lot more homework in understanding a local foreign population, that they need to avoid judgment and a superiority complex, and that PD should be a dialogue, then public diplomacy will be much more successful overall. The Pragmatic Complexity Model would be a great start.
It’s unfortunate that the US often takes this oversimplified view of public diplomacy. Sometimes, it seems as if those in charge haven’t realized that the world has changed—thinking that just because one strategy worked (during the Cold War), that the same rules apply today. But now, ICT’s have become the way that individuals govern their own lives (leading to a much more diversified experience for the individual in that they can pick and choose what they want to hear), and are the best way for governments to reach them. The US should take this into consideration—short-term thinking doesn’t work anymore, people can see right through it.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with what you say and Rosemary's perspective that the US has an oversimplified view of public diplomacy. The notion that everybody loves the US, every country should aspire to be the US, just isn't a functional message anymore.
ReplyDeleteSince I don't actually know what goes on in the minds of the people who craft the public diplomacy messages the US sends out, I can't say this for certain, but there seems to be a fundamental lack of basic psychological understanding of how people receive and absorb different messages through different forms across different cultures.
Message consistency and coordination, as you pointed out, are flaws in the system. But I think you hit the nail on the head when you talk about "cultural dupes," and the blanket assumption that people are all alike in how they react to information. I thought of the piece from class with the American soldiers' thoughts on Al-Jazeera as well, and think that there is an underestimation, in general, and under-valuing of the necessity of absorbing, not discarding, and applying other perspectives in disseminating public diplomacy.
So I've always wondered whether part of the problem is that the architects of PD are required to work with departments of the government that are less...equipped?... for understanding America's image abroad?
ReplyDeleteThe State dept may plan strategic communications all they want but what happens when a General makes comments that are not in line? Or a president for that matter....
Nye's writing about Speaker of the House Gringrich 'attacking the State Department for failing to sell America's policy" (Nye 2008) made me even more curious.
Winning national elections and winning international credibility are not necessarily the same skill set. Yet those with the first are often called upon to set the policies that determine the second.