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With the nomination of Karen Hughes as the new undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, the United States has the potential to embark on a new and more effective phase in its communication with the international community, particularly with the Arab and Islamic world. Hughes' close working relationship with President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other advisers in the administration's inner circle qualifies her as a communication heavyweight. If she uses this asset, she can transform the old model of public diplomacy used during the Cold War into a more strategic approach.
To date, the United States has been stuck in a one-size-fits-all model of public diplomacy derived from the Cold War period. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, forcefully surfaced the need for a public diplomacy. The perceptions of foreign audiences have domestic consequences, and public diplomacy, a government's tool for communicating with foreign publics and changing negative perceptions, quickly became the buzz in Washington after the attacks.
In the rush to get America's message out, officials relied on the same approach, tools, and mindset in fighting terrorism that had earlier been used to fight communism. The 2002 National Security Strategy ranked "the war of ideas" second only to the military offensive. The "battle for hearts and minds" became the charge, and the Arab and Islamic world was the target audience. The message was American values, and democracy and freedom were the antidote to stopping the spread of terrorism.
As in the Cold War information battle, the U.S. government rolled out an arsenal of heavy weaponry; a State Department fact book, The Network of Terror (December 2001); an Arabic youth pop music station, Radio Sawa (March 2002); the first international U.S. advertising campaign, the Shared Values Initiative (October 2002); an Arabic youth lifestyle magazine, Hi (July 2003); and an Arabic-language television satellite network, Al-Hurra (February 2004). All capitalized on the innovative, interactive features of advanced communication technology, but all were government-run media productions in a region with a long experience of exposure to such information sources. All were arm's-length public diplomacy in a region that values people and faces, not facts and figures. Thus, the information battle strategy and mass media tools that worked so effectively in bringing down the Berlin...