After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US government rolled out an arsenal of heavy weaponry; all were arm's-length public diplomacy in a region that values people and faces, not facts and figures. While the United States focused on presentation of policy, the audience focused on policy, period.
Public diplomacy during the Cold War was about bipolar interests, information volume, control, and separate audiences. Public diplomacy was a product.
But the Cold War information strategy is not working today. The more globalization spreads, the more culture becomes the new frontier for defining identities and allegiances.
Today's communication interactivity has transformed public diplomacy into a process.
Fighting information battles over the airwaves cannot win hearts and minds; building communication bridges and forging a network can.
Yesterday, the communicator with the most information won. Today, the one with the most extensive and strongest network wins.
Disseminating information is spam, networking is strategic.
Rather than using research to find the right messages, Washington should attempt to learn how people are connected in order to develop new links. In the future, reliable databases will be more valuable than opinion polls.
In the global communication era, to effectively maneuver the political landscape requires networking as the new paradigm of strategic U.S. public diplomacy.
