PrintMedia As Global Diplomat
part of the Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding
Featured
Event: Seizing the Moment: Media & Peacebuilding
Held at the magnificent Newseum in Washington, D.C. on May 12, 2010, this summit considered specific recommendations on ways to harness the power of media for conflict prevention. Senior media makers, policymakers and powerful change agents who are key to the development of new ideas with the potential to reduce future conflict, convened at this summit.
Event: Media as Global Diplomat II: New Findings on the Science of Media and Conflict
While public diplomacy experts struggle to develop strategic communications campaigns to win hearts and minds abroad, new research on the frontiers of neuroscience and psychology suggests a different approach. On October 1, 2009, USIP brought researchers and media makers together in an unprecedented dialogue on these new findings and their implications for the international community’s ability to use media to prevent conflict.
Special Report: Media as Global Diplomat
It would be tempting to pronounce American public diplomacy dead in the 21st century. Where government once served as a powerful middleman for information and access, shaping prevailing messages about the United States, now the Internet connects two billion people directly. The result is a brave new world for multilateral international communication, with unprecedented power to connect and divide, spread truth and rumor, and organize dispersed individuals for good, evil, and everything in between.
Event: Media As Global Diplomat
On February 3, 2009, USIP joined International Television Service (ITVS) to convene Media as Global Diplomat, a day-long conference that brought together many of the top thinkers in U.S. public diplomacy and strategic communication with independent film and media producers to identify innovative paths forward in the increasingly important effort to improve mutual understanding between the United States and other countries through communication and media.
Partners
Alliance of Civilizations Media Fund
International Television Service (ITVS)
Through a series of summits to highlight the expanding power of today’s media to transform public diplomacy and promote peaceful international relations, the Center has brought together a variety of public diplomacy thinkers and media stakeholders. These events have been hosted by influential public figures such as Ted Koppel and Queen Noor.
How can America adapt its public diplomacy strategy to the digital age in order to prevent conflict? USIP has brought many of the top thinkers in U.S. public diplomacy and strategic communications together with independent film and media producers in an unprecedented dialogue on this important question. Through inclusive events incorporating multiple stakeholders, disparate perspectives, and audience participation, USIP identifies innovative paths forward in the increasingly important effort to improve mutual understanding between the United States and other countries through communication and media.
Topics discussed during the summit series have included:
- How can the United States catalyze public-private partnerships that invite foreign perspectives through interactive and social networking media?
- Is there a role for media companies, NGOs, and third-party news outlets to be tools of public diplomacy by reaching certain communities that U.S. government media cannot?
- How can advancements in brain imaging and psychophysiology methodologies shape the best ways to deliver positive public diplomacy messages?
- Under what circumstances do “positive” and “negative” messages have greater or less impact on conflict?
- What are the differences in roles for traditional journalism versus social networking journalism in international problem-solving and global conflict prevention?
- How can citizen-to-citizen exchanges and citizen journalism enhance both U.S. understanding of foreign cultures and overseas understanding of America?
- What will be the result of information “balkanization” that has come with thousands of news sources and the disappearance of “mainstream media”?
- How might the international community counteract extremists who use the media for recruitment and to promote violence?
- With digital media consumption skyrocketing among youth globally, what can be done to develop the next generation of peacebuilders?
Media clips:
Public Diplomacy 2.0: Rethinking Official Media
Independent Documentary and Participatory Media
Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan