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发表于 2006-3-5 19:55:04
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What is Public Diplomacy?
作者:朱素梅教授 时间:2005年04月24日
What is Public Diplomacy?
Definitions
Origins of the term
Public diplomacy and propaganda
Public and traditional diplomacy
What public diplomacy is and is not
"PUBLIC DIPLOMACY refers to government-sponsored programs intended to inform or influence public opinion in other countries; its chief instruments are publications, motion pictures, cultural exchanges, radio and television." (U.S. Department of State, Dictionary of International Relations Terms, 1987, p. 85)
USIA which was in the business of public diplomacy for more than forty years, defined PUBLIC DIPLOMACY as follows:
Public diplomacy seeks to promote the national interest and the national security of the United States through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.
Origins of the term Public Diplomacy
"According to a Library of Congress study of U.S. international and
cultural programs and activities prepared for the Committee on Foreign
Relations of the U.S. Senate, the term `public diplomacy' was first used
in 1965 by Dean Edmund Gullion of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
at Tufts University. It was created with the establishment at Fletcher of
the Edward R. Murrow Center for Public Diplomacy."
The Murrow Center, in one of its earlier brochures, described public diplomacy as follows:
"Public diplomacy . . . deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with those of another; the reporting of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communication between those whose job is communication, as between diplomats and foreign correspondents; and the processes of inter-cultural communications.
"Central to public diplomacy is the transnational flow of information and
ideas."
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Public diplomacy and propaganda
To this day views differ as to whether or not "public diplomacy" and
"propaganda" are similar.
Two examples:
In 1955, Oren Stephens, author of Facts to a Candid World: America's
Overseas Information Program, called such programs (now known as "public
diplomacy"), "propaganda." He referred to the Declaration of
Independence as being "first and foremost a propaganda tract."
In 1961, Wilson Dizard, in the first book to be written specifically
about USIA, which was then about eight years old, wrote: The United
States has been in the international propaganda business, off and on,
for a long time . . . propaganda played a crucial role in the war of
independence."
In the years following these earlier views, some U.S. Government officials
and others contended that U.S. public diplomacy programs are not
propaganda. Others still contend, however, that since propaganda can be
based on fact, public diplomacy can be equated with propaganda i.e. ideas,
information, or other material disseminated to win people over to a given
doctrine. If based on falsehoods and untruths, while still propaganda, it
is best described as "disinformation."
USIA officials always contended that their programs dealt with the known
facts; to do otherwise would be counterproductive as their reliability
would be questioned.
Edward R. Murrow, in May 1963, as the Director of USIA at the time, in
testimony before a Congressional Committee, summed up this view best when
he said:
"American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but
the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies
are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we
must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as
that."
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Public diplomacy and traditional diplomacy
Public diplomacy differs from traditional diplomacy in that public diplomacy deals not only with governments but primarily with non-governmental individuals and organizations. Furthermore, public diplomacy activities often present many differing views as represented by private American individuals and organizations in addition to official U.S. Government views.
Traditional diplomacy actively engages one government with another government. In traditional diplomacy, U.S. Embassy officials represent the U.S. Government in a host country primarily by maintaining relations and conducting official USG business with the officials of the host government whereas public diplomacy primarily engages many diverse non-government elements of a society. |
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