An Integrated Approach to Public Diplomacy

By focusing on global engagement between governments (along with corporations and nongovernmental organizations [NGOs]) and citizens of foreign nations, public diplomacy research has gained much attention from international relations, mass communications, and political scientists alike. While mostly atheoretical (Entman, 2008; Gilboa, 2000), public diplomacy research is largely influenced by Joseph Nye’s (1990, 2008) soft power perspective. Nye’s perspective highlights the need to move away from traditional government-to-government diplomacy and toward a government-to-citizen perspective that highlights a relational approach based on two-way engagement. The soft power approach was so influential on both public diplomacy practitioners and scholars that President Clinton abolished the United States Information Agency (USIA) and replaced it with the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. This move signified not only an organizational realignment but also a philosophical shift from a global persuasion model to a model of government-to-citizen engagement focusing on such soft power programs as educational, cultural exchanges along with language training and development programs as the key tools of public diplomacy. Many critics, including the current author, have argued that while soft power programs serve an important role in international engagement, they should complement rather than replace a strategic global communication effort that draws from the mediated public diplomacy approach (Entman, 2004; Sheafer & Gabay, 2009; Sheafer & Shenhav, 2010). While traditional diplomacy is focused on government-to-government engagement and the soft power approach is focused on government-to-citizen engagement, the mediated public diplomacy approach is focused on government-to-citizen engagement that is mediated by a third party—the global news media. The rising influence of global satellite networks and social media (Kwak, Poor, & Skoric, 2006; Nisbet, Nisbet, Scheufele, & Shanahan, 2004; Seib, 2007, 2008) necessitates an updated

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