Post by Moses on Feb 1, 2005 18:38:51 GMT -5
USC Center for Public Diplomacy
Worldcasting
by Alvin Snyder (CBS, Nixon, Reagan)
....But by then, public diplomacy had grown into four-humped camel, since the U.S. Information Agency was abolished after the Cold War. As reported here on Friday, more than a score of local TV stations have been licensed to operate in Iraq. And in Afghanistan, the radio dial is beginning to load up like a top 10 market in the U.S.
The smart money these days is on the new non-profit foundations, such as the Foundation for International Understanding, led by David Abshire, that will help to sustain new and existing broadcast facilities abroad with relevant high-quality content while nurturing local filmmakers and television producers. It is the kind of soft power that resonates more effectively than any other, from people, not governments.
About once a week I take my own unscientific survey by doing Google name searches, to see who’s getting buzz in the WorldCasting war of ideas.
Last week Al Jazeera registered 761,000 hits on Google.
But guess what? The Voice of America, chastised and downsized because it is considered by some in Washington to be a relic of the Cold War, registered 19,000,000 hits on Google, almost 25 times as many as Al Jazeera.
That’s nothing: just wait until the local television and radio stations take hold.
Worldcasting
by Alvin Snyder (CBS, Nixon, Reagan)
....But by then, public diplomacy had grown into four-humped camel, since the U.S. Information Agency was abolished after the Cold War. As reported here on Friday, more than a score of local TV stations have been licensed to operate in Iraq. And in Afghanistan, the radio dial is beginning to load up like a top 10 market in the U.S.
The smart money these days is on the new non-profit foundations, such as the Foundation for International Understanding, led by David Abshire, that will help to sustain new and existing broadcast facilities abroad with relevant high-quality content while nurturing local filmmakers and television producers. It is the kind of soft power that resonates more effectively than any other, from people, not governments.
About once a week I take my own unscientific survey by doing Google name searches, to see who’s getting buzz in the WorldCasting war of ideas.
Last week Al Jazeera registered 761,000 hits on Google.
But guess what? The Voice of America, chastised and downsized because it is considered by some in Washington to be a relic of the Cold War, registered 19,000,000 hits on Google, almost 25 times as many as Al Jazeera.
That’s nothing: just wait until the local television and radio stations take hold.