Public diplomacy and information technology: America’s semi-secret weapons

In the aftermath of the 11 September 2001 events, it has become clear that many parts of the Islamic world misunderstand American policies and actions, and that misinformation about the United States can spread like wildfire, through information technologies (IT), such as the Web and e-mail.

The United States once had a professional public affairs agency to explain American policies and ideas to overseas audiences and report back on worldwide attitudes to the foreign affairs community. But since 1999, the U.S. Information Agency or USIA as it was known, has been sliced, diced, and scattered around the State Department, with its resources eviscerated and authority diminished.

IT: a double-edged sword

The democratization of technology, as Thomas Friedman calls it in his book The Lexus and the Olive Tree, has opened up vast markets overseas for American technology. But at the same time, the technology of Internet protocols (e.g. TCP/IP), World Wide Web, electronic mail, inexpensive desktop and laptop computers, and streaming and compression technologies that enable audio and video images to travel over ordinary communications lines have fundamentally changed the way individuals worldwide interact with each other.

In many respects, these new forms of communications increase interpersonal collaboration, particularly in the business and academic communities. But as we have seen since 11 September (and those who cared to look before then), these technologies can foster a subterranean network of hate and violence, not only of Islamic extremists, but of neo-fascist hate groups in the West. Attempts to police the content will most certainly fail and run into legitimate free-speech concerns. Our best hope of countering the rising flow of mis- and disinformation is through effective public affairs programs, using the skills of professionals in worldwide languages, cultures, the media, and education.

Once there was a U.S. Information Agency

USIA once had a collection of these professionals, but due to short-sighted economics, Congress abolished USIA as an independent agency in 1998, and distributed its functions around the main bureaus in the State Department. USIA coordinated all overseas embassy information and cultural programs, including well-known activities such as Fulbright scholarships. It also included the Voice of America and WorldNet television network. After 1998, Voice of American and WorldNet became part of the Bureau for International Broadcasting, that includes other government overseas broadcasting operations.

Ironically, Congress chose to abolish USIA just as the new information technologies began to take hold overseas. Soon after 11 September, for example, vicious rumors began to spread around the Internet about that tragic day, including rumors about American Jews in the World Trade Center that were given advance warning of the attacks. The inability to counter these and similar rumors have made it increasingly difficult to get America's policy message across to important audiences overseas that need to hear it.

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