Public Diplomacy and Soft Power

• In Nye’s article Public Diplomacy and Soft Power, one thing I felt to be very interesting was he mentioned the three dimensions of public diplomacy in today’s international society. The first one is daily communication, which “involves explaining the context of domestic and foreign policy decisions”(Nye, p. 102), while the second one dimension pointed out that the power of strategic communication, which develops central themes and ideologies as political and advertising campaign does. The third dimension discussed the crucial role of relationship building within key individuals. However, he continues stating that the “public diplomacy is an instrument that governments use to mobilize [the resources that produce soft power] to communicate with and attract the publics of other countries, rather than merely their governments”. (Nye, p. 95), which I believe not necessarily true since these three dimensions could also apply to the development of propaganda, while domestically influence the national culture and political appearance to its citizens
• In Fast Diplomacy, Andreas Sandre pointed out the idea that how the fast diplomacy can be detrimental to a nation’s public diplomacy, which limits the time to consider and communicate with all the possible outcomes. Also, as he mentioned, “because social media exponentially multiplies a message and its reach, mistakes often occur in sudden and unexpected fashion” (Sandre). Therefore, to my point of view, adequate regulation and surveillance is necessarily needed, since social media cites still monitored by people, it’s extremely hard to express a nation’s voice in such a short time.
• In Global Interconnectivity, Sandre again noted that a good public diplomacy depends on communications, which means not only expressing your culture and ideology, but also consume other countries views and concerns. That’s how interconnectivity formed, however, since half of the world press currently wither still hold the position of western view or in their own bureaucracy, it’s far from easy to make the “public diplomacy interconnectivity” to be practical.