The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014 33 lic diplomacy fromexternal agencies, like the Broadcasting Board of Governors, as well as the public affairs divisions of other foreign affairs agencies. Internally, there is overlap between IIP and two other bureaus: Public Affairs and Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is worth noting that IIP is the only one of the three PD bureaus that is not headed by an assistant secretary; it is run by a coordina- tor. IIP is supposed to have jurisdiction over presenting and explain- ing U.S. policy to foreign audiences through social media, and it runs a project designed to help embassies and consulates find and post material to their social media profiles. Yet in practice it has been confined to supplying innocuous material that does little to explain State’s intentions abroad—“like videos of bald eagles in flight, National Donut Day in the U.S. or youth entrepreneurship,” according to one IIP employee quoted by JohnHudson. In place of focusing on adding depth to the Foreign Service’s social media domains, IIP utilizes resources for this and projects like its 20/100/100 program—helping 20 posts at a time increase their fan base by 100 percent in 100 days—which seems to contrib- ute only superficially to public diplomacy. Despite its questionable spending on advertisement, however, IIP is responsible for numerous social media outlets that have connected the Foreign Service withmillions around the world.The value of digital public diplomacy cannot be quantified by Facebook “likes,” but is evident in the department’s enhanced foreign interac- tion and accessibility. Moving in the Right Direction Today’s online technologies have inundated the Foreign Service, and they are here to stay. While the OIG report was scathing in its assessment of State’s most tech-savvy bureau, it also offered practi- cal recommendations for fixing problems and building on the real progress to date. It could help the bureau and the department shape the overall digital agenda. A new coordinator, Macon Phillips, took over IIP in September 2013, but three of the seven top positions remained vacant as of December. Phillips comes to State from theWhite House, where he was director of digital strategy and a senior adviser to President Obama; and the other three senior officials in IIP are Foreign Ser- vice officers, two of them senior officers. The State Department, along with every “social media functional bureau” within it, steadfastly views social media as the future of public diplomacy. After observing the advances the department has made in utilizing the technology—and after looking at the pace of digital trends outside of the Foreign Service, all over the world, it is hard to disagree. n