The Foreign Service Journal, October 2006

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 33 ow is it possible, a congressman mused publicly a few years ago, that “the country that invented Hollywood and Madison Avenue” could not sell itself overseas? He seemed to suggest that if we just hit on a pithy, persuasive slogan, we could convince others of our good intentions. He appeared to argue that, delivered with the right panache, our message would be welcomed and embraced by the world. But public diplomacy is neither advertising nor movie-making. Nor is it public relations or political campaigning. It may be related to those disciplines, as baseball is distantly related to cricket, but it is most assuredly not close kin. For while all these occupa- tions, including public diplomacy, must communicate a message to large groups of people, the difference is in the complexity of the product. Advertisers sell an item — beer or shoes or cars — that is specific and self-defining. Movie-makers want to entertain and, when good, provoke. Their product appeals to the senses as well as the mind. Political strategists work in a familiar domestic milieu where communication is rapid and emotional, an environment where the sound bite and arresting image produce results. Public-relations agents burnish the reputations of individuals or businesses, rarely going beyond clichés and superficial explanations. When their clients do well, they tout it. When they behave badly or per- form poorly, they make excuses for them. We public diplomacy practitioners, in contradis- tinction, work in foreign countries and usually in for- eign languages. We seek to explain and promote for- eign policy issues, which are by their nature compli- cated and multifaceted. We must also describe American society, culture, history and values, a task that is, if anything, even more challenging. Yet we can- not reduce our arguments to slogans or images, no matter how appealing. We have to provide context and nuance, explain our motives and goals, and describe those many factors, domestic and international, that shape the policy. Although the policies we are pursu- ing, and why we are pursuing them, may be self-evi- dent to Americans, that’s rarely the case for a foreign audience. F O C U S O N P U B L I C D I P L O M A C Y N EITHER M ADISON A VENUE N OR H OLLYWOOD I F PUBLIC DIPLOMACY HAS FAILED , AS MANY CRITICS NOW CLAIM , IT HAS NOT BEEN DUE TO AN INABILITY TO FIND THE SECRET SLOGAN OR MAGIC MESSAGE . B Y R OBERT J. C ALLAHAN H Bob Callahan, a Foreign Service officer since 1979, has been a public affairs officer in Rome, Athens and La Paz. He has also served in San Jose, Tegucigalpa and London. His most recent overseas assignment was as press attaché and spokesman in Baghdad from June 2004 to May 2005. He is currently a public diplomacy fellow at The George Washington University.