The Foreign Service Journal, October 2009

24 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / O C T O B E R 2 0 0 9 • www.state.gov — The Dipnote blog was among the first innovations to be added to State’s flagship Web site. Now it has been joined by videos of senior officials’ speeches and other participatory features, like “Ask the Secretary.” • www.America.gov —On these pages aimed at foreign publics, a reader can download the booklet “Being Muslim in America,” partic- ipate in webchats with U.S. experts, read and comment on blogs about current affairs, take a quiz or answer a poll. • www.exchanges.state.gov — This traditional site lists exchange program opportunities, publicizes exchange pro- grams and hands off the visitor to ExchangesConnect and its Facebook page. • http://connect.state.gov/ —ExchangesConnect is usu- ally the first site mentioned when observers talk about so- cial networking. Launched in October 2008, this page claimed more than 12,000 members by August 2009. Both American and foreigner exchange program participants are invited to sign up, as on Facebook and Twitter. But Will It Work? While these pages’ members are growing rapidly, the numbers are still small, and everything is experimental. It will take a while to figure out which approaches work best. Pages tend to be thin on comments, whose number and quality are typical measures of performance. One standout venture has been America.gov’s Democ- racy Video project, which has attracted more than 900 en- tries and many more viewers and participants. (You can view the videos at www.youtube.com/user/Democracy- Challenge.) On the other hand, an electronic game for cell phones produced at a cost of $400,000 garnered rather modest usage. Bruce Wharton, the office director for public diplo- macy in the Africa Bureau and a former IIP deputy coor- dinator, says that social networking programs are evaluated according to three criteria: reach, engagement and credi- bility — each of which can be measured through reader- ship statistics and Web ratings. As Wharton says, “We’re inviting the world to talk to us.” He continues: “I know that I will never be able to cre- ate content that’s of interest to a 15-year-old Brazilian or a 17-year-old Pakistani.” State’s pages constantly invite vis- itors to comment, so that “the reader can see his or her own words published on a U.S. government Web site. People may feel that they’ve been heard.” (PD staffers monitor comment pages for spam and obscenities.) In order to comply with federal regulations, the department repre- sentatives took part in a U.S. gov- ernment team that negotiated special terms of use for government pages on several major social networking sites. Internal guidelines for employees’ work-related participation on commercial sites appear on an internal wiki page, where any employee can register and add information or propose changes. It’s important to remember that overseas opinion is shaped more in Arabic, Russian, Chinese and other for- eign languages than in English. IIP and a growing num- ber of embassies employ writers to monitor foreign-based blogs and communities of interest to American foreign pol- icy, and to add comment and information. These in-house bloggers must identify themselves online as government employees. A dozen members of the Digital Outreach Team in Washington post comments in Arabic, Persian and Urdu on selected Web sites to defend against hostile or misleading material. They also publish reports on the intranet about trends in online comment throughout the Muslim world. Embassies are also beginning to hire writers experi- enced in social networking to advocate online. That’s a new communication model: instead of one broadcasting to many, it’s many to many. The practice expands expo- nentially the number of department employees who can comment on behalf of the government, so it’s only a mat- ter of time before a comment, either by a U.S. official or by a foreign reader, creates a public affairs flap. “There have to be some rules of the road,” Crowley says, adding, “We have to be prepared to back up our FS personnel.” Cultural Exchanges: Younger, Broader The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Exchanges was part of the State Department until 1978, when USIA took it over. The program the agency operated retains the same basic contours today; but, unlike in the past, exchanges and cultural programs are targeting high F O C U S In 2008, the major public affairs Web pages of the State Department all changed to more participatory and visual styles.