The Modernization Act was approved last night to be included in the House’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act now being debated. The Rules Committee approved the inclusion last night, a move that was not intended to challenge jurisdictional issues. Adding this to the NDAA, which is sure to pass and soon, rather than as a stand-alone foreign affairs bill, reflects the House’s imperative to change the Smith-Mundt Act to better enable and support America’s national security and foreign policy writ large. A State Department authorization bill, which this would normally be included with, has not passed the Congress in years.

Below are highlights of the bill:

• Specifies Smith-Mundt applies only to the State Department and the BBG, in doing doing so extends the Act over the entire department instead of just the public diplomacy side of the Office of the Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs.
• The bill applies to material produced after the bill is passed into law. The existing regime for making content available remains intact to limit the burden on the agencies.
• The bill emphasizes, in legislative language, existing law (that remain untouched since 1948) requiring the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors to maximize the use of private resources and to not have a monopoly (22 USC 1462 and 22 USC 1437, respectively), the real “anti-propaganda” protections in the law.

Applying the Law to State and BBG

Specifying the Smith-Mundt Act only applies to the BBG and the State Department counters a myth that has grown over recent decades that the law applies to the whole of government. Even a 2006 Defense Department review of Smith-Mundt found that while the law did not apply to Defense, the legal advice from a lawyer was that in the absence of a clear instruction (i.e. law) from Congress, the Defense Department should consider the law as applicable to its activities. This is equal to Defense making law but more accurately reflects an inaccurate reading of the law, its language and the past intent. (The legislatively minded will note Smith-Mundt is found in Title 22 of U.S. Code, covering State Department activities, and not Title 10 of U.S. Code covers Defense Department activities.)

This particular myth was generally part of the false characterization of the Smith-Mundt Act as an anti-propaganda law. This label likely stems from 1985 when Senator Zorinsky labeled USIA material as propaganda if it were to be available inside the U.S. An amendment by Zorinsky led a federal court to block Freedom of Information Act requests on USIA material for a time (during which time the Congress removed the propaganda label from foreign government material disseminated within the U.S.).

The “disseminate abroad” language in the original legislation was intended to protect the U.S. Government from the State Department, which the Congress did not trust at the time as they felt State was too soft on Communism and filled with socialists and Communists.

Removing this restriction will allow departments to engage globally. There is and remains “anti-propaganda” language in (seemingly) all appropriation bills, and many authorization bills, passed by the Congress.

The Modernization Act extends coverage of the Smith-Mundt Act over the entire Department of State. Previously it arguably applied only to the public diplomacy side of the Office of the Under Secretary of State of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Other bureaus in State restricted their engagement according to their own individual view of the law.

Removing the restriction of domestic access to content — the law never specified someone in the U.S. could not use the material, just that it should not be available to a person inside the U.S. — eliminates virtual restraints on global engagement. Legally, the American public is not supposed to know what Michelle Kwon, for example, does when she is traveling abroad on behalf of the State Department as that is a public diplomacy trip. The concern of violating Smith-Mundt permeates not just State, even coming up in a conversation on whether to put an American on a foreign government radio program, but other departments as well.

The result will be greater awareness of and oversight over what is said and done with taxpayer money. This was a strong recommendation of the 1967 Advisory Commission on Information, predecessor to the recently closed Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy:

The American taxpayer should no longer be prohibited from seeing and studying the product a government agency produces with public funds for overseas audiences. Students in schools and colleges all over this country who are interested in government, foreign affairs and international relations should not be denied access to what the U.S. government is saying about itself and the rest of the world.

Not Retroactive

To prevent a potentially significant burden on State and BBG to make all past material immediately available, the Modernization Act applies only to material produced after it becomes law and restates the 12-yr rule for all past material.

This rule of making USIA, and not State and BBG, material available after 12-years was intended to prevent access to the material in slower times as scholarly research wasn’t down for many years after an event. The Modernization Act should revert the availability of past material to the original language: a reasonable time.

Maximize the Use of Private Resources

The Modernization Act emphasizes the original “anti-propaganda” sections of the Smith-Mundt Act. These were put in place to “remove the stigma of propaganda” and as a response to the contemporary Freedom of Information movement that both caused Smith-Mundt and was part of the resistance to Smith-Mundt in 1943 through 1947. (Shameless plug: details on this in my forthcoming book on Smith-Mundt.)

The section “Policies Governing Information Activities” (22 USC 1462, or Section 502 in the original legislation) is not only intended to prevent government propaganda by ensuring other voices are heard, but it was also intended to be a “sunset” clause of international information activities:

In authorizing international information activities under this chapter, it is the sense of the Congress (1) that the Secretary shall reduce such Government information activities whenever corresponding private information dissemination is found to be adequate; …

22 USC 1462 should be read as a guiding principle today: the information provided by the Government should not be otherwise available to the target audience. In other words, material produced by State and the BBG should be exceptional.

Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy

The Modernization Act does not refer to, or reauthorize, the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy that was in the original legislation to provide oversight over and advocacy of public diplomacy by the Government for the Secretary of State, the President, and the Congress. For more on the Commission, see http://mountainrunner.us/pdcommission/.

Republican AND Democratic Sponsorship

This bill is a bipartisan effort between Republicans (Thornberry) and Democrats (Smith) at the front. This mirrors the passage of the original Act. In December 1945, the House Foreign Affairs Committee referred the Bloom Bill to the floor. Named after the  chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, a Democrat, it gained bipartisan support in a Democratic House where opposition tended to fall along divisions of geography and cosmopolitanism. It passed the House but failed in the Senate, blocked by the Republican Senator Taft, a proponent of the Freedom of Information movement, who believed in freedom of information and felt Government should stay out of the information business. The bill thus died in the 79th Congress.

The bill was picked up in the 80th Congress by the Republicans Congressman Karl Mundt and Senator Alexander Smith. The 80th Congress, with both chambers under Republican control fought President Truman on nearly everything and was nicknamed the “Do Nothing Congress.” Nevertheless, it recognized the importance of the U.S. becoming actively engaged in the global struggle for minds and wills and it passed the Smith-Mundt Act with substantial bipartisan support, including Taft’s. The Congress recognized the increasing importance of information and public opinion. On January 7, 1948, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recommended passing the legislation, stating that propaganda campaigns against the U.S. called for “urgent, forthright, and dynamic measures to disseminate truth.” The committee report said:

The enactment of the bill is essential if we are to have mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other nations which will serve a fair and lasting foundation for world peace. Today that peace is endangered by the weapons of false propaganda and misinformation and the inability on the part of the United States to deal adequately with those weapons.

Truth can be a power weapon on behalf of peace. It is the firm belief of the Committee that HR 3342 [the Smith-Mundt Bill], with all the safeguards included in the bill, will constitute an important step in the right direction toward the adequate dissemination of the truth about America; our ideals, and our people

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 should have similar bipartisan support at a time when public opinion has an even greater role than over six decades ago.

This update to the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 removes restraints imposed by Senators in 1972 and 1985 that reflect the changing nature of international politics where public opinion mattered relatively little. It was zero-sum bipolar politics with the substantial negotiations done behind closed doors rather than in the minds of people. Smith-Mundt was created and passed in a time when the struggle for minds and wills of people mattered. We are again in such an era.

What are you thoughts on the proposed changes to the Smith-Mundt Act? Comment below or write a guest post.

See also:

• Public Law 80-402 - the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, as signed into law on January 27, 1948. (H.R. 3342)
• Public Law 92-352 Domestic Distribution - the amendment by Senator Fulbright (“The Radios should be given the opportunity to take their rightful place in the graveyard of Cold War relics“) that inserted “shall not be disseminated” into the legislation. (see page 6 of 11, or page 494 by the printed page numbers.)
• Smith-Mundt Symposium Report - a public discussion with a diverse group of stakeholders on the purpose and means of U.S. public diplomacy.
• The Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy Caucus by Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX)

A future edition to the above list will be in my book on the (real) history of Smith-Mundt that focuses on 1943-1948, including the contemporary Freedom of Information movement.

Looking into the future from the past is often fascinating. A Bell Labs film from 1961 on the changing communication environment predicts the future information age as it projects its technology into the future. This includes machine to machine communication, online ordering, e-commerce, and cellular phones, is no different. The underlying purpose is preparing the audience for change.

AT&T provides a setup for the film from their archives, including:

This film breaks into approximately two parts — part I: the problems of the present, and part II: the way those problems could be solved by the technology of the future. This film not only serves as almost the birth of the information age, it also projects that technology far into the future.

The commercial products that would allow this connected, computer-communicating network? They’re basic, but at the time seemed radical:

* The wireless Bellboy Pager, which was introduced commercially in 1962
* The Data-phone, which was supposed to revolutionize business communications
* The videophone—shown as a credit-card-reading vertical two-way television
* The card-reading phone or automatic dialer, which would dial a number from small plastic punch cards, introduced in 1961
* Oh, and package delivery via rocket (which had just been tested in 1959).

Some quotes from the film:

“For where change once moved as an hour hand on a clock, now it rockets at a speed the mind’s eye can hardly follow.”

“This world now grown so small in time and distance, grows larger in challenge and opportunity.”

“We must speed up our recognition of change.”

“Change jostles change.”

(H/T CTOVision)

By Alan Heil

(This post originally appeared at The Public Diplomacy Council.)

For well more than a decade, Korea experts who specialize in international media have been examining the impact of foreign broadcasts and DVDs on users in North Korea. They have done so through a combination of in-country surveys and debriefings of defectors from North Korea, refugees and travelers abroad. In annual reports, Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders invariably have ranked that country as having the “least free” media in the world. Yet the curtain of near total silence appears to be opening as never before in North Korea.

In a landmark study released May 11, “A Quiet Opening,” Nat Kretchun, Associate Director of InterMedia Survey in Washington DC, and Jane Kim, Korea Projects Coordinator of the East West Coalition’s office in Beijing, conclude that a substantial portion of the North Korean population now has access to external media, through foreign TV, radio and DVDs. Foreign DVDs and smuggled mobile phones brought into the country from China or South Korea are contributing to the awakening. Awareness of the outside world has grown exponentially among North Koreans since the late 1990s.

In the words of a 45-year-old woman, Hamkyongnamdo, who left North Korea a year ago this month: “I think now, almost all citizens listen or watch. You can tell when you talk to them… they will use South Korean words. In North Korea, there is no such phrase as ‘no doubt.’ When they use a word like that , you think, ‘that person watches, too’.” Or, as a 27-year-old woman named Yanggangdo, who left the North earlier last year, put it: “At first, I watched outside media purely out of curiosity. However, as time went by, I began to believe in the contents. It was an addictive experience. Once you start watching, you simply cannot stop.”

According to Kretchun, there is a strong link between foreign media exposure and positive perceptions of the outside world, implying that the influx of foreign media contributes to a more aware North Korean citizenry. DVDs and South Korean soap operas are especially popular. And the recent opening of North Korea to Western journalists has been striking. Last month, North Korean officials invited a group of reporters from Western and Asian media into the country for a firsthand, eyewitness observation of the centennial of the late Kim Il Sung’s birth. The foreign press also was invited to witness what turned out to be an aborted long-ranch missile launch.

Among those witnessing the launching — and taking photographs of it for his network’s website — was Voice of America Korean Service correspondent Sungwon Baik. He produced dozens of eyewitness radio reports and two television news features during and following his trip. It was his second journey to North Korea, and clearly his most rewarding. A North Korean official escort expressed displeasure when Sungwon, at a briefing, inquired how Pyongyang could spend so much on missiles as food shortages ravaged sections of the country.

The InterMedia study notes that about 27 percent of those who have left North Korea or travelled abroad had access back in the country to VOA, Radio Free Asia, or other external networks. As Kretchun puts it: “Parallel to increased foreign media access is an increased willingness by North Koreans to share information with others they trust, creating an information multiplier effect. Sharing of illegal foreign content is a key factor in strengthening horizontal bonds between North Korean citizens. This breaks down the state’s top-down monopoly on the supply of information and ideas.” There is substantial evidence of what would have been unthinkable just a few years ago: North Koreans gathering together to watch illegal DVDs.

As Harvard historian and Public Diplomacy Council member Joseph S. Nye Jr. observed in a lecture last week: “Power with others, and not power over others” is smart power’s strong suit in the 21st century. “ Sometimes,’ he added, “ it’s not the army that wins — it’s the story.” Or, in the words of two young residents of Hyesan City, North Korea, quoted in the InterMedia Survey report. In the words of one: “I was told when I was young that South Koreans are very poor, but the South Korean dramas proved that just isn’t the case.” And in the words of the other: “Accessing foreign media didn’t change my life, but it changed how I analyze my life.”

***

Alan L. Heil Jr. is a former deputy director of VOA, author of Voice of America: A History and editor of Local Voices/Global Perspectives: Challenges Ahead for U.S. International Media.

Guests posts are the opinions of the respective authors, do not necessarily reflect the opinion of MountainRunner.us, and are published here to further the discourse on activities that understand, inform, and influence.

Tomorrow, May 10, InterMedia will host a conversation based on their new report, A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment. The event starts at 9a and ends at noon. It will be at the Reserve Officer Association building at One Constitution Avenue NE on Capitol Hill.

InterMedia requests your RSVP by email. The agenda is below.

The event will be webcast live.

Introduction:

• Daniel B. Baer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor

Presentation:

• Nathaniel Kretchun, Associate Director, InterMedia; Principal author of A Quiet Opening

Panelists:

• Dr. Abraham Kim (moderator), Vice President, Korea Economic Institute
• Marcus Noland, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, The Peterson Institute for International Economics
• Martyn Williams, Blogger, NorthKoreaTech.org and Knight Journalism Fellow, Stanford University

Closing Remarks:

• Amb. Robert R. King, U.S. Special Envoy, North Korea Human Rights Issues

(L-R) Larry Schwartz, Jean Manes, Heather Eaton, Rob Nevitt, Lynn Roche. Jean Manes and Heather Eaton are 2012 achievement award winners. Lynne Roche, of State Department's Africa bureau, accepted the award for Sharon Hudson-Dean. Frank Schwartz nominated Jean Manes. Rob Nevitt chairs the PDAA awards committee. (Photo: A. Kotok)

2012 PDAA Awards Recognize Public Diplomacy Excellence

The Public Diplomacy Alumni Association, formerly the USIA Alumni Association, gave its 2012 achievement awards to U.S. public diplomacy professionals working in Zimbabwe, Okinawa, and Washington, DC. The announcement is below.

Successful public diplomacy requires leadership, imagination, resourcefulness, and determination, and in many cases under challenging conditions. The Public Diplomacy Alumni Association (PDAA, formerly USIA Alumni Association) recognizes outstanding achievement by individuals and teams at overseas posts and at State Department headquarters that display these qualities, among others.

The three winners of this year’s recognition of public diplomacy achievement — the 15th awards in the series that has become an annual event — took place at PDAA’s 2012 annual dinner on May 6 in Washington, D.C.

Heather Eaton, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Consulate General, Naha, Okinawa, Japan In recognition of her innovative leadership and creativity in advancing U.S. strategic objectives in Okinawa — despite an historically difficult public affairs environment and limited resources — by building a collaborative network of American and Japanese civilian and military PD professionals, educators, librarians and volunteers to expand U.S. outreach and refocus programming to core security-related themes.

Sharon Hudson-Dean, Counselor for Public Affairs, U.S. Embassy Harare, Zimbabwe In recognition of her exceptional courage, creativity and perseverance — in the face of daunting political and communications challenges – in cultivating new and effective platforms for U.S. engagement with Zimbabwean youth, women, opposition groups and a hostile media , building American and Zimbabwean partnerships and exchange alumni support for public diplomacy efforts, and harnessing the power of social media to outstanding effect.

Jean Manes, Director of Resources, Office of Policy, Planning and Resources (R/PPR), in recognition of your outstanding initiative, insight and determination in leading a thorough strategic review of Department of State public diplomacy personnel and budgets, effectively advocating for public diplomacy resources and field-directed input, and tutoring a generation of PD managers in building the foundations for long-term resource planning.

The forum brings together a mixed group of leading Chinese and international scholars, think-tankers and practitioners will debate and develop a geo-cultural perspective on public diplomacy based on a China-Europe-US-Dialogue.

The May 19 event starts at 9am and will end at 4:30pm (local time). I am not aware of any webcast or transcription, but I will share what I can after the event.

The conference opens with three 30min keynotes, including one by me:

1. Zhao Qizheng: The Future of China’s Public Diplomacy
2. Matt Armstrong: The Learning Curve of US Public Diplomacy
3. Amb. Markus Ederer: The Potential of Public Diplomacy in China-EU Relations

Zhao Qizheng is the Vice Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Peoples Political Consultative Conference and Dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University. Amb. Markus Ederer is the EU Ambassador to China.

The keynote session will be followed by comments and an hour-long “dialogue” with journalists. The second session of the day is “Debating China’s Public Diplomacy” with panelists speaking for 10min each. Tentative topics include “Is there a China model for public diplomacy?” and “What can China’s public diplomacy towards Pakistan tell us?”

The third session will be chaired by Clingendael’s Jan Melissen. Panelists, again with 10min each, include Phil Seib of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, Ronald Gratz, Wang Jay, and Ingrid d’Hooghe.

I will share more about this conference after it occurs.

What would you highlight as positive examples of U.S. public diplomacy over the past ten years?

(Note: the image on this post for the “Public Diplomacy Forum” is from the USIA, not this event.)

Recent articles and blog posts on the structural and personnel challenges in the State Department reminded me of a journal article I came across while researching my book on the history of the Smith-Mundt Act. The article, “The Reorganization of the Department of State,” was published in The American Political Science Review, Vol 38, No 2, in April 1944. The authors, Walter H. C. Laves and Francis O. Wilcox, were described as on leave from the Bureau of the Budget, the predecessor to today’s Office of Management and Budget, within the Executive Office of the President. However, both were diplomats and arguably public diplomats. Laves worked in the Office of Inter-American Affairs, a Presidential office intended to counter German influence in the Western Hemisphere, later the Deputy Director at UNESCO (1947-1950), and a professor of political science. Wilcox joined the State Department in 1942 and was the first chief of staff to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1947-1951), and later the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs (1955-1961).

While the entire “The Reorganization of the Department of State” is worth reading, I’ve copied the opening paragraphs below for your reading enjoyment.

“For many years there has been widespread discussion of the need for reorganizing the Department of State. Students, publicists, members of Congress, and members of the Department itself have repeatedly pointed out that the Department has not been geared up to performing the functions required of the foreign office of a great twentieth-century world power.

The chief criticisms of the Department have been four: (1) that there was lacking a basic pattern of sound administrative organization, (2) that the type of personnel found both at home and abroad was inadequate for the job required in foreign affairs today, (3) that the Department was too far removed from the public and from Congress, and (4) that it was not prepared to provide leadership for, and maintain the necessary relations with, other federal agencies.”

The paper was written after the first of two Departmental Orders of 1944 were issued to reorganize the State Department, dated January 15 and December 20. Let me emphasize that this reorganization was done by the Department and did not require Congressional pressure, at least direct pressure, or legislation. The Department is a more complex bureaucracy today with legislation more likely to refer to specific elements of the Department, thus potentially reducing autonomy of action.

Laves and Wilcox followed up with another journal article in April 1945, “The State Department Continues Its Reorganization.” The article is worth a read, but below are two excerpts that will be of interest to readers today.

At the outset, it should be repeated that it would be difficult to overemphasize the importance of these reorganizations for the conduct of our foreign affairs. For in spite of the importance of international organization to world order, we should never forget that the smooth functioning of the international machinery we set up and the success of the peace we establish will depend in large measure upon how effectively the various states organize their national governments to carry on the complicated relations of the international community.

and

Continuing attention will need to be given the complex problem of inter-agency relations resulting from the fact that domestic and international affairs are now so completely interdependent that the resources of all agencies of the government must be mobilized for the conduct of our foreign relations. This problem is clearly recognized in the functions given the Joint Secretariat, as well as in other specific arrangements for liaison relations under the latest reorganization.

It is interesting, and sometimes a bit distressing, that some passages from reports and articles that are 50-60 years old, when we were preparing for or engaged in an enduring “struggle for minds and wills,” could have been written today. The arc of U.S. public diplomacy might be more aptly described as a spiral: always in motion and nearly making a full circle as it goes up or down and covering an always changing surface area.

The first meeting was February 9-11, 2012, at MIT in Boston. PJTT and SaxeLab brought together a high-level group of experienced leaders from the Middle East, South Africa, Northern Ireland, and Central America with conflict conflict resolution experts, social psychologists, and leading neuroscientists to survey the latest findings in neuroscience and brain research to brainstorm and exchange ideas for addressing conflict.

I attended the February meeting and it was an eye-opening few days that started early and continued over dinner into the night. The presentations were honest, devoid of grandiose assertions of magic bullets, and each were followed by collegial discussions fueled by fresh questions and ideas.

Rebecca Saxe, the Director of SaxeLab, highlighted some of the general assumptions most scientists looking at conflict and conflict resolution share:

• People respond to conflict as human beings and there is some generalized experience that can be captured
• Behaviors can reflect emotions, associations, norms, and narratives that are not accessible through cognition or introspection
• People resist changing their minds and simple persuasion is almost never sufficient to make them change

The science presentations shared research on how particular parts of the brain were involved with specific behavior and emotions, such as fear. Discussions included the role of humiliation in perpetuating war, motivations for “prosocial” and empathetic behavior, group norms, among others.

The acknowledged drawback of some of the existing scientific research is the “normal” person for much of the brain imaging is an MIT student, which all acknowledged is not a true representation. The scientists were eager for advice on how to modify their experiments to test on relevant questions, topics, and people.

The first meeting left all of the participants more interested than when the meeting started. Follow up ideas include:

• Convening a second meeting to inventory key areas of research relevant to conflict resolution
• Studying specific conflict resolution approaches to test assumptions underlying various established methodologies
• Exposing leading neuroscientists to active conflict resolution and negotiation situations
• Generate opportunities for concrete research on perpetrators of violence who have been de-radicalized [see Google Ideas' "Formers" project]
• Evaluating the impact of social media-based public diplomacy efforts
• Create a multi-disciplinary study and research program that investigates core questions related to conflict resolution

This effort continues with a working group, which I am a part of, to help guide the initiative forward. The working group includes:

• Matt Armstrong, former Executive Director, U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy
• Eileen Babbitt, Fletcher School of Law and Public Diplomacy, Tufts University
• Dan Batson, Professor of Social Psychology, Kansas University
• Kim Brizzolara, feature film and documentary producer
• Emile Bruneau, Researcher, SaxeLab, MIT
• Betsy Levy Paluck, Professor of Psychology, Princeton University
• Mohammed Milad, Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry
• Tim Phillips, Co-founder, Project on Justice in Times of Transition
• Lee Ross, Professor of Psychology, Stanford University
• Rebecca Saxe, Professor Cognitive Neuroscience; Director, SaxeLab, MIT
• Gary Slutkin, Executive Director, CeaseFire
• Jessica Stern, former member of President Clinton’s National Security Council staff

There is more to come on this subject.

Your thoughts?

It has long been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what words to which people? The pixels or streaks of paint of an image is the only commonality shared by different audiences. The context in which they are received and interpreted matters. Beyond the intended framing, including words or other images, personal and shared history, language, current or developing narratives, and other inputs, both direct and indirect, all matter in the impact of a picture.

On March 16, 2012, Georgia State University, in conjunction with the Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College, convened a conference entitled Visual Propaganda and Online Radicalization.  This public event followed two days of working meetings between the conference’s speakers and others from a variety of disciplines to better understand the role of images, still and moving, in recruiting, radicalizing, and mobilizing support. Also discussed was the possibility of over-analyzing images.

Conference day presentations are available here. Speakers included David Perlmutter, Scott Ruston, Anne Stenersen, Carol Winkler, Hussein Amin, Saeid Belkasim, Cori Dauber, Doug Jordan, Jad Melki, Shawn Powers, and me, Matt Armstrong.

My presentation was “Now Media, Identity, & the Marketplace for Loyalty.” Video of my part of the conference, which was a quick 15min, is here. This presentation will be more fleshed out elsewhere, including a book chapter Shawn Powers and I are writing presently named “From Nation-State to Nations-State: Conceptualizing Radicalization in the Marketplace for Loyalties.”

In the case of over-analysis, there was an interesting discussion on the use of fancy Islamic calligraphy in logos or brands of insurgent or terrorist groups. The meaning of these texts were analyzed but elder native Arab speakers from and living in the Middle East dismissed some of the conclusions. The contention was the youth cannot read the script or don’t bother to read it. The result is the calligraphy is better interpreted as a picture rather than text. The meaning is derived from the appearance of the image framing the logo as religious, Arab, or something else based on its similarity to other script, or all of the above.

The product of the working meetings will be book from the Strategic Studies Institute on visual propaganda.

What are your thoughts on the conference and the overall subject matter?

In 2009, the Defense Department’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO) surveyed the landscape of science and technology programs intended to support Strategic Communication with the purpose of identifying gaps between capabilities and requirements as well as suggesting areas of improvement.

In 2011, the RRTO commissioned the Center for Naval Analysis to update the 2009 report. The new report, written by CNA’s Will McCants and entitled “Science and Technology for Communication and Persuasion Abroad: Gap Analysis and Survey,” (7mb PDF) is now available.

The 2012 report is based on interviews with experts inside and outside government, surveying programs, and reviewing academic and professional literature. Gaps identified in 2009 have not been closed over the past few years, according to this new report.

McCants further identified areas where the Government has made limited research & development investments not addressed in the earlier report. There additional areas include technologies for facilitating and managing online engagement and persuasion campaigns. The specific report headings are:

• Survey and validation theories and techniques for influence in the digital realm
• Target audience analysis, trend monitoring, and source criticism
• Online measures of effectiveness
• Training in techniques of communication and persuasion in the digital realm
• Immersive virtual environments and simulation games for non-military purposes
• Persuasive technology on mobile devices for encouraging positive behavior
• Crowd sourcing for problem solving and accountability
• Studying adversary use of social media
• Technology for promoting freedom under repressive regimes
• Expanding investment in emerging technologies

This report acknowledges the importance of engagement, empowerment, and cultivating relationships over simply better targeting of messages. The report reinforces the 2009 statement that there are no silver bullets.

“Despite the focus of this report on technology for communication and persuasion, such technology will only succeed in advancing U.S. interests if it serves well-informed policies; if the senior makers of those policies use and understand the technologies themselves; and if the practitioners carrying out those policies remember that putting a human face on an institution’s words and actions and establishing positive relationships — on and offline — with people working toward shared goals matter more than the substance of any particular message. Ironically, digital technology is making this human connection more possible now than at any time in the modern era.”

The survey of current programs included in the report continues to use the taxonomy of program developed for the 2009 report: Collaboration, Discourse, First Three Feet, Infrastructure, Modeling and Forecasting, Psych Defense, Social Media, and Understanding. The inventory reflects an increased understanding of the communication environment and suggests. Out of the some 30 programs listed, only one is at the State Department (the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communication, or CSCC) and arguably a benefactor of S&T investment rather than a product of S&T investment.

What are your thoughts on the report?

(Disclosure: I was a co-author of the 2009 report and consulted on the 2012 report.)