Looking For A Few Good Friends
Helle Dale /
Internet outreach is the hottest new item in the U.S. government’s array of public diplomacy tools. While international broadcasting is in disarray, the focus has moved to Internet outreach through social networking and websites to promote America and its allies abroad. The Internet can be a great tool for the advancement of freedom and the empowerment of individuals. Yet it is not immune to the designs of state actors, nor does it exist in a policy vacuum.
After having tangled with China over its internet censorship policy, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on January 21 spoke at the Newseum and hailed the potential of the Internet to connect individuals far and wide. “The spread of information networks is forming a new nervous system for our planet. There are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moment in history,” she said. “To meet these 21st century challenges, we need to use the tools, the new 21st century statecraft. And we’ve begun to do that. We have seen the possibilities of what can happen when ordinary citizens are empowered by Twitter and Facebook to organize political movements, or simply exchange ideas and information. So we find ourselves living at a moment in human history when we have the potential to engage in these new and innovative forms of diplomacy and to also use them to help individuals be empowered for their own development.” (more…)