Obsolete Restrictions on Public Diplomacy Hurt U.S. Outreach and Strategy

[marct]

Why would you want Propaganda in the United states to be broadcasted. a Channel like al_hurra is certanly not designed for American consumption. I am certanly offended by the fact that the Arab speaking americans like me need propaganda to get our mind straight. its just ludcrious to think that we need propaganda. what are you saying, that we are somehow less americans than you? do we require propaganda to be patriotic?

It's strategic communications. Propaganda is what the enemy produces.

From Wikipedia

Propaganda [from modern Latin: 'propagare', literally "extending forth"] is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. The most effective propaganda is often completely truthful, but some propaganda presents facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis, or gives loaded messages in order to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the cognitive narrative of the subject in the target audience.

Hi Canoneer,

The key here is the phrase "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people". Propaganda is regularly unleashed on the American public by politicians and special interest groups, it is not just the property of an amorphous "enemy". Furthermore, calling what the US Government, as a whole, produces Strategic Communications" is somewhat of a misnomer - Brownian Semantics (aka mindlessly wandering all over the semantic map) would be a better term .

Abdul, you raise a good point, but let me toss one back at you. Part of becoming an American involves adopting certain attitudes and perceptions (it's one of the reasons why I won't take out US citizenship - I'm an inveterate monarchist ). These perceptions and attitudes fit in with that idea of "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people" or propaganda.

Now, I'm not saying that that means that you, or anyone else, has to adopt specific attitudes towards specific events (like believing that the Iraq war is a "just war"). Those types of specifics aren't required by the oath of citizenship, and propaganda aimed at establishing them is certainly subject to question. At the same time, the de facto restrictions imposed by current understandings of S-M have a tendency to muzzle one source of "facts" in an ongoing discussion in US society - something that actually is against the attitudes implicit in the oath of citizenship.

This is even worse when you get into the problem of language (something Canadians know all about !). The founding fathers of the US assumed that all public discourse would always be in a common language and that citizens would learn that common language. For a whole slew of historical reasons, there are now large parts of US society who do not speak English (the assumed common language) well enough to fulfill their obligations as citizens so there is a real problem. In Canada, we solved this partly by adopting a policy of official bilingualism (read "illiterate in both official languages" ). In the US, language is still a hot button issue and I doubt that we will see an official bilingual (or multi-lingual) policy at the federal level. So, how are citizens going to fulfill their obligations if they can't access large parts of the debate?

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Hi Canoneer,

The key here is the phrase "a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people". Propaganda is regularly unleashed on the American public by politicians and special interest groups, it is not just the property of an amorphous "enemy". Furthermore, calling what the US Government, as a whole, produces Strategic Communications" is somewhat of a misnomer - Brownian Semantics (aka mindlessly wandering all over the semantic map) would be a better term .

Use of the word, propaganda, is counterproductive when describing one's own side's use of it because of the perjorative connotations of the word among English-speaking peoples in the first decade of the 21st Century. In Spanish, so I am told, the word just means advertising.

I am making do with the term strategic communications while waiting for somebody to coin a better euphemism.

Many terms and concepts held over from the Industrial Age prevent us from thinking and communicating clearly about new threats we face in the Cognetic Age. For example,

propaganda does not fit today’s decentralized information-communication environment because we associate it with the centralized control and management of information and communications that reflected the concentration of power during the Industrial Age. With the advent of the Internet and globalization, this concentration of power no longer exists in the hands of the few; indeed, many people now have access to it. This shift in power is the defining feature of the Cognetic Age. Moreover, considerable negative baggage has attached itself to propaganda, a word continually used to describe almost any activity having to do with influencing perceptions, whether for good or ill. This intellectual burden stifles our ability to fight ideological war by tying our minds and tongues to the dogmas of the past. -- Lt Col Bruce K. Johnson, USAF, Dawn of the Cognetic Age

[marct]

Hi Canoneer,

Use of the word, propaganda, is counterproductive when describing one's own side's use of it because of the perjorative connotations of the word among English-speaking peoples in the first decade of the 21st Century. In Spanish, so I am told, the word just means advertising.

I am making do with the term strategic communications while waiting for somebody to coin a better euphemism.

Somewhat unusually for an academic, I prefer to use real words with their real meanings rather than rely on euphemisms . All a euphemism does is substitute one term for another while hoping and praying that the negative emotional connotations of the real term don't shift over to the new one. This is, in many ways, a silly exercise as can be witnessed through the vast variety of euphemisms developed over the past 50 years that seem to change every week.

Let's agree to disagree on this one.

[Steve Blair]

Hi Canoneer,



Somewhat unusually for an academic, I prefer to use real words with their real meanings rather than rely on euphemisms . All a euphemism does is substitute one term for another while hoping and praying that the negative emotional connotations of the real term don't shift over to the new one. This is, in many ways, a silly exercise as can be witnessed through the vast variety of euphemisms developed over the past 50 years that seem to change every week.

Let's agree to disagree on this one.

Quite agree, Marc. Fuzzy language creates more problems than it solves, IMO. Sometimes a problem is a problem, not an "opportunity" or a "challenge."

[ilots]

Somewhat unusually for an academic, I prefer to use real words with their real meanings rather than rely on euphemisms . All a euphemism does is substitute one term for another while hoping and praying that the negative emotional connotations of the real term don't shift over to the new one. This is, in many ways, a silly exercise as can be witnessed through the vast variety of euphemisms developed over the past 50 years that seem to change every week.

Let's agree to disagree on this one.

While you may choose to use "real words;" the choice is limited by your paradigm. To paint US (or any entities' communications) simply as propaganda, thus adhering a label for what you, or others, perceive as negative attempt to influence, uses too broad a stroke. By labeling all communications (ours and our enemies') as propaganda, then we equally risk substituting one term for another, albeit with a separate set of emotional responses.

There is no question that politicians & various political entities unleash propaganda to their domestic audiences, that was not what lies at the crux of the Smith-Mundt Act debate. Even information which is not part of a campaign designed to influence can fall subject to the SMA. Conversely, information such as the leaflets used in OIF/OEF were removed from the CENTCOM website, as their exposure to US citizens could be construed as a violation of the SMA - does this not limit our citizens ability to understand what actions our civilian led military takes? More directly, the broad stroke of the word propaganda has offered unique challenges to the use of the US Military's (& other Gov organizations) ability to communicate to populations - even domestically during times of disaster - due to the perceptions surrounding the SMA.

While the US government certainly conducts propaganda against foreign audiences, to me, one set of reactions is almost as dangerous as the other.

But then again, this is from a career propagandist -

[marct]

to look at the specific context in which I made that comment - to whit,

Use of the word, propaganda, is counterproductive when describing one's own side's use of it because of the perjorative connotations of the word among English-speaking peoples in the first decade of the 21st Century.

While you may choose to use "real words;" the choice is limited by your paradigm.

In this specific case, my "paradigm" was the English language.

To paint US (or any entities' communications) simply as propaganda, thus adhering a label for what you, or others, perceive as negative attempt to influence, uses too broad a stroke. By labeling all communications (ours and our enemies') as propaganda, then we equally risk substituting one term for another, albeit with a separate set of emotional responses.

Actually, I didn't say that - what I said was that propaganda should be called propaganda, regardless of who is employing it. This was, by no means, meant to term all communications as propaganda.

Even information which is not part of a campaign designed to influence can fall subject to the SMA. Conversely, information such as the leaflets used in OIF/OEF were removed from the CENTCOM website, as their exposure to US citizens could be construed as a violation of the SMA - does this not limit our citizens ability to understand what actions our civilian led military takes?

Which points out a serious problem with the interpretations of SMA and.or its current relevance in the modern communications environment. This latter point is, IMO, quite important. The SMA was developed when "propaganda" had to be broadcast at a fairly large cost to the organization doing so. In todays' communication landscape, both cost and "broadcast" are increasingly irrelevant. Your example of the leaflets taken off the CENTCOM site just highlights this.

More directly, the broad stroke of the word propaganda has offered unique challenges to the use of the US Military's (& other Gov organizations) ability to communicate to populations - even domestically during times of disaster - due to the perceptions surrounding the SMA.

Agreed. I would also add in that there has been a significant shift in how people "consume" (for want of a better term) information. This can be seen in the general "dumbing down" of most forms of information (not excluding academia ).

Marc

[MountainRunner]

I finally had a chance to read through Juliana Pilon's Smith-Mundt article and it really has very little to do with Smith-Mundt. Very little. I agree completely with Kim Andrew Elliott's assesment.

Most of the problems she describes as caused by Smith-Mundt simply aren't. The example she draws from the Djerejian Report (available here) on USAID has nothing to do with USAID. Oddly, the testimony she pasted into her report hints at USAID not being covered. "Almost none" was the answer given when the USAID administrator was asked about how much of his budget was for public diplomacy. The prohibition, if you read the report, is not about Smith-Mundt, but about the administration of funds, earmarking, etc. The point that USAID does not to public diplomacy is at the heart of this lynchpin example: it does not communicate what it does, within the US or outside.

Pilon unfairly blames Joe Duffy for the dissolution of USIA and gives the master horsetrader involved, Madeline Albright, a pass. There's more here than she acknowledges and I'm not even sure why she mentions this.

Perhaps her biggest leap is not separating what is said and what is done. There is no prohibition against telling America what is being done. Smith-Mundt narrowly, and more broadly by incorrect interpretation as I'll get into in a later post, prohibits telling what is being said. She quotes from BBG chair James Glassman who also gets it wrong.

"Most Americans know little about what we do today--in part because a law called the Smith-Mundt Act limits our communications at home."

Like most of Pilon's arguments, Glassman also makes a substantial leap and as I noted in my post on the subject, there are effective propaganda organs operating in the U.S. today, such as the President's press secretary.

Her one reference, made mostly in passing and not drawn out by her, was in the quote from Andrew Garfield, whom some of you may know:

U.S. authorities handicap themselves. U.S. military lawyers fear "blowback" to U.S. domestic audiences, which they interpret as a violation of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948...

The influence of S-M on the information apparatus of the U.S. is far more important than anything else in her paper and yet virtually ignored.

There's more, but I'll jump to her eight conclusions. Only one of her eight conclusions actually involves Smith-Mundt.

Congress should immediately repeal Section 501

Um, ok, but she has never told us why or how it impacts anything.

...Alhurra TV should then immediately be permitted to broadcast in the United States...

Ok, why? Is the battleground for the minds and wills of Arabic speakers really in the U.S.? Does Al-Jazeera really have such a dominating market share?

Congress should require all agencies involved in any form of public diplomacy to report these activities to the National Security Adviser...

I agree this is an extremely important recommendation, but it isn't prohibited by Smith-Mundt. Centralizing this information would, as I argue elsewhere, "operationalize" public diplomacy. Since everything we do is PD, this will overwhelm the NSA. It makes sense somebody else, say Karen Hughes, be the central person, which was the intent. Pilon is therefore really recommending the USoS for PD/PA be effective and perhaps, as some of the reports on PD have called for, which is a return to the old days.

...Congress should require the State Department, USAAID, and all other agencies conducting public diplomacy to submit or post on the Web an annual report listing all relevant publications and activities...

First, everything element of the government that interacts with foreign audiences, home or abroad, practices public diplomacy. DHS is a big public diplomat, as is the military. The only Smith-Mundt related issue here is the publications of "traditional" public diplomacy agencies and their activities are not secret by law.

Congress should mandate that all public servants who engage in public diplomacy must receive specific training and should expressly allocate "career enhancement" funds to that purpose

This is not prevented by Smith-Mundt and it is an issue of bureaucracy. When and if State moves into the 21st Century (or late 20th), they'll budget training and floater positions like DoD.

Current ambassadors [etc]...engaged in public diplomacy outreach should be required to undergo intensive additional training prior to their next deployment overseas.

Same as above. Neither of these fit with her arguments. They are good and necessary recommendations, but have nothing to do with Smith-Mundt.

U.S. government grantees and contractors should be required, rather than be forbidden, to inform the public about their activities, contingent on security considerations.

This is the only Smith-Mundt-related issue she raises in her conclusion, but even this is so broad as to include much that isn't covered by the Act.

The U.S. government should expand its efforts to encourage the private sector to engage in public diplomacy activities and to provide citizen ambassadors with relevant information to help them in this task

Again, nothing to do with Smith-Mundt and already happens (or is encouraged). Apparently she wants "propaganda" of certain agencies to be shared.

The media is "half the battle" but the examples Pilon cites have nothing to do with Smith-Mundt. From her arguments and her concluduing recommendations, she seems to want transperancy more than increasing the effectiveness of American informational capabilities.

[MountainRunner]

If we're talking about propaganda, reading Galula is useful, from page 14 (also on my blog):

Propaganda -- A One Sided-Weapon
The asymmetrical situation has important effects on propaganda. The insurgent, having no responsibility, is free to use every trick; if necessary, he can lie, cheat, exaggerate. He is not obliged to prove; he is judged by what he promises, not by what he does. Consequently, propaganda is a powerful weapon for him. With no positive policy but with good propaganda, the insurgent may still win.
The counterinsurgent is tied to his responsibilities and to his past, and for him, facts speak louder than words. He is judged on what he does, not on what he says. if he lies, cheats, exaggerates, and does not prove, he may achieve some temporary successes, but at the price of being discredited for good. And he cannot cheat much unless his political structures are monolithic, for the legitimate opposition in his own camp would soon disclose his every psychological maneuver. For him, propaganda can be no more than a secondary weapon, valuable only if intended to inform and not to fool. A counterinsurgent can seldom cover bad or nonexistent policy with propaganda.

[Ron Humphrey]

If we're talking about propaganda, reading Galula is useful, from page 14 (also on my blog):

directed information release, focused advertisement, whichever you wish I find myself of one mind.

I always felt that if one chose not to provide a counter to that which was wrong, or failed to attempt to right that which is wrong; then in the end although they may not carry responsibilty for the wrong itself, they do personally bear the responsibility for doing nothing about it.

If information is there in any form for the observers than those who have a counter message bear the responsibility for providing the whole picture in order to facilitate more informed observation.

If the ultimate goals for any entity are to achieve better long term situations, then communication along with all other aspects of power, carry responsibility to work towards those goals.

Man I wish it was as easy for me to write as eloquently as yourselves, it seems I write like I think and as things don't always follow good MLA format