The facility is one of the latest initiatives by the Secretary of State, which has given public diplomacy a much higher profile during George Bush’s second term.

The term public diplomacy was used in the 1960s to describe aspects of international diplomacy other than contact between governments. It was originally a polite way of describing propaganda but this is certainly not the case any longer.

The deputy assistant for public diplomacy at the Secretary of State, Colleen Graffy, was in Malta recently, and she explained to www.di-ve.com that propaganda has very limited impact nowadays.

“Public diplomacy is interactive whereas propaganda is one-way. Even Youtube allows comments nowadays. You cannot get away with a propaganda approach any more,” she said.

Listen to Dr Graffy explain the difference between public diplomacy and propaganda. 

US Ambassador Molly Bordonaro agreed.

“There is now much more participatory public diplomacy. It has taken diplomacy to a whole new level,” she said, listing the numerous community events that she personally had taken part in just over the previous weeks.

Dr Graffy was head hunted from London, where she was teaching law. She said that this gave her a fresh perspective.

“The challenge is to get outside the Washington bubble,” she explained.

The unit used to focus on the analysis of foreign print media but soon realised that the real impact came from television and internet. The tight deadlines of these media encouraged the State Department to speed up clearance procedures so that embassy personnel would be automatically authorised to speak on domestic issues.

This increased the number of officials speaking “on the record” by 30 per cent, she said.

The unit in Brussels was the logical next step, given the lack of pan-European media houses.

Another initiative is green diplomacy, which Dr Graffy described in a recent webchat as “our effort to engage on environmental issues with the people of other countries in a way that communicates our values, culture and policies”.

The US has struggled to dispel the notion that it does not care about climate change – a perception formed following the US decision not to sign the Kyoto protocol, which was never communicated in the right context.
“It is, of course, much harder to change a perception once it is formed. But we do think that there has been progress on this,” she said.

Listen to Dr Graffy explain how best to approach negative press

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