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49
The Rhetorical Dimensions of Public
Diplomacy
Gordon Stables, University of Southern California
Craig Hayden, University of Southern California
Introduction
The September 11th terrorist attacks are understood to have ended the
nascent post-Cold War period, but understanding the new era has proven to be
as challenging as naming its predecessor. If past historical periods in American
history were organized around the threat posed by a specific enemy, this new
period posed a more difficult problem. Defining the primary challengers to
American interests and mobilizing allies would remain primary challenges for
American pohcy-makers. It is within this fimdamentally communicative
challenge of defining a nation's goals through a series of foreign policy tools,
loosely collected under the label public diplomacy, that has garnered a great deal
of attention. Despite the broad definitions of these programs, their central
elementallowing the American government to communicate with intemational
pubhcsappeared essential in the post 9/11 world.
An American effort to communicate with the world appears to be an
increasingly difficult challenge. The apparent communicative prowess of groups
hostile to the U,S, is made apparent in the bewildered cry, 'why do they hate
us?' Despite renewed attention, analysis of pubhc diplomacy remains
fragmentary. Academic boundaries and a history of ethical constraints against
the study of propaganda stiffen inclusion of pubhc diplomacy against the broad
spectrum of political communication. This essay contends that communication
scholars should embrace analysis of this burgeoning field, for the benefit of the
discipline and a greater social good.
This call for analysis includes three components. First, diverse
conceptions of public diplomacy are collected and assembled in a marmer that
displays the scope of this field. Second, the essay explores the current
approaches to analyzing pubhc diplomacy. This section examines mechanisms
used to interpret what would constitute a successful public diplomacy campaign.
Finally, the essay suggests some of the most immediate benefits that
communication scholarship, specifically rhetorical theory, could lend to this
practice.

402
What is Public Diplomacy?

At the core of the definitional ambiguity about public diplomacy is that

it historically has been used to describe a number of programs, only some of
which consist of large-scale information programs designed for foreign
audiences. The U.S. Department of State's Dictionary of Intemational Relations
Terms, (1987) offers the following definition:
PUBLIC DIPLOMACY refers to government-sponsored programs
intended to inform or influence public opinion in other countries; its
chief instruments are publications, motion pictures, cultural
exchanges, radio and television (p. 85).
Cultural exchange programs have traditionally been included under the rubric of
public diplomacy, even though their impact is concentrated only a much smaller
scale of communication exchanges. These programs share a cotnmon desire to
expose what is understood as American to intemational audiences, whether it is
American art, culture, Americans themselves, or media campaigns.
Veteran U.S. Diplomat John Brown (2002) traces the historical
foundations of public diplomacy and locates a resihent, "tradition of justifying
America to mankind." For Brown, this desire to merge explatiation and
advocacy has been a constant in public eforts of American foreign policy.
Throughout the 20th century, American involvement in intemational mihtary
confiicts was accompanied by information campaigns designed to reinforce
allies and sway enemies. Even before such programs were labeled as pubhc
diplomacy, a number of agencies devoted to information and cultural exchange
demonstrated the historical prominence of this practice.
Globalization and new cotnmtmication technologies, however, are
redefining the practice of diplomacy (Potter, 2002) and allowing traditionally
excluded voices to be included in the formation of national pohcy. Dell
Pendergrast (2000) explained that the once private world of professional
diplomats is now practiced amidst "the cacophonous bazaar of the global
information revolution." Even before the terrorist attacks, changing global
commercial and commtmication pattertis appeared to enhance the importance of
large-scale cotnmtmication efforts alongside the traditionally closed work of
intemational diplomacy (Gilhoa, 2000). Non-govemmental orgatiizations
(NGOs), for example, could increasingly make their presence feh on matters of
intemational concem, such as the ratification of an intemational convention
outlawing the use of land mines. Even before the terrorist attacks, there were
signs of a renewed appreciation for pubhc diplomacy under the State
Department's leadership of Colin Powell. The nomination of advertising
executive Charlotte Beers as the Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy
was a prominent indication of this trend.
After 9/11, pubhc diplomacy retumed to prominence because it
appeared to fiirther a critical national interest. Peter G. Peterson (2002), who
chaired the Council on Foreign Relation's task force on public diplomacy,
determined that a new consensus existed for the role of communication in the
formulation of American foreign policy. New approaches were necessary
because "terrorism is now considered the transcendent threat to America's
national security" and

403
... it is overwhelmingly in the national interest that the United States
formulate and manage its foreign policies in such a way that, in its
war on terrorism, it receives the indispensable cooperation of foreign
nations.
Explaining American actions and building intemational support are then
understood as important foreign policy objectives. Peterson, and the Councu on
Foreign Relations, clearly attempted to erase the fraditional boundary between
information and policy, because any fiirther strategy would require an
understanding of the two as "part of an integrated whole" (2002). The attention
devoted to the marriage of image and policy is what makes this arena so
desperate for detailed analysis.
CFR's emphasis on the sfrategic benefits of image management
represent a strategic value associated with efforts to build intemational support
for American initiatives as part of the war on terrorism. Widespread calls for
enhanced public diplomacy efforts are rarely articulated for the intrinsic value of
persuading other publics to "hke" America. Rather, the renewed interest in
public diplomacy is a refiection of the understanding that swaying intemational
pubhc opinion is critical to achieving policy objectives.
It is within this unique moment that we raise a call for communication
scholars to offers their perspectives on this prominent matter of public policy.
While the urgency of public diplomacy may not be reflected in all of the Bush
adminisfration's planning, public diplomacy has "gained a seat at the table" of
foreign policy strategiesand has signaled the importance of communication to
the essential elements of diplomacy itself The essay now tums to the types of
analytic lenses currently used to interrogate PD campaigns.
Current Strategies For Analyzing Public Diplomacy
Pubhc diplomacy as a focus of study is not new to the field of mass
communication and its sub-field, intemational communication. The tradition of
studying intentional communication between nation-states goes back to the
discipline's early researchers interest in the abUity of communication (via
propaganda) to tum "others" into "ourselves" (Braman, 2000). Now, however,
interest in the pohcy of pubhc diplomacy has grown in other areas of studyin
part due to the increased legitimacy of linking the notions of image, branding,
and politics (Price, 2002; van Ham, 2001). Within tbe discipline of
communication, consideration of public diplomacy seems to be confined to
certain avenues of intemational communication research and what is known as
cognitive-sfrategic research (Braman, 2000). Meanwhile, practitioners of
intemational relations have begun to fiinctionally theorize pubhc diplomacy
often without the perspectives of communication research.
Peter Van Ham's observation that politics is increasingly becoming the
domain of "branding" and "image management" (van Ham, 2001) finds no
greater validity than in the ways in which the United States has tumed to the
marketing industry to solve its perceived image problems. Beers' leadership
brought a great deal of attention to the utility of incorporating insights from the
private sector's experience with public relations. Sbe openly embraced the
challenge of 'rebranding' America through a diversity of channels. Her brief
tenure, which ended with her resignation in early 2003, featured a resurgence of

404
criticism for her initiatives and personal abihfy to nuance the complex
Washington bureaucracy, but little public debate centered on the specific ways
in which public relations sfrategies may or may not have produced usefUl
approaches.
Missing from much of the cunent analysis is the importance of
utizing indicators such as exposure and market share as measures of success. In
testimony before the US Senate, a number of pubhc diplomacy advocates cited
increased audience exposure as a primary means of recent successes. Beers
(Febmary 27,2003), for example, noted that signs of success included the tise of
a State Department video air on Pakistani news and the widespread distribution
given to prominent pubhcations, including Mushm Life in America. Ken
Tomlinson (Febmary, 27, 03) similarly notes the larger audiences made
available through new radio formats such as Radio Sawa. Senator Joseph
Biden's (February 27, 2003) gleefUl description of the rising audience shares is a
common determinant of the successes of new programs.
The goal of increasing exposure to public diplomacy messages appears
valuable for any new American campaign, but the increasing reliance on freating
the world in a manner parallel to domestic television audiences may limit the
maimer in which those audiences are understood. Consider the new prominence
attached to efforts to poll the beliefs of audiences deemed important to
American policy initiatives. A number of recent studies confirm the presence of
a giant chasm in world pubhc opinion, even before the recent conflict vrith Iraq.'
These projects produce relatively new information about the specific levels of
support for American policies among intemational publics, but thefr conclusions
often reinforce the same view that America has a substantial international image
problem.
Beers (February 27,2003) notes how survey data reinforces the
importance of recognizing the importance of personal beliefs instead of larger
political concems. She contends that studies of thousands of people in the
Middle East and Southeast Asia report foreign affairs to a relatively low priorify.
She argues because daily prosperify and autonomy are cenfral to au peoples
other concerns often fade. From this view, concems about America's image
should be understood through how individuals exercise their day hves.
The criticism of her programs would often mention problems with
individual itiitiatives, but this concem paled in comparison with the constant
concem that image could never trump policy. In a telling example. Eh Lake
(2001) of The National Review expressed a common concern, that current pubhc
diplomacy campaigns wl not be sufficient in the coming confhct because
individuals like bin Laden can always appeal to the oppressive nature of
American foreign pohcy to draw support for their own initiatives. This division
between policy and media management iustrates one of the remaining
boundaries that remains prevalent in the debate about the utify of public
diplomacy is line. The scale of problem confronting America's intemational
image, it is often argued, cannot be managed purely from a perspective that
attempts to re-articulate what current pohcies are, instead of an effort to redesign
those same policies.
This information-pohcy dichotomy is often reinforced by concems
about misinformation. Those concemed by the results of the recent pubUc
opinion polls often describe the obstacle of prominent fictions about the US.
Anthony Blinken (2002), for example, describes the many fictions that occupy

405
"the battlefield of ideas" and weaken support for American pohcies. On this
battlefield, rumor and misinformation are often viewed as major impediments to
American efforts.
Rbetorical Analysis of PubUc Diplomacy
This essay caUs for a greater examination of the field of pubhc
diplomacy through the lens of rhetorical criticism because the broad scope of
potential tools may provide a usefiil match for the wide range of programs
considered to be public diplomacy. The final section wiU briefly discuss a few of
these potential lines of research, while fully acknowledging that this represents
only the most basic steps in a long joumey of critical reflection.
This is not to say, however, that communication methods and theories
are necessarily without limitations. The stable "mass audience" assumed in
many mass commtmication theories, for example, may not be always
appropriate for theorizing the effects of something like a public diplomacy
campaign. The existing limitations of mass commtinication research highlight
the possibilities of other forms of commtinication research that are perhaps
unique suited to the study of pubhc diplomacy. The increasing salience of public
diplomacy as an observable object for criticism and study offer unique
opportunities for examining the rhetorical dimensions of a cotmnunicative act
that is intentional, sfrategic, and ultimately persuasive in nature. Two productive
areas of scholarship may include the utilify of narrative theory and critical
reexamine importance audiences.
One instmctive application of rhetorical scholarship to pubhc
diplomacy may an interrogation of the narrative character of foreign pohcy.
Public diplomacy as a practice of foreign policy reveals two sites for critical
examination. First, the presence of public diplomacy in the repertoire of policy
altematives signifies a shift in the narratives of pohcy prescriptions that
legititnize some actions over others. Quite simply, the stories that govem the
world-views held by policy-makers have changedand this change creates the
disctirsive space for something like public diplomacy to be accorded the
ctirrency that it currently holds in the United States poUcy communify. For
example, if intemational relations are newly ratiotialized under the forces of
globahzation, policies that reflect the stories being told about the state of
intemational relations (like the importance of information sovereignfy) may be
accorded more legitimacy. The stated justifications for public diplomacy reveal
the underlying narrative constmctions of world order held by the prevailing elite.
Second, the stories that are told within the practice of public diplomacy
are tbemselves important texts. These texts, be tbey the "Muslim Life in
America" campaign or the ongoing stmcttire of news framing in Radio Sawa,
are ways to assess the narrative fidehfy of United States rhetoric as it is
deployed in varied ctiltural and ideological contexts. If these texts are used as
tools for the production of meaning within foreign audiences, then it is
important to assess their capacify to refiect or find resonance with particular
contextsor perhaps reveal through the failure of narratives the fimdamental
differences that sustain conflict and misunderstanding.
Another potentially fruitful area of scholarship may come from the
effort to complicate our understanding of intemational audiences. While
rhetorical scholarship is increasingly re-theorizing the audiences that were once

406
only appreciated as the targets of persuasive discourse, public commentary
surrounding public diplomacy continues to rely on the most basic of
assumptions about intematiotial publics. Even though these audiences are often
situated as critical actors in the new intemational arena, relatively little attention
is given to assessing how we come to know the constitution of these pubhcs.
Even a casual review of debate after 9/11 will reflect the importance of
Islamic pubhcs to American policy-making. The specific nationahfy of Islamic
pubhcs periodically reflect their importance, such as the current campaign to
build goodwill from the population of Iraq, but a broader entify of Islamic
audiences are also prominent. This should not read as license to continue to
ignore deeply a series of complexities based on a range of historical, rehgious,
national factors into what constitutes the category of 'Islam,' but that such an
amalgamation is a vibrant creation in contemporary policy discussion,'
The centralify of Islamic publics to the broader effort to manage images
of America can be found in any number of prominent locations. Each new
public opinion survey appears to add new fuel for the concem that images of
America are manipulated. Beers worries that the images are so negative that "a
young generation of terrorists is being created" (2003, pp, 2-3), The clear
inference from this perspective is that misinformation about the United States is
making it impossible for an effective dissemination of American pohcy and
interests.
It is through this common perspective that critics of public diplomacy
campaigns often take issue with the prospect of effective reform. They locate the
core of the problem in the unwillingness of certain audiences, mostly notably
Islamic publics, to respond to any American communication programs. In a
recent issue of Commentary Joshua Muravchik assails what he sees as a basic
premise behind public diplomacy campaigr>s, ",,,that we and the Muslim Middle
East inhabit the same moral and cognitive universe," His vehement denunciation
of the possibihfy moral congruence between the U,S, and the Muslim world is a
justification used by those who view means of communication as an inadequate
solution.
In many ways the determination of the fitness of other peoples to be
engaged through some form of rational communicative campaigns plays a major
role in determining the fypes of pohcies that should be pursued. All too often
easy depictions of a form of ideological civil become shorthand for
understanding Islamic pubhcs. The binary of good and evil elements within
Islam that led Bush to declare that the 9/11 terrorists are trying "to hijack Islam
itself (September 20,2001) can stand in the place of more complex, and less
easily remedied interpretations of Islamic culture. One usefiil corrective would
be a reflection upon the manner in which rhetorical critics have developed
multiple tools to comprehend how audiences are produced by rhetors. The work
of Michael Calvin McGee (1998), among others, may help illustrate the manner
in which the consistent and careless location and production of unruly peoples
may aggravate the very tensions that sparked such an inquiry.
Conclusions
The importance of building and reinforcing support from allies and
hostile publics appears to be a central feature of the indefinite future of
intemational politics. Although there is no shortage of proposals to reform the

407
agencies that implement public diplomacy campaigtis, there appears to be a
relatively limited willingness of acadetnic voices to join in the analysis of public
diplomacy.^ Historical concems about the ethical dilemmas associated with
supporting propaganda campaigns may still impede some efforts, but these
concems should be balanced against the larger dynamic expressed in this essay.
As the metaphor of ' information warfare' becomes ever more
entrenched as a dominant means of developing foreign pohcy, academic voices
need to decide the propriety of remaining on the sidelines as tools of
commurtication studies are appropriated to explain the meatis of identifying and
perstiading intemational audiences. Even if there are dangers from more
'effective' meatis of understanding audiences, it can be appreciated that
professional approaches, such as pubhc opinion surveys and marketing, are
already being brought to bear by the administratioiL
These approaches, however, can balanced by methods of inquiry that
may not only yield more "effective" policy, but a greater critical tmderstanding
of the motivatiotis that guide pohcies like public diplomacy. The absence of
certain forms of scholarship not only makes for incomplete understanding of the
often complex relationship between audiences and communicators, message
production and cotisumption, but also creates a silence in tbe community of
voices who tnight articulate informed social commentary on the practices and
implicatiotis of such pohcies.
Notes
'The studies include "A View from the Arab World: A Survey in Five Countries." Shibley Telhami,
Brooldngs Institution, Mareh 13.2003, "What the World Thhiks in 2002: How Global Publics View:
Their Lives, Their Countries, The World, America." Pew Research Center, December 4,2002 and
"The Next Generation's Image of Americans. Atttitudes and Beleiis Held By Teen-Ages in Twelve
Countries. A Preliminary Research Report, Margaret H. DeFleur and Melvin L. DeFleur, October 17,
2002.
^This section discusses categorical perspectives associated with Islam and, as such, describes Islam
in generally categorical terms. This, however, should be understood as support the contention that
there is any shigle 'Islam' that can be homogenized to overwrite differences in sect and national
origin, but it is precisely the vitality of a single view of Islam that this section considers.
^For some of the more prominent proposals, see the Council on Foreign Relations (2002), Blinken
(2002).

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