Public Diplomacy 2.0

A solid, thought-provoking read in the London Review of Books by James Harkin of a trio of works on the impact of social media on 21st century diplomacy. Lengthy but meaty.

The gist: while there is great promise in real-time reporting and it's impact on social movements like the Iranian uprising, it can also be overblown.

That said, I draw your attention to this quote from James Glassman, Bush State Department member:

‘Our Digital Outreach Team goes onto blogs and websites. In Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, and we hope soon in Russian, its members identify themselves as State Department representatives. They engage in the conversation, gently inform, correct distortions about US policies.

And the goal?

America’s terrorist enemies were no match for all this interactivity. ‘Extremists can’t adapt to social networking because it shakes the foundations of their whacked out, rigid ideology.’

Take on the trolls? Maybe not, but if the stodgy bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom are advocating engagement -- perhaps we should not be afraid of entering the participatory media world ourselves.