The immediate pressure of the Iraq war’s information dimension has not obviated the need for such initiatives; to the contrary, it has made it more vital than ever—even if the benefits of such “values-based” communications are usually long-term and often obscured, literally, by the immediate, polarizing images of conflict.

Tailoring Credibility

The third pillar of diplomacy is that US international messages must be consistent, truthful, and credible. To formulate a public message for a single exclusive audience is to make a fundamental conceptual and operational mistake: all public messages can, and will, reach multiple publics. In the end, credibility is the sine qua non of international communication. We must always say what we mean and mean what we say.

The US State Department is a leader in developing public diplomacy initiatives for the United States, as reflected in its role as co-chair of a new interagency Policy Coordinating Committee. At the same time, the Bush administration has also established a new White House Office of Global Communications, which grew out of the Coalition Information Centers established during the Afghanistan conflict to strengthen the focus and responsiveness of public diplomacy. The White House office can help identify themes, set priorities, coordinate foreign policy communications within the government, and sensitize decision makers to the importance of public opinion abroad.

Both the Office of Global Communications and a strengthened public diplomacy function in the State Department are key to developing consistent, authoritative international information messages and programs.

The fourth pillar is a corollary to the third. The obverse of consistency is our ability to tailor messages for specific audiences. There need be no contradiction between consistency and tailoring. For example, an information campaign in support of open trade or religious freedom will employ vastly different images and words for different audiences. The values that stand behind such efforts, however, are enduring.

In an age of satellite television and the Internet, policy messages must be not only accurate, but fast. Silence is a vacuum that the media will fill with someone else’s viewpoint if the United States is unwilling or unable to speak with one voice, and speak immediately.

The new digital technologies, moreover, provide unprecedented opportunities for taking “content”—a basic statement or explanation of a US policy, for instance—and “pouring” it into containers that range from web page and e-mail publishing to print products or broadcast materials for television, radio, or digital video conferences.

US public diplomacy has done well in some aspects of information flexibility, notably the use of Listserv e-mail and web sites to provide fast, authoritative transmission of official texts and transcripts, often in local or regional language versions. At the same time, new opportunities and challenges abound. The US has not yet fully come to grips with ensuring its share of the voices on the Internet, notably in chat rooms and other types of online conversations that routinely discuss US foreign policy with no official voice or presence providing balance or counterpoint.

By contrast, the US State Department has long recognized the potential of satellite circuits for allowing experts and officials in the United States to interact formally and informally with journalists and opinion leaders throughout the world through digital video conferencing. In 2002, for example, the State Department conducted over 450 video conferences through more than 150 facilities located in Washington, DC, and at our missions throughout the world.

In shaping specific programs for specific audiences, we must conduct audience research that is as frequent and in-depth as resources permit. The discipline of persuasive communication in this regard is compelling: it is not what is said that counts, it is what is heard. And it is only through research and feedback—coupled with a sure understanding of the cultures in which we operate—that we can craft the right messages for the right audience.

For example, in the case of the Shared Values documentaries of US Muslims, we conducted careful pre-campaign attitude and message testing through polls and focus groups—as well as an intensive follow-up assessment of their effectiveness, most notably in Indonesia. When we tested Indonesians for the levels of recall and message retention, we found them to be significantly higher than, for instance, those of a typical soft drink campaign run at much higher spending levels for many more months.

This kind of exceptional result means that the messages were both relevant and very interesting to their audience. In random taped interviews, people made it clear that these messages literally opened their minds and challenged the carefully taught fiction that the Muslim population of the United States is harshly treated, illustrating instead that religious tolerance is a fundamental value and practice in the United States.

The Role of Mass Media

At a time when many large and diverse publics are informed and energized about foreign affairs, it is no longer sufficient to explain our policies to 200 opinion leaders; the United States must also find ways to repeat key messages for audiences of two million, or 20 million, through national and transnational media, which make up the fifth pillar.

We must leverage our messages through all the communications channels at our command: Internet-based media (e-mail publishing and websites), broadcasting (radio and television), print publications and press placements, traveling speakers, and educational and cultural exchanges. Such channels include the independent government broadcasting services administered by the International Bureau of Broadcasting (IBB) under the supervision of the Board of Broadcasting Governors: Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, Radio Sawa (Arabic), Radio Farda (Persian), Radio/TV Marti (Cuba), and WorldNet television. These broadcasting services demonstrate that support for US values and interests is entirely consistent with independent journalism and news reporting.

In seeking out channels for reaching broader audiences, the primacy of television, and, consequently, the impact of images, cannot be overestimated. In media terms, for instance, the Iraq war was really two wars. The Arab media displayed one set of images of the conflict, and US media outlets showed another, each playing to different assumptions and audience biases. One clear lesson from this experience is that the globalization of information—especially the immediacy and impact of television—can divide as well as unite.