PD and pop art

You're thinking about Japanese policy, aren't you? Source

Hey, manICateers!

Two new stories for you today. First, according to the people at NPR (and they would know, right?) everybody wants to be a k-pop star. K-pop is a key part of the Korean Wave, which is a key part of Korea's cultural identity in other countries.

As the NPR story notes, some of Korea's famous k-pop stars hail from China, Thailand and the United States, and Korea's entertainment companies are willing to invest millions in foreign talent:

The fact that [a k-pop hopeful] doesn't understand the words in the songs — "I can read and I can pronounce, but I don't know the meaning," she says in broken English — isn't necessarily a cause for worry. If the top entertainment companies like her, they'll invest in her study of the Korean language and will spend up to $3 million or $4 million on years of rigorous training in song, dance, acting and more. If she makes it through that, then she might have a shot at contracts worth millions. Hong Ki-sung, the CEO of BORN Startraining Center, a company in Seoul that trains people to become K-Pop stars, says it's worth the investment.

This is sort of an example of public-private collaboration. The entertainment companies are obviously looking for the most bankable stars, but there's evidence to suggest that the government has embraced the Korean wave (or "hallyu") as a means of promoting Korean culture and identity abroad. Whether the promoters are actually Korean appears to be a moot point.

A recent article in the Washington Post described a PD visit to the city by another Asian pop band -- this one from Japan -- trotting the globe as a cultural exchange in the interest of promoting Japan's image.

It is as if Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift and the entire cast of “Twilight” were placed into a saucepan and simmered on a low boil until nothing remained but the sweet, cloying essence of fame, and if that fame were then poured into pleated tartan skirts and given pigtails.

 I'd describe these groups further, but I think the videos below will make the point even more effectively:






Let's be honest, you don't need to be wearing your Gloria Steinem pants to conclude that this brand of ... salesmanship ... may be more conducive to selling candy-colored skinny jeans than national policy. (And before you ask, my Gloria Steinem pants are the sexiest and more comfortable pants I own.) But there's no arguing that acts like these have put Korean and Japanese pop culture on the map.

The next story is a bit more provocative and makes the assertion that Google is actually undemocratic. (Sorry, Alec Ross.)

[According to Siva Vaidhyanathan] commercial platforms like Google and Facebook would rather flatter than surprise us—and ... they’re developing the tools to encase us in personalized bubbles. Vaidhyanathan also thinks the press overstates the role of social media in political revolution.

I actually think Vaidhyanathan could have taken it a few steps further -- and perhaps he does, I haven't read the book. Plenty of studies show that people seek out news sources that confirm the beliefs they already hold, so Google and Facebook aren't the only platforms reinforcing these personalized bubbles.

And it doesn't take too much imagination to combine the two stories above and conclude that a person could easily take to the interwebs in search of a k-pop or j-pop band, watch the video, and log off without any dramatic influence on his attitudes toward Korean or Japanese policy or culture. If you're looking for evidence of the limits of public diplomacy or cultural branding, I don't think you'd need to look much further.

Run, [...], Run!

Something like this, but with more nachos. Source

Yesterday I joined a bevy of IR enthusiasts at a PDDC gathering in the District.

A PDDC gathering, for those of you who have never been, is pretty much exactly like the Council of Elrond, except that instead of hobbits and dwarves and elves, you've got a bunch of young nerds and wonks and academics, and instead of discussing the fate of the One Ring, we talk about international relations and the Nationals. (Go Nats!) Also, there are more nachos.

At one point in the evening I was making small talk with a new acquaintance and he asked me, "So do you run, like all Americans?" And I was a bit thrown because the answer is yes, I do run -- although up until very recently I adamantly did not, unless there was a large and ravenous animal directly behind me. I've always hated running. I find it physically and mentally unpleasant, and I'm terrible at it.

However, earlier this year I was determined that I was going to start running because I hate it and I'm so bad at it. Because now that I'm a comparatively autonomous grown-up, it is very, very rare that I ever force myself to do anything that I a) don't enjoy, and b) am not particularly good at, and I recognize that there are benefits to challenging myself. And so I started running, and after three months of running three to five times a week, I find that it is physically and mentally unpleasant and I am still really bad at it -- but less so.

But the point of this story was the caveat at the end of the question. He didn't ask if I ran, but rather if I ran, like all Americans. And that made me wonder: Is running a particularly American pastime? Is my recent determination to improve my running ability simply a latent manifestation of nationalism?

I suppose there are some elements of running that I'd identify as American. It can be a solitary or group activity, and as a runner you set your own pace, so you've got a lot of flexibility and personal freedom. And it's an activity where you can constantly raise the bar by determining to run faster or further or (in my case) less painfully, so there's always a goal to shoot for. But if you asked me to name the most American form of fitness, I'm not sure running would make the top of my list.

And I certainly can't think of any sports diplomacy parallels involving running that compare to the great moments of ping pong diplomacy or even something as antagonistic as the "miracle on ice."

But then again, there's always this:





And Prince Harry certainly seems to have found a way to capitalize on running's popularity, albeit in a particularly British way. And who could forget this this classic scene? Or  this? Both great examples of running in pursuit of a greater goal; neither American. The more I think on it, the less convinced I am that Americans have got a lock on running, but that doesn't make it any less suited for public diplomacy. In fact, it may do just the opposite.

A Xinhua in Times Square

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Panda. Source

OK, China may not be buying the world a Coke -- but it is leasing real estate in the same neighborhood: Times Square to be exact, where its logo will soon be rubbing shoulders with that of Coca Cola and Samsung, among others.

According to Reuters, China's state-sponsored Xinhua news/PD agency "will take over one of the highest-profile advertising locations in New York's Times Square starting Monday, in perhaps the most visible step in its recent American expansion."

If this sounds familiar, it's probably because you're remembering China's recent Times Square ad campaign, which received less than enthusiastic reviews (with Chinese reporting, of course, being one notable exception).  

Xinhua will replace a 60' x 40' sign currently emblazoned with the HSBC Bank logo, but while it's bound to increase Xinhua's recognizability, the public diplomacy implications of the move are less clear. The influence of the state on Xinhua reporting is fairly clear, and it's unlikely that many New Yorkers (or Americans in general, for that matter) will mistake it for an independent news source. 

I've written before on China's media expansion and its implications on the (forgive me, I'm about to get really geeky here) noosphere. That's right, I'm referring to the global abstraction of ideas that eventually become meaningful influences on foreign policy. 

China seems to recognize, both ideologically and financially, the importance of state-sponsored information institutions in a way a U.S. PD scholar can only dream of. More and more, I'm starting to agree with Secretary Clinton that the U.S. may be losing the information war... 

Clinton called it realpolitik. Arquilla and Ronfeldt would have called in noopolitik. Either way, it boils down to this: ideas matter, and in an information-saturated global environment, the nation whose ideas get the most traction has a serious political advantage.

Execution Dependent

So the other night when we stayed up until sunrise talking about all sorts of nerdy things, as if we were in an Ethan Hawke movie, the filmmaker told us about a conversation he'd had with another industry professional where the man had referred to a project as "execution dependent."

Well, what does that mean? We wanted to know.

And evidently it means that the success of the project is dependent on its execution. In other words, it has to be good in order to succeed (like an independent film by somebody unknown) as opposed to a movie like Harry Potter or Fast Five, which is going to succeed regardless of whether it's well executed or not -- which is not to say that it will be poorly executed, simply that its success is unrelated to its quality.

The conversation drifted into the realm of journalism and film at that point -- and for the most part I think there was a consensus that journalism and film ought to be execution dependent -- but privately I started wondering about what it means for public diplomacy to be execution dependent. One of the recurring themes of PD is the need for metrics and the difficulty of assessing a project's success. There is an idea, I think, that most PD is and should be execution dependent -- but are there any reliable popcorn blockbusters in the world of PD? I'm not advocating for a strict diet of easy fixes, but I'm wondering if there might not be benefits to recognizing a few empty calorie, economic alternatives that could pad out a more sophisticated PD grand strategy?

I suspect that to some extent, that's what a lot of PD 2.0 is. It's cheap, relatively easy and can reach a large audience quickly -- but it's effectiveness has yet to be proven. Those who read this blog know I go back and forth on the merits of PD 2.0. Ultimately, I believe it's a vast source of untapped potential -- but I'm not convinced any nation or group has fully tapped it yet.

Dual Britannia

This flawless smile defies you to
make a British dental joke. Source

Is this the face that launched a thousand tweets?

It is! About 237 per second just before the service, if you trust the London Telegraph.

But if the royal wedding didn't slake your thirst for all things British, rest easy! Anglophiles will be delighted to hear that the wedding--which attracted about 2 billion viewers, inspired millions of Facebook status updates, and brought an estimated £630 million into the British economy--was little more than an appetizer, a teaser, a "dry run" for 2012.

According to the Bearsden Herald, British Prime Minister David Cameron believes the London Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee will present "a fantastic opportunity next year to show all faces of Britain both modern and traditional."

Oooooh, modern and traditional? Be still my corn-oil-clogged American heart! Kudos to the PM for recognizing the importance of branding and public diplomacy. And kudos for emphasizing multiple aspects of the nation's appeal. But let's hope Cameron navigates the rocky terrain of public diplomacy more successfully than Tony Blair.

In the 1990s, Great Britain--no doubt tired of its reputation as a dentally-challenged nation of stodgy, old-fashioned corgi-worshipers and cow-maddened, Cure-loving soccer hooligans--embarked on an ill-advised nation-branding campaign. (No, I'm not payed by the hyphen. But after that last sentence, I kind of wish I were.)

Source

"Cool Brittania," as the campaign was dubbed, quickly became known as the Waterworld of nation-branding efforts: expensive, flashy and laughably unsuccessful.

From the Public Diplomacy wiki's entry on Nation Branding: "Intended to reinvent the U.K.’s image as an energized and liberalized nation, the campaign attempted to shed the traditionally formal image of Great Britain as well as reflect the shifting political model of the Blair administration... Despite the millions of dollars poured into the initiative, however, the campaign is largely considered a failure because of its limited focus, lackluster results, and the general perception, both within Britain and abroad, that the campaign’s gimmicky approach had actually hurt the nation’s international image."

Source

Can Cameron avoid the pitfalls of his predecessor? Will the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee drive up the nation's global stock? It's hard to say. Judging from purely superficial early speculation, London hasn't truly grasped the full potential of branding. Let's consider just for starters the 2012 Olympic logo--a nearly illegible jumble of numbers that looks sort of like a tangram after a long night at the pub--and the mascots--which Jon Stewart described as "creepy one-eyed circumcised penis monsters."

OK, so they've got some room to grow. But still, by all accounts, the royal wedding was a great success--not just for the happy couple and their families, but for the nation as a whole. With a little bit of coordination, Cameron can keep the anglophilia going. But that's the catch, of course. You can't just rest on your laurels and assume that big events = big publicity = big love. You've got to put some work into it.

Just ask Kevin Costner.