Secretary Gates: “Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America”
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called for the US government to commit more money and effort to “soft power” tools, including communications, because the military alone cannot defend America’s interests around the world. The NY Times quotes Gates as saying:
“We are miserable at communicating to the rest of the world what we are about as a society and a culture, about freedom and democracy, about our policies and our goals,” he said. “It is just plain embarrassing that Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America.”
Fred Kaplan asked his readers for ideas on how to improve America’s image in the world. He received 120 responses, “nearly all of them from foreigners or from Americans living abroad.” Kaplan summarizes them in an interesting article in Slate Magazine:
A few common themes emerge from these suggestions: Government-sponsored PR has its limits, mainly because people see it for what it is; the important thing is to change policy, and part of that involves aligning America’s approach to the world with the most attractive aspects of our culture (in the broadest sense of that word). One of those aspects is what the Bush administration constantly boasts about — our openness and our freedom. But those boasts ring hollow when the rest of the world sees us as closed down and locked shut. The first step, then, is to reopen the doors to the world.
Kaplan describes several suggestions from readers. Very popular are calls for expansion in the Peace Corps, in Fulbright fellowships, and, in student-exchange programs.
One readers also pointed out that “globalization has stripped pop culture of nationality.” Beyoncé, for instance, is very popular among young people, but they don’t associate her with America.” I found that interesting.
I wonder how much of the US image problem is bad policy and cannot be fixed with better public diplomacy. And how much could be fixed with better communication?
As a Fulbrighter, I instantly agree with Kaplan’s readers about the importance of personal exchanges. This is not controversial. Let’s focus on the Internet instead. Secretary Gates said that Al Qaeda is more successful on the Internet than the United States. Does that mean beheading videos are more popular with the target audience than Chocolate Rain and Evolution of Dance? Or are the West’s internet videos the problem? Perhaps it’s all Germany’s fault: Do Heidi Klum videos cause terrorism?
I wish the hugely popular Where the Hell is Matt? video would improve the image of the American tourist.
US bloggers are more authentic than PR firms. They could counter Al Qaeda’s internet propaganda. Have blogs changed the minds of Al Qaeda sympathizers? What could bloggers do better? (In addition to writing in Arabic.) Any ideas on how to reach out and win hearts and minds?
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6 Responses to “Secretary Gates: “Al Qaeda is better at communicating its message on the Internet than America””
Before worrying about the how, we’d first need to define the what. What should the message be?
Democracy as a message theme rings hollow if it’s not demonstrated,, and it’s demonstrated most often by self-criticim, critcims of our own government and society. It takes a pretty sophisticated exchange of ideas to be able to transform self-criticism into a selling point.
I wonder if sophisticated repartee can compete with AlQaeda’s appeal to base instincts: revenge and dominance with a heavenly reward.
I’m not conversant with marketing techniques, but in this case, I suspect that simple person to perso, getting to know you contacts might be a necessary prelude to bringing out the serious messages.
American bloggers seeking information about arab music and offering information about jazz to ME residents?
This is a bad time to ask Americans to reach out to others. This is a time when even getting a Republican and Democratic politician to have dinner together would take a miracle.
But maybe I’m wrong, Uniting to send a message abroad, could (maybe, possibly, hopefully) unite us at home.
We will never beat AQ at it’s game through PR, bloggers or any other medium until our actions are more in line with our rhetoric and we quit shooting ourselves in the foot with things like Abu Ghraib.
An organization like AQ will always be more nimble than our government, but we certainly can do more to counter al sahab and the other insurgent media arms. The biggest problem IMO is mirror-imaging and ethnocentrism. We talk about freedom and democracy as if the Islamic world not only understands those concepts the same as us, but we also assume they want our notions of freedom and democracy.
The first order of business is to understand the audience, particularly their motivations. Frankly, we’re not too good at that.
A lot has actually been written about this topic, known in the business as “strategic influence.” For some “light” reading on the topic, check out this and this and this (all pdf files).
Additionally, Mountainrunner is a good source on the topic of public diplomacy.
@ domajot
“Uniting to send a message abroad, could (maybe, possibly, hopefully) unite us at home.”
Yeah. Indeed!
That would be great!
@ Entropy
Thanks for the links. They look very interesting. I have bookmarked them and subscribed to Mountainrunner’s RSS feed. Very fascinating.
What the rest of the world gets to see on a regular basis is the consequences of American actions. We get to see the F-16 taking off from some military base, the target upon which they intend to drop their load and that’s it.
Al-Arabia, El-Jazeera & the rest of the foreign media then get the privilege of showing the rest of the world the results of our actions: dead women, wounded children, dead babies, etc…
And then you wonder why they hate you?
Joerg,
Here’s another good read.
Don, this is for you.