Beyond the “Obama Effect”: Refining the Instruments of Engagement Through U.S. Public Diplomacy

Abstract

The election of President Barack Obama in 2008 was hailed by many as a positive development for the image of the United States abroad. Yet the Obama presidency, by itself, does not constitute a public diplomacy strategy. This article addresses the state of U.S. public diplomacy at the start of the Obama administration and references how media reaction to Obama’s election provides insight into the role of the presidency in U.S. public diplomacy and its ability to translate popularity into tangible policy gains. Public diplomacy is considered in this article as both a communication strategy and foreign policy imperative that has been neglected as an institutional means to amplify the global popularity of the president and U.S. foreign policy objectives. The article argues that the confluence of Obama’s personal communication efforts and policy strategy and the global context of ubiquitous social media technologies indicates a productive moment for U.S. public diplomacy planners and policy advocates to capitalize on the president’s popularity through a reinvigorated strategy of engagement.

Mediated public diplomacy: US and Taliban relations with Pakistani media

“…So central is the soft power approach to modern American public diplomacy that, in 1999, the Clinton administration replaced the United States Information Agency (USIA) with the office of the Undersecretary of Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. This move shifted America's public diplomacy away from the short-termed focus on mass communication and toward the longer-termed government to foreign citizen relationship building (Hayden, 2011).…”

Diplomat in Chief? Assessing the Influence of Presidential Evaluations on Public Diplomacy Outcomes Among Foreign Publics

“…As such, it is implied that perceptions of the president (or any leader of a nation) may be directly related to international public opinion. This widely held assumption was evident following the 2010 U.S. presidential elections when many predicted that the so-called Obama effect would bring a new dawn in international foreign relations (Hayden, 2011). Indeed, this expectation was perceived by many as a key reason for the president's Nobel Peace Prize award in 2009 (Brzezinski, 2010).…”

A Strategic Issue Management (SIM) Approach to Social Media Use in Public Diplomacy

“…For public diplomacy, however, scholars and practitioners are still struggling with what they mean conceptually and operationally (Bruce, 2011). Hayden (2011) argued that “public diplomacy 2.0” would encourage the free flow of discourse and engagement across boundaries. Bruce (2011) agreed that social media would have an impact on diplomatic actors, but U.S. diplomatic organizations’ culture may limit genuine noncentralized communication on social media.…”