Uncategorized – IPDGC Smart Power

25 Year Anniversary Special Blog Series: A Flagrant Act of Cultural Diplomacy

Written By: Mark Taplin Not so long ago, on a fragrant July evening in Sarajevo, in the courtyard of a 19th centuryhouse-museum, a Spanish musicologist, a Bosnian singer, and a handful of traditional sevdahmusicians committed a flagrant act of cultural diplomacy. Hosted by the Spanish ambassador,the program linked the centuries-old…

Deadlines approaching for Walter Roberts awards

March 22, 2019 Uncategorized

Thanks to the generous support of the Walter Roberts Endowment, the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication (IPDGC) is offering a grant of up to $5,000 to a promising student for a project in public diplomacy. Public Diplomacy can be defined as the effort of state and non-state actors…

What is Smart Power?

February 4, 2019 Global Communication IPDGC public diplomacy Uncategorized

Writing in the Atlantic Monthly in 1990, Harvard Professor Joseph S. Nye, Jr., stated that “the richest country in the world could afford both better education at home and the international influence that comes from an effective aid and information program abroad. What is needed is increased investment in soft power,…

Routine Health Care in Europe: Superior—and Much Less Expensive

October 24, 2013 Uncategorized No Comments

This is the fifth in a series of posts on life, culture, and politics in the U.S. and E.U. by Robert Entman, who spent 2012 as a Humboldt Research Prize Scholar at Freie Universität in Berlin. Read more posts here. During our year in three different European countries, my wife or…

Endgame: Syria and Serious Themes in Gaming

January 9, 2013 Uncategorized 2 Comments

In the last few days much talk on has centered around Apple’s recent rejection of of an app called Endgame: Syria. The event has many lamenting Apple’s policies regarding violence in games, which insists that enemies in in software “cannot solely target a specific race, culture, a real government or corporation, or any…

Very clever: Google’s Ingress masks Data-Collection in Gaming

December 9, 2012 Uncategorized 1 Comment

As a company Google has a reputation for being clever, but their latest Android app Ingress seems like a particularly intelligent method of gathering data from their ever expanding user base. Developed in Google’s Niantic Labs division, the game makes use of mobile phones’ geolocation abilities and augmented reality for a…

New Media, Old Media, and the Syrian Crisis

October 10, 2012 Uncategorized No Comments

Last week IPDGC and the U.S. Institute of Peace co-hosted a great conference, “Groundtruth: New Media, Technology, and the Syria Crisis,” that focused on the use of online videos by activists, new and traditional media, and policymakers. The event was the latest in the “Blogs and Bullets” series of research…

Social Media and the Arab Spring

March 9, 2012 Uncategorized No Comments

One of the most hotly debated topics surrounding the Arab Spring has been what role if any social media have played in the protests and, in a couple of cases, revolutions. Scholar Zaynep Tufekci (UNC) and The Engine Room’s Christopher Wilson have a new piece in Journal of Communication (gated)…

Kony 2012 – Activism that Has Our Attention

March 7, 2012 Uncategorized 3 Comments

If you haven’t been visited Twitter or Facebook recently, you may have missed the news: The Kony 2012 campaign has set the Internet on fire. While in its early stages, it’s fascinating to see how much attention the movement has garnered and to speculate as to where its headed. The movement…