| The decades from1947to1961witnessed the outbreak of the cold war and the ongoing confrontation between the United States and Soviet Union globally. Moreover, it was also a critical period that America fully developed its mechanism, as well as its discourse system in the cold war. In order to counter the assumed serious threatens to their interest and reputation caused by communism, nationalism, anti-colonialism, anti-Americanism and neutralism, the United States government advanced its public diplomacy considerately and realized the institutional reformation by using the image rhetoric and under the banner of anti-communism, then it launched a large scale offensive involving the public diplomacy’activities, aiming to enhance the identity of the global recipients with American culture and interest, then the victory over Soviet in the cold war.So far, as more significance has been attached to the cold war study and the construction of soft power than ever, scholars, especially international scholars has showed great enthusiasm for the study of cultural cold war, making the works on propaganda abroad, public diplomacy, and the construction of national image of the United States advance significantly. However, generally speaking, on the one hand, international scholars inclined to focus on case study and the west discourse rooted in their works could be no more conspicuous. On the other hand, Chinese scholars’ study on America’s cultural cold war is still in its infancy, so further study on strategic consideration, operation and evaluation of America’s public diplomacy and national image shaping is in great need.Based on previous studies, especially the latest ten years’ works by scholars abroad, as well as some available documents such as data bases of DDRS, U.S.Congressional Serial Set, FRUS and so on, this dissertation highlights the period from1947to1961, when the United States unfolded its overall public diplomacy and propaganda program for the purpose of containing communism and aimed at shaping America’s national image. In addition, this study also attempts to reveal the landscape of cultural cold war from the perspectives of image politics, psychology and sociology of culture, above all, the interaction among them.The main body of this dissertation is formed by four chapters, the major content and centre viewpoint of each chapter are epitomized as follows:The first chapter probes into the evolution of America’s public diplomacy and the process of its institutional reformation. From the end of WWII to early of1960s, the United States, one of the two super powers faced with specific historical environment, had been experiencing fundamentally changes in several respects, not only the order in abroad and home, but also its values and international systems. The United States government insisted that its interest and prestige were threatened seriously by communism, nationalism, anti-colonialism and neutralism. Hence, the public diplomacy was legislated by this intricate strategic environment. By taking advantage of the the image rhetoric and under the banner of anti-communism, the information officers in the United States government led and pushed the institutional transformation of the public diplomacy so as to create a better national image. Under the protection of several acts such as the Fulbright Act, Smith-Mundt Act and Fulbright-Hays Act, the public diplomacy realized its normalization legally, the USIA served as the dominated portrayer of the U. S. images. Ultimately, the public diplomacy was incorporated to serve for the cold war.The second chapter explores how the United States portrayed itself as a ’Peace Maker’. The antagonism between the United States and Soviet Union had intensified increasingly stem from their recurring ideological contradiction since the end of WW Ⅱ when the fascist enemy had been defeated. The United States government asserted that the ’aggression and expansion’ launched by Soviet Union were the origin of international tense situations and condemned communism as the ’Red Colonialism’. Especially after Stalin’s death, president Eisenhower delivered two famous speeches named ’the Chance for Peace’ and ’Atom for Peace’. What’s more, the Eisenhower government initiated a’Peace Offensive’ against the Soviet Union and made full use of public diplomacy to explain its intentions and actions throughout the world. Over the dispute of nuclear disarmament,’Open Skies’, nothing but a political gimmick was used by the United States government to confront the Soviet Psychologically. But encountered with pressures from world public opinion and the Soviet Union government, the U.S. Government was forced to negotiate with Soviet and finally reach a symbolistic limitation nuclear weapon test treaty. These activities implied that the U.S. strived to shape its cold war discourse on a peaceful level and took atom as a tool to achieve its diplomatic goals and to realize its hegemony. In this kind of system of cold war discourse, the U.S. tried to shape itself as a’defender of the world peace’ and denounce Soviet as a’world warmonger’, so as to maintain the legitimacy of its leadership in the’free world’, to unit the so called’free world’, and to win the cold war ultimately.The focus of the third chapter is to investigate how the United States expounded its core values to the people abroad by describing itself as a’free’,’democratic’,’ affluent’country.’democracy’,’freedom’,’affluence’,’reformation’,’prosperity’, these factors were consisted of the core contents of the structure of America’s imagine discourse. More than one means such as broadcasting motion pictures or TV show, outpouring books, holding exhibitions, specifically, religious publicity,’People’s Capitalism’, National Exhibition in Moscow and so on were exploited by the United States government to self-promotion and advertise in all-dimensions. Among these publicities, not only included normal description, but also involved response to crisis. It is deserved to point out that the United States government attempted to present the’ American Ideology’and its universal values to the world, and contrived to achieve the goal of Americanization.The fourth chapter discusses how the United States shaped the images of some specific social groups including workers, women and the blacks, which are vital components of the image of the United States. The fact that the United States government attached great significance to its domestic social groups was stimulated by the following considerations:First, International prestige, which the United States government considers a lot, not only depended on the national power the United States enjoyed, but also necessarily went hand in hand with its domestic life structure; Second, The United States had suffered great pressure facing the revolutionary discourse interpreted and propagated by the communist world on class, gender and race; Third, As a result of the emergence and rise of progressive forces in the third world and the outburst of the civil rights movement, the racial problem received increasing attention from the world.Under these circumstances, the United States government advertised that it was the capitalism that gave rise to its booming economy and in America, the’homeland of workers’, American workers lost themselves in a opulent lifestyle of middle class characterized by freedom and wealthy. Additionally, American women were incorporated into the fields of job, family, community and society and were described as a group cherishing democracy, valuing family, intending to dedicate and enjoying themselves with a ordinary but meaningful life; when it came to the problem of the blacks, the United States government kept presenting its racial relation from the perspective of historical progress and emphasized that its racial relation was approaching equality.The conclusion is to summarize the full text content and generalize the central viewpoint. The combination between stimulation caused by Soviet Union’s such kind of rhetoric and America’s pursuit of its own identity politics propelled America to express its rhetoric from the perspective of the cold war. The cold war not only provided an enormous "battlefield of words" for public diplomacy, but also served as the most crucial driving force in integrating the mechanism of public diplomacy. Therefore, there are four remarkable features of America’s public diplomacy in this period. First, it was an inherent component in the service of the national security strategy of the United States. Second, it was highly institutionalized. Third, it was of fierce aggressiveness in ideology. Fourth, it experienced a shift from a double-track operation in propaganda and public diplomacy to the eventual establishment of public diplomacy. Essentially, public diplomacy pursued for psychological identification, thus the effectiveness of U.S. public diplomacy was badly undermined due to the following restrictions:Primarily, instilling intensely as well as unidirectionally was proned to encounter with rebound from target countries; Secondly, the bureaucratic dissensions in public diplomacy mechanism still remained; Last but not in the least, it was hard to resolve the conflicts between the global themes and regional disparities.From the perspective of the main body’s design, American images shaping is obviously conducted on three paralleled lines simultaneously, namely strategy, economy and social culture; From the angle of operation approaches, the mode of America’s image shaping is a typical dinary opposition, which is to say that the United States fucus on countering "anti-Americanism" and creating a "evil image" of communism to substantiate the legitimacy and justifiability of its self-image, reflecting the discourse feature of a’anti-imperialist imperialism’; from the perspective of strategy implementation, the U.S. chose to shape its image selectively; Consider its responsive way, not only normalized description but also countermeasures to cope with crisis were adopted to shape its images. However, because the discourses of images themselves were words expressed elaborately, their objectivity and impartiality were thus seriously weakened. On the one hand, self-description wasn’t equate with communicating mutually, it took time to achieve acknowledge from the recipients; On the other hand, contradiction between self-construction and others’ cognition remained unsolved. Given the fact that the United States resorted to a policy of colonialism and hegemonism in international affairs, the image of "anti-colonialism" it intended to construct was hypocritical to a great extend, which rendered it vulnerable.Finally, this dissertation illustrates the relationship between public diplomacy and national image creation. It demonstrates that public diplomacy, which is of distinctive values in sharing thoughts, communicating beliefs, exchanging cultures, spreading values and some other aspects, and gradually become a crucial tool to shape self-image for many countries in the post-war world; The cognition and creation of national image can also serve to integrate a country’s overall cultural activities. Therefore, I conclude that public diplomacy and national image shaping interacts with each other closely. Specifically speaking, the dissemination of national image mostly depends on public diplomacy while in turn national image is the strategy goal which public diplomacy seeks to achieve. |
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