W.k.che The Obama Administration's New Media Public Diplomacy

From the beginning of the Barak Obama campaign，new media publicdiplomacy attract attention of the world. With rise of the new mediapower and upcoming of a new era of public diplomacy, new mediapublic diplomacy and traditional public diplomacy show diametricallydifferent characteristics. From the domestic level, George W. Bushadministration held tough unilateral conservatism position, making theU.S. into two wars. Also, with the strong impact of the sub-mortgagecrisis, the strength of the U.S. has been weakened. In this context,people’s impression on the United States has generally declined. Obamaadministration’s new media public diplomacy has turned out to beeffective: compared to the relative decline of U.S. hard power, soft powerhas enhanced the international image of the United States to maintain U.S.national interests.In practice level, Obama attaches great importance to the use of newmedia in public diplomacy. On his inauguration, he advocates the conceptof "smart power" and attaches great importance to the launching of newmedia public diplomacy to reshape the American image. At the same time,White House coordinates and cooperates with other departments, carryingout a variety of activities, putting great emphasis on public diplomacy andthe person in charge of co-operation of the new media platforms. On thisbasis, new media public diplomacy has been carried out smoothly andachieved certain results.But at the same time, the U.S. new media public diplomacy is alsofaced with a series of challenges. The weakness of the hard power causesdamage to America’s soft power, also attracting question on governanceof the American model from a majority of developing countries. TheWashington consensus is being challenged. From theoretical level, the Obama administration still insists "insufficient information" theory duringthe Cold War, lagging behind the trend of the times; From the level ofrelations with other countries, the U.S. offensive public diplomacy causesresistance of other countries; With public diplomatic confrontationincreases, more intense competition will rise on the right of discourse;Fom the domestic perspective, the new media public diplomacy in theUnited States is also faced with questions and Legal Dilemma...