The American Public Diplomacy In The New Media Environment

After Barack Obama assumed presidency, facing the U.S. diplomatic challengesand passive situations, he proposed a new ideas of “transitional diplomacy”, and thenhe conducted a series of diplomatic adjustments. In order to deal with the diplomaticchallenges, Obama administration actively advocated the E-diplomacy by means ofupgrading the State Department’s website, updating blogs, creating new links andpopularizing network information technology. The Obama administration alsoadopted the strategies of disclosing diplomatic information, collecting diplomaticresources, expanding values, carrying out diplomatic interaction and creatingdiplomatic pressure to clarify American diplomatic stand, spread American valueconcept, beautify American national image and shape the “smart power” of the UnitedStates.The following thesis is trying to prove that in the new media environment, theform of American public diplomacy is gradually transforming to E-diplomacy, whichcan best serve the objective of American diplomacy. In this paper, it is predicted thatthe application of E-diplomacy will continue to be strengthened and the Americanswill continue to shape its smart power through E-diplomacy. However, the mainobjective of American public diplomacy is to outreach American foreign policy andvalues. As long as the U.S. government does not change the nature of bullying anddoes not give up hegemonic diplomacy, it is afraid that its E-diplomacy effect isalways limited.In order to avoid the subjectivity of narrative research, this paper adopted themethod of comparison. The forms of American public diplomacy in both traditionaland new media environment are compared through its strategic goal-—“comprehensive dissemination of American standard value”. Meanwhile, thespeeches of American high officials and their diplomatic approaches are introduced toexplore the emergence, operational mechanism, implementation method,achievements and the development trend of American E-diplomacy.