A Case Study Of International Non-governmental Forums In Public Diplomacy

In the context of globalization and informatization,public diplomacy is an effective means to convey a country's information,policies and values to the foreign public,and to positively change their opinions.Actors of public diplomacy have also expanded from governments to enterprises,non-governmental organizations and individuals.With the increasingly frequent international exchanges,multi-level and multi-field international forums flourish,and have gradually become a new field of research and practice for public diplomacy.At present,research and discussion of international non-governmental forums in the field of public diplomacy often lack the theoretical significance.Therefore,this study focuses on international non-governmental forums,and selects Global Entrepreneurship Summit(GES)and Boao Forum for Asia(BFA)as cases,in order to analyze the characteristics of international non-governmental forums in practice,as well as the mechanism of promoting public diplomacy for these forums.This thesis first analyzes and selects relevant theories in intercultural communication,as well as the framework of public diplomacy.Subsequently,GES and BFA are studied from four dimensions: participant involvement,theme-setting,events & activities,and media utilization,and then the general characteristics are summarized.The research shows that for international non-governmental forums,participant involvement features diversity and focuses on social elites and opinion leaders;themesetting reflects international issues,public diplomacy strategic regions,and the publicity and communication of values;activities in forums strengthen the two-way interactive interpersonal communication,as well as value identification implemented through participants;media utilization features cooperation with domestic media and international media,and the active use of new media.Besides,the author tries to analyze the mechanism of international non-governmental forums for public diplomacy and explains three dimensions: value identification,participant and strategic implementation.Value identification is achieved through participants and strategic implementation which includes building networks and cooperating with media.This provides a new direction and frame for international non-governmental forums to promote public diplomacy.