The Obama Administration's Study Of African Public Diplomacy

The United States is the first country in the world that produce the concept of "public diplomacy" and use it.For the U.S.government,Africa is an important region for maintaining and expanding global interests and demonstrating global leadership.The U.S.government has a long history of public diplomacy in Africa.Since the 21 century,the African economy has maintained high speed growing,and Africa's strategic position has continuously improved.At the same time,the September 11 attacks made the United States begin to attach importance to Africa's strategic significance in fighting terrorism,which leads U.S.government's attention to Africa to a peak.The president Obama who has African ancestry let people pay attention to the development of USAfrican relations.The main part of the text consists of four chapters.The first chapter begins with the concept of public diplomacy,clarifies the theoretical logic of American public diplomacy and outlines the history of American public diplomacy,which leads to the subject of this article—the Obama administration's public diplomacy.The second chapter mainly sorts out the Obama administration's public diplomacy mechanism,and clarifies the Obama administration's public policy formulation and coordination mechanism,aid mechanism,educational and cultural exchange mechanism,and information dissemination mechanism.The third chapter focuses on the changes in the Obama administration's strategic goals in Africa,explores the context of the changes,and analyzes the Obama administration's new approach to African public diplomacy.The fourth chapter is the overall evaluation of the Obama administration's public diplomacy in Africa.First,analyzes the Obama administration's strategic characteristics of public diplomacy in Africa,then reviews the single public diplomacy case,finally analyzes the overall impact of Obama's public diplomacy.We believe that based on the interests of the United States in Africa,Obama's strategic objectives for public diplomacy in Africa followed the historical path of American public diplomacy in Africa since the Cold War,and on the basis of the inheritance and development of the Bush administration's African policy.In the second term,the U.S.government adopted the "New Strategy for Sub-Saharan Africa" to clarify the four strategic pillars of the United States toward Africa,thus pointed out the direction for the U.S.public diplomacy in Africa.In specific practice,Obama coordinated public diplomacy through the Office of Public Diplomacy and the Bureau of African Affairs to intervene in African elections;inherited and developed aid mechanisms for Africa;strengthened the containment of terrorism in Africa through improving information dissemination mechanisms;and paid attention to education and cultural exchanges in Africa by launching a series of critically acclaimed exchange programs.The Obama administration had coordinated the cooperation of various departments of public diplomacy and actively used new media technologies to conduct public diplomacy.At the same time,Obama is good at using his black leader's status,exerting his special advantages to Africa,and focusing on the influence of specific people in Africa on the target of communication.Overall,he had achieved fruitful results and gained a positive image in Africa.Finally,this paper forecasts the future of U.S.public diplomacy in Africa,and summarizes the enlightenment to China's public diplomacy in Africa.