02 October 2000

New Technologies Redefine Public Diplomacy

State Department conference seeks new course in information age

By Charlene Porter
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The Digital Age is a turning point in human history as momentous as the Industrial Age, and the U.S. Department of State must adjust to this new environment of information and technology, according to Ira Magaziner, a keynote speaker at the October 2 opening of NetDiplomacy 2000, a conference on the Internet and diplomacy.

"The status quo is not an option," Magaziner told his audience, predominantly State Department employees. If the agency fails to change its culture to become an active participant in the Information Age, he said, "Eventually you'll become irrelevant and bypassed."

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Evelyn S. Lieberman emphasized the same message as she opened the conference at the State Department's Washington headquarters and introduced Magaziner, an architect of Clinton Administration policy on the Internet when he served as senior advisor to the president for policy development. Outlining the meeting's purpose to examine how public diplomacy should be conducted in the new age of technology, Lieberman said coping with change has now become a mainstay in life.

"We must see the road to the future before we are left behind," Lieberman said. She challenged conference participants to develop creative new proposals for how the U. S. government should position itself on the international stage as the information age changes the traditional means of communication in diplomacy.

"The job of a diplomat will be more difficult," said Magaziner, predicting a future in which those engaged in foreign policy will have to think and act in fundamentally different ways. While diplomats have traditionally worked with government, business and journalistic elites, the future will demand that they communicate with all levels of society in an interactive, timely manner.

Affordable devices that allow wireless Internet access through a satellite network will bring the population of Internet users to 1,000 million within a few years, said Magaziner, now president of SJS, Inc., a strategic consulting firm located in the state of Rhode Island. The former White House advisor forecast that Internet access will be available in a few years even in countries where people don't have broad access to telephones today. Steadily increasing numbers of Internet users will create a global communications network that is based on an expectation of wide access to information, he said.

With that trend on the near horizon, diplomats will have to move toward greater openness, Magaziner predicted. "As the public becomes more aware and more participatory on the Internet, they're going to expect (openness from officials), and they're going to penalize" public officials or governments who are perceived to be secretive, Magaziner said.

The rapidly changing environment of the Information Age requires leaders who are willing to take risks and act quickly, Magaziner said, and described those qualities as "foreign" to the traditions of the State Department. Failure to change those traditional patterns of operation will be the "greatest danger" to the agency, he said.

Magaziner recommended that public diplomacy in the Information Age should become more responsive and interactive. He encouraged the development of interactive sites on the World Wide Web, in which visitors would be invited to engage in e-mail discussions of policy documents posted there. He also suggested increasing the number of Web products that emphasize social and cultural elements of U.S. life, again, offering viewers the opportunity to respond with comments and questions.

The former White House advisor foresees that all of these changes will ultimately benefit U. S. foreign policy goals and will endorse American values around the world. The Internet will make it impossible for repressive governments to close channels of information to people, he said, and that improved global flow of information will advance democratic principles. Economic integration will increase at the same time, broadening corporate access to more markets, and better product distribution channels.

All of these trends will combine to create improved international understanding, Magaziner said, as people build communities in the digital world and learn to see a broader world beyond the one in which they live.

Magaziner's speech was the opening event in a three-day conference that will focus on various issues of technology and diplomacy, including sessions on the use of the Internet during foreign policy crises, security issues and Web sites, and the digital divide.

Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.
Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov

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