January 20, 2011
by Katherine Brown and Tom Glaisyer
President Barack Obama is acutely conscious of the importance of global public opinion; upon entering office in January 2009, he vowed to reestablish the United States as a beacon of liberal ideals. Recent opinion polls, however, display a worrisome gulf between lofty intentions and ground-based realities. The State Department’s 2010 Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) posits that public diplomacy should be a core part of twentyfirst-century statecraft. In seeking to effectively reach an amorphous global public, Katherine Brown and Tom Glaisyer, of Columbia University, argue that public diplomacy programs must capitalize on modern technology and be adaptable to rapidly evolving global landscapes.
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January 20, 2011
by Jarret M. Brachman and Alix N. Levine
Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric now hiding in Yemen, has combined religious doctrine with colloquial Western references to become the most popular terrorist among Western supporters. By using the Internet to brand himself as a user-friendly personality, al-Awlaki has repackaged al-Qaeda’s convoluted and inaccessible message into something that his followers are able to understand and replicate on their own. Terrorism expert Jarret Brachman and the Anti-Defamation League’s Alix Levine develop a model for understanding the process of online al-Qaeda mobilization and offer valuable insight on why—and when—this phenomenon becomes an actual security concern.
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