On Thursday 7 March 2019, 天美传媒 hosted a guest talk on聽public diplomacy聽by Professor Nicholas Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.
The talk was part of a seminar series by 天美传媒鈥檚聽Centre for Politics聽and Media Research (CPMR). CPMR and the Global Current Affairs Bureau, a new research grouping, jointly hosted Professor Cull鈥檚 presentation called 鈥楻eputational Security and other new priorities: Rethinking Public Diplomacy for a dangerous age鈥�.
Professor Cull is currently a fellow of the Reuter鈥檚 Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford.聽 He is a prolific author of work on the subject of propaganda and public diplomacy.
This year, Professor Cull releases a new overview text entitled: 鈥楶ublic Diplomacy: Foundations for Global Engagement in the Digital Age鈥� (Polity, 2019). He is a regular guest lecturer at diplomatic academies聽around the world and has chaired two recent studies of public diplomacy in the field for the UK鈥檚 Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
The聽presentation revealed the conclusion to聽Professor Cull鈥檚聽new book which identifies four priorities for public diplomacy in the present age of global uncertainty.
Firstly,聽to build and protect reputational security. Secondly,聽to counter disinformation. Thirdly,聽to contest victim narratives, and finally, to articulate a shared vision of the future.
Professor Cull presented聽reputational security as a repositioning of Nye鈥檚 notion of soft power and Anholt鈥檚 concept of a nation brand, arguing that a better reputation is not a luxury for the richest countries but can be an essential component of security in an era of geopolitical instability.聽Professor Cull continued to聽place emphasis on the need to adhere to an聽international standard of聽human rights as a component of reputational security.
