Public Diplomacy 2.0: An Exploratory Case Study of the US Digital Outreach Team

Abstract

The Internet has stimulated innovation in American public diplomacy methods towards the Middle East, from one-way communication through broadcasting and the print media to a more interactive model in which the government joins the conversation. This paper assesses the potential of this new model through an analysis of an early US government Web 2.0 public diplomacy initiative, the State Department’s Digital Outreach Team (DOT), focusing on an embedded case study, that of Arabic Internet discussions of Barack Obama’s Cairo speech of 4 June 2009, in which the DOT participated.