Although public diplomacy is in fashion in Europe nowadays, there is no agree-ment how the term should be understood. The definition is elusive, and in conse-quence many researchers equalize it with propaganda or international public relations.
Governments and academia develop their own understandings. I represent the opinion that after the collapse of the bipolar system and because of the inclusion of nongovernmental actors into international relations, a new public diplomacy model is emerging. The profound changes in the patterns of international communication contribute to this development. In Europe public diplomacy has been included into strategies of foreign policy during the last decade. The research has to follow up this development urgently as European countries and the European Union display im-portant actors in international politics and international communication.
From the perspective of political communication research, public diplomacy is a strategy of international political communication that is adopted by democratic countries with open media systems. It materializes as a choice of the strategy of in-ternational communication, including branding and basic tools of public relations.
However, there is no agreement whether, an international broadcasting makes a constitutive element of public diplomacy. In this paper I will follow the P. Taylor’s (2011:27) approach, that perceived cultural diplomacy and international broadcast-ing as essential parts of public diplomacy.
The question about the nature of relation between public diplomacy and inter-national broadcasting based on American experiences was posed by M. Price (2003). Price analyzes Voice of America (VoA) and Radio Free Europe (RFE). His findings might be adopted nowadays to the contemporary US broadcasters: Radio Sawa and television Al Hurra as components of American public diplomacy model.
In 2010 A. O’Keeffe and A. Oliver – researchers from Australian think tank Lowy Institute – in a report “International Broadcasting and its Contribution to Public Diplomacy” shed some light on the governmental investments in international broadcasting in order to prepare recommendation for Australia as a middle power and to lift Australian international broadcasting profile (O’Keeffe & Olivier, 2010).
The report convinces that not only big powers include international broadcasting into the soft power tools. Also J. Bahrke in his study on German Deutsche Welle shares the opinion that public diplomacy contains international broadcasting (Bahrke, 2010:198).
In the approach presented in this paper, the new public diplomacy is a tool of soft power. The next fashionable term coined by J. S. Nye (2004) comprises in my research not only culture, values and foreign policy, but also the soft lining of nomic power. As such, it derives much from public relations and reflects eco-nomization of foreign policy. Thus, I understand public diplomacy in its new, post cold war version, as a dialogical form of international political communication, and a tool implemented by foreign policy in order to position the state internationally.
Image and public opinion are the most important terms for understanding the con-temporary public diplomacy. The stress put on symmetry, dialogue, listening and engaging characterizes approaches close to public relations. R. Zaharna names new symmetric public diplomacy a relational model, opposite to informational one-sided public diplomacy (Zaharna, 2007). There is a question whether international broadcasters, stemming from the era of mass communication, are able nowadays to serve as tools of dialogical public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy will be defined as a form of international political communica-tion aimed at foreign publics. As such, it supports the achievement of the goals of foreign policy of the state and includes non-state actors in the process and integrates cultural diplomacy and international broadcasting. The aim of public diplomacy is to create or reinforce a positive image of the country and its society and to make the achievement of international policy goals easier by influencing public opinion to shape positive attitudes toward the country. It should be understood as a long – term, symmetric, dialogical communication of governments and NGO’s with broad audiences (stakeholders) abroad. The communication frame attributes to the governments communicators’ role, which due to the logic of symmetric communi-cation includes both sending and receiving messages. Political international com-munication is understood, as in the Denton and Woodward’s concept (1990) as a process of cross border flow of messages, engaging participants in debate on allo-cation of goods, privileges, regulations needed for achievement of common good.
Consequently, public diplomacy might be analyzed as a process aimed at setting the agenda of media (international broadcasting), politicians (government to govern-ment level) and the agenda of audiences (governgovern-ment to people, and people to peo-ple).
Cynthia Schneider (2004) describes public diplomacy as “all a nation does to explain itself to the world.” It might therefore be understood as a narration that the society presents abroad – a story the society has to tell the world, filtered through the political goals of the country, government, or incumbent political party. National versions of public diplomacy give insight into the way societies translate their culture by using the means of international communication and cultural diplomacy. International broadcasters are channels for spreading the sto-ries of societies.
The main idea of this paper is to analyze international broadcasting as one of the elements of new public diplomacy in Europe. European countries pioneered the use of radio for foreign policy purposes, in the beginning as both means of informing
Diaspora (or colonial populations) about the politics at home and of foreign (war) propaganda. When the Soviet Union collapsed and the cold war was over, foreign image policy became no less important as an objective of international broadcast-ing. Despite the fact that global communication, relying on networks of information flow, defines a new context for broadcasting for foreign policy goals, radio and tele-vision still remain important tools of political communication. By the online access governments reach and engage new target groups. Furthermore, international broadcasters are identified with the country and count as icons of soft power, as it is in the case of BBC, one of the most prominent and credible global broadcasters, identified with the UK and contributing to the positive image of the country.
In order to analyze the position of international broadcasters nowadays and to understand their relationships with Foreign Ministries, I will focus on three cases:
(1) the British (BBC World Service), because of the long tradition of international broadcasting of the BBC and the company’s (still) high international prestige; (2) the German (Deutsche Welle, DW), as DW seems to play important role as a tool of Ger-man foreign cultural policy; and (3) the Polish (Belsat TV), because Poland is a new-comer in public diplomacy and Belsat TV, aimed at Belarusian audience, makes an exceptional project authorized by a middle size country.
Polish case will be purposefully confronted with the experiences of two bigger states, which are much more significant in international broadcasting. The size of the countries matters – their hard assets contribute to the quality and territorial and lin-guistic reach of their international broadcasters. Their international position is re-flected in the strategies and objectives of their international broadcasters. Therefore, Polish international broadcasting profile has been and will be different than British and German and there is no attempt in the study to equalize the cases. The main idea is to draw conclusions from three cases to understand the place of international broadcasting and its relevance in the European model of public diplomacy. Thus, the stress is put on the members of the EU, not at the EU as an actor of international com-munication.
All three countries are members of the EU (Poland since 2004). However, their international positions are not the same with Poland as a country striving for a role of a middle power and a regional leader among Eastern members and neighbors of the EU. Polish language does not play the role of the language of wider communica-tion as English and German do – it also affects broadcasters’ performance. In the United Kingdom and in Poland international broadcasting is operated by public service broadcasters. Also DW is an institution of public law.
In the UK, the BBC is acknowledged as an official partner of the government in the field of British public diplomacy. In Germany, the Deutsche Welle plays a role of a go-between organization (Mittlerorganisation) of German foreign cultural policy.1 In the case of Poland, the role of public service radio and television in public
diplo-1 The term public diplomacy is not widely used in German foreign policy, instead the notion of foreign cultural policy is implemented.
macy has not been defined yet due to the relatively short period of the development of this field. Nevertheless, while Western countries cut their budgets for interna-tional broadcasting, Poland launched in 2007 a new channel broadcasting to Belarus – Belsat TV. The station follows the idea of democracy promotion as an es-sential issue of European normative power. In contrary to the BBC World Service, or DW, Polish international media do not compete with other global media broad-casters.
The British, German and Polish public service institutions rely on governmental subsides and license fee financing. Therefore, they are supposed to follow the instruc-tions of governments in international broadcasting. In particular, they are expected to broadcast messages serving the country’s promotion, as well as to be involved in de-velopment cooperation (Official Dede-velopment Aid, ODA) and democracy promo-tion. It may, potentially, affect the media impartiality. One of the presumptions of this study is that public service broadcasting itself is proliferated by the EU media assis-tance as a model for countries undergoing transition to democracy.
International communication as a frame of analysis of public diplomacy stresses the role of the government. The changes in the international environment – de-scribed by Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1999) as the emergence of a noosphere – signalize still important, although changing role of the state in international communication and public diplomacy. The role of the state is weakened by the growing participa-tion and significance of non-state actors of internaparticipa-tional relaparticipa-tions (internaparticipa-tional communication). On the one hand, the development of the media sphere defines the limits of controlling function of the state in public diplomacy. On the other hand, new technologies constituting the virtual public sphere supply the governments with new tools to put the citizens under their surveillance. Symmetrical social me-dia that are prone to share, to involve, and to mobilize respond well to the model of relational public diplomacy.
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)
British public diplomacy is globally recognized as an outstanding example of for-eign policy soft tool in a democratic country. British public service broadcaster (BBC) is an essential asset of UK’s normative power. BBC Royal Charter (2006) ex-plains the role of British international broadcasting as “bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK.” BBC World Service (BBC WS) is one of the most prominent international broadcasters globally. It won this reputation during the Second World War, while sending radio information to the US (Cull, 2010) and after-wards during the Cold War broadcasting to the Communist bloc (Leonard, 2002).
The officials of BBC as well as researchers in international communication often quote Kofi Annan, to display the global prominence of BBC. The former UN Secre-tary General evaluated BBC as “British greatest gift to the world in the 20thcentury”
(Dyke, 2003).
Nowadays, BBC World Service consists of television, radio and online news and information. It has been funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). According to the BBC World Service Agreement, BBC operates BBC World Service under the BBC Trust and in agreement with the Foreign Office.
FCO has the right to agree strategy of the BBC WS and to close services. Both in-stitutions agree on Three Year Plans, deciding on financing (BBC WS Broadcast-ing Agreement). Thus, the financBroadcast-ing by the FCO will be over in 2014/2015. After that moment, BBC will cover World Services from the license fee. The close rela-tion of the BBC World Service to FCO is counterbalanced according to the BBC Royal Charter and the Agreement (above) by the independence of BBC, granted also for World Service. BBC World News – one of the mostly recognized broad-casters worldwide and BBC’s most watched – is a separate commercial channel of the BBC.
BBC World Service (2013) consists of 31 language radio services and two televi-sion stations, broadcasting in Arabic and Persian (launched respectively in 2008 and 2009). Their start was the reason for closing other (as Polish, operating in years 1939–2005) language sections. Arab Spring in 2011 proved that the decision to launch the Arabic service was taken right on time. The BBC Director for Global News Peter Horrocks reported in 2012 that the number of Arabic version viewers grew significantly during the Arab Spring. He outlined:
“The consequence of the BBC successfully blending traditional journalis-tic values with modern means of gathering and delivering news has been a noticeable increase in respect from our audiences in this region. Among BBC Arabic TV audiences, trust in us is up from 67 per cent in 2008 to 90 per cent in 2011.”
Even after the viewing was not possible, the audience switched to BBC radio in Arabic. According to Horrocks (2012), the trust originates from “impartiality and independence (…), accuracy and depth [of coverage – BO]; transparency (…) and accessibility (…).” Trust contributes to the credibility of the broadcaster and in the consequence to the credibility of the country. It should not be overlooked that credi-bility as a value is currency of soft power. Winning credicredi-bility will be essential for middle size countries, striving for recognition internationally, but it preserves sig-nificance also for the UK as a former Empire.
The positive perceptions of the BBC World Service stressed by K. Annan or Di-rectors of the BBC are supported by international surveys. The Lowy Institute re-port from 2010 relates to one of them emphasizing that:
“In an effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of the BBC’s international broadcasting operations, the BBC commissioned a survey in 2010 on atti-tudes to the BBC and other international news services in Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan and Turkey. Respondents were asked which British organiza-tions and programs make them think more or less positively about the country, including the armed forces, the British Council, the UK Govern-ment and UK foreign aid. According to the Director General of the BBC,
Mark Thomson, 80 per cent of respondents said that the BBC made them think more positively about the UK, far more than any of the other British institutions mentioned, including UK foreign aid.”
[O’Keeffe & Olivier, 2010:312; Thompson, 2010]
BBC is officially named a partner of British public diplomacy, next to British Council and Wilton Park. The close relationship with the FCO, outlined in the BBC World Broadcasting Agreement, is supported by sharing the same objec-tives, as defined for public diplomacy and for the BBC World Service: supporting positive image of the country and engaging with publics. Although engaging with publics seems to be difficult for a radio and television station, it might be achieved by the online services, generating feedback from viewers and provid-ing them with in-depth information and deeper contexts of issues discussed and presented in the programs. The role an international broadcaster might play in the country’s public diplomacy was illustrated well with the case of BBC in Po-land by Mark Leonard in a book on public diplomacy. BBC was mentioned twice by M. Leonard among the strengths of UK public diplomacy in Poland as “highly regarded for its role during Communism” and BBC World Service in Polish (not existing any more, see above) as “widely recognized (…), respected for its qual-ity and trustworthiness, (…) the highest – qualqual-ity news provider in Poland”
(Leonard, 2002:138).
BBC contributed a lot, due to its prominence in Poland, to the inclusion of inter-national broadcasting into Polish democracy promotion aimed at Belarus. As it was stated above, documents of BBC World Service put much stress on its editorial independence (Review, 2005). FCO and BBC express it in every official document as the core value of British international broadcasting. Nevertheless, interna-tional broadcasting seen as an instrument of public diplomacy imposes limits to journalistic independence. Still, the good reputation of BBC, reflected in the opin-ion surveys, seems to confirm that the broadcaster found the balance between serving the objectives of the FCO and respecting the core value of journalism.
BBC engages also in media assistance, partly thank to BBC Media Action. This in-ternational charity of BBC provides – while supporting media and access to them – to social change abroad. The international involvement of BBC Media Action (www.bbc.co.uk/mediaction) illustrates how the official public service partner of the FCO in the field of public diplomacy has been included into development aid (media assistance).
The promulgation of the British model of public broadcasting itself turned to an important asset of British soft power and BBC itself to a myth of democratic and in-dependent media, influencing among others Central and Eastern European coun-tries undergoing transition after 1989. The model constitutes now British but also European normative power even if its spread was stopped on the Eastern borders of the EU. The similar objectives in the field of media assistance are attributed to Ger-man and Polish foreign broadcasters.
Deutsche Welle (DW)
In Germany, the objectives of international broadcasting are explained in the Deut-sche Welle Act (DeutDeut-sche – Welle – Gesetz, 2005): DW is:
“…intended to convey the image of Germany as a cultural state in the Eu-ropean tradition and as a free and democratic constitutional state. (…) should provide a forum in Europe and on other continents for German (and other) points of view on important topics, primarily in the areas of politics, culture, and economics, with the aim of promoting understanding and the exchange of ideas among different cultures and peoples. In so do-ing, Deutsche Welle shall, in particular, promote the German language.”
These objectives follow up the main concept of German foreign cultural policy as outlined in “Konzeption 2000” – basic document of German Foreign Office in 2000. “Konzeption 2000” defines Deutsche Welle as one of the main actors of Ger-man foreign media policy. The role of DW as a part “of GerGer-man foreign relations, but not as a part of German foreign policy” was stressed in the document evaluating the broadcaster in 2008, presented to the German Bundestag (Unterrichtung, 2009:3). The formulation emphasizes the distance from German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The history of German international broadcasting is to some extent dominated by the notoriety won by German Nazi radio propaganda during the Second World War. After 1949, West German media gained better reputation internationally en-gaging in conflict areas and in transition countries, while substituting missing im-partial sources of information. J. Bahrke claims that during the military rule in Greece Deutsche Welle was “the only not censored broadcaster, which could have been listened to in Greece in Greek language” (Bahrke, 2010:198). For the listeners of the Communist bloc, the programs of DW before 1989 were much less relevant than VoA, RFE and BBC (Ociepka, 2013:90).
Deutsche Welle was established in 1953. In 1960 its operation was regulated by DW Act and in 1962 it became a member of German public service broadcaster ARD. DW represents Germany and promotes German culture abroad. It is
Deutsche Welle was established in 1953. In 1960 its operation was regulated by DW Act and in 1962 it became a member of German public service broadcaster ARD. DW represents Germany and promotes German culture abroad. It is