In the recent aftermath of the killing of the U.S.
Ambassador to Libya and attacks targeted toward American embassies around the
world, many a debate has taken place on the words tweeted by Embassy Cairo in
reaction to escalating tensions. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney offered his
high-profile two-cents, and news stations around the world have scurried around
to recruit commentators to analyze the issue. The situation and reactions
surrounding Embassy Cairo’s official social media communications exemplify
Appadurai’s call for an “urgent analysis” of how both spoken and written words
are received by different audiences:
“So, while an Indian audience may be attentive to the
resonances of a political speech in terms of some key words and phrases
reminiscent of Hindi cinema, a Korean audience may respond to the subtle
codings of Buddhist or neo-Confucian rhetorical strategy encoded in a political
document. The very relationship of reading to hearing and seeing may vary in
important ways that determine the morphology of these different ‘ideoscapes’ as
they shape themselves in different national and transnational contexts. This
globally variable synaesthesia has hardly ever been noted, but it demands
urgent analysis.”
Surely the kind of analysis Appadurai demands is not only
for the careful among oratorical strategists of presidential candidates. In
fact, where this attention is needed most is perhaps right before that Foreign
Service Officer hits “submit” on a blog post, Facebook comment, or (drumroll,
please) an ever-dangerous tweet. This is in no way intended to undermine the
efforts already being made to advance our ability to conduct effective outreach
to foreign publics, but is rather merely another case to be made for
incorporating nuance into the public diplomacy machine…via more than just a
nuance. Does this mean we need a new class on “Message Crafting and the
Morphology of Ideoscapes” at the Foreign Service Institute? Should there be new
evaluation methods for recruiting Public Diplomacy tracked Officers? I have no
idea. At least not yet. But let’s say that’s because I’m still “only” a
graduate student with lots left to learn…like how to carefully tread the waters
of public expression online. Who knows? Maybe this blogging assignment will be
the one thing standing between me and a twitter blunder I’d hate to commit.
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