Showing posts with label Communications. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Communications. Show all posts

Tuesday

CPD Blog: Integrating India's "NEIGHBORHOOD-FIRST” strategy into the South Asia satellite

The following is the text of a post I contributed to the CPD Blog. It was published on June, 26, 2017 :

South Asia Satellite
Photo courtesy of the Indian Space Research Organization

India’s space diplomacy got a major boost last month with the launch of the South Asia Satellite, envisaged in June 2014 by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “India’s gift” to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). The prime minister’s vision was to increase regional cooperation among SAARC countries by leveraging India’s capabilities in space technology. The satellite was launched by the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on May 5, 2017.

Significance of the South Asia Satellite

The satellite is intended to support communication, broadcasting and Internet services, disaster management, telemedicine, tele-education, and weather forecasting in the whole of South Asia. Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, along with India, stand to benefit from it and have welcomed the initiative, while Pakistan, acting as expected, aligned with its raison d'être of opposing India and opted out of this partnership. Most importantly, the satellite may achieve the objective of maintaining strategic ties with neighbors by catering to their economic requirements.
The South Asia satellite is funded entirely by India with the intention of benefitting all eight SAARC member countries. The launch represents India “walking the talk” and making a difference to the region using its abilities, successes, and resources. India’s success in space technology is commendable, and its stature as a serious player in space technology is already established. Also, India’s science and technology workforce have the reputation as being among the best in the world. South Asia now stands to benefit from the gains that India has made in these two areas, hopefully ushering in a new era of regional cooperation.
Immediately after the launch, Narendra Modi tweeted:

From Attraction to Influence

The launch of the South Asia satellite represents a wonderful integration of India’s “neighborhood-first” strategy with its traditional strengths and desired narrative. India is dominant in South Asia, but ironically the most pressing issues facing the country are those in its very neighborhood! This is true even though South Asia is culturally very close to the Indian nation-state. Surely, India’s story needs something more in addition to the current narratives that overwhelmingly focus on India’s culture, heritage, or economic promise, and it looks like the launch of the satellite provides the Indian public diplomacy necessary to create that.

One of the biggest gripes among certain areas in the region is the perception of India as a bully. Will this launch be considered an attempt by India to assert its dominance?

For the longest time, the narrative shaped by India’s established policy focused on “attraction” attributes like Indian culture and heritage. I have argued in the past for the need to move the needle and adopt “influence” attributes if India wants to project power and be perceived as a serious geopolitical player. Influence attributes that could work in South Asia include foreign aid, bilateral cooperation, leveraging Indian media conglomerates, non-state actors, and dominance in the sphere of ideas. It would be fantastic if India’s successes could be viewed as South Asia’s successes. This region has a population of 1.6 billion and presents an opportunity for India to lead these masses to realize their potential and move towards better lives. India’s achievements in human resources, governance, science and technology, media, and defense are great examples for the emerging world to emulate.
Speaking at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in 2014, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi echoed this sentiment when he said,
“Nowhere in the world are collective efforts more urgent than in South Asia; and, nowhere else is it so modest. Big and small, we face the same challenges - a long climb to the summit of development. But, I have great belief in our boundless potential…
 “India's gift of a satellite for the SAARC region will benefit us all in areas like education, telemedicine, disaster response, resource management, weather forecasting and communication.”

Challenges Ahead

A few years from now, when the world looks back at the launch of the South Asia satellite, it should vindicate India’s position and strengthen India’s story. The policy establishment would do well to plan for certain perception challenges such as:
  1. One of the biggest gripes among certain areas in the region is the perception of India as a bully. Will this launch be considered an attempt by India to assert its dominance?
  2. Pakistan and China. How are they interpreting the satellite, and how will they project it? I am sure the foreign policy and public diplomacy establishment in India have anticipated this and would be ready to counter it. I also hope they have factored in the Indian agenda which should be consistently maintained on this topic.
  1. The successes of the South Asia satellite need to be shared aggressively, especially using digital media, and ideally would spark the same interest that is generated when the media reports on inspiring space projects like the Mars Rover. These projects may not be similar, but stories of effort and impact should generate tremendous interest.
The South Asia satellite is a significant development in India’s quest to lead South Asia towards progress and development. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi said after the launch, “With this launch we have started a journey to build the most advanced frontier of our partnership. With its position high in the sky, this symbol of South Asian cooperation would meet the aspirations of economic progress of more than 1.5 billion people in our region and extend our close links into outer space.”
Posted by Madhurjya Kotoky 0 comments

Thursday

"Culture is there, to be Shared - Not Sold" - SIMON ANHOLT


"... international public opinion favours countries that contribute to the common good of humanity, rather than countries which are merely successful, beautiful or powerful..."

- Simon Anholt

The recent Good Country Index had a surprise. India's rank under the category of "Culture" was a lowly 119 among the 163 countries that were surveyed. For India watchers like us this was indeed interesting given the huge interest in government and policy circles to promote Indian culture overseas as a component of Indian soft power. 


The Public Diplomacy Blog spoke to Simon Anholt on this aspect trying to understand why India ranked low on "Culture". Simon brings to the fore an important distinction between promotion of 'culture' versus 'cultural contribution' and there seems to be a good opportunity for India's creative economy to be internationally 'participative'.


The following is what Simon Anholt had to say:


How is 'culture' defined in the survey?

Simon: We follow the UNESCO definition of culture that incorporates cultural production, the creative industries and expressions of national/regional culture; we also consider how each country facilitates freedom of movement and freedom of expression in order to allow the production, sharing and dissemination of culture. As explained on the website at https://goodcountry.org/index/source-datathe way we ‘sample’ a country’s cultural contribution to the world in the Good Country Index is by combining the following datasets:

  • Creative goods exports: Exports of creative goods (UNCTAD's Creative Economy Report categorization) relative to the size of the economy.
  • Creative services exports: Exports of creative services (UNCTAD's Creative Economy Report categorization) relative to the size of the economy.
  • UNESCO dues in arrears as % of contribution: UNESCO dues in arrears as percentage of contribution (negative indicator).
  • Freedom of movement, i.e. visa restrictions: Number of countries and territories that citizens can enter without a visa (according to Henley & Partners).
  • Press freedom: Freedom of the press (based on mean score for Reporters without Borders and Freedom House index as a negative indicator).

Of course these five indicators don’t give a complete or exhaustive account of a country’s cultural output – it’s just a sample – but they’re the best and indeed the only suitable datasets we were able to find. 

Cultural expression just isn’t very fully measured internationally, and obviously we need data that’s collected in a consistent way, every year, in at least the 163 countries we cover in the Index. These five datasets were the only ones we could find that fitted the bill.

2. Indian government does a lot in promoting Indian culture and there is a tacit acceptance in policy and media circles that it is India's biggest soft power - and we see a lower rank for India as a whole. What is your comment on this?


Simon: I think they’re doing the right thing (although I would argue that simply ‘promoting’ one’s national culture isn’t a very Good Country thing to do: culture is there, after all, to be shared – not sold to people as a way of enhancing the country’s image). Of course a lot of this activity is 'unmeasurable' in a comparative survey like the Good Country Index, and this is one of the reasons why we are hoping to start producing more qualitative, in-depth, country-specific surveys in the near future: this will enable us to cover a lot of the activity in all seven categories that the Good Country Index is unable to measure.


3. Does the ranking reflect a perception by people of "culture" in the country or the state of culture in the country ?

Simon: Neither: the Good Country Index isn’t an opinion poll, it’s a measurement of reality; however it doesn’t directly reflect the state of culture in the country, it attempts to measure how much of that culture is shared internationally.
4. How do you think the ranking would impact India's perception?

Simon: My research over the last 15 years has consistently demonstrated that international public opinion favours countries that contribute to the common good of humanity, rather than countries which are merely successful, beautiful or powerful. So whilst a high ranking in the Good Country Index on its own is unlikely to affect public perceptions of the country, the good behavior that gives rise to that ranking certainly will. 

Simon Anholt


Suggestions/Critiques welcome.
- Madhur





Posted by Madhurjya Kotoky 0 comments

Wednesday

Being Hyperconnected


“The illiterate of the 21st Century are not those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.” ― Alvin Toffler  in Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century
          I am often reminded of Toffler’s famous observation when I see the rapid disruptions in the world of communications. It’s becoming difficult for comms pros to keep pace, to consult clients and remain relevant in an industry that is constantly forcing us to learn, relearn and unlearn.
       ‘Hyperconnectivity’ is one such trend and is going to define the future. What it essentially refers to is a paradigm shift from ‘going online’ to ‘being online’ – a coming of age of the internet; the reality of a parallel virtual universe.
        According to Cisco, by 2015 – that’s two years from now, the amount of data crossing the Internet every 5 minutes will be equivalent to the total size of all movies ever made, and that annual Internet traffic will reach a zettabyte – roughly 200 times the total size of all words ever spoken by humans! This reflects our hyperconnected world and hyperconnectivity disrupts our profession in the following manner:
  1. Complex media environment: We need to be agile and alert. It is increasingly becoming a complex media environment. We need to be adept at communicating ‘in’ and also ‘across’ different platforms being aware that the message will be consumed differently and conveyed further increasingly differently.  It’s complex where there are numerous apps, different screens, different devices, different formats and add to it the customized narratives for each. While we talk content, it’s interesting to realize that the monopoly over content by prominent individuals and conglomerates have been completely broken. A good story can be told by anyone, anywhere with great impact. Managing narratives have become difficult and this brings me to my second point of  target audiences.
  2. Demanding  Audiences: Our audiences demand more, and along with the story we need to deliver an ‘experience’. Interactivity is important, so is the format and experience of consumption, and we have to take care of all, knowing fully well that a story that isn’t credible won’t last long.
  3. Audience Fragmentation: Audiences have access to multiple sources of information. Loyalties switch across platforms depending upon the format and experience across platforms and there can be 'multiple loyalties'. Multiplicity of platforms actually means audiences are getting divided into smaller groups and the same group of people might exhibit different behaviors across different platforms. This brings me to my third point.
  4. Measurement Difficulties: How do you make sense of all this? I am not too sure of accuracy levels of current data analytics and to what extent are they effective when it comes to some sort of predictive modeling simply because of the overwhelming number of variables that are coming into play. Will be glad if any reader can enlighten here…
  5. Monetization difficulties: How do you monetize what you create? How do you protect what you create from being duplicated? While we talk of content marketing and content being king, content actually seems to have become real cheap thanks to over supply! You should read this interesting piece (if you haven't read it already) in The New York Times, that talks of the Slow Death of the American Author.

Critics in India often argue that this reality is not relevant for India. Given the weak broadband & data storage infrastructure, including the huge digital divide, any talk of internet enabled media doesn’t necessarily find takers among all media practitioners always. I wonder if we can move in any other direction though. 

Suggestions/Critiques welcome.

-- Madhur
Posted by Madhurjya Kotoky 1 comments

Monday

Public Diplomacy vs Nation Branding

We often tend to use Public Diplomacy (PD) interchangeably with Nation Branding. While there are definitely certain overlaps, a clear distinction does exist between both the practice areas. That's why I found Daryl Copeland recent post on the CPD Blog: PUBLIC DIPLOMACY, BRANDING, AND THE IMAGE OF NATIONS, PART II: MORE OF THE SAME, OR DIFFERENT? very interesting. In this very well written post, Daryl explains some fundamental distinctions between PD and nation branding and aptly states that,
"If public diplomacy is thought of as a nations’ book, then a nation’s brand is something like its cover, designed to appeal viscerally to the consumers of international policy by encouraging potential buyers to open the book (or visit the country, buy the product, or support the international policy objective). But because the market evolves quickly, the cover’s design may need attention even before the book requires revision and a new edition can be released."
He explains that PD is characterized by meaningful dialogue and relationship building and not based on "information dominance" or "message dumping." An alternative policy instrument in the hands of governments today, PD is central to managing international issues through consistent engagement, in which, communicating a point of view is as important as listening to a point of view. PD can be one of the approaches for nation branding and consists within itself  host of activities focused on communications, stakeholder engagement, collaboration and influencing public opinion. With such an approach PD seems to be the application of public affairs and strategic communications to the practice of international relations (as I always maintained in this blog). Daryl also tends to agree when he says that PD has more in common with public relations as a practice. This was also underlined in the Report of the Defense Science Board (US Department of Defense, 2004) in which it clearly stated that,

"In an age of global media, the internet revolution and powerful non-state actors - an age in which almost everything governments do and say is understood through mediating filters of news frames, culture, memory, and language - no major strategy, policy, or diplomatic initiative can succeed without public support. Fulbright scholarships, youth exchanges, embassy press briefings, official websites in language versions, and televised interviews with ambassadors and military commanders are examples of public diplomacy."
To cite an example in the context of India, "Incredible India" , is more of a nation branding campaign while the distinguished lecture series organized by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is more of a PD exercise. PD as a practice has recently been growing and one of the primary reason is the media proliferation and information revolution (This was however was overlooked in the reasons given for a PD resurgence in the above mentioned blog post.).That's the reason why strategic communications form the core of PD.

Suggestions/Critiques welcome.

-- Madhur
Posted by Madhurjya Kotoky 2 comments

Sunday

Public Diplomacy and communications strategy

One of my consistent arguments in this blog is that for public diplomacy to be effective it is important to be backed by an effective communications strategy. What I also mean by this is that not all PD programs can be/necessarily be like a communications campaign, but, there are communications implications (potential?) nonetheless of any PD program. 

What is the story that we want to tell? 

An interesting story carried today by Hindustan Times, quoted UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibé, to a question on how much difference was made to the fight against HIV by cheaper drugs made available from India,
"In 2001, no one had access to treatment. Now 86% of drugs given to poor people are from India. Within 10 years of setting the goal to provide treatment to all, 6.6 million people were on antiretroviral therapy (drugs used to treat HIV infection) at the end of 2010, a nearly 22-fold increase since 2001"
 He also said,
"We need new partnerships between India and Africa to transfer technology to help African countries make cheaper Aids drugs"
This statement is important when seen in the context of the recent summit level meetings between India and Africa. This is also a great story that talks a lot about India's scientific prowess, business prowess in the context of drug companies and is also a significant political issue when we consider  trade and business issues in the context of global pharmaceutical industry. Does having a communications strategy in place help exploit the potential of such stories - that are so intertwined in politics, diplomacy & human issues of global nature?

The argument for a communications strategy have recently found support in the article "Making public diplomacy work: The need for an effective communications strategy", in the Journal of International Communication, Volume 17, Issue 1, April 2011, by Amit Dasgupta. Dasgupta, who is the current Consul General of India in Sydney and former head of Public Diplomacy division in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2007-09) says, 
"In many countries, such as India, foreign policy formulation and practice has, till recently, been the exclusive reserve of professional diplomats. Such countries are new entrants to the world of public diplomacy and have begun to recognize the importance of engaging with non-State players. However, the success of public diplomacy lies entirely in the efficacy of the communication strategy it adopts."

 Suggestions/Critiques welcome.


-- Madhur
Posted by Madhurjya Kotoky 0 comments
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