Columbia Global Centers | Europe at Reid Hall in Paris inaugurated its first public lecture series in Spring 2011 with the topic Twenty-First-Century Diplomacy. The goal was to reflect on new trends in diplomacy, moving out of official channels and chancelleries and into the public domain. Wiki-leaks are just the tip of the iceberg of a real revolution in communication around foreign affairs. It had been going on for a couple of decades, but it really accelerated with the Global War on Terrorism. More and more, non-state actors have been appealing to foreign publics by means of public diplomacy, citizens diplomacy, and so-called Wiki-diplomacy. By the same token, governments hone their messages more and more through new media technologies and branding. These trends raise all kinds of fascinating questions about who is responsible for foreign policy. How should confidential information be regulated? How have processes of globalization, by undermining sovereignty, established new spaces for diplomacy? Not least, how have new communications capacities generated the possibility of Twitter movements and revolutions, undermining the means states invented to do diplomacy and propaganda earlier in the 20th century? In particular, what happened to the U.S.’s once significant hegemony, in the arena of image-making?
The talks ranged widely, starting on February 17, when Edwy Plenel, co-founder and president of Mediapart, spoke about “Cyber-diplomacy” to a large audience. Only the week before, Mediapart had cooperated with the NY Times, Guardian, and other major newspapers to publish the latest round of Wiki-leaks, so his talk generated a lively discussion. The talk on March 17 entitled “Diplomatie culturelle. Que reste-t-il de la culture française ?” brought together journalist Donald Morrison and Antoine Compagnon, professor of French literature at Columbia University and the Collège de France, to speak about the end of a certain kind of French cultural exceptionalism. Rafik Mansour, Cultural Affairs Officer of the U.S. Embassy in Paris, implicitly responded to Plenel on April 28 with “U.S. Diplomacy & Soft Power.” The series concluded on May 26 with a discussion over Hollywood hegemony under the rubric “Cinema Diplomacy.” Ian Christie, professor of Film and Media History at Birkbeck College and Vice President of Europa Cinemas, an alternative network for low budget films in Europe, came over from London for the occasion, and Ron Halpern, executive director of International Production and Acquisitions at StudioCanal, spoke from his experience as a cinema producer based in Paris.
