To Know Us is to Love Us: Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting in Contemporary Russia and China
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9256.12104 |
| Published date | 01 November 2015 |
| Date | 01 November 2015 |
| Author | Gary D. Rawnsley |
| Subject Matter | Article |
To Know Us is to Love Us: Public Diplomacy
and International Broadcasting in
Contemporary Russia and China
Gary D. Rawnsley
Aberystwyth University
China and Russia have devoted significant resources to developing their international broadcasting capacity as
an instrument of public diplomacy. Focusing on CCTV-N (China) and RT (Russia), this article discusses the
strategies each has developed to communicate with international audiences and further the foreign policy
ambitions of policy makers in Beijing and Moscow. It highlights the differences between the two stations –
namely CCTV-N’s ambition to rectify perceived distortions in the global flow of news about China, and RT’s
focus on reporting events in the US. Hence the case studies expose the fine line between propaganda and public
diplomacy.
Keywords: international broadcasting; public diplomacy; CCTV; RT; propaganda
Introduction
The success of soft power – ‘the ability to affect others through the co-optive means of
framing the agenda, persuading and eliciting positive attraction in order to obtain preferred
outcomes’ (Nye, 2011, p. 21) – depends on communication via public diplomacy to make
sure ideals, values, policies and behaviour are attractive to a target population. A term first
used in 1965 by Edmund Gullion, ‘public diplomacy’ refers to ‘the process by which direct
relations with people in another country are pursued’ by state and non-state actors ‘to
advance the interests and extend the values of those being represented’ (Sharp, 2007, p. 6).
Jowett and O’Donnell (2012, p. 287) have provided a necessarily broad and inclusive defi-
nition of this activity:
Public diplomacy ... deals with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and
execution of foreign policies. It encompasses dimensions of international relations beyond
traditional diplomacy; the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries;
the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with another; the reporting
of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communications between those whose job is
communication, as diplomats and foreign correspondents; and the process of intercultural
communications.
According to a taxonomy developed by Cull (2008), public diplomacy is defined by five key
areas of activity: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchange diplomacy and interna-
tional broadcasting. International broadcasting – described by Monroe Price (2003, p. 53) as
an ‘elegant term for ... the use of electronic media by one society to shape the opinion of the
people and leaders of another’ – is an instrument of public diplomacy that is just as relevant
now as it ever was. International broadcasting connects, indeed overlaps, with the other four
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POLITICS: 2015 VOL 35(3-4), 273–286
doi: 10.1111/1467-9256.12104
© 2015 The Author.Politics © 2015 Political Studies Association
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