PUBD510: Technologies and Public Diplomacy, starts this Friday, possibly (but very unlikely) near you

Modern means of communication…has opened up a new world of political processes. Ideas and phrases can now be given an effectiveness greater than the effectiveness of any personality and stronger than any sectional interest.

This Friday is the first meeting of PUBD510: Technologies and Public Diplomacy, the graduate class I’m teaching this semester at the USC Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism. This will be the second semester teaching this subject.

The syllabus is available here (and is subject to change).

I’ve structured the class to be a practical education on the conceptual, structural and practical realities of engaging audiences in today’s information and human environment. Technology, whether telegraph or Twitter, plays a role in communicate with and among people, but it does not work in a vacuum. My goal is to empower the students to influence decision makers, from DC to the field, through increased understanding of the holistic environment, from authorities to bureaucracies to technologies to relevant audiences (or, if you wish, participants or stakeholders).

If you have any recommendations on improving the syllabus, don’t hesitate to share them, either in the comments below or through email.

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By the way, the above quote comes from H.G. Wells. More specifically, it comes from an article Wells wrote on China as part of a specially commissioned series for the paper generally titled “The Way the World is Going. The article, entitled “A New China Stirs the World,” was published on January 23, 1927.