Dan Whitman's online lecture "Propaganda and Public Diplomacy"
On 16 May 2024, students of the Institute of International Relations had the opportunity to attend an online lecture "Propaganda and Public Diplomacy" by Dan Whitman, an American diplomat, professor at George Washington University (USA), Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) - 2023, which was supported by the Transatlantic Dialogue Centre.
In the first part of the lecture, Dan Whitman outlined the theoretical foundations and historical origins of propaganda, providing diverse approaches to its definition, meaning and manifestations in international relations.
Interestingly, the researcher used a number of examples of the use of propaganda slogans from US history, which he contrasted with the totalitarian propaganda of Nazi Germany and the USSR. Accordingly, according to Dan Whitman, public diplomacy cannot be equated with propaganda.
In the second part of the lecture, the scholar offered students a number of approaches to the definition of public diplomacy and presented its main manifestations in the foreign policy of modern states, emphasising the use of public diplomacy by democratic countries of the modern world, unlike propaganda.
To read more about Dan Whitman's lecture, please follow the link: