The Decline of America's Soft Power

Anti-Americanism has increased in recent years, and the United States' soft power -- its ability to attract others by the legitimacy of U.S. policies and the values that underlie them -- is in decline as a result. According to Gallup International polls, pluralities in 29 countries say that Washington's policies have had a negative effect on their view of the United States. A Eurobarometer poll found that a majority of Europeans believes that Washington has hindered efforts to fight global poverty, protect the environment, and maintain peace. Such attitudes undercut soft power, reducing the ability of the United States to achieve its goals without resorting to coercion or payment.  | Foreign Affairs 

"Soft Power -The Means to Success in World Politics"

The most widely held definition of power as the capacity to do things and to affect the behavior of others to make those things happen. A distinguished foreign policy scholar, Joseph Nye has expanded this definition of power. Nye states that power is the ability to influence the behavior of others to accomplish the outcomes one wants. Nye is currently the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the former Chairman of the National Intelligence Council and former Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration. When Nye first coined the term “soft power” in Bound to Lead (1990), he pointed out that the U.S. was the strongest nation not only in military and economic terms, but also in its capacity to influence other nations to identify U.S. interests as their own.

 Soft power - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The phrase was coined by Joseph Nye of Harvard University in a 1990 book, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power. He further developed the concept in his 2004 book, Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. The term is now widely used in international affairs by analysts and statesmen. For example, in 2007, Chinese President Hu Jintao told the 17th Communist Party Congress that China needed to increase its soft power, and the US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates spoke of the need to enhance American soft power by "a dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security -- diplomacy, strategic communications, foreign assistance, civic action and economic reconstruction and development." In 2010 Annette Lu, former vice-president of Taiwan, visited South Korea and advocated Taiwan's use of soft power as a model for the resolution of international conflicts.

Propaganda techniques - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Common media for transmitting propaganda messages include news reports, government reports, books, leaflets, movies, radio, television, and posters. In the case of radio and television, propaganda can exist on news, current-affairs or talk-show segments, as advertising or public-service announce "spots" or as long-running advertorials. Propaganda campaigns often follow a strategic transmission pattern to indoctrinate the target group. This may begin with a simple transmission such as a leaflet dropped from a plane or an advertisement. Generally these messages will contain directions on how to obtain more information, via a web site, hot line, radio program, etc. (as it is seen also for selling purposes among other goals). The strategy intends to initiate the individual from information recipient to information seeker through reinforcement, and then from information seeker to opinion leader through indoctrination.

Social Media: "Soft Power" in the War on Terror