Sprawling in Cyberspace: Barack Obama’s Legacy in Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communication

Abstract

This paper examines the transformations and innovations in public diplomacy introduced by the Obama administration, crucial elements of which include political marketing, political advocacy, strategic communication, and digital diplomacy. President Obama used Internet technologies as a means to establish direct dialogue with ordinary people abroad, thereby bypassing the control of local authoritarian governments, which revolutionized a vector of public diplomacy around the world. The Obama administration has elaborated new ways to maintain liberal sentiments in Russia and among the Russian-speaking population. Finally, the Obama administration hired tech experts from Google, Facebook, and Twitter to blockade the activity coming from extremists’ profiles and created a community loyal bloggers from countries around the world to disseminate anti-ISIL messages on the behalf of the US government.

Keywords:

• Political marketing
• public diplomacy
• strategic communication