Bush Administration Approves Int'l PR Post

As of July 29th, one of President Bush's key confidantes and public relations experts, Karen Hughes, became the new State Department undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, to improve the U.S. image abroad.
At her confirmation hearing, Hughes told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee she would ask for help from American entertainment personalities to try and improve the U.S. image overseas. According to "The Crisis Counselor" source, Hughes told the committee that the U.S. must "improve our rapid response" to "confront hateful propoganda, dispel dangerous myths and get out of the truth" about U.S. efforts to improve conditions abroad.

There's a basic principle in persuasion theory: Reputation and Image is somewhat/very much based on reality. Can Karen Hughes convince other societies, cultures, governments, that U.S. policy is in their best interests too? When in reality there seems to be great disagreement about whether the U.S. acts in it's own interests or does actually take into account other countries interests, too.

Promotional stategies, whether that is news reports, targeted mailings, television and print advertising, or special events, can't perform miracles. Hughes has a big task in changing perceptions if we don't also change some of the reality of our U.S. governemnt policy regarding how we treat prisoners, work with the United Nations, or gain support to deal with Iraq.

No matter what we do, there will be critics of U.S. policy, for sure. The Bush Administration will never convince 100% of the international critics. However, it seems this administration is particulary rigid in its diplomatic perspective, even with Condi Rice, at the helm. Flexibility is good for any relationship, even international ones.

What would you do if you were Karen Hughes?

Okay, who uses the Internet for social networking?

Just curious...who uses the Internet for social networking? I don't mean online dating--although there's nothing wrong with that and I understand that it's very popular. I'm referring to the many ways of looking up old friends and making new ones. Of course there's always the Google approach to try to locate someone. Or perhaps you've used Yahoo's People Search to track down a high school friend. For the more daring, how about Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, or LinkedIn? Apparently a website called Facebook is garnering a lot of attention on many college campuses...but as you might suspect CSU-Pueblo is a bit behind the curve on that one. My question is...do you use these social networking tools, and if so, how important are they to help you stay in touch with people you know? Perhaps more importantly, do they help you to locate and establish relationships with people of shared interests?