NEW YORK: As the United States faces increasingly negative attitudes around the world, the previously arcane subject of public diplomacy has become a serious issue in the George W. Bush administration, Congress, universities, think-tanks and with ordinary people.

“Why do they hate us?” is being asked in more places and by more kinds of US citizens than ever before.

Repeated polls by reputable opinion organisations such as the Pew Research Centre and Zogby International have shown that negative overseas perceptions of the US are largely a product of Washington’s policies, especially those in the Arab and Muslim world.

Particularly incendiary among Arabs and other Muslims are the invasion of Iraq, the US abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and what many foreigners see as the United States’ one-sided support of Israel.

The importance the administration places on finding new ways to counter these negative perceptions has been underlined by Pres. Bush’s nomination of his close confidante and advisor, Karen Hughes, to be undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy, and former White House personnel chief, Egyptian-born Dina Habib Powell, to be her deputy.

Powell has already been confirmed to her post, and Hughes’ confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is scheduled for Friday.

But neither of these high-profile individuals have had any formal training in crafting and communicating messages that will resonate with foreign audiences who represent widely varying cultural, social, political and economic backgrounds.

That should not come as a surprise: most of the people who actually work in the public diplomacy field today have learned their craft largely from on-the-job experience. They are diplomats, educators, foreign policy experts, political scientists, and men and women who have made their fortunes in journalism or commercial broadcasting, and have sought to adapt these backgrounds to the complex task of winning friends for the United States.

Until now. Next month, the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles will begin teaching courses in a new programme that will offer a Master’s Degree in Public Diplomacy — the first of its kind anywhere in the world.

The two-year programme will be offered jointly by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences’ School of International Relations. The degree programme will officially launch in fall 2006.

Just appointed to head the new programme is one of the best-known names in the public diplomacy field — Prof. Nicholas J. Cull. Cull is director of the Centre for American Studies at Leicester University in Britain. He specializes in US foreign policy, the history of propaganda and the politics of popular culture, and is the author of numerous books on the subject.

While the new programme’s curriculum will be global, media attention predictably focuses on US efforts to “win hearts and minds” among Arabs and other Muslims, especially in the Middle East.

Prof. Cull told IPS, “There is a problem underpinning all US public diplomacy in the Middle East and that is the extent to which Arabs actually understand the US rather well and have reasons for disliking American actions based on US policy.”

The Master’s Programme was conceived by USC Annenberg Dean Geoffrey Cowan, who served as director of the Voice of America radio service during the 1990s, and USC College Dean Joseph Aoun.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.