Sesi Brief Tugas : Modul 7 - Public Diplomacy

Summary

The session introduces events as a tool of public diplomacy and explains how they can create experiences, communicate messages, build relationships, and generate wider social and economic effects. The instructor also emphasizes approaching political and social issues critically rather than relying on a single theory or accepting repeated claims without question.

Critical Thinking and Perspective-Taking

• Students are encouraged to compare course readings with current conditions and consider how events and policies may affect people in different ways.
• The instructor argues that relying on only one theory can narrow analysis. Using multiple perspectives—and questioning established explanations—can support more critical thinking.
• As an illustration, the instructor discusses a public food program and urges students to consider not only its logistics, but also its funding, distributional effects, and possible longer-term consequences.
• Repeated political messages can come to seem like reality when they are normalized. Students should therefore examine the gap between public claims and observable conditions.

Three Ways to Understand Events in Public Diplomacy

1. Events as Direct Experience

Participants engage through their senses: they can see, hear, taste, touch, or otherwise experience what is presented. This can create an emotional connection that a media report alone may not provide.

Examples include cultural festivals, food events, and international campus activities. Online events may communicate or promote an idea, but generally offer less direct, in-person experience.

2. Events as an Instrument

Events can serve as a public-diplomacy instrument by using soft power, especially cultural attraction. Participants may encounter and enjoy cultural products directly, rather than merely hearing claims about them.

The instructor contrasts this with messaging that pushes a preferred narrative while disregarding facts, which was characterized as closer to coercive or “hard power” communication.

3. Events as a Space for Participation

Events can bring together non-state actors and give them opportunities to meet, collaborate, and exchange ideas or culture. Examples include cultural exchanges, competitions, and sports events.

Elements That Make Up an Event

The lecture identifies several elements to consider when analyzing an event:

• Momentum: What special time, occasion, or public focus does the event use or create?
• Actors: Who initiated or organized it—for example, a government, NGO, multinational company, public figure, or community?
• Message: What main idea or purpose is the event intended to convey?
• Audience: Is it aimed at a domestic or international public?

The instructor suggests using these elements to assess examples such as festivals, demonstrations, tests, and elections.

What Events Can Achieve

Events may serve several connected purposes:

• Build image and branding: Shape what an organization, place, or country is known for and strengthen trust or recognition.
• Persuade and engage: Introduce an organization or product to people who may not previously have known about it, and encourage their involvement.
• Project capacity: A well-run, large-scale event can signal organizational capability, stability, infrastructure, and technological readiness. It may also help attract investors or future events.
• Communicate more interactively than media alone: Media coverage is often one-way, while an event can allow two-way or bottom-up interaction and give participants a direct experience.
• Redefine stereotypes: Update outdated or negative impressions by presenting a more contemporary or positive view.
• Build empathy and awareness: Help participants understand an issue and its wider effects. The instructor gives a disaster-awareness activity as an example, while noting that an event should suit the situation: during an active emergency, practical response may be more appropriate than a ceremonial gathering.
• Create lasting networks: Foster people-to-people connections as well as links among academics, media, NGOs, governments, and other actors. The aim is for those relationships to continue after the event.
• Support economic activity: Direct effects may benefit hotels, transport, food businesses, small enterprises, and cooperatives. Indirect effects may include investment, promotion of the host area, and a multiplier effect through increased visits and activity.

NGOs, Volunteering, Funding, and Oversight

In response to a student’s question about volunteer programs abroad, the instructor says an NGO’s role should be assessed in context:

• Examine the NGO’s funding sources, such as donations, foundations, or other sponsors.
• Consider its own agenda and whether it represents itself, a community, or an official government position.
• Sponsorship can influence event decisions, including whom organizers invite or what content they present.
• Some events may seek support from relevant ministries or institutions. The instructor says proposals may be reviewed and adjusted before approval.
• NGO-led activities can contribute to public diplomacy, but they should not automatically be treated as official government diplomacy. Their role depends on their purpose, funding, and relationship to public institutions.

Assignment and Follow-Up

The instructor refers to an assignment due in about two weeks and asks students to read material shared with the class. The exact assignment instructions are not fully recoverable from the subtitles. A later session is mentioned for discussing Animal Farm.

Speakers and Sources Featured

• Brother Dika / the instructor: Leads the lesson, explains the frameworks, and responds to questions.
• Students in the class: Participate in discussion and ask questions. Novi asks about NGO volunteer programs and their relationship to public diplomacy; other participants, including Fitri, are mentioned.
• Materials mentioned: A course or module reading, an unspecified book related to political communication, an Indonesian culinary book, and Animal Farm. The subtitles do not provide enough detail to identify the first three works precisely.