CIAO DATE: 01/03

Talking With The Islamic World: Is The Message Getting Through?
Session Three: Projecting a Positive American Image

October 2002

Institute for the Study of Diplomacy
Georgetown University

 

Abstract

Dwyer emphasized two things: the event of 9/11, and the response–both diplomatic and personal–that the State Department has taken in the last several months.

On September 11, two officers started a new web page called, “The Response to Terrorism”, which included messages designed for the Muslim world; the page was the most visited issue-based site in the history of the Internet. It was also the most visited page in the ten-year history of IIP's web site at the State Department.

Three to four weeks after 9/11, IIP started to create a new web site highlighting Muslim life in America. It describes how immigrants are integrated into the United States; it is updated daily and available in several languages. On November 9th, IIP produced the publication, “Network of Terrorism”. Although not widely circulated in the United States, more than 1.3 million copies were printed for distribution abroad, and well over 2 million additional copies were reproduced in other forms in the foreign media. The Italian magazine Panorama and the Arab magazine Al Watan both published it, and it appeared as a centerfold in 45,000 copies of Newsweek, which is circulated in 36 languages, including French, Spanish, Chinese, Swahili, Arabic, Turkish, and Japanese, among others. 7,000 copies were distributed directly to the members of the Japanese diet, and, in Kazakhstan, the American ambassador hand-delivered several copies to the Kazakh heads of government.

Full Text (PDF Format, 9pgs, 152kbs)