Virtual Public Diplomacy

The websites of the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, the Consulate in Jeddah, and the Consulate in Dhahran were analyzed in two ways, first for cultural appropriateness and second for how well they create dialogic relationships. This is followed by a general discussion of this campaign and U.S. Embassy web sites in general.

Cultural Appropriateness

Tailoring sites to the local population is extremely important. The more localized communication is, the more effective it will be in reaching people. Although the site is well constructed with a good layout, is is not particularly well adapted for a Saudi audience.

First, there is no Embassy or Consulate content available in the local language, Arabic. Two of the sites have Arabic links, but these take you to the usinfo.gov Arabic page. So unless they speak English, audiences cannot access important information like how to get a visa.

Second, there are some layout elements not suited to the audience. The feature box is on the right hand side, traditionally the area for a less important sidebar in the United States. Since Arab cultures read from right to left, this may suggest to them that this is the most important content of the site, when it is not intended to be. Second, the overall look of the site is very linear and square. This layout may seem a bit cold to a Saudi Arabian Audience. Part of the problem is that most Embassies use a template in order to achieve uniformity between all State Department websites, but this restricts the amount of cultural tailoring that a public diplomacy post officer can achieve when making a site.

Third, news stories presented on the page are not very appropriate to the region. News items like Laura Bush’s activities on International Women’s Day will probably not interest Saudi audiences. Other featured stories may even upset them. Other featured stories have included Secretary Rice saying we share a responsibility for peace, State Department cites human rights problems in the Middle East, and the U.S. urging Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. These stories, while regionally specific, may not be the most appropriate to feature as top stories to a Saudi Audience. They may reinforce the idea, already prevalent in much of the Arab world, that the U.S. has a tendency to interfere in Middle East politics.

Finally, even where the websites do not offend Saudi audiences, they fail to utilize their culture. For example, given the Saudi cultural focus on the family, having a feature that talks about family life in the U.S. would be very appropriate. Having a layout that incorporated the intricate designs of Muslim art might also help to engage audiences. Basically, these websites fail to capitalize on cultural elements that would help them deliver their message.

Dialogic Relationships

As mentioned, the goal of these websites is to improve relationships with local publics, in other words to form a dialogic relationship. Taylor and Kent have proposed five principles for creating dialogic relationships through the World Wide Web.¹ These are: form a dialogic loop, provide valuable content, encourage return visits, make it easily navigable, and use caution with external links. By examining how well these websites employed these five principles, we can get a better idea of how useful the websites are.

Providing a dialogic loop in a website means to give people a way to contact the organization, and ensuring that that contact is responded to. At the bottom of all three websites is a “contact us” link. It provides information to contact the embassy’s public affairs person. At this writing, email inquiries sent by the author had not been replied to after two weeks. So while they do provide an opportunity for contact, Embassy personnel do not provide sufficient responsiveness.

A good website should also provide audiences with valuable content. That is, they should not just be a snapshot of the organization, but should also provide information or features that are useful to the audience. The websites do a relatively good job of this by providing audiences with U.S. news. However, since U.S. news is readily available elsewhere, the Embassy websites might be improved if they provided other content.

Another important dialogic feature of websites is that they encourage return visits by regularly updating content (at least once a week) and providing interactive content. The Embassy does change content regularly, although it is generally only the highlights. Changing content more frequently might encourage more visitors.

Websites should also be easily navigable. These websites do provide very easy navigation. The links are clearly marked and follow an understandable hierarchy.

Finally, caution should be used with external links in order to prevent people from leaving the site and never returning. Most of the links in the body and sidebar link outside the site. News stories link to the Washington File at the main State Department site, sidebar links go to other areas of the State Department website or to other American Embassies in Saudi Arabia. Only the menu across the top provides links within the Embassy’s own site.

General Discussion

“The US has not yet fully come to grips with ensuring its share of the voices on the Internet, notably in chat rooms and other types of online conversations that routinely discuss US foreign policy with no official voice or presence providing balance or counterpoint.” ²

The Saudi Embassy and Consulate websites are not the only Embassy websites that fail to tailor their content to local audiences or to fully engage them in a dialogic relationship. In fact, poor websites have been a major criticism of U.S. public diplomacy. At a time when the U.S. image in the world is so low, the U.S. government needs to employ all the tools it can to engage international audiences.

Some might argue that in much of the world internet connectivity is so low that it isn’t worth producing websites to reach only a small portion of the population. There are several problems with this argument. First, even in countries with low connectivity, the rates are increasing, often rapidly. It was only a few years ago that few people in the U.S. had access to the Internet. Also, many people in many countries do have access to the Internet. Often these are country opinion leaders, important audiences to reach. So while the Internet may not reach everyone in the world, it is still an important tool of public diplomacy.



REFERENCES (see resources page for additional information)

(1) Taylor and Kent, "Challenging assumptions of international public relations."
(2) Ross, "Pillars of Public Diplomacy."