Posted: Friday, January 18, 2013
PRESS RELEASESPublication Date: January 18, 2013The U.S. Board of Broadcasting Governors (BBG) reports, "As part of a defense authorization bill signed this week by the President, a World War II era ban on domestic dissemination of BBG content was lifted."
The BBG's statement continued: "Generally known as the 1948 Smith-Mundt Act, after its original sponsors, a portion of the law had prevented content intended for global audiences from being broadcast or distributed in the United States. It was intended, in part, to prevent what were then wartime overseas propaganda efforts from being directed toward U.S. citizens." But, as Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon, the director of IWP's Center for Culture and Security notes, "The law had actually hampered the exercise of effective public diplomacy, making it harder to monitor such agencies as Voice of America."
The first legislative attempt to reform was the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2010. It was revived in 2011, and again in 2012, when the ban was added as an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill and finally signed into law this month.
Faculty members at IWP have played a critical role for several years by exposing the need to repeal this obsolete ban. IWP's Center for Culture and Security, first launched in 2011, has served as co-chair, along with the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution, of a task force dedicated to strategic communication and public diplomacy, where the Smith-Mundt provision was featured as a major topic of discussion.
In addition to the working group, the CCS website's project on Strategic Communication, and class discussions, professors at IWP have made significant scholarly contributions related to the need to reform this provision, including:
"Understanding the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act" - Panel discussion May 31, 2012 (see video below)"Obsolete Restrictions on Public Diplomacy Hurt U.S. Outreach and Strategy," Heritage Backgrounder, Dec. 3, 2007 Full Spectrum Diplomacy and Grand Strategy: Reforming the Structure and Culture of US Foreign Policy, by John Lenczowski, 2011. This book specifically makes recommendations for the reform of the Smith-Mundt Act.The Public Diplomacy Reader - Panel Discussion with Prof. J. Michael Waller, September 20, 2007.Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice, by Juliana Geran Pilon, (2007), esp. p. 176.
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