Throughout the world, billions of people rely on their faith to lift them above lives of hardship or the banality of arid secularism. For them, belief trumps politics, and efforts to influence them must incorporate faith as part of any appeal.

During recent testimony in front of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee Secretary of State Clinton made a splash when she commented, "I remember having an Afghan general tell me that the only thing he thought about Americans is that all the men wrestled and the women walked around in bikinis because the only TV he ever saw was Baywatch and World Wide Wrestling.” She went on to comment about the effect American media has on the image of the U.S. abroad. Predictably, the significance of her remarks were lost in the usual cacophony of howls about Al Jazeera and Russian media.

APDS Blogger: Melanie Ciolek

There continues to be an ongoing debate about how to regulate the Internet. This conundrum arises from two questions. Is the Internet a platform for old ideas to be transformed in a new medium, or rather a medium for all-together new paradigms of thought?

The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer.
-- Edward R. Murrow

In testimony to Congress last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged the existence of an ongoing “information war” that the United States is losing. In addition to saying that “Al Jazeera is winning,” Clinton pointed to the major investments in international broadcasting being made by China and Russia.

The Chinese effort is of particular importance. As Secretary Clinton said, “We are in a competition for influence with China; let’s put aside the moral, humanitarian, do-good side of what we believe in, and let’s just talk straight realpolitik.”

Let me begin by describing a scenario to you.

It’s Wednesday night in Costa Rica, about 8.30pm, and people in Costa Rica, as people do in most countries, are watching prime-time television. On this particular night, Costa Rica takes on their neighbors Venezuela in a soccer match and, due to the mass popularity of soccer in Costa Rica, it is drawing a large audience. Costa Rica scores, and after endless replays and analysis of a truly average goal, the action cuts to a "and here’s the reaction in China" sequence of pictures.

There seems to be a consensus that Hollywood has a huge impact on America’s image around the world. There just doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what to do about that.