Kuwait- 'Public diplomacy affected by social sites' 

(MENAFN - Arab Times) The Kuwait Journalists Association (KJA) hosted a seminar on Public Diplomacy on Tuesday evening, with Canadian Ambassador, Douglas George and Computer Linguistics Professor Salah Najem.

The seminar was moderated by Dr Nada Al-Muttawa, Researcher at the Center for Strategic Studies at Kuwait University. Ambassador George's lecture was entitled 'Public Diplomacy and Humanitarian Assistance", while Dr Najem's was on "Social Networks and Electronic Newspapers". The lecture began with a speech thanking Ahmed Al Behbehani, Chairman of the KJA and Faisal Al-Qanai, Secretary-General of the KJA.

This was followed by ambassador George's lecture, which recounted Canada's role in addressing humanitarian crises across the world, and the role of public diplomacy in garnering support for the initiatives which allow support for the causes the Canadian government adopts. He stressed the importance of providing humanitarian assistance through civilian humanitarian agencies and groups from the inflicted countries.

He gave examples of the assistance Canada has provided, in cases such as the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, wherein the Canadian government matched every dollar given by citizens to the Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, resulting in donations amounting to 220M.

Media
The ambassador also pointed to Canada's support for Kofi Annan's plan, both diplomatically and financially. Finally, he pointed to Canada's use of the media to inform people and provide advice on how to best assist the afflicted people.

Dr Najem then went on to lecture on social media, and the implications of the huge boom in the use of social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter on public diplomacy. He began by outlining the statistics denoting the increased use of social media, pointing out that 73 percent of teenagers now have a Facebook account, and that 75 percent of the time spent online is spent on Facebook.

He then went on to explain how this has fundamentally changed the way that foreign ministers and other governmental organizations communicate with their target audiences. He gave the examples of the US Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and its use of Facebook pages and Twitter, and how this allows groups to define the information given to the public, as well as specifically target the desired audiences.

This was followed by Dr Al-Mutawa further elucidating on both topics, after which she proceeded to take questions to the speakers from the audience, which they then replied to duly.

In a statement to the Arab Times, Ambassador George said, "I was very pleased to be invited to participate in tonight's discussion on public diplomacy and humanitarian assistance. I had the opportunity to outline Canada's approach to humanitarian assistance, and I know it's something very important to Kuwait and to Canadians to help countries in times of crises and distress."

With regards to the conflict in Syria, he also added that Canada is working with many other countries in the "Friends of Syria" organization, to provide assistance and come up with alternative plans should Kofi Annan's efforts fail.

Effects
Dr Najem also expressed his happiness on lecturing on the effects of social media on public diplomacy. In addition, with regards to the large segment of society which does not have access to social media, he told the Arab Times, "of course there are those who for financial or cultural reasons do not use Facebook. Nonetheless, in terms of penetrating these factions, everyone has mobile phones, which allows for high penetration rates which allow contact with these people."

Finally, the guest speakers and audience were invited to a buffet and a diwaniya in which the discussion around both topics was continued in a more informal setting.