An Integrated Approach to Public Diplomacy and Public Relations: A Five-Year Analysis of the Information Subsidies of the United States,China, and Singapore

This study contributes to the growing research on government-issued information subsidies in mediated public diplomacy in a new media environment. It examines the online information subsidies issued by the foreign ministries of three countries—the United States, China, and Singapore—to address a gap in the literature that has given scant attention to how governments use news releases through online newsrooms for public diplomacy. The study is significant for its conceptual explication of public relations and public diplomacy through an integrative strategic communication framework grounded in relationship building as an end goal of public diplomacy. A Leximancer textual analysis of 13,714 public diplomacy texts published through the three countries’ online press rooms over 5 years (2008–2012) found limited congruence in themes and concepts between and among the three countries, even on the issue of human rights, a major diplomatic point of contention. The weak congruence suggests a modelling of public diplomacy on one-way communication, and reveals a fundamental obstacle to grounding engagement, dialogue and collaboration strategically in a context of co-existence, understanding, mutual interdependence and relationship building. Through a three-country analysis, this study conceptually extends the view of public diplomacy beyond the dyadic construction of public diplomacy that dominates the existing literature.