Iglesia, Gabriel - Senior Project Write-up FINAL

Who Loves Us and Who Hates Us: Exploring the Relationship between
U.S. Public Diplomacy and Foreign Public Opinion
by
Gabriel Iglesia
Advisor: Dr. Sean Payne, Assistant Professor of Political Economy
An undergraduate thesis submitted to
the Social Sciences Division
in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of
Bachelor of Arts
Antioch College
Yellow Springs, OH
June 2016

Who Loves Us and Who Hates Us? 2
Table of Contents
Abstract 3
Introduction 4
Literature Review 4
Research Question and Hypotheses 11
Variables, Measurement, and Methodology 13
Results 19
Discussion 24
Areas for Future Study 29
Conclusion 31
References 33
Appendices 36
List of Tables and Figures
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Variables 14
Table 2: Multiple Regression Model Summary 20
Table 3: Multicollinearity Test of Multiple Regression Model 21
Figure 1: Boxplots of FPO Change by FPO Predisposition 21
Table 4: ANOVA of FPO Change by FPO Predisposition 22
Table 5: Tukey’s Test for FPO Predisposition ANOVA 22
Figure 2: Average FPO Simple Regression Scatterplot 22
Table 6: Average FPO Simple Regression Model Summary 23
Figure 3: Boxplots of FPO Change by Region 23
Table 7: ANOVA of FPO Change by Region 24
Table 8: Welch’s t-test for POTUS Visit Condition 24
Table 9: Welch’s t-test for VP Visit Condition 24

Abstract
Public diplomacy is a major instrument of U.S. policymakers in promoting U.S. foreign
policy overseas in today’s globalized and technologically advanced world. The United States is
viewed around the world with a mixture of opinions – some positive, some negative. How
foreign publics around the world view our country matters to U.S. policymakers, as foreign
public opinion has significant implications for the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy.
Quantitative observational research was conducted on changes in foreign public opinion
around the world since 2009, and various forms of U.S. public diplomacy, namely visits by high-
level officials, social media engagement, and press releases by U.S. embassies. Regression
analysis and analysis of variance reveal that although there is no statistically significant
association between public diplomacy activities and changes in foreign public opinion, there is a
slight trend between a country’s predisposed views of the U.S. and their likelihood of changing
those views. More specifically, countries who are more inclined to view the U.S. favorably have
had a greater average increase in foreign public opinion, and likewise countries who are inclined
to view the U.S. less favorably have had a greater decrease in opinion.

Introduction
Public diplomacy, defined as the efforts by a government to influence the attitudes of a
foreign public with the goal of influencing a foreign government, has been a major instrument of
U.S. foreign policy and soft power since the First World War. Foreign public opinion has
become even more important with the proliferation of communication technology and the impact
of globalization on the availability of information, which has changed how academics and
policymakers think about the models and approaches used in the practice of public diplomacy.
With the persistence of terrorism as a threat to U.S. interests, a debate also exists on the role and
effectiveness of soft power and smart power in the metaphorical war to win the hearts and minds
of the world, but quantitative studies have not been plentiful. This is an empirical study on the
impact of different forms of U.S. public diplomacy, namely high-level visits, social media
engagement, and press activities, during the Barack Obama administration on foreign public
opinion around the world, with the main objective of ascertaining what impact, whether positive
or negative, public diplomacy efforts by the U.S. government have had in the last seven years.
Literature Review
Whereas public relations is a company’s communication with their consumer audience,
public diplomacy can be attributed as “PR for government.” Public diplomacy is a government’s
communication with foreign publics, informing them of the government’s policies. The ultimate
objective of these communications is to increase support for these policies with foreign
audiences. This is a significant antithesis to traditional forms of diplomacy, which entails
communications exclusively between the elites of countries. Whereas traditional forms of

diplomacy try to coerce state behavior directly through the governments of other states, public
diplomacy tries to influence state behavior through the people.
Public diplomacy’s activities have changed over the years with globalization and
advancements in communication technology, but the goals of public diplomacy have essentially
remained the same. Benno Signitzer and Timothy Coombs identified a shift in diplomacy from
the traditional form of government-to-government negotiations to a more public, democratic
form, defined as the “the way in which both government and private individuals and groups
influence directly or indirectly those public attitudes and opinions which bear directly on another
government’s foreign policy decisions” (1992, p. 138). Jian Wang similarly defined public
diplomacy as “a government’s process of communicating with foreign publics in an attempt to
bring about understanding for its nation’s ideas and ideals, its institutions and culture, as well as
its national goals and current policies” (2006, p. 91). Joseph Nye’s input-output definition
describes public diplomacy as how governments mobilize their resources (i.e. their culture,
values, and policies) to communicate with and attract not just the governments of other countries,
but their publics as well (2008, p. 95). Several authors also identify public diplomacy,
particularly in the information age of the twenty-first century, as a two-way dialogue as opposed
to a one-way process, emphasizing the dual importance of talking and listening when engaging
with a foreign audience (Neag, 2014, p. 165; Nye, 2008, p. 103).
Public diplomacy as a tool by governments to improve their reputations has been used as
far back as the nineteenth century (Nye, 2008, p. 96). Although not necessarily referred to by
name as “public diplomacy,” the means used by European governments to enhance their national
image had similar objectives to its modern and American iteration. For example, in the aftermath
of the Franco-Prussian War in the early 1870’s, the French government sought to repair its image

by promoting French language and literature in schools in Germany (Nye, 2008, p. 96). In
addition, before the outbreak of World War I in the 1910’s, both Britain and Germany attempted
to promote their images to captivate American public opinion (Nye, 2008, p. 96).
Within the United States, officials started paying attention to the importance of favorable
foreign public opinion by World War I, and public diplomacy became a major foreign policy
priority throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D.
Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy all understood the importance of attracting others and
persuading others’ opinions, as opposed to defaulting to military power and strength (Nye, 2008,
p. 95). The first major public diplomacy institution was the Committee on Public Information,
formed under the Wilson administration in 1917 during World War I, which sought to ensure,
among other things, that films portrayed America in a positive light (Nye, 2008, p. 97; Wang,
2007, p. 23). In 1942, during World War II, the Roosevelt administration created the Office of
War Information, to lead the U.S. government’s “cultural offensive” in exporting American
culture overseas (Nye, 2008, p. 98; Wang, 2007, p. 24). Over the course of the Cold War, U.S.
public diplomacy was coordinated by the U.S. Information Agency (Nye, 2008, p. 98; Wang,
2007, p. 25). Public diplomacy played a significant role in ending the Cold War (Nye, 2008, p.
94). It was around the 1990’s when the term “public diplomacy” started being consistently used
in academia and foreign policy to describe the U.S. government’s efforts to promote its image
(Neag, 2014, p. 162). By the time of the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Information Agency
was abolished, and its responsibilities were delegated to the Under Secretary of State for Public
Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the U.S. Department of State, as well as the Broadcasting Board
of Governors (Wang, 2007, p. 26).

Today, U.S. public diplomacy, as administered by the Department of State, has three
dimensions: press, culture, and information. The press form of public diplomacy is the most
traditional form, which encompasses government communications with foreign media outlets.
This manifests as public statements by a high-level official, press conferences hosted by a
government spokesperson, and press releases issued by the public affairs sections of U.S.
embassies or the Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs. The cultural form of public diplomacy
encompasses cultural exchanges, including student exchanges and study-abroad programs.
Examples of these include the Fulbright Program and the International Visitor Leadership
Program, initiatives administered by the Department of State which promote education about
American culture overseas. Finally, the information dimension of public diplomacy pertains to
the availability and transparency of government information. This includes the State
Department’s web presence, including the websites for its hundreds of diplomatic missions and
various social media accounts on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr. Other
examples of public diplomacy include town hall meetings with the foreign public and speeches
made at local student events.
Social media has become an increasingly prevalent form of public diplomacy over the
course of the Obama Administration, which has seen the inception of hundreds of Twitter
accounts for U.S. embassies and consulates. The State Department and the hundreds of U.S.
diplomatic missions around the world maintain a presence on many social media platforms,
including Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Instagram, YouTube, and Google Plus. Many U.S.
ambassadors and high-level diplomats also maintain social media accounts of their own,
including John Kerry, Samantha Power, Caroline Kennedy, and James Costos, to name a few.

All of these examples of public diplomacy contrast with the examples of traditional
diplomacy that the U.S. government continues to utilize. Private meetings with elites and foreign
government officials are usually behind closed doors, the exchange of classified information and
intelligence between governments remains a confidential matter to the public, and deals
concerning economic or military support are made at the highest levels of authority. With an
increasingly aware, connected, globalized, and democratized public, the U.S. government has
become more keen on promoting the transparency of its policies and activities, and U.S. foreign
policy is no exception.
A number of studies have attempted to investigate theories of public diplomacy. Recent
literature has emphasized the relationship and the similarities between public diplomacy and
public relations (Entman, 2008; Fitzpatrick, Fullerton, & Kendrick, 2013; Signitzer & Coombs,
1992). According to public relations theory, organizational goals are best achieved “through
symmetric rather than asymmetric communication” (Fitzpatrick, et al., 2013, p. 5). Public
diplomacy can be more successful if it is perceived as promoting mutual understanding of both
nations, as opposed to unconditional support of one nation by another (Entman, 2008). Other
studies have also noted the multidisciplinary nature of public diplomacy, discussing the relevant
contributions of other fields, namely international relations, strategic studies, media studies,
peace studies, management studies, cultural studies, and anthropology (Gilboa, 2008; L’Etang,
2009).
Within the most recent public diplomacy and public relations literature, it is generally
agreed upon that public diplomacy is situated in a framework called soft power (Goldsmith and
Horiuchi, 2009, p. 864; Neag, 2014, p. 162; Wang, 2006, p. 91). Joseph Nye defines soft power
as the “ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than

coercion or payment” (2008, p. 94). Nye contrasts soft power against its conceptual opposite:
hard power, which is coercion, particularly through military and economic means (2008, p. 95).
Unlike hard power, soft power focuses on attraction, and thus deploys information and culture as
its tools as opposed to arms and armies. Unlike traditional politics and diplomacy, which focus
on who has the strongest military or economy, public diplomacy in the information age is a
competition for whoever has the best story (Nye, 2008, p. 100). Governments compete with each
other to enhance their own credibility and weaken that of their opponents. In the twenty-first-
century, the “current struggle against transnational terrorism is a struggle to win hearts and
minds, and the current overreliance on hard power alone is not the path to success” (Nye, 2008, p.
94). As U.S. foreign policy has moved beyond a focus on anti-communism to a greater emphasis
on counter-terrorism, public diplomacy has become a crucial tool in weakening the credibility of
entities such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
A number of empirical studies have found that the effects of public diplomacy can be
limited. Two studies have been conducted on Chinese public diplomacy in the United States. Jian
Wang and Tsan-Kuo Chang found that the visit by Chinese President Jiang Zemin to the United
States in 1997 did not significantly improve China’s image in the American public (2004, p. 21).
Likewise, Juyan Zhang and Glen Cameron could not find conclusive evidence to suggest that
China’s public campaign in the United States in 2000 significantly changed China’s image (2003,
p. 23). This apparent failure of Chinese public diplomacy can be related to Nye’s observation of
the potentials of public diplomacy backfiring due to the “paradox of plenty.” According to this
concept, a bounty of information can lead to a scarcity of information, and thus information that
appears to be burdensome propaganda can become counterproductive (Nye, 2008, p. 99). This is

an important consideration in the study of public diplomacy, as it should remind policymakers of
the limitations and potential disadvantages of certain public diplomacy strategies in the field.
Another empirical study focused on the impacts of high-level visits by American officials
during the George W. Bush administration, specifically President Bush and Secretary of State
Colin Powell. Using regression analysis and aggregating surveys from the BBC, the Pew
Research Center, Gallup, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and the German Marshall Fund
of the United States, Goldsmith and Horiuchi found that high-level visits had conditional impacts
on foreign public opinion (2009, p. 873). The key factor to a significant change in foreign public
opinion is credibility, and if a visiting leader is not perceived as credible, the visit may actually
have a negative backlash (Goldsmith and Horiuchi, 2009, p. 874). This observation indicates that
approaches to public diplomacy cannot be applied universally; rather, public diplomacy has
relative, context-specific impacts that vary depending on the country, the nature of the
diplomatic relations between the U.S. and that country, and the distinguished visitor in question.
More simply, public diplomacy can have negative effects, despite the positive intentions. As
Joseph Nye puts it, “even the best advertising cannot sell an unpopular product” (2008, p. 103).
Public diplomacy has been an important asset to U.S. foreign policy and it continues to
be so in the twenty-first century. The existing literature has a thorough overview and
understanding of public diplomacy’s historical developments, both in Europe and in the United
States, as well as its relationship to disciplines such as public relations and media studies.
However, quantitative studies on specific U.S. public diplomacy programs and activities have
otherwise been lacking, which has left significant questions in the field (Gilboa, 2008, p. 8).
Thus, this study intends to fill in that gap by analyzing public diplomacy in recent times, and will
attempt to explore the relationship between public diplomacy and foreign public opinion.

Research Question and Hypotheses
This project seeks to answer the following research question: Which of the U.S.
government’s public diplomacy efforts have been effective in influencing foreign public
opinion of the United States during the Obama administration (2009–present)?
For this study, public diplomacy is defined as efforts by the United States government to
promote its policies and interests in the public sphere, with the objective of increasing positive
foreign public opinion of the United States. Various forms of public diplomacy to be studied
include social media (primarily Twitter), press releases, and high-level visits by heads-of-state
and senior government officials (in this case, the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of
State, and various Deputy Secretaries, Under Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries of State).
Foreign public opinion is defined as attitudes of a foreign country’s population towards the
United States. The scope of this project is the tenure of President Barack Obama (2009–present).
The project focuses exclusively on one presidential administration; to expand before 2009 would
mean having to account for another president. As the policies, priorities, personalities, and
perceptions of Barack Obama and George W. Bush are significantly different, this would
conflate the analysis of the changes in foreign public opinion.
Taking into account Nye’s concept of the “paradox of plenty” and the dynamic findings
by Goldsmith and Horiuchi in 2009 regarding the conditionality of public diplomacy, the
following are three hypotheses for the research question.

Hypothesis 1: Among the public diplomacy efforts studied (High level visits, social media,
and press releases), high level visits have the greatest association with a change in foreign
public opinion.
The rationale behind Hypothesis 1 is that high-level visits have a high level of coverage
in foreign media, as observed by Juyan Zhang and Glen Cameron (2003), Jian Wang and Tsan-
Kuo Chang (2004), and Goldsmith and Horiuchi (2009). Social media and press releases may
have less to do with a change in foreign public opinion. In contrast to news media
communicating with the general public, social media has a much more limited audience. Twitter
and other platforms would only be accessible to those who have access to the Internet, which is
not necessarily ubiquitous throughout the world. As for press releases, the general public may
also pay less heed to these, unless a press release is referring to a high-level visit or other high-
profile event. The power of symmetric communication as observed by Fitzpatrick and Entman
may also explain why press releases, which represent a one-way asymmetrical communication,
might be less influential in changing foreign public opinion.
Hypothesis 2: Among high-level visits, visits by the President of the United States have the
greatest association with a change in foreign public opinion.
As was revealed by Goldsmith and Horiuchi of their study of the George W. Bush
administration’s public diplomacy, credibility plays a significant role in public perceptions. The
rationale behind Hypothesis 2 is that among U.S. officials, the President of the United States is
the most popular and perceived to be the most credible. President Obama has enjoyed a generally
popular view with most countries across the world, according to polls by both the Pew Research
Center and Gallup. A study by Pew in 2015 suggests that Barack Obama’s visit in 2015 helped to
increase Indians’ familiarity with the U.S. President, as the share of the Indian public with no
opinion about Obama dropped from 37% in 2014 to 17% in 2015 (Wike, 2015). In addition, the
President has become the number one most followed politician on Facebook and Twitter, with

more than 48 million likes on Facebook and over 75 million followers on Twitter as of May
2016 (Mogul, 2016). There is vast statistical evidence to suggest that Barack Obama is the most
popular official among his colleagues in the U.S. government.
Hypothesis 3: Foreign public opinion changes more greatly in countries where predisposed
views of the United States are more mixed, than in countries with predisposed views that
are extremely positive or extremely negative views.
The rationale behind Hypothesis 3 is that foreign public opinion that is mixed is most
malleable to public diplomacy efforts. In contrast, in countries with extremely negative foreign
public opinion (i.e. extremely low favorability of the United States), public diplomacy will be
less effective because of strong, unwavering anti-Americanism. This is based on the backlash
effect postulated by Goldsmith and Horiuchi, in that public diplomacy may actually cause a
decrease in foreign public opinion. Preconceived negative opinions of the United States may lead
to negative reactions toward U.S. activities. Furthermore, in countries with extremely positive
foreign public opinion, public diplomacy may also ineffective, in the sense that the foreign
audience already has a strong positive opinion of the United States that cannot be increased
much more. Thus, Hypothesis 3 states that it is countries with mixed FPO who have the most
malleable views because they are neither too positive nor too negative; foreign publics in these
countries are in an optimal place to be both critical and receptive enough to be able to potentially
change their views.
Variables, Measurement, and Methodology
This observational quantitative research project deploys a number of quantitative
methods, including multiple regression and analysis of variance. The explanatory variables
studied are the different types of public diplomacy, namely high-level visits, social media

engagement, and press releases by U.S. embassies. The response variable is the change in foreign
public opinion (FPO). The dataset created for this project includes data collected by the Pew
Research Center as well as data that was found independently (Wike, Stokes, & Poushter, 2015).
Data collection (including travel itineraries, foreign public opinion data, social media data, and
press release data) took place from December 2015 to May 2016.
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics of Variables
Variable N Min Max Mean Std Dev Data source
POTUS 42 0 5 1.333 1.355 State.gov
Secretary 42 0 21 4.476 4.346 State.gov
VP 42 0 3 0.6429 0.8211 WhiteHouse.gov
Deputy Secretary 42 0 6 0.6905 1.316 State.gov
Under Secretary 42 0 4 1.143 1.181 State.gov
Assistant Secretary 42 0 8 2.381 2.186 State.gov
TW per day 42 0 19.23 5.101 3.578 Twitter
PR per month 42 0.2361 16.38 3.06 3.369 Embassy websites
Avg. FPO 42 14.86 87.33 59.59 19.99 Pew Research Center
Avg. FPO change 42 -4.833 7 0.6732 2.265 Pew Research Center
The response variable is the change in foreign public opinion (Avg. FPO change) in
various countries surveyed by the Pew Research Center. The Pew Research Center’s Global
Attitudes Project conducts annual spring surveys in various countries around the world, assessing
their views on a number of issues. For the purposes of this project, FPO was recorded as the
percentage of respondents who answered “Favorable” to Pew’s survey question, “Do you have a
favorable or unfavorable view of the United States?” The FPO data were derived from the
reports of seven annual surveys, conducted between 2009 and 2015, all of which are publicly
available on the Pew Research Center’s website. Pew’s Global Attitudes Project for the years
2009 through 2015 had FPO data available for 42 countries. Each survey was based on over
45,000 face-to-face and telephone interviews with adults aged 18 and older (Wike, et al., 2015).
The project’s focus is the change in foreign public opinion, rather than the individual indicators

of foreign public opinion at one fixed point in time. This is because this project focuses on how
much foreign public opinion changes in association with public diplomacy activities. FPO is
measured and surveyed at different times in the 2009-2015 period. Thus, for each country, an
average change in FPO was calculated and used in analyses.1
At the time of this project’s conception, the original intent was to utilize foreign public
opinion data from multiple sources in addition to Pew, such as the German Marshall Fund, the
BBC World Service, and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research.
However, there were a number of complicating factors. Firstly, standardizing the data from
different surveys would have been too time-consuming given the time constraints for the project.
Secondly, various sources had differently worded questions when assessing views of the United
States (Donfried, 2014). For example, while Pew’s question specifically asked the respondent
whether they had a favorable or unfavorable view of the United States, the BBC’s surveys asked
the respondent whether they thought the United States had a positive or negative influence in the
world (BBC World Service, 2014). Thus, because of the framing effect, these questions
addressed slightly different aspects of the U.S.’s image, and thus their foreign public opinion
data would not necessarily be comparable. Thirdly, the U.S. Department of State’s Office of
Opinion Research in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research does regularly monitor public
opinion in countries around the world, but its data are considered “for official use only” and thus
are not available to outside researchers (U.S. Department of State, 2015). These reasons
1
Average change in FPO calculated by taking the average of each country’s yearly change in FPO. For example,
between 2009 and 2015, Jordan has seven yearly measures of FPO (2009, 2010, 2011, etc.)–thus, six yearly
changes in FPO (2009 to 2010, 2010 to 2011, etc.). The mean of these six changes in FPO represents the country’s
Avg. FPO Change. For countries that may not have been surveyed for all seven years but still have measurable
yearly changes in FPO (e.g. India, which was surveyed only between 2013 and 2015), an average change in FPO was
still calculated.

ultimately left Pew’s Global Attitudes Project as the primary source for FPO data, as these were
the most available, reliable, and abundant.
For the explanatory variable data for high-level visits (POTUS, Secretary, VP, Deputy
Secretary, Under Secretary, and Assistant Secretary), a portion of the data collection process
was devoted to researching the travel history of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe
Biden, and Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry, as well as various Deputy
Secretaries, Under Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries of State.2
The details and itineraries of
such visits are available on public websites including WhiteHouse.gov and State.gov. The
Deputy, Under, and Assistant Secretaries are all presidential nominees who have high-level
responsibilities in the State Department, including official diplomatic travel. The Deputy
Secretary is the Secretary’s principal deputy, the Department’s second-in-command, and the
Acting Secretary of State in the Secretary’s absence (U.S. Department of State, 2015). Below the
authority of the Deputy Secretary are the six Under Secretaries of State, who oversee different
“families” of bureaus (U.S. Department of State, 2015). Each individual bureau, in turn, is
headed by an Assistant Secretary of State. There are a total of twenty-four Assistant Secretaries,
not including Ambassadors-at-Large, advisers, envoys, and other officials who are considered
rank equivalents to an Assistant Secretary, such as the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and the
Director of Policy Planning.
For social media, the project focused primarily on Twitter, specifically Tweets per day
(TW per day). The first reason for focusing on just one social media platform is the proliferative
use of Twitter by the U.S. Department of State and its various embassies. For the 42 countries
2
The explanatory variables of public diplomacy are measured from 2009 to 2014 (not 2009 to 2015). The response
variable reflects the yearly changes in FPO from 2009 to 2015. FPO findings for the year 2016 are yet to be
published by Pew, so the U.S. government’s PD activities in the year 2015 are omitted (since the measurable
change in FPO from 2015 to 2016 is not yet available).

surveyed by Pew, Twitter is the most commonly used social media platform. The usage of others
such as Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr is less ubiquitous; for example, some embassies have
Facebook accounts, while some others do not. The second reason for focusing exclusively on
Twitter was that the project sought a rate (i.e. Tweets per day, as opposed to total number of
Tweets). This rate serves as an indicator of the level of social engagement of the U.S. embassies’
public diplomacy. Calculating this rate proved to be challenging for Facebook, Instagram, and
Flickr; as for Twitter, the Tweets per day rate was calculated by looking at the total number of
Tweets by a U.S. embassy’s Twitter account and then dividing that number by the age of the
Twitter account in days. Accessing Tweets for accounts that have posted more than 3,200 Tweets
proved to be difficult, as anything posted beyond 3,200 Tweets is archived by Twitter and only
available through purchase. As the total used in calculations reflected a present total (i.e. up to
2016), this is not a perfect reflection of the Twitter accounts’ social engagement within the
project’s intended timeframe; however, this was the best that could be achieved given the
available resources.3
Press releases were counted from the available lists and archives on the U.S. embassies’
official websites. Press releases may cover a wide variety of topics, such as travel by a U.S.
ambassador, the presidential appointment of a new ambassador, an official U.S. government
response to an event or disaster, a notice of the embassy’s closure in observance of a national
holiday, or any other announcement that may be relevant to the foreign public’s interest. For
embassies in countries where English is not the official or primary language, the press releases
were obtained from the websites of the respective language, as opposed to the English websites.
This is intended to better reflect the public diplomacy communication between the U.S. embassy
3
Ideally, Tweets per day would reflect the rate between 2009 and 2014 (See Footnote 2). However, since the U.S.
embassies launched their Twitter accounts at different points in time, it would not have been practical to simply
divide the total number of Tweets by 2,190 (2,190 days between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2014).

and the respective population, as a majority of press releases are written in the local language. As
such, the list of English translations does not necessarily match that of the local language, either
because not all press releases are translated into English or – if they are translated – the embassy
does not post the English translations publicly. Similar to the collection of the daily Tweet rates,
press releases per month (PR per month) were counted,4
as this too serves as an indicator of
the level of public engagement by our U.S. embassies.
Multiple regression analysis and analysis of variance were conducted to address the
different hypotheses. In addressing Hypotheses 1 and 2, regression models were created to
compare the different types of public diplomacy and their respective associations with average
foreign public opinion change. In addition, a two-sample t-test was conducted to compare the
FPO changes between countries that had a presidential visit and the FPO changes in countries
that were not visited by the President. A similar t-test was also conducted to compare countries
visited by the Vice President versus those that were not.
To address Hypothesis 3, both a simple regression model and an analysis of variance
were conducted to compare a country’s average foreign public opinion (Avg. FPO) with the
average foreign public opinion change. Each country’s recorded foreign public opinion between
2009 and 2015 was averaged. For the analysis of variance, each country’s average FPO was
assigned a category: Positive, Mixed, or Negative. “Positive” was assigned to countries with an
average FPO of 75% or greater. “Mixed” was assigned to countries with FPO between 50% and
75%. “Negative” was assigned to those with less than 50%. This indicator of “average foreign
public opinion” reflects a country’s predisposition – that is, how inclined are they to view the
United States. For example, a country with an average foreign public opinion of 80% would be
4
Also calculated for 2009 to 2014 (See Footnote 2). Thus, to calculate press releases per month, each press release
total was divided by 72 (72 months between January 2009 and December 2014).

labeled “Positive,” which would mean that the country’s population is inclined to view the
United States in a mostly favorable or positive outlook. The three categories for average FPO are
based on the Pew Research Center’s own scales used for the Global Attitudes Project (Wike,
2015). For the analysis of variance, a post-hoc Tukey test was also conducted to determine which
FPO category specifically had the statistically significant difference. In addition, an analysis of
variance was conducted to compare FPO changes by region, to see if there is any geographic
difference in the effectiveness of public diplomacy.
Results
Table 2 reports the results of the OLS multiple regression for the public diplomacy
variables. Overall, the model was not significant, with F(8, 33) = 0.8738, p > 0.1, and an adjusted
R-squared value of -0.025. In addition, none of the individual explanatory variables were
significant at the 0.05 level.
Visits by the President, Under Secretaries, and Assistant Secretaries appear to have an
association with positive FPO change, whereas visits by the Secretary, Vice President, and
Deputy Secretary have an association with negative FPO change. Tweets and press releases also
appeared to be associated with negative FPO change. This would suggest that high-level visits
are more associated with improvements in foreign public opinion than Tweets and press releases
are. However, the associations do not appear to be statistically significant.

Table 2: Multiple Regression Model Summary
Estimate Standard Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 1.99194 0.95250 2.091 0.0443
POTUS 0.25704 0.40724 0.631 0.5323
Secretary -0.18095 0.11566 -1.564 0.1273
Vice President -0.19539 0.61086 -0.320 0.7511
Deputy Secretary -0.42563 0.39952 -1.065 0.2944
Under Secretary 0.49159 0.44596 1.102 0.2783
Assistant
Secretary
0.08509 0.14051 0.606 0.5489
Tweets per day -0.29214 0.14845 -1.968 0.0575
Press releases per
month
-0.01058 0.12491 -0.085 0.9330
Residual standard error: 2.294 on 33 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.1748
Adjusted R-squared: -0.02525
F-statistic: 0.8738 on 8 and 33 degrees of freedom
p-value: 0.5481
In post-hoc analysis, a test for multicollinearity also checked if the multiple regression
model’s explanatory variables correlated with one another (see Table 3). Based on the variance
inflation factors, the explanatory variables slightly correlate with one another, so a number of
simple regression models were created to investigate their relationships with one another. This
regression analysis found that there was a strong positive correlation between the President’s
travels and the Secretary of State’s travels (p<0.01), as well as between the Secretary of State’s
travels and the travels of Assistant Secretaries (p<0.01).

Table 3: Multicollinearity Test of Multiple Regression Model
The effect of FPO predisposition (that is, the categorization of a country’s average
foreign public opinion – “Positive,” “Mixed,” or “Negative”) was statistically significant. Table
4 reports the results of a one-way ANOVA of FPO change by FPO predisposition with F(2, 39)
= 3.379, MSE= 15.929, and p=0.04. A post-hoc Tukey test shows that Positive and Negative
FPO countries had the greatest difference in FPO change than any of the other combinations of
groups (p=0.04). All other comparisons were insignificant.
Figure 1: Boxplots of FPO Change by FPO Predisposition
VIF
POTUS 2.375
Secretary 1.969
Vice President 1.778
Deputy Secretary 2.002
Under Secretary 2.664
Assistant Secretary 2.168
Tweets per day 2.199
Press releases per month 1.379

Table 4: ANOVA of FPO Change by FPO Predisposition
Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
FPO Predisposition 2 31.86 15.929 3.479 0.0407
Residuals 39 178.55 4.578
Table 5: Tukey’s Honestly Significant Difference Test for FPO Predisposition ANOVA
Diff p adj
Negative vs. Mixed -1.611829 0.1179
Positive vs. Mixed 0.747619 0.6377
Positive vs. Negative 2.365909 0.0403
A simple regression model also compared average FPO to average FPO change. Unlike
the analysis of variance, average FPO was not treated as a categorical variable (i.e. labeled as
“Negative,” “Mixed,” or “Positive”), but was instead treated as a continuous numeric variable.
The model found a significant association between a country’s average FPO and the average
change in FPO, with F (1, 40) = 4.23, an adjusted R-squared value of 0.073, and p=0.04.
Figure 2: Average FPO Simple Regression Scatterplot

Table 6: Average FPO Simple Regression Model Summary
Estimate Std Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) -1.41582 1.06988 -1.323 0.1932
Average FPO 0.03506 0.01704 2.057 0.0462
Adjusted R-squared: 0.07305
p-value: 0.04625
The analysis of variance that compared average FPO change by region was not
significant, with F (5, 36) = 1.45 and p>0.1. Since the regional ANOVA was not statistically
significant, a Tukey test was not necessary in post-hoc analysis. The boxplots in Figure 3
illustrate the differences in average FPO change among these regions. Specifically, there has
been a more positive shift in FPO in Africa, Europe, East Asia, South and Central Asia, and the
Western Hemisphere. In the Middle East, however, there has been a more negative shift in FPO.
The difference in these shifts, however, is not significant.
Figure 3: Boxplots of FPO Change by Region

Table 7: ANOVA of FPO Change by Region
Df Sum Sq Mean Sq F value Pr(>F)
Region 5 36.23 7.246 1.498 0.215
Residuals 36 174.18 4.838
A Welch’s t-test comparing FPO changes between countries visited by the President and
those that were not visited by the President was statistically insignificant (p=0.8335). Countries
that had received a visit by the President did not have significantly different FPO change from
countries that were not visited by the President. Thus, this would suggest that presidential visits
may not have a significant long-term influence on FPO.
Table 8: Welch’s t-test for POTUS Visit Condition
t p value
Visited by POTUS -0.21207 0.8335
A similar t-test comparing FPO changes in countries visited by the Vice President against
those in countries that did not receive a visit from the Vice President was also statistically
insignificant (p=0.5588). Countries that were visited by the Vice President did not have a
significantly different change in FPO from countries that were not visited by the Vice President.
Thus, this would also suggest that visits by the Vice President do not have a significant long-
term influence on FPO.
Table 9: Welch’s t-test for VP Visit Condition
t p value
Visited by VP 0.5896 0.5588
Discussion
None of the forms of public diplomacy studied in this project (high-level visits, Twitter,
and press releases) seem to have any significant relationship with a change in foreign public

opinion. This suggests that there are other variables that factor into foreign public opinion and its
changes. From the regression analysis, as well as the Welch’s t-tests, there is also no conclusive
evidence to suggest that any of the traveling U.S. officials have had a significant association with
FPO change.
However, the comparison of FPO changes based on FPO predisposition was statistically
significant (p=0.04). The FPO predisposition ANOVA is an approximate indicator for the United
States’ reputation with a foreign country. Reputation is dynamic, and although historical political
tensions may not necessarily have been a focus of this study, by differentiating among
predisposed views of the United States we can investigate the role that predisposition plays in
shaping foreign public opinion and its likelihood to change in response to an interaction with the
United States government.
Where foreign public opinion is already high, the foreign public opinion has largely
changed in a positive direction. In more simple terms, countries that already tend to like the U.S.
have come to like the U.S. even more. However, this is less so in countries who are not as
inclined to look at the U.S. favorably, where foreign public opinion has not had a significant
increase, or in some cases, have actually had an average decrease since 2009. For example,
Russia, Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan, where foreign public opinion has been on average on less
than 50%, there has been an average negative shift in foreign public opinion. In contrast, South
Korea, Ghana, Italy, and the Philippines, where foreign public opinion has been on average
higher than 75%, there has been an average positive shift in foreign public opinion. The role of
predisposition has significant implications for public diplomacy strategy – how people are
predisposed to viewing the United States will frame their responses to the United States
government’s interactions with them, whether it is in the form of visits, Tweets, or press releases.

Credibility plays a significant role in the reputation and perception of a country in the
international community, and thus the effectiveness of that country’s soft power will depend
largely on how credible they will be viewed (Goldsmith and Horiuchi, 2009). No matter how
much the United States may invest resources into their public diplomacy initiatives, if another
country is predisposed to disliking the U.S. for historical, political, or cultural reasons, public
diplomacy may not achieve its objectives, for even “the best advertising cannot sell an unpopular
product” (Nye, 2008, p. 103).
The test for multicollinearity among the explanatory variables also revealed that public
diplomacy activities correlate with one another. Statistically significant positive correlations
were found between the President’s travels and the Secretary of State’s travels, as well as
between the Secretary’s travels and the travels of Assistant Secretaries. Where the President
visits, the Secretary of State also frequently visits. This is likely because of similar foreign policy
agendas and priorities. In a similar fashion, where the Secretary of State visits, an Assistant
Secretary also often visits. Assistant Secretaries, particularly those who head specific regional
bureaus, are expected to have foreign policy agendas that align with those of the Secretary. This
potentially reveals how policymakers’ own actions are influenced by the state of the world, and
how it is not simply just policymakers attempting to influence the world on their own.
Policymakers take into account the realistic challenges and adapt accordingly; thus, this reveals
the impact that foreign public opinion has on public diplomacy.
Although a majority of the statistical tests were insignificant, the null results still have
some insight into the relationship between public diplomacy and foreign public opinion.
Although the results do not point to a one-way direct relationship, they shed some light on the
endogeneity of public diplomacy and foreign public opinion. One of the primary assumptions

underlying this study was that public diplomacy and foreign public opinion have a one-way
causal relationship, in that public diplomacy affects foreign public opinion. However, foreign
public opinion also influences public diplomacy efforts and strategies. The coefficients of the
multiple regression model, as well as the simple regression models comparing correlations of
visits with one another, suggest that a country’s foreign public opinion will influence the U.S.
government’s likelihood to engage with that country. The United States appears to be more
inclined to engage and visit its allies more so than apparent non-allies or less stable countries.
Among the countries surveyed by Pew from 2009 to 2015, Venezuela, a country that historically
has had tensions with the United States, was the only country which did not receive a visit from
any U.S. government official. The endogenous relationship between public diplomacy and
foreign public opinion may hint at a self-fulfilling prophecy in how our public diplomacy
engagements (and lack thereof) are both shaped by and responsible for shaping foreign views of
the U.S.
There were a number of underlying assumptions in the project. Firstly, bilateral and
multilateral meetings are treated the same. In reality, bilateral and multilateral meetings have
different purposes and multiple actors that may complicate how the public of the host country
perceives those actors. The total number of visits counted for the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, Italy, Indonesia, China, and Japan counted both bilateral and multilateral meetings –
that is, when high-level officials from other countries were also involved. Visits may also have
been bilateral in purpose, but not with officials from the host country. For example, in 2014,
Secretary John Kerry traveled to Italy not to meet with Italian officials, but to meet with the
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. As these meetings of high-level officials can take on

multiple forms and have different purposes, the effects of these types of meetings on foreign
public opinion could differ.
A second assumption is that the public diplomacy activities studied (namely visits,
Twitter, and press releases) are independent one another. In actuality, public diplomacy activities
may often overlap. For example, social media may Tweet about a high-level visit, and a press
release may highlight the itinerary of an upcoming or a recent visit. As such, one may want to
isolate these effects by omitting where these public diplomacy variables may overlap.
A third assumption was that travels of the Secretary that were accompanying the
President were counted, as if it was an independent visit. In actuality, when the Secretary
accompanies the President, their impacts on foreign public opinion may conflate. If one sought to
isolate the effects of the Secretary’s visits from presidential visits, one might omit visits in which
the Secretary accompanies the President.
A fourth assumption is that this study exclusively focuses on diplomatic activities and
their relationship with foreign public opinion; this study did not look at other outside variables
that may impact foreign public opinion, such as foreign aid, military activities, world events, or
other concurrent events that impact the credibility of the U.S. government. President Obama’s re-
election in November 2012, for example, could have influenced his credibility across the world,
in spite of the fact that the President had traveled overseas far less during that year.
The fifth, final, and most important assumption is that public diplomacy and foreign
public opinion have a one-way causal relationship, when in actuality there is evidence to suggest
that they have a two-way or an endogenous relationship. The U.S. government’s attempts at
interacting with foreign publics may frame their views of the United States, for better or for
worse, and likewise, how foreign publics are predisposed to viewing the United States may be a

factor into policymakers’ decisions on who they engage with and, potentially, who they choose
not to engage with.
Areas for Future Study
Ideally, for this study, foreign public opinion would be regularly recorded and available
throughout the year. This would make the high-level visit ANOVA more feasible, for one would
be more easily able to compare the foreign public opinion immediately before versus
immediately after a visit. However, such data points are not available, as the Pew Research
Center’s Global Attitudes Project surveys are conducted only once a year. If foreign public
opinion were surveyed more frequently throughout the year, the immediate effects on foreign
public opinion could be investigated more easily. For example, to compare the different types of
high-level visits (President vs. Vice President vs. Secretary, etc.), foreign public opinion
immediately before and immediately after a visit could be obtained and a difference in foreign
public opinion could be calculated. These changes in foreign public opinion can then be grouped
and compared using analysis of variance to observe if there is a statistically significant difference
among any of the types of visits. Such an analysis could determine whether one type of visiting
official is more influential on foreign public opinion than others (for example, comparing the
impact of a visit by the President of the United States to that of the Secretary of State).
There are many ways for this project to be expanded, given more time and resources. If
this project’s data are available and researched for years before 2009, a similar project could be
conducted to investigate the public diplomacy efforts of President Obama’s predecessors, such as
George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. A similar project could also study the public diplomacy of
other countries, and could even be narrowed down to its effects on a U.S. audience. Such a study

could focus on the visits by foreign officials and dignitaries to the United States, and how that
might impact U.S. public opinion of the visitor’s home country.
This study also focused exclusively on U.S. embassies (i.e. embassies’ Twitter accounts
and press releases), having omitted U.S. consulates. An expanded study could include the public
diplomacy efforts by local consulates, namely their press releases and social media accounts.
Notably, this study did not go into significant detail on the activities of U.S. ambassadors,
other than public statements issued in press releases. As the chief actors in our bilateral relations,
our ambassadors play a significant public role in representing the United States around the world.
Thus, another potential study could focus on the relationship between an ambassador and the
foreign public opinion – for example, whether the arrival of a new U.S. ambassador can be
associated with a change in foreign public opinion, and how much would the arrival be covered
in the local press.
Another point of consideration is that the scope of this project was from 2009 to 2015,
mainly to encompass the presidency of Barack Obama. Notably, President Obama had two
Secretaries of State: Hillary Clinton and John Kerry. Perceptions of the two Secretaries of State
may have more significant differences that another study could unfold – specifically, if there was
a greater change in foreign public opinion during one Secretary’s tenure as opposed to another’s.
This project has focused on the macro-level effect of U.S. public diplomacy on foreign
public opinion across the world. However, there is great potential for case studies on the
countries studied in this project, similar to past studies (Wang and Chang, 2004; Zhang and
Cameron, 2003). For example, a case study could focus primarily on one presidential visit to a
particular country, and utilize qualitative methods such as interviews and content analysis to
observe how the local public and the local press react to the visit.

Another study could also focus on the local media appearances by the President, the
Secretary, or the Ambassador. Content analysis could explore how those appearances are
reported on by the press, how they are discussed on social media, and how they are perceived by
the public.
There are clearly many variables that affect foreign public opinion in addition to
diplomatic activities. A more rigorous multiple regression study could focus on how a wide
variety of variables, including foreign aid, economic activity, military activity, world events, and
local elections, all factor into foreign public opinion.
Conclusion
Public diplomacy continues to play an important role in U.S. foreign policy as a tool to
persuade and attract. A significant portion of the world has access to information, in a world
where information is power, and can be used to win their hearts and minds (Nye, 2008, p. 99). In
a world that is more interconnected politically and technologically than ever before, it has
become an important priority for the U.S. government to communicate with and earn the support
of not only foreign elites but foreign publics as well.
This study intended to provide insight into the latest public diplomacy activities by the
United States and investigate which ones have been effective or ineffective in influencing
foreign public opinion. Visits by heads-of-state are valuable instruments of public diplomacy
(Wang and Chang, 2004, p. 20). Cultural communication too is an important part of public
diplomacy (Signitzer and Coombs, 1992, p. 143). As such, this study focused on visits by high-
level U.S. government officials, statements released by U.S. embassies, press conferences hosted
by U.S. ambassadors, and social media campaigns launched by the U.S. Department of State and

how each of these forms of public diplomacy correlate with foreign public opinion. Ascertaining
which forms of public diplomacy have impacted foreign public opinion reveals insight into
which public diplomacy strategies have been working and which ones have not, which could
ultimately serve as useful advice for the administration of President Obama’s successor.
The findings of this study further justify the importance of credibility in how our country
is viewed in the world. They also take a step further, emphasizing that we should not
underestimate the power of predispositions in how they shape public perceptions. A backlash
effect is very much a potential and a reality for our public diplomacy strategies, and we ought to
be careful about what message we advertise, how we do so, and on a more fundamental level
who it is we are communicating with: people who are more inclined to like us or people who are
more inclined to view us less favorably.

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Appendices
Appendix A: List of Countries 37
Appendix B: List of Survey Dates 38
Appendix C: Descriptive Statistics of Variables 39
Appendix D: Regression Models 44
Appendix E: Comparison Models 54

Appendix A: List of Countries
42 countries were surveyed by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project between
2009 and 2015. Respondents aged 18 and older answered the question: “Do you have a favorable
or unfavorable view of the United States?”
Argentina Malaysia
Australia Mexico
Brazil Nigeria
Canada Pakistan
Chile Palestine
China Peru
Czech Republic Poland
Egypt Russia
El Salvador Senegal
France South Africa
Germany South Korea
Ghana Spain
Greece Tanzania
India The Philippines
Indonesia Tunisia
Israel Turkey
Italy Uganda
Japan Ukraine
Jordan United Kingdom
Kenya Venezuela
Lebanon Vietnam

Appendix B: List of Survey Dates
The Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project conducts annual surveys every spring.
Datasets, toplines, and reports are available on their website at:
http://www.pewglobal.org/category/datasets/
Spring 2009 Survey: May 18 – June 16, 2009
Spring 2010 Survey: April 7 – May 8, 2010
Spring 2011 Survey: March 18 – May 15, 2011
Spring 2012 Survey: March 18 – April 20, 2012
Spring 2014 Survey: March 17 – June 5, 2014

Appendix C: Descriptive Statistics of Variables
Refer to Table 1 on page 13 for the full table of descriptive statistics on all variables.
Figure 4: Histogram of POTUS Visits
Figure 5: Histogram of Secretary’s Visits

Figure 6: Histogram of Vice President’s Visits
Figure 7: Histogram of Deputy Secretaries’ Visits

Figure 8: Histogram of Under Secretaries’ Visits
Figure 9: Histogram of Assistant Secretaries’ Visits

Figure 10: Histogram of Tweets Per Day
Figure 11: Histogram of Press Releases Per Month

Figure 12: Histogram of Countries’ Average Foreign Public Opinion
Figure 13: Histogram of Countries’ Average Foreign Public Opinion Change

Appendix D: Regression Models
Figure 13: POTUS Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 10: POTUS Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.9725 0.4949 1.965 0.0564
POTUS -0.2244 0.2619 -0.857 0.3965
p-value: 0.3965

Figure 14: Secretary of State Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 11: Secretary of State Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 1.19207 0.49840 2.392 0.0216
Secretary -0.11591 0.08035 -1.443 0.1569
p-value: 0.1569

Figure 15: Vice President Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 12: Vice President Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.8171 0.5037 1.622 0.113
Vice President -0.1831 0.4571 -0.401 0.691
p-value: 0.6909

Figure 16: Deputy Secretary Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 14: Deputy Secretary Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.71993 0.45255 1.591 0.120
Deputy Secretary -0.04672 0.28221 -0.166 0.869
p-value: 0.8694

Figure 17: Under Secretary Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 15: Under Secretary Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.7581 0.60775 1.247 0.220
Under Secretary -0.04691 0.2731 -0.172 0.864
p-value: 0.8645

Figure 18: Assistant Secretary Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 20: Assistant Secretary Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.658287 0.537401 1.225 0.228
Assistant Secretary 0.003522 0.095427 0.037 0.971
Multiple R-squared: 3.406e-05
p-value: 0.9707

Figure 19: Twitter Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 21: Twitter Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 1.48488 0.60130 2.469 0.0179
Tweets per day -0.15913 0.09689 -1.642 0.1083
p-value: 0.1083

Figure 20: Press Releases Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 21: Press Releases Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.49835 0.47898 1.040 0.304
Press releases per
month
0.05715 0.10594 0.539 0.593
p-value: 0.5926

Figure 21: POTUS and Secretary Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 25: POTUS and Secretary Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 0.44134 0.23530 1.876 0.068
Secretary 0.19927 0.03793 5.253 5.27e-06
p-value: 5.268e-06

Figure 22: Secretary and Assistant Secretary Simple Regression Scatterplot
Table 26: Secretary and Assistant Secretary Simple Regression Model Summary
(Intercept) 2.1559 0.9085 2.373 0.02254
Assistant Secretary 0.5475 0.1613 3.394 0.00157
Adjusted r-squared: 0.2041
p-value: 0.001567

Appendix E: Comparison Models
Figure 23: Boxplots of FPO Change by POTUS Visit Condition
Figure 24: Boxplots of FPO Change by VP Visit Condition

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