The summer’s labor is completed. Below, my dissertation abstract – I may publish more once the thing is marked:
The Wikileaks’ organization and particularly its Cablegate leak of Winter 2010 arguably posed a challenge to one of the core agendas of Obama’s foreign policy: a public diplomacy pegged on the idea of internet freedom and transparent government.
My dissertation examines the United States government’s public response to Wikileaks, mainly through the language used in government press conferences, statements, and television interviews.
I attempt to place that response within the context of the strategic concerns of American public diplomacy in 2010. I argue that though the idea “internet freedom” could be rather vague, it was always carefully delimited how far such freedom could extend, I examine the extent to which the Obama era marks a departure from the “one way” public diplomacy of the Bush administration, and question whether the government’s public response to Wikileaks focused so intently on protecting the “internet freedom” agenda that it neglected issues far more damaging to America’s global image.
