huridocs-tech USA: Managing Info Chaos Workshop

>Edited/Distributed by HURINet - The Human Rights Information Network
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>## author     : hdiplo@YorkU.CA
>## date       : 23.02.99
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>UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE
>1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200  Washington D.C. 20036-3011
>Ph:202.457.1700  Fx:202.429.6063  Website: http://www.usip.org
>
>You are cordially invited to a Virtual Diplomacy workshop:
>
>Managing Information Chaos
>
>This workshop will explore how real-time information access
>and open-source global communications affect international
>news reporting and policy decisionmaking. Some questions to
>be addressed include:
>
>*How can decisionmakers and practitioners separate valuable
>information amidst the white noise?
>
>*How can policymakers, diplomats, NGOs, and media maintain
>their credibility with a public that has access to
>multiple-source global information flows?
>
>*Does decisionmaking and persuasion increasingly depend on
>information intermediaries?
>
>Speakers:
>
>o Ralph Begleiter (CNN International) will comment,
>moderate, and synthesize the main themes, identifying what
>is trivial and what is significant, and how these trends
>affect the conduct of international relations, diplomacy and
>crisis management.
>
>o In his recent piece "Dispatches from Disaster Zones," Nik
>Gowing (BBC World Television, London) describes the
>information debacle that took place during the refugee
>crisis in Eastern Zaire when non-governmental and
>international organizations, media, and governments each
>used "reportage" as a means to advancing their own
>distinctly different ends. Gowing s report describes how
>"soft power" (or the ability to use persuasion as opposed to
>coercive "hard power" to produce desired outcomes) without
>"political credibility" can and will run amuck.
>
>o Robert O. Keohane (Duke University) will describe how
>political credibility in the production and consumption of
>information is a critical component in the conduct of
>diplomacy in the Information Age. How does the use of "soft
>power" affect international conflict management where
>publics and governments have with increased public access to
>a diversity of information sources?
>
>o "The OneWorld Internet gateway, produced from offices in
>the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Zambia and India and
>with affiliates in Vienna and Italy, features first-hand
>information available on the World Wide Web from more than
>400 organizations working for human rights and sustainable
>development. Peter Ballantyne will present the "One World"
>approach, casting itself as an alternative news and
>information service with an "agenda for a fairer world." One
>World has a monthly readership of 4 million from 90
>countries. How does such a gateway serve international
>humanitarian objectives, providing a platform for diverse
>news and views, building bridges among its partners and
>readers, and promoting new forms of international
>cooperation and dialogue?
>
>o Thomas Pickering, undersecretary of State for political
>affairs, will discuss information dilemmas that
>decision-makers face in the new international environment
>and how they use and provide information to other
>international actors.
>
>Friday, March 12, 1999
>9:00 AM   12:00 PM
>
>United States Institute of Peace
>2nd Floor Conference Room
>1200 17th St. NW
>Washington, DC
>
>This event is open to the public. Seating is limited, please
>RSVP to 202-429-3832, or by email to
><suzanne_wopperer@usip.org>. Media inquiries should be
>directed to Rachel Tschida at 202-429-3878.
>
>Closest Metro stop:  Farragut West - orange/blue line;
>Farragut North - red line
>
>"Managing Information Chaos" is part of a series of
>workshops organized by the Virtual Diplomacy project of the
>U.S. Institute of Peace that explores the impact of global
>networks and information technologies on international
>relations. For more information, please visit the Virtual
>Diplomacy project on the web:
><http://www.usip.org/oc/virtual_diplo.html>.
>
>

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