US pop culture a diplomatic tool

The two-term election of Barack Obama, the first African-American US president, has been widely hailed as a popular cultural rather than a political development in the United States. The mainstream mass media in the US have made full use of this development to push their public diplomacy goals, that is, to promote the idea that the US is a land where dreams are realized through personal efforts.

Obama's political success mirrors an important theme, that of American pop culture - self-made heroes' success stories, which have long replenished the American dream. Obama's success has greatly enhanced the US' image in Africa, something its official diplomacy had failed to do. This is a classic case of a personal success enhancing a country's global image because of its cultural connotations.

The case has found reflection in a US State Department report, Cultural Diplomacy: the Linchpin of Public Diplomacy. The report says that "cultural diplomacy is the linchpin of public diplomacy, because it is through cultural activities that a nation's idea of itself is best represented". Indeed, history is likely to record that the US' cultural riches played no smaller a role than its military might in shaping its international leadership, including the "war on terror".