Seventy Years of the Smith-Mundt Act and U.S. International Broadcasting: Back to the Future?
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2018-04
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CPD Perspectives
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The United States has engaged in peacetime international broadcasting and related activities since passage of the Smith- Mundt Act in 1948.2 Formally known as the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act, Smith-Mundt is the statutory foundation for the U.S. government’s transparent production and dissemination of news and information intended for foreign audiences. The political rationale for American engagement in these activities, the legislative structure authorizing them and the environment—both international and domestic—within which these activities unfold have evolved in the seven decades since Congress first deemed “telling America’s story to the world” a worthwhile endeavor. This paper for the CPD Perspectives series discusses the legislative actions, the rhetoric and the context for U.S. international broadcasting (USIB) at key junctures since the end of World War II. The pattern that emerges is one of both continuity and disconnect, from a consistently stated desire to promote democracy and freedom of information to variable views about how to manage the broadcasters and navigate a changing international system. The analysis presented here has particular relevance for the contemporary political environment where concerns about the efficacy of U.S. government-sponsored broadcasting and other messaging activities abroad have driven legislative change while raising new worries about the potential for government messaging tools to be turned on American audiences at home.
Discussion begins with the deliberations that led to passage of Smith-Mundt then moves to an evaluation of amendments intended to curtail domestic access to USIB content, continues with a discussion of post-Cold War legislation that dramatically altered the bureaucratic structure responsible for overseeing international broadcasting, and finally arrives at recent actions undertaken to impose increased accountability on the broadcasters and to relax constraints on domestic access to their content. In addressing these issues, this report connects past to present, offering a framework for current discussions about U.S. international broadcasting and related information diplomacy efforts in the contemporary global communication ecosystem.
This report does not purport to be a thorough retelling of the history of the Smith-Mundt Act’s passage in early 1948, nor of amendments or other legislation that came later. Rather, the work presented here seeks to offer a modest overview of the legislation that has governed U.S. international broadcasting, as well as public discussion about it, since the end of World War II.
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Metzgar, E.T. (2018). “Seventy Years of the Smith-Mundt Act and U.S. International Broadcasting: Back to the Future?” CPD Perspectives. University of Southern California Center on Public Diplomacy. Available at: https://bit.ly/2HIyx0z
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