Spotlight on Public Diplomacy at the U.S. National Political Conventions

The Annenberg Roundtable Conversations on Politics, Media, and Society, a 16-year conversation series at the national political conventions, hosted discussions on important issues, including public diplomacy, at the 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee and 2024 Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago.
 
The Annenberg Roundtables were a joint programming effort by the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. The USC program was led by Geoffrey Cowan and Adam Clayton Powell III, and the Penn program was led by David Eisenhower, Marjorie Margolies, and Craig Snyder. Inspired by the vision of Walter and Leonore Annenberg, the schools have joined forces since 2008 to involve students and visitors in conversations with prominent politicians, journalists, historians, and global figures.
 
“Conventions are a time when nominees are selected and platforms are adopted, but it is also a time for dialogue about important issues,” Cowan told attendees at the RNC program. “We think universities have a role in doing that.”
 
Dialogue on public diplomacy and international broadcasting took center stage on the first day of both the RNC and DNC roundtables. On July 16, the first day of the RNC program, Director of USC’s Washington Programs and former President of the Public Diplomacy Council Adam Powell moderated a panel with former NPR president John Lansing, director of Voice of America Michael Abramowitz, and former Ambassador to Angola and former PDAA President Cynthia Efird. The panelists discussed shared concerns about the blurring of truth and the impact of rising authoritarianism on journalistic reporting.
 
“We are, in America, right now in a full-fledged war,” Lansing said. “Budding young journalists like I see around the room here…this is the world you’re inheriting. It’s going to be harder and harder to get people to believe and understand what is true. The first step is to say there is such a thing as an empirical truth.”
 
The panelists expressed a hope for listeners in the room, and news consumers more broadly, that they will remember to stay open-minded and engage with organizations they may disagree with.
 
In addition to a conversation about public diplomacy, the Annenberg Roundtable series at the RNC included panels on election cybersecurity, intraparty dissent, why history matters, and Pennsylvania’s swing state politics. One roundtable on politics and the media was co-hosted by POLITICO. The series also presented surprise guest talks with Newsmax anchor Greta Van Susteren and Ambassador Robert O’Brien.
 
The conversation on public diplomacy continued on August 19 at the DNC, where USC presented a panel with Cowan, Abramowitz, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Global Public Affairs and PDCA member Kristin Kane, and President of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Kerry Kennedy. The panelists explored the intersection of international broadcasters, like Voice of America, and human rights.
 
The Annenberg Roundtables at the DNC expanded upon a number of conversations from the RNC, including on election cybersecurity, history, politics and the media, and intraparty dissent. New roundtables included discussions on Latino voters, Gen Z politics, Kamala Harris’s legal career, and landslide elections, as well as a lunchtime conversation with pollster Celinda Lake. In addition, the Annenberg Roundtables were proud to present panels in collaboration with Common Sense Media about the American family agenda and Ms. Magazine about the role of women in 2024.
 
All events at the Annenberg Roundtables were free and open to the public and press.