How are we doing? Tracking country image in the information Age

The study proposed here is the result of work conducted under NSF Digital Government Grant #306803, “How are we doing? Tracking country image in the information age.” The goal of the one-year planning grant (awarded May 2003) was to conduct project start-up activities. The objective of the study is to examine the institutional factors that influence the use of IT for knowledge management in public diplomacy. Specifically, we will examine the extent to which a knowledge management system (KMS) can aid U.S. public diplomacy officials by facilitating the public image-tracking process. To that end, we will develop and test a prototype KMS web portal designed to help public diplomacy officials gather, organize, search, and analyze image information. The two-year study will address such research questions as, what are the institutional impediments to the effective use of KMS to support image-tracking activities, and how can government agencies overcome these impediments to effectively use KMS for public diplomacy? We will partner with the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia.