Mapping the Great Beyond: Identifying Meaningful Networks in

16 MAPPING THE GREAT BEYOND
culture shift is made, and public diplomats set out on a dispersed
engagement, some of the important questions will be: with so many
possibilities, where will these diplomats go? Should they head to the
places they have heard of or go elsewhere, and if elsewhere, how can
they find those places?
The tendency to go to those sites you know, while a credible
approach, leads to interactions with a particular network that has
already been able to raise its profile with government. Another
tendency is to focus on news sites to offer alternative interpretation,
focus on accurate information or engage in rebutting particular
perspectives, again credible and uses an important coordination point.
However, the ability to branch out to engage with networks that are
not coordinating around these points requires an understanding of
the way information flows through the network. It also requires PD
to develop an awareness and understanding of conversations which
up until now have been invisible due to various factors, including
those described above.
Mapping the environment
There are a few easy ways that this can be achieved. Some are
seriously high tech solutions, complex and potentially high cost,
while others are longer term projects, such as mapping the Iranian,
Arabic or Australian blogging public. 25 Further examples are based
on the centralized collection of information to understand the
development of a network over time. 26 These and other dynamic
models are credible and powerful, but largely beyond the means
of the busy and resource poor public diplomat who is attempting
“credit crunch Public Diplomacy,” as Caroline Jaine from Imediate
recently called it.
There are, however, a few easy tools open to any practitioner
which can provide an insight to aid engagement when some of the