Mohan J. Dutta: Critical Insights on Culture and Society

The Educational Testing Service runs and manages the TOEFL and TSE that are directed toward screening international students based on their english proficiency. I was recently drawn to look further into the ETS after one of our international students (with excellent written and spoken english skills in my assessment) was asked to retake the local Purdue spoken english test because he had supposedly not met the minimum TSE requirement established by Purdue. The student was frustrated at the thought of having to take the spoken test yet again; he felt humiliated. And I was perplexed at the hoops that we invent and re-invent for our international students to go through. I understood his indignation although at that moment I encouraged him to take the local speaking test in order to maintain his status as a teaching assistant. The event reminded me of my graduate school days when I felt indignant at the thought of having to take a spoken english test although my education was all along in ...

Recently, I served as a Principal Investigator on a grant that led a Purdue team to recruit some of the brightest students from China and India. Our department has had a long history of international presence, and I hope that this recruiting effort enriches further our internationalizing agenda. As we seek to internationalize academia, there are a few questions that I wonder about. What are the purposes behind internationalizing efforts? Whom does internationalization serve? Do we really create opportunities for dialogue and exchange through internationalization processes, or are these more reflective of our top-down agendas in global affairs? I wonder about these questions even as I reflect upon my experiences as an international student in academia. I don't consider myself introverted, and yet there were many times when I felt I couldn't speak, many times when I felt I didn't really belong, many times when I was confronted with my alienness. When I reflect upon these expe...

During her remarks with Kuwaiti foreign minister Sheikh Mohammed on January 16, 2007, Dr. Rice referred to the violence in Iraq and stated: "...obviously, the violence in and around Baghdad is one of the very important reasons the President went to the American people and said that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable to him, just as it was unacceptable to most Americans and that that violence needs to stop. Now, violent people will always be able to kill innocent people. And so even with the new security plan, with the will and capability of the Iraqi Government and with American forces to help reinforce Iraqi forces, there is still going to be violence. But whatever the number of civilians that have died in Iraq, and there are obviously competing numbers, but whatever the numbers, it's too many. Deconstruction of the above comment made by Dr. Rice brings forth the manipulativeness of public diplomacy discourse in the context of Iraq. The discussions of the unacceptability ...

An US Department of State press release posted on January 9, 2007 announced that Secretary Rice wil be visiting the Middle East from January 12 through January 19, 2007 and will meet regional leaders to discuss the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, upcoming strategies for Iraq, and other issues of regional importance. In an article published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry titled " US public diplomacy in the Middle East ," I point out that historically, public diplomacy efforts targeted at the Middle East have been driven by manipulative tactics. The goals of these diplomacy efforts have been to use persuasion strategies that would shift public opinion in the Middle East. This top-down approach reflects one-way communication and has only created grounds for further conflict. Fundamental to this approach is the idea that there's something wrong with the intended audience of the message. Further, current public diplomacy efforts in the Middle east sugg...

One of the capstone projects completed by the students at the Department of Defense Joint Course in Communication compares news stories with embedded reporters with those stories with non-embedded reporters, pointing out that embedded reporting was more favorable toward the military, thus suggesting that the "results are beneficial to the military because public support is crucial to morale and a successful military operation." The statement makes explicit the implicit values and biases of this military-funded project, perhaps drawing our attention to the role of the project in serving the public affairs needs of the military. This sort of academic involvement in promoting military agenda raises critical questions regarding the ideology guiding such research and the politics of such research. Research like this conducted under the auspices of dominant social actors serves the power structure rather than questioning the ways in which it operates. The research project is implic...

The Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma, in conjunction with the Department of Defense, has hosted the Department of Defense Communication Graduate Program since the 1970s (see http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/dodjcc/overview.htm ). The program has been part of the Military Public Affairs Community for over 37 years and draws public affairs professionals from all branches of the Defense Department as well as the Coast Guard. The goal of the program is to equip students with the basic principles of communication theory and research, and the ways in which these principles might be applied toward public affairs strategies and tactics. The nine hours of fully accredited coursework offered over a two-month period introduces students to the different areas of communication studies and culminates with a final project that seeks to resolve a military affairs problem. The capstone project emerging from the course has explored topics such as public perceptions of the military, de...