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World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America

According to a New York Times article by Tim Arango, shortly after the attacks on 9/11, high-level media executives, including the heads of every major studio, met several times with White House officials, including at least once with President Bush’s former top strategist, Karl Rove, to discuss ways that the entertainment industry could play a part in improving the image of the United States overseas. In the last eight years, American pop culture, already popular, has boomed around the globe while opinions of America itself have soured. But so far, cultural popularity has not translated into new friends. The latest data from the Pew Global Attitudes Project, released in June, shows that the image of the United States remained negative in the 24 countries in which Pew conducted surveys (although in 10 of those the favorability rating of the United States edged up slightly).