When Public Diplomacy is Used to Keep People Away

We're constantly discussing what is the best strategy, or "narrative" to make dialogue possible and to make people agree with certain foreign policy goals, depending on which country we are dealing with. Not often do we hear of a public diplomacy campaign that aims to push people away instead of bringing them together, at least not intentionally.

Neither do we hear of countries spending money on PR campaigns to make them look bad. Yet, British policymakers have thrown around that idea to prevent potential immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania from coming to the UK. 

This is in light of an approaching deadline that will lift limits on Bulgarian and Romanian immigration to the UK. It is definitely a way to "persuade" "foreign publics" towards one "foreign policy objective." A pretty backwards way of looking at PD, and an unethical one at that, I might add.

As the article points out, a few years ago, Eurostar did a campaign depicting the worst British stereotypes to bring attention to its London train routes. They were outrageous, but worked in getting people's attention. I wonder, should this idea actually materialize, if people in Bulgaria and Romania would take these ads seriously, laugh at them, or be actually upset that they're being targetted to "stay away."

It seems like a rather desperate measure, and one that could severely damage UK's reputation. After all, though they would be restricted to those two countries something like that could easily go viral. I certainly hope this doesn't come to pass.

If anyone else has any other examples of 'backwards PD', please share!