The Hill News

All around the world national governments increasingly turn to external support to affect public perception, drop a hint to push interests or win audiences with policy leaders. The same happens in the EU. Third country governments increasingly try to position themselves not such much with the EU member states but with the EU institutions in Brussels.

But in the world of 24/7 media coverage and the growth of powerful technologies any wrong piece of information is being disclosed very fast. Thanks to Facebook, Google and Wikileaks, a "Wag the Dog" storyline does not work anymore. A lie is easily disclosed as a lie. And if this happens, the results are not only counterproductive - they are disasterous. The Americans have a nice way of putting this in Washington. They call such type of PR work "painting lipstick on a dictator." Propaganda comes close to it. Neither of it works in the long run nowadays. 

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