Ernest J. Wilson

Articles and Speeches

2012: A CRITICAL YEAR TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF CHINA - US RELATIONS
Presentation to the Foreign Affairs Committee, Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

Public diplomacy is a relatively new discipline and profession, but it has become more and more valuable as countries become more inter-connected. It will be especially valuable in the Year of the Dragon, 2012. This speech explains why next year will raise serious new political, economic, technological and strategic uncertainties between China and the United States, uncertainties which can be reduced if public diplomacy is employed vigorously. After defining public diplomacy, I suggest short, medium and long term actions that the US and PRC can pursue to advance mutual understanding and trust.

Welcome Remarks at Cooney Center 2011 Leadership Forum
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop's 2011 Leadership Forum, "Learning from Hollywood"

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III delivered remarks to 200 thought leaders in entertainment media, education, research, philanthropy and policy at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Worshop’s 2011 Leadership Forum, “Learning from Hollywood.” The forum was held on the USC campus from May 16-17, 2011. Agenda & Speakers

The goals of this conference are extremely important for the future of our youth, and hence for the future of the country. Games, TV shows and virtual reality are not just playthings. They are instruments for educating—or miseducating—the next generation of Americans. The question is, will we find the imagination and the ethical commitment to raise a generation of kids literate in the new and old ways of learning….?

The Flip Side of Metcalfe’s Law: Multiple and Growing Costs of Network Exclusion
International Journal of Communication, 2011

The study of networks has grown recently, but most existing models fail to capture the costs or loss of value of exclusion from the network. Intuitively, as a network grows in size and value, those outside the network face growing disparities. We present a new framework for modeling network exclusion, and show that costs of exclusion can be absolute, and might, at the extreme, eventually grow ~exponentially, regardless of underlying network structure. We find costs of exclusion can also be spread to the “included,” through several mechanisms including parallel networks, and also highlight how future research needs to capture the interaction of alternate or parallel networks to the network at hand. Backed by empirical evidence, this will have wide-reaching policy and design implications, including the role of subsidies or direct intervention for network access and inclusion.

New Voices on the Net? The Digital Journalism Divide and the Costs of Network Exclusion
Ernest J. Wilson III & Sasha Costanza-Chock, 2011

In the information society, diverse communities’ capacity to tell their own stories is especially critical. The transformation of the Internet into the key platform for communication and journalism has created the illusion that barriers long faced by people of color in print and broadcast media will melt away. At same time, the election of Obama has created, for some, the illusion that the United States of America has entered a new, ‘post-racial’ era. However, having a Black man in the White House, however important a sign of progress, cannot alone erase the fact that race, class, and gender all continue to unjustly structure Americans’ opportunities in every sphere of life. Race-based exclusion from full access to and participation in both old and new information and communications technologies (ICTs) remains entrenched.

Hu’s Coming to Dinner: A Year After the Google-China Dust-Up, Has Anything Changed?
Huffington Post, 2011

On Jan. 19, China's President Hu Jintao will attend a state dinner at the White House. This comes about a year since his government and Google Corporation duked it out over Google's refusal to abide by the PRC's laws to control internet content. There were punches thrown and punches pulled. The heavyweight fight was sort of a draw, with no clear winner or loser. Now is a good time to revisit what the dust-up meant then, what it means today, and what it might mean for the future of U.S.-China relations.

Digital media’s prevalence adds extra challenge to strategic PR
PRWeek, 2010

Executives must reconcile the rapid reconfiguration within the formal communications function. The dividing lines between what we used to call PR, corporate communications, investor relations, advertising, marketing, and customer service are being dissolved and radically rearranged. When a CEO wants to take his or her company into new markets, who should guide the process? How are these responsibilities to be reassigned and evaluated?

Future of Public Radio
C-SPAN, 2010
Los Angeles World Affairs Council

Innovate Or Die
EDU TECH, 2010

EDU: What changes did you bring when you joined as the new Dean?
Ernest: We started with the idea of the ‘three Is’—innovation, impact and
internationalisation. Innovation because the field of media is dynamic. An
institution which provides media training to students must be innovative. It
was Gandhi who said that we must become the change we want to see in the
world. If we want our students to be innovative, then we (professors) must
also innovate. I thought of impact as the second ‘I’, because I wanted to
ensure that the school continued its commitment to impact the society in a
positive way. The third point is internationalisation. With the world becoming
more global, our students should be able to adjust to all cultures.

Google, China and U.S. Foreign Policy
The Huffington Post, 2010

Sitting in the lobby of the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, reading the front page of the local Economic Times, I was hit with a one-two-punch: the news that Google may quit the huge Chinese market in a dispute over serious cyber attacks to its facilities in the PRC, and the feeling that I was watching the opening salvo of a new, major trend in American foreign policy that has been quietly building for several years.

A Converging China?
Perspectives: China, Africa, and the African Diaspora, 2009

There are few issues more essential to long-term global stability than the integration of the People’s Republic of China into the world economic and political system. From Cold War pariah to international powerhouse, the country’s transition over the past 30 years has driven two parallel reactions among the world’s countries – admiration from the developing world and nervousness among developed countries. The developing world admires China for its economic success, a model of controlled yet entrepreneurial capitalism that provides for political stability. Coupled with the country’s closed-off domestic system, however, the behavior and intentions of the Communist Party continue to be viewed with suspicion by the world’s largest powers. In other words, we see unique and divergent evaluations of the same facts of China’s rise in the world.

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