Dr. Ernest J. Wilson III, dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, is one of two selected to lead a commission of leading scholars, former officials and businesspeople who are prominent on the landscape of U.S.-China relations. The commission was convened to research and report on ways to improve the relationship between the two countries. As noted in a release from the USC US-China Institute, American and Chinese economies and societies are more closely connected today than they ever have been, yet headlines and polls conducted among the populations of the two countries indicate low levels of respect and high levels of distrust toward one another. Building U.S.-China Trust: Through Next Generation People, Platforms & Programs is a joint report by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Peking University School of International Studies commissioned to address these issues. Dean Wang Jisi of the Peking University serves as lead for the commission along with Dean Wilson.
The report was presented at USC’s Davidson Conference Center Tuesday, April 22, 2014 and at The Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., Thursday, April 24, 2014. Dean Wilson was a featured speaker at both events.
In addition to being dean of the USC Annenberg School and holding the Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication, Dr. Wilson is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves as a board member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and the National Academies’ Computer Science and Telecommunications Committee. Wilson was a member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from 2000 to 2010, and chaired it in his last year, from 2009-2010. Focusing on the intersection between communication and public policy, Wilson has consulted for the World Bank and United Nations. Wilson also served on the White House National Security Council and as policy and planning director at the U.S. Information Agency. He has published widely on topics including governing global electronic networks and the politics of internet diffusion, and he advised on President Barack Obama’s transition team on matters of communication technology and public diplomacy.
Along with these accomplishments, Dr. Wilson has spoken widely on public diplomacy, communication and innovation issues, including presentations to the prestigious Boao Forum, the State Council, the Peoples Political Consultative Commission, and leading universities in China, and been published in outlets including China Quarterly and the Harvard Journal of International Affairs. He was a member of the Secretary of Commerce’s trade commission to China in 1994, and this year Dr. Wilson attended the China Development Forum in Beijing.