About Joshua S. Fouts

Joshua S. Fouts

Joshua S. Fouts

Joshua S. Fouts is a cultural relations futurist, and a frequent consultant and speaker on the use of new technologies, games, virtual worlds and social media for social change and cultural collaboration and its applications for foreign policy, public- and cultural diplomacy. He is Chief Global Strategist of Dancing Ink Productions, a company that develops business strategy, compelling storytelling, immersive narrative and mixed-media, mixed-reality content, games, conferences and other events for a new global culture and economy in the Imagination Age. Fouts is a Next Generation Fellow at The American Assembly and a Senior Fellow for Digital Media and Public Policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency. He is recognized as the world’s leading expert on Digital Diplomacy.

His two most recent projects, which he co-directed with Rita J. King, “Virtual Journalism: The Virtual Newsroom at the American University in Cairo,” and “Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds,” which was funded by a grant from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, explored the transformation of the media business and how virtual worlds can be used to enable nuanced understanding between and around Islamic culture.

Joshua has had a lifetime passion for the intersection of science, policy, culture, art and technology and a commitment to understanding human systems.  He first encountered the Internet in 1991 and subsequently dedicated himself to working toward a greater understanding of the power of Internet and technology toward better cultural dialog across public, cultural and foreign policy. He has nearly 20 years of expertise in innovative uses of new technologies for international relations, journalism, government and strategic non-profit management and development.  He has advised non-profits and governments worldwide (including the U.S., China and Brazil) on how to understand and create a strategic presence using the Internet — especially the 3D Immersive Internet — as tool for collaborative outreach.  His work has been featured in or on BoingBoing, The BBC, El Pais, La Repubblica, The Guardian, Press TV, The New York Times, UgoTrade, The Russian Journal, New World Notes, the Washington Post, Wired and NPR.

Before joining Dancing Ink Productions, Fouts co-founded and directed the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School where, in 2003, he launched the Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds Initiative, which was the first effort to explore the intersection between immersive Internet spaces, cultural dialogue and foreign policy.

In 1997 he co-founded and edited OJR, the Online Journalism Review, the first Internet-based Online Journalism Review chronicling the early development of ethics in journalism as it evolved on the web, which is still in publication today. In 2001 he was recognized by the Silicon Alley Reporter as one of the “Digital Coast’s ‘Top 100 Survivors’” of the digital community of the Western United States.

From 1992-1994 he was a Presidential Management Fellow at the  U.S. Department of State and the Voice of America launching numerous new technology public diplomacy projects throughout the world, including what ultimately became voanews.com. He is on the editorial board of Place Branding & Public Diplomacy (Palgrave Macmillan) and the International Place Branding Yearbook. Fouts is a member of the Public Diplomacy Council and the Manhattan Council on Foreign Relations. He speaks conversational Portuguese.

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