The State Department spent 15 million on ads marketing America to Muslims

Evidence

In addition to the aforementioned projects, the U.S. government—through the Department of State and the Council of American Muslims for Understanding (created after 9/11 and funded by the State Department)—spent $15 million on the “Shared Values Initiative.” Charlotte Beers, a corporate advertising executive who created the Uncle Ben’s campaign, was hired by the State Department to market and sell the nation abroad. The campaign, “meant, in part, to correct a mistaken image of U.S. hostility to Islam that research showed was prevalent in the Arab and Muslim world,” included Internet videos and television ads, newspaper ads, and radio spots seeking to “establish a recognition that Americans and Muslims share many values and beliefs [and] demonstrate that America is not at war with Islam.” The U.S. media dubbed the advertisements the “Muslim-as-Apple-Pie” campaign. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 1263

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Parallel to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ article’s theme of state and elite messaging about identity — here a modern state directly commissions representation campaigns about Muslim identity, a state-driven public-relations intervention rather than organic discourse.
• SHARE: For someone into propaganda/public diplomacy or the history of marketing the nation — the detail that the Uncle Ben’s ad creator was hired to sell post-9/11 America abroad.