In a surprising but refreshingly novel approach to foreign diplomacy, the Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan has decided to use YouTube to address Arab stereotypes by fielding questions and comments from YouTube users.   

Queen Rania, named the third most beautiful woman in the world in 2005 by Harpers & Queen magazine, is renowned for her philanthropic work and attempts at improving education, women's rights, and global understanding of Islam.  

The Queen's move into the Web 2.0 world via YouTube follows a recent trend here in the U.S. in which government agencies have enrolled bloggers to communicate directly with citizens, embraced audio casts of their work called podcasts, and military branches have promoted their activities via YouTube videos.  But the interactive format employed by the Queen has yet to be used by the U.S. government for either domestic purposes or to win over the hearts and minds of those around the world. 

Given that over 250,000 people have tuned into to the Queen's YouTube cast since Sunday, when the video was posted, the idea seems to be a success and one that Uncle Sam should take a lesson from.

So what did the Queen have to say, exactly?  We've included the highlights of the video and the video itself below.  We hope to hear your ideas of how this format, or a similar format, could be used to improve our own government's efforts at governing and diplomacy.  

Transcript: 

"In a world where it's so easy to connect to one another, we still remain very much disconnected. There's a whole world of wonder out there which we cannot appreciate with stereotypes. So it's important for all of us to join forces, come together, and bring down those misconceptions.

I've been surprised by some of the questions I've been asked.  Do all Arabs hate Americans?  Can Arab women work?  Are there any YouTubers in Jordan?

If what most people know about the Arab world and Arab people they've known through programs like 24 and Jack Bauer,  I think they're in for a very big surprise.

From now until August 12th, which is International Youth Day, I hope to be receiving from YouTubers some of the questions that they have and some of the common stereotypes that they hear about the Arab world...I want people to know the real Arab World."   

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