In leaders’ UN videos, the backgrounds tell stories, too

UNITED NATIONS >> Chinese President Xi Jinping urged the world to “reject attempts to build blocks to keep others out” as an image of his country’s storied Great Wall hung behind him. Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte used photos and videos to illustrate what he was talking about. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison shared his policy views — and his scenic view of Sydney Harbor.

If the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting of national leaders is always a window on the world, this year the window is opening directly onto their desks, presidential palaces and homelands.

Staying home because of the coronavirus pandemic, they are speaking by video, adding a new layer of imagemaking to the messages and personas they seek to project.

“They have to be authentic, they have to be believable, and this is even more of a challenge virtually. But it need not be, if you’re able to think about how to use your background creatively,” says Steven D. Cohen, a Johns Hopkins University business communication professor who has coached politicians.

“They can use what happens in the frame to complement those messages, to break through the glass of the computer and connect through stories, through visions,” he says.

T he General A ssembly hall’s podium has provided decades of presidents, prime ministers and monarchs with a coveted portrait of statesmanship — and a setting conducive to it. While it’s no secret that many speeches are aimed largely at domestic audiences, sideline encounters and the prospect of live reactions from the international community can be “a factor for nudging people into what multilateral diplomacy is all about: finding common cause,” said Richard Ponzio, a former U.S. State Department and U.N. official and now a fellow at the Stimson Center, a foreign policy think tank.

Many leaders lamented that they can’t convene in person this year.

“T hankfully, we can make optimal use of modern technology,” said Suriname’s new president, Chan Santokhi, one of several speakers whose videos featured introductory music.

Others enhanced their presentations with subtitles or even cable-news-style chyrons, like “HOW WE CAN BUILD A BETTER FUTURE FOR ALL” and “WE MUST LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND” to underscore key messages from eSwatini’s prime minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini. Duterte overlaid parts of his speech with relevant photos and videos of coronavirus test centers, storms and more, going well beyond the maps and pictures that leaders occasionally hold up at the assembly podium.

Without the hall, some speakers opted for a more approachable posture. Pope Francis, for example, eschewed a podium to stand close to the camera in a bookcase- lined room, as though speaking to a visitor.