In a Forum piece on Thursday, April 29, entitled, "How Jay-Z can make foreign policy accessible," writer Lionel Beehner talks about the benefits of comparing complex policy issues to events in popular culture. He refers to an example used by George Washington University’s Marc Lynch who compared Jay-Z’s spat with the Game to U.S. foreign policy. Lynch wrote, “If (Jay-Z) hits back hard in public, the Game will gain in publicity even if he loses … the classic problem of a great power confronted by a smaller annoying challenger.” Beehner applauds this example, saying  that "the post-9/11 world has become a more complex place of gray areas, messy asymmetric wars and non-state actors.   If invoking … Jay-Z can help the public wrap its mind around these difficult issues, all the better." 


Read a USA TODAY article about the U.S.’s current relationship with a foreign country. Then, flip through the Sports and Life sections and see if you can find an event in popular culture that could serve as a useful metaphor for that relationship. Explain your example to peers and decide whether or not it would help Americans understand a difficult issue. Would it help them become more engaged in foreign policy? Why or why not?