BIDD

DFAT’s digital diplomacy has come a long way since it launched its first Twitter account in 2011. Today, most of our Australian heads of mission...

Be honest with Americans and foreigners, fight authoritarian propaganda and empower diplomats in the field. Frequently in the last four years, I — along with...

By John Brown, Huffington Post, May 25, 2011 [JB 3/9/2019: Today, the State Department does not have an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs (as it did in the past) -- not even an "acting one."] Public diplomacy — defined by the State Department as “engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences” — has become increasingly passé among American officials, scholars, and NGOs as a term and activity used to define how America should communicate with the outside world. Meanwhile, the governments of other countries — notably China and India — are enthusiastically embracing public diplomacy as a new and essential part of their foreign policy. Who’s the winner in such a situation — the USA or the rest of the world? Hard to say.I. Public Diplomacy: Passé for the U.S.?Public diplomacy was coined by Dean Edmund Gullion and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy in the mid-1960’s. He and his colleagues wanted to find a way to characterize the many informational,..