Britain’s Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt launched a major campaign on Thursday to attract an extra 4.6 million tourists to the U.K. through advertisements in 14 cities worldwide. The goal of the campaign...is to maximize the tourism and business potential generated by Britain’s hosting of the 2012 Olympics.

The American Film Showcase, an international cultural diplomacy initiative that brings people together worldwide through film...a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, brings award-winning American films...to foreign audiences through events worldwide.

Language and educational exchanges have always been a defining feature of the U.S.-China relationship. Meet Jessica Beinecke, a Voice of America journalist who decided that she could leverage all the web 2.0 tools at her disposal to create a show that taught Chinese youth American slang.

The Chinese mainland and Taiwan jointly launched a multimedia database offering free access to Chinese linguistic literature on line. The database is expected to facilitate learning and research of the Chinese language across the world.

...In his three decades of foreign service, the US ambassador to the United Arab Emirates has learned that art can play a powerful part in diplomacy, communicating in a way that transcends culture and language.

While India has consciously sought to promote a ‘soft’ image, Pakistan, on the other hand, have spared no effort, deliberately perpetuating a negative ‘hard’ image of ourselves. As citizens strain under the daily task of survival and an incompetent government struggles to stay in power, the ‘soft image’ continues to elude us.

American Voices, incorporated as a nonprofit in 1993, has been operating summer youth performing arts academies, workshops and concerts in dozens of countries around the world. In St. Louis, this organization conducts "cultural diplomacy," which involves exchanging musical expertise between Americans and countries often hit hard by conflict.

The question of government involvement in the arts is hardly uncontroversial. Anxiety about competing with the West has made cultural matters a priority for China’s Central Committee, which has recently introduced measures intended to boost international awareness of Chinese culture and continues to invest in high-profile cultural production.