Cybercapacity is an aggregate of a number of factors, from the quality and strength of a country's digital infrastructure (access to electricity, internet quality, and internet penetration) to its innovation environment, political space (governed by laws on freedom of expression), and soft power (how much other actors desire products of its technology industry).

Public diplomacy has always been an important tool in communicating a country’s policies, values, and culture. However, the means through which these goals could be achieved considerably changed in the last one hundred years, and politicians as well as scholars have had to face new challenges and adapt to a new media era.