@america is the State Department’s newest and most innovative American Center and is located in a popular shopping mall in downtown Jakarta. American Centers are public places where the U.S. Government engages with foreign publics through a variety of outreach activities...

Now that the events of 2011 have turned Arab politics upside down, U.S. policymakers are facing what they hate most: irrelevance. Those who were so long ignored by American public diplomacy are finally gaining power as evidenced by the successes of the Ennahda Party in Tunisia...

Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum (BM), flew to Saudi Arabia, his first visit to the heart of the Islamic world...Mr MacGregor and Venetia Porter, the BM’s keeper of Islamic art, spoke to the chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities...

With the vast majority of North Koreans not having access to the Internet, such initiatives are aimed solely at an international audience. Those who have do have Internet access connect through the “Kwangmyong,” essentially an isolated national Intranet...

Another reason why the United States government tries its level best to ensure a free Internet is because it serves its foreign policy goals with respect to public diplomacy and outreach at very minimal cost. Internet-enabled protest movements are bringing down undemocratic governments faster

APDS Blogger: Anna Dawson

Established thirteen years, the role of the Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs has been an enduring question of the State Department, the Defense Department, National Security Staff, the Congress and the many others interested in America’s efforts to understand, inform, and influence global audiences.

For the past 64 years, the Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy has been providing "honest appraisals and informed discourse on" efforts by U.S. officials interacting with key overseas citizens to "increase global awareness and understanding of our values, policies and activities." Now with little fanfare, it died quietly.