TAIPEI --- While the latest aircraft carrier movements and military maneuvers here are chronicled closely in U.S. media, significant public diplomacy initiatives go largely unreported. This past week provided a prime example:

Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong’s week-long visit to Taipei has been front-page news in this region, in newspapers from Korea to Singapore. For his first-ever visit, the mayor led a 500-person delegation – yes, five hundred people – including party officials, business leaders and Chinese celebrities.

Launched a bit over a year ago, more or less coinciding with the eruption of the Arab Spring, the ministry’s Arabic Facebook page on Thursday reached the milestone of 100,000 fans. The fact that so many people have said they “Like” the page, however, does not mean that all of them really do.

Deep cuts in broadcasting are projected... President Obama’s proposed budget comports badly with the aspiration stated in the Broadcasting Board of Governors’ (BBG) 2012–2016 Strategic Plan to become the “world’s leading international news agency” by 2016.

APDS Blogger: Jennifer Green

Washington, D.C. -- We are just so excited to be in a place where others understand the term “public diplomacy.”

The “we” I am talking about is the delegation of 18 public diplomacy graduate students from the University of Southern California, on an inaugural trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with professionals working in our field at various organizations. The goal was to broaden our awareness of careers in public diplomacy, and to build connections and opportunities between the East and West coasts.

The new way of making war, the projection of “soft power,” is cynical in that it involves millions of people in the persuasion effort. The lords of this new media war are the communication and image experts closely tied to political power, producing a sophisticated kind of communication...

Shinkai has been awarded best director by the Association of Media in Digital (AMD), yet he remains relatively unknown beyond dedicated anime circles.That began to change this past fall, when he toured the United States and Britain...

As part of its public diplomacy outreach, the ministry of external affairs has donned...a special documentary on the life of master modernist Satish Gujral, the artist who overcame physical challenges to become a stalwart of contemporary Indian art.