In leading foreign ministries the digital age is producing dramatic change. Every day a single American diplomat communicates with more than a quarter of a million Indonesians using Facebook. Australia's diplomatic service, by contrast, doesn't even use social media in Indonesia.

From November 22 -24, 2010 CPD Director Philip Seib presented a series of public and private lectures on public diplomacy to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Hungary, the Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Budapest Corvinus University, and Péter Pázmány Catholic University.

Several hundred people attended the première of “The Social Network” at Damascus’s only English-language cinema last month. The crowded theater highlighted the wide use of the film’s subject – Facebook – despite the Syrian government banning the site in 2007. Since then, Facebook’s popularity has surged in Syria.

"If the church is not on their mobile device, it doesn't exist," he said, likening social media to a "new digital continent" waiting to be evangelized.

The office of 84-year-old Queen Elizabeth II announced on Sunday that she is launching her own page on Facebook. The page will feature videos, photos and news updates about the long-serving British monarch. Facebook users will be able send messages to Buckingham Palace, and leave comments on the Queen's pages...

In only seven months, Hugo Chavez has passed 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. He announced the accomplishment this morning.

North Korean propaganda has emerged on popular Internet social media sites. It is not for domestic consumption as virtually no North Korean has Internet access. Rather it is targeted at other countries, especially South Korea.