Fewer than 10 diplomats make up the State Department’s digital-outreach team, which is charged with countering al Qaeda’s recruitment efforts via social networks, blog posts and Internet videos, according to current and former officials.

Chinese authorities have stepped up efforts in recent weeks to rein in the hugely popular microblogging sites that have become an alternative source of real-time news for millions while challenging the Communist Party’s traditional grip on information.

The Department of State and the Global SchoolNet Foundation announce the 2012 "Doors to Diplomacy" award competition, recognizing the student-created Global SchoolNet Web projects from around the globe that best teach others about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy.

Throughout the Middle East, protestors have employed Facebook, Twitter...and other technologies to organize and spread news at home and to the outside world. Democratic governments aren’t the only ones reacting to the Arab Spring. Autocracies, including China, which hosts the world’s most sophisticated online control regime, are drawing their own lessons.

Sunday is going to open up a very interesting period in Saudi history because now, for the next four years, people are going to be debating in the press and in tweets and on Facebook how exactly this is going to work and how much power or freedom the women have to be campaigning just like men.

To vent their frustration with the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, whose crackdown on the country’s uprising has killed an estimated 2,700 civilians since mid-March, the ambassadors have taken to slamming the regime on the embassy blog, embassy Facebook page, and online interviews, Storyful reports.

In many ways, Al Jazeera is a victim of its own success. Since the beginning of the Arab Spring...Al Jazeera played a vital role in spreading news about the uprisings throughout the region. Once the revolutions started, the network featured more than just traditional newsgathering...made a point of aggregating social media content...to its TV viewers.

Public diplomacy practitioners, students and scholars are aware that one of the critical obstacles for public diplomacy is resource deficiency, which includes the lack of funding and personnel. In other words, the scope of influence is a problem. Both Biden and Locke successfully attracted Chinese attention, with which any diplomatic approaches can be magnified.