Every mass protest is based on the same essential calculation: There's strength in numbers. And that certainly seems to be the assumption that's animating the astonishing numbers of demonstrators we've been witnessing in just the past few weeks, in places ranging from Egypt and Turkey, to Indonesia and Brazil, and even Bulgaria. The causes of discontent are myriad, though certain themes tend to resurface.

What happens when the domestic public seemingly overtakes a country’s public diplomacy agenda? Brazil looked like it had scored a double goal when it secured the bid to host the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. A massive promotional campaign to garner world attention was well underway. And then came the massive protests by the Brazilian public.

The situation is fraught with risk for the US president. Any visit to Mandela’s bedside risks being seen as a cynical move by Obama to boost his flagging popularity, while his speeches will be analysed for signs that he is trying too hard to link his own civil rights credentials to those of South Africa’s first and most beloved black president. Meanwhile, away from Mandela’s hospital bed, Obama faces hostile criticism of US trade policies and a “NoBama” campaign organised by South Africa’s biggest trade union.

This Culture Post takes a closer look at five critical roles of the domestic public in public diplomacy. Because traditional public diplomacy has focused primarily on foreign publics, the role of the domestic public may have been overlooked rather than absent. In that sense, the roles may not be new. What is new is the perspective to see it.

The overall measure of Australians' "warmth" towards China is captured in the Lowy Institute's "thermometer," a gauge measuring how positively people feel towards a range of countries. Last year China was ranked eighth with a warmth of 59 degrees out of a possible 100, just under Malaysia and just above India.

The world is surrounded, and even blinded by the soft power of Western countries, the Western media and the information they provide. Many Chinese have already been accustomed to understanding the world based on Western ways of thinking. When meeting with two Chinese PhD candidates in Harvard University, Wang was shocked that these two highly-educated Chinese students described their motherland, where they had lived in for years, in terms shaped by Western discourse.

It’s been 15 years since the people of Ireland approved the Good Friday Agreement, and President Obama called the achievement -- and the progress that followed it -- extraordinary. “For years, few conflicts in the world seemed more intractable than the one here in Northern Ireland. And when peace was achieved here, it gave the entire world hope.”