DiploFoundation and Istituto Diplomatico of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs have published Twitter for Diplomats by Andreas Sandre (@andreas212nyc). It is the first publication in a series designed to analyze how social media diplomacy helps create – and maintain – a true conversation between policymakers and citizens, between diplomats and foreign public.

Social cause gaming, or the use of games to promote awareness of societal problems, has been growing since pioneer online projects like Food Force, the United Nations World Food Program’s 2005 game about confronting famine, and Darfur Is Dying, MTV’s 2006 offering in which players navigate the terrors of a Sudanese refugee camp.

Some of the bloom is "off" the social media rose. Two years have passed since the initial demonstrations in Tahrir Square, and today not many journalists or other “new media” enthusiasts still claim that Twitter started, sustained or steered the 2011 Egyptian uprising. Indeed, many of the participants vociferously challenge the idea that Twitter or Facebook were anywhere nearly as important as their own determined efforts.

How does the evidence Hanson points to reveal some sense of change in the institutional logics that underscore the practice of public diplomacy and, more generally, that of U.S. diplomacy? "Baked in" suggests that technologies and their use have settled into more legitimated practices, been incorporated into institutional norms, and otherwise become a part of the common-place material "equipment" of diplomacy.

Stephanie Stallings recently suggested that creative collaboration is a useful model for cultural diplomacy. She is definitely onto something. Circumstances have changed around the work of diplomacy. Publics are now much less distant, more assertive, and actively engaged participants in the making of their encompassing cultural worlds.