During the recent crisis in Libya and the events surrounding the online dissemination of a hateful video, many asked: what tools does the State Department have to respond to audiences and engage people around the world in real time?

Minister of Public Diplomacy Yuli Edelstein told students and young professionals not to blame reporters for Israel’s poor image at a conference on media and hasbarah at Ariel University earlier this month...Edelstein also urged citizens to take an active role in Israel’s public diplomacy efforts, stating that, “Citizens, who photograph and share it on social media introduce to the world our human face.”

The chairman of the Azerbaijan Youth Organization of Russia and the founder of organization IDEA Leyla Aliyeva published in the "Rossiyskaya Qazeta" narrates about Azerbaijan's effective cultural policy abroad and positive results of the public diplomacy realized by Azerbaijan in Russia.

The notorious tweet reaffirming a statement that condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims” has been deleted by the US Embassy in Cairo, but the incident raises a question that lingers: Is blasting out 140-character messages on Twitter a good way to conduct diplomacy, given the political, and even mortal, risks?

The issue of striking a balance between security and accessibility is one that has been a constant struggle for United States’ diplomatic missions worldwide. How do diplomats meet the competing demands of interacting with foreign populations and keeping safe in a world filled with anti-American extremism?

MINUTES after last week’s violent attacks on America’s missions in the Middle East, the country’s embassy in Cairo was already on Twitter. It tweeted an emergency number for American citizens. It criticised Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood for supporting the protests on their Arabic feed. And it thanked fellow tweeters for their condolences on the murder of the American ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens.

APDS Blogger: Marissa Cruz-Enriquez

The use of social media for the purpose of public diplomacy has increasingly drawn the attention of U.S. diplomacy professionals, observers and political analysts especially after the recent attacks on the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Libya that were triggered by outrage over an anti-Islamic video released on Sept. 11.