The US State Department and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) are perhaps the most engaged Western governments when it comes to social media. Following them is Sweden and Australia....Does it make sense in this new area called Digital Diplomacy? Very much so and public diplomacy is nothing new. It’s been going on for hundreds of years.

With Brazil's pride hurt by Washington's heavy handed public diplomacy there are new signs that Dilma could resist renewed White House pressure to buy Boeing during her other than state visit and opt for the Rafale or possibly save face and put the whole matter on hold.

The American Music Abroad program is designed to communicate America’s rich contributions to the global music scene as it fosters cross-cultural communication and people-to-people connections to global audiences...It focus on younger and underserved audiences in countries with little or no access to live American performances.

The Obama Administration stresses shared commonalities—diversity of populations, cultural vibrancy, innovative societies, and presumably similar political values. The Administration has placed strong emphasis on a potpourri of low-cost soft power initiatives, dialogues, and partnerships. It proposes to support these initiatives.

Sherman’s announcement is a huge ‘PR scoop’ for the US public diplomacy. The fact that she went public at an elite gathering of Indian strategic gurus underscores that Washington sought the optimal spin-off in the realm of US-India relationship, which has been lately somewhat under the weather.

Social media is an integral part of US diplomacy in China, said the US Ambassador to China Gary Locke on Friday during a townhall meeting with the employees of China's most popular search engine Baidu. He said that he was generally learning that Chinese citizens are "wanting more accountability, transparency, ethics in government."

The new Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, Tara Sonenshine, and a bundle of other diplomatic nominees received the Senate stamp of approval. Sonenshine’s challenge will be to grapple with several substantive issues including the challenge from China.