The State Department's public diplomacy position "isn't about marketing," according to its current occupant, former Discovery Communications CEO Judith McHale, as much as conversations and connections, often enabled by digital and social media.

Under the new diplomacy, we feel talking with governments is not enough, and want to build contacts at people, business and NGO levels. Increasingly, this is how foreign policy will be conducted. In fact, the US is most enthusiastic about what we call ‘smart power,’ as opposed to hard power (using force) or soft power (the traditional non-military stuff).

With the pick of Sung Kim, a Korea-born career diplomat, as his new ambassador to Seoul, U.S. President Barack Obama aims to handle the North Korean nuclear issue in a more professional way and step up public diplomacy with South Koreans...

Though every President since VOA’s creation in 1942 had appeared on air with VOA, Barack Obama had not; Obama preferred to reach the world via BBC World Service, Al-Arabaya, and others. Given the fact that the Administration has requested $767 million for international broadcasting, this omission was odd...

Americans are more likely to say they disapprove than approve of the U.S. military action in Libya. That represents a shift from three months ago, just after the mission began, when approval exceeded disapproval.

Ryan Roberts has taken up his duties as the cultural affairs officer in the Public Diplomacy Section of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)... responsible for strengthening ties between educational and cultural institutions in Taiwan and the United States, the AIT said.

During research on media and conflict in Afghanistan, Professor Price came across the interesting phenomenon of "Radio in a Box,"....RIAB is a technique used by the U.S. military, in part, for improving communication with the Afghan National Army.

If this sounds cynical, it is. The president’s speech, like much of the rhetoric surrounding the Afghan war, was a triumph of misdirection — the smoke-and-mirrors approach to public diplomacy...But the president’s speechwriters knew what they were doing.