Public Diplomacy

In international relations Public Diplomacy is as the conduct of foreign policy by engagement with foreign public and it focuses on the ways in which a country( or multi-lateral organization such as the United Nations) communicate with citizens of other societies.Television, film,music, sports, video games and other social/cultural activities are seen by public diplomacy advocates as enormously important avenues for otherwise diverse citizens to understand each other and integral to the international cultural understanding. Also it involves shaping the message that a country wishes to present abroad while analysing and understanding the ways that the message is interpreted by diverse societies and developing the tools of listening and conversation as well as the tools of persuasions. When U.S. astronauts landed on the moon for the first time, it was the voice of America, the radio service of USIA, that carried Neil Armstrong's words to millions here on earth.Public Diplomacy seeks to to promote the national interest of countries through understanding , informing and influencing foreign audiences.Central to Public Diplomacy is the transformation flow of information and ideas and it seeks to promote the national interest and the national security through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign public and broadening dialogue between its citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.

Public Diplomacy has been an important tool of the American foreign policy in influencing public opinion during the cold war with the former Soviet Union and since the attack of September11, 2001, the term has come back into limelight as the US government works to improve its reputation abroad, particularly in the Middle East and the the general Islamic World.
American government, aside from using the media like the voice of America, it also use other kinds of interactions with the public in other countries, like arranging students exchange programs, hosting seminars, and meeting with foreign business and academic leaders are all considered public diplomacy.The term Public Diplomacy originated as a euphemism for propaganda and the term had been hijacked to give propaganda cosmetic surgery and to facilitate a successful campaign in American bureaucratic politics but nothing new has been introduced to identify a new activity.

The Ministry of foreign affairs is a player and coordinator in these propaganda and it does this providing embassies with printed and other publicity materials for distribution, dealing with foreign correspondence in the capital, putting up direct propaganda by ways of multi-language version websites and even foreign ministers' personal blogs, and perhaps funding associated broadcasting organisations, like the British Council (Britain), whose audiences are, in the main, the next generation of decision-makers and opinion-leaders.
A former British ambassador in Washington and then permanent under-secretary in the foreign office, sir John Kerr, commented on his views in the house of commons while expressing his support of more public diplomacy said while embassies existed to talk privately to governments, they also exist to talk to people and populations at large, and that is probably the modern ambassador's principal function, to be on television, to be on the radio, to accept all platform...public diplomacy.