Public diplomacy deals with the ways the citizens of one country communicate their national personality and goals to other countries. It attempts to promote the national interests of one country "through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between" that country's citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad (USIA). Some argue that public diplomacy is really nothing more than propaganda, which it can be. But it can also be much more than that. Public diplomacy offers the people of one country a chance to affect negative images of their country around the world. Thus, public diplomacy attempts to influence public attitudes and, thereby, influence foreign policies by interjecting itself into the transnational flow of information and ideas (USIA).
In theory, public diplomacy differs from traditional diplomacy because it deals primarily with non-governmental individuals and organizations and presents the differing views of private individuals and organizations. But public diplomatic efforts are often coordinated with and reflect official government views (USIA). Historically, public diplomacy was controlled much more by governmental institutions than it is today. This is due largely to the advent of television and the World Wide Web. Today's global citizens can access information about international events from a variety of sources, often before national governments have the chance to clarify and cull that information to interject their own governmental message. This had made public diplomatic efforts at once more far reaching and more difficult.
Dean Edmund Gullion of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University first used the term "public diplomacy" in 1965 (USIA). But one could argue that public diplomacy has existed as long one country's citizens have been able to disseminate information about their national identity to other countries. For exampl...