ABSTRACT
Nations have long reached out to foreign audiences when such efforts advance a particular political or economic goal. Promotion of tourism and business enterprises through international expositions and world fairs are an example. With the rise of mass societies, however, governments also became interested in supplementing their traditional diplomatic efforts with more overt and continuous communications directed at residents in other countries. This outreach became feasible largely because of the growing importance of public opinion on government decision making, and inventive advances beginning with the telegraph in the mid-1800s and continuing through today’s modern satellite and internet technologies. This concept and practice is known as “public diplomacy”—a process which is to promote the national interest and the national security through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.1
