The U.S. Public Diplomacy In The E-diplomacy Era

The dynamics of diplomacy are constantly changing and the origin of anextraordinary amount of that change can be traced to what has been coined the“Information Technology Revolution”. It is a revolution which is characterized byinternet as profound and significant as Von Neumann’s invention of the Computer andmay result in social and political consequences of comparable magnitude. As westride into the21century. Since the inception of the use of Information andCommunication Technology such as web2.0and social networks，the U.S. publicdiplomacy has begun to make some adjustment to cope with these changes. One ofthe most significant changes of U.S. public diplomacy is the establishment of theOffice of eDiplomacy in the state department.The main purpose of this paper is to study the development of the U.S. publicdiplomacy in this “E-diplomacy Era”. It begins with a brief introduction to theE-diplomacy Era. Next it illustrates the evolution of the U.S. public diplomacy. Thefollowing two parts are the core of this paper. The developments of the U.S. publicdiplomacy in the new century are given to analyze the challenges that the U.S. publicdiplomacy encounters.Finally the paper finds that the Information and Communication Technology hasindeed impacted the U.S. diplomacy to a considerable degree. It has enhanced thereach and effectiveness of public diplomacy initiatives and sharpened diplomaticaccountability. Moreover it limits governmental leadership to a necessary minimumand encourages the participation of non-state actors.