Abstract

As evident by this handbook, public diplomacy is rapidly becoming a field of study in its own right. However, the more the field grows, the more unwieldy it appears to become. How does one sort through the mushrooming works on public diplomacy that range from propaganda to nation-building to cultural programs? In an effort to answer this question, I began exploring the communication assumptions and dynamics underlying how political entities try to communicate with international publics.1 What emerged in the array of public diplomacy initiatives were two underlying perspectives of communication. One perspective tends to view communication as a linear process of transferring information often with the goal of persuasion or control. The other perspective sees communication as a social process of building relationships and fostering harmony. Various dimensions of these two parallel views of communication have been vigorously explored in intercultural communication scholarship.2