The new diplomacy: Following the discussions in seminars 5 to 7, in your opinion what is the most important aspect of the new diplomacy?

Well in my opinion, communication continues to be the most important aspect of diplomacy itself and consequently of “new diplomacy” as well. When analysing the world we live in nowadays, it is more than obvious that communication plays a big role not only nationally or regionally but internationally also. Like during the ancient times where states used communication as a form of negotiating with outsiders, communication still helps to solve out issues now, whether they are minor ones or major ones.
As we can now see, since the 9/11 and with all the conflicts around the world, Public Diplomacy became the key approach to deal with complex political situations. Public Diplomacy is defined as the strategic planning and execution of informational, cultural and educational programming by an advocate country to create a public opinion environment in a target country or countries that will enable target country political leaders to make decisions that are supportive of advocate country's foreign policy objectives. Meaning that, it involves the dynamic, planned use of cultural, educational and informational programming to affect a required result that is directly related to a government's foreign policy objectives. It thus goes well beyond the usual concepts of propaganda, in which a particular message is "injected" into the target country repeatedly, or public relations, in which branding, image, and advertising are the key concepts.
Traditional diplomacy or "government-to-government diplomacy" is focused essentially on efforts by officials of one country to persuade officials of another country to take particular actions. Public diplomacy, on the other hand, aims to shape the public opinion environment in a target country so that officials in that country can take actions the advocate country wants that will be accepted by the general public. This is particularly important in democracies and open societies, as well as in emerging democracies that are just beginning to taste freedom.
Therefore and to finalise, public diplomacy is neither propaganda nor public relations; but rather a particular strategy of communications that is goal-oriented, focused on results both short-term and long-term, and aimed at building a positive image of a country that will resonate in foreign public opinion. Most importantly, though, public diplomacy must support the objectives of traditional diplomacy or it will not survive as a line of work.