In international relations, public diplomacy broadly speaking, is any of the various government-sponsored efforts aimed at communicating directly with foreign publics to establish a dialogue designed to inform and influence with the aim of building support for the state's strategic objectives. These also include propaganda. As the international order has changed over the twentieth century, so has the practice of public diplomacy. Its practitioners use a variety of instruments and methods ranging from personal contact and media interviews to the internet and educational exchanges.
Martin Kaplan is an American professor and former studio executive and writer. He teaches at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism and is the founding director of the Norman Lear Center for the study of the impact of entertainment on society. His career has also spanned government and politics, the entertainment industry and journalism.
The Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) at the University of Southern California promotes interdisciplinary research in communications between the USC School of Cinematic Arts, Viterbi School of Engineering, and the separate USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, also funded by Walter Annenberg.
Willow Bay is an American television journalist, editor, author, and former model. In 2017, she became dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism having earlier served as director of USC Annenberg School of Journalism. She was previously a senior editor for the Huffington Post and a special correspondent for Bloomberg Television.
George Gerbner was a professor of communication and the founder of cultivation theory. He taught at Temple University, Villanova University, and the University of Pennsylvania.
The University of Southern California School of International Relations (SIR) is the third-oldest school of international relations in the world. A subdivision within the USC Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences, the school is known for teaching, and hiring faculty who concentrate in a variety of worldviews.
S. Mark Young is a professor and writer focused on management accounting and control, particularly in relation to the entertainment industry. He was born in Sydney, Australia and attended Homebush Primary and High Schools. After he and his family moved to the United States, he graduated from Thomas Worthington High School. He holds an A.B. degree in Economics from Oberlin College, a Master's of Accounting degree from The Ohio State University, and holds a Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Pittsburgh.
The Annenberg School for Communication is the communication school at the University of Pennsylvania. The school was established in 1958 by Wharton School alum Walter Annenberg as the Annenberg School of Communications. The name was changed to its current title in 1990.
Nicholas J. Cull is a historian and professor in the Master's in Public Diplomacy program at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. He was the founding director of this program and ran it from 2005 to 2019.
Murray Fromson was a CBS correspondent and professor emeritus at University of Southern California's School of Journalism, and Center on Public Diplomacy. He was educated in the Los Angeles Unified School District, including Belmont High School in Downtown Los Angeles.
Ernest James Wilson III is an American scholar. Wilson was the Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication, and Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, California from 2007 to 2017. He stepped down as dean in June 2017 and was succeeded by Willow Bay. Dr. Wilson is the founder of USC Annenberg's Center for Third Space Thinking, which is devoted to research, teaching and executive education on soft skills in the digital age. Through the center, Dr. Wilson's most recent research focuses on critical workforce competencies and talent and skills development in the 21st century. As a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, he currently is writing a book on utilizing competencies via the framework of Third Space Thinking.
Josh Kun is an American author, academic and music critic. Kun is Professor of Communication and Journalism and chair in Cross-Cultural Communication in the Annenberg School at the University of Southern California. He also holds a joint appointment at USC's Department of American Studies and Ethnicity. He is the director of USC Annenberg's School of Communication, director of the Popular Music Project at USC Annenberg's the Norman Lear Center and co-editor of the book series Refiguring American Music for Duke University Press.
Neon Tommy was the online news publication sponsored by the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. It was active from 2009 to 2015.
Wendy W. Luers is the founder and president of The Foundation for a Civil Society, a democratization and non-profit organization.
The Center for Global Communication Studies (CGCS) is a research center located within the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. CGCS serves as a research hub for students and scholars worldwide studying comparative communication studies, media law, and media policy. The center also provides consulting and advisory assistance to academic centers, non-governmental organizations, regulators, lawyers, and governments throughout the world.
Geoffrey Cowan is an American lawyer, professor, author, and non-profit executive. He is a University Professor at the University of Southern California, where he holds the Annenberg Family Chair in Communication Leadership and directs the Annenberg School's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy. In 2010, Cowan was named president of The Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands, a position he held until July 2016. In this role, Cowan was commissioned with the task of turning the 200-acre estate of Ambassador Walter Annenberg and his wife Leonore into "a venue for important retreats for top government officials and leaders in the fields of law, education, philanthropy, the arts, culture, science and medicine." Since Sunnylands reopened in 2012, Cowan has helped to arrange a series of meetings and retreats there. In 2013–14, President Barack Obama convened bilateral meetings at Sunnylands with President Xi Jinping of China and with King Abdullah II of Jordan. In 2016, President Obama hosted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) at the site, where they released the Sunnylands Declaration. Prior to his time at Sunnylands, Cowan was appointed by President Bill Clinton as Director of Voice of America.
Peter Monge is professor of communication in the Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism and professor of management and organization in the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California. Monge studies communication and knowledge networks, ecological theories, and organizational change processes.
Jeremy F. Curtin is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service of the United States with the rank of Career Minister. Curtin has held a number of positions in the U.S. Information Agency, the National Security Council, and the U.S. State Department. From 2007 to 2009, he served as the State Department's Coordinator for International Information Programs. He has served the United States in various diplomatic posts overseas - namely, South Korea, Finland and Poland.
Cynthia "Cinny" Clare Kennard is an American business and nonprofit executive, author and former broadcast journalist. She is the executive director of The Annenberg Foundation, based in Los Angeles, and Annenberg PetSpace.
Gary David Rawnsley is a British political scientist whose research is located at the intersection of international relations and international communication. Rawnsley writes extensively on soft power, public and cultural diplomacy, propaganda, international broadcasting, media and democracy, and political cinema. He is the author/editor of 13 scholarly books, and the book review editor of Journal of International Communication and International Journal of Taiwan Studies. Since 2023, he has been Professor of Public Diplomacy & Soft Power and Head of the School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Lincoln. From 2020 to 2022, Rawnsley was a professor of public diplomacy at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS) of this university.
