Media Diplomacy and Its Role in International Relations

The international order has faced fundamental changes since the beginning of the 1970s and following the fall of the Berlin Wall, change of communist governments in East Europe and collapse of the Soviet Union. This development was faced with considerable transformation in policies and procedures especially after 9/11. Under the new conditions, the mass media are considered the main vanguards of this movement. Today, the media are not merely reflecting the conducts of statesmen and states as they used to do in the past, but they play an effective role as active players in the political arena in decision making and even decision taking. In communities such as Iran where the media can persuade people in cultural fields, this diplomacy plays a significant role. To counter the broad media inroad of the enemies of the establishment, one of the rational and reasonable ways under the current atmosphere is building agenda or in other words active media diplomacy in cooperation with concerned institutions such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs… In this line, recognition of media diplomacy is imperative and enjoys considerable importance. By using descriptive-analytical method and definitions of diplomacy and public diplomacy, this paper intends to define media diplomacy and describe the role and function of media diplomacy, its tools and instruments and functions of media in the diplomatic arena and finally explain media diplomacy models.