Master of Public Diplomacy

Follow your commitment to changing the world by developing the hands-on skills and analytical capabilities that will allow you to accelerate your career at the dynamic intersection of communication and global affairs.
It is more critical than ever to engage foreign and domestic publics in improving global communication and international security. Working with our faculty — with expertise across communication, journalism, foreign affairs, and public relations — you will learn to integrate the rich history of public diplomacy scholarship and long-standing practices of cultural programming and exchanges with multi-platform content creation and data insights to address complex challenges in contemporary global affairs.
Los Angeles, home to more than 100 foreign consulates, populations from all over the world, and creative industries with unprecedented international reach and influence, will be your canvas. Here, you will forge and pursue professional opportunities that can span government agencies in the national and supra-national foreign affairs system as well as non-state organizations with growing international consequence, including cities, companies and civil society.
Student, alumni and faculty work
Providing a forum
Students write and produce the world’s only magazine dedicated to the study and practice of public diplomacy.
Trading wings for academic pursuits and teaching opportunity
Lieutenant Jack Tribolet found his passion and purpose flying MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters for the U.S. Navy. This Fall, he began the next chapter of his career as a master’s student in the public diplomacy program.
360-degree connections
Students explore the opportunities virtual reality and immersive storytelling technology present for the future of public diplomacy.
Public diplomacy on the home front
Sumaya Hussaini studies the U.S. withdrawal from her home country of Afghanistan through the lens of academics and personal events.
Shredding perceptions
Leila Nazarian ’13 explores culture and identity through a fusion of skateboards with traditional Iranian art.

USC Center on Public Diplomacy
Now, more than ever, soft power and public diplomacy are critical to international relations, and USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy (CPD) is leading the way. CPD has long been recognized as the definitive go-to destination for research, analysis and professional education that furthers the study and practice of global public engagement and cultural relations. Public diplomacy students are an integral part of the center’s work and have opportunities to share their unique insights on the CPD Blog; to provide website, publicity and programming support; and to travel across the globe to conduct field research, just to name a few.