N. A. TSVETKOVA Candidate of Historical Sciences Saint Petersburg State University USA Keywords:, Iran, public diplomacy, "soft power", "digital diplomacy" Public diplomacy is one of the ways to influence the opinion and behavior of the population of most foreign countries. Among the tasks that American public diplomacy sets itself is to spread liberal ideas and support opposition sentiments in "undemocratic states." Before the advent of the Internet, US public diplomacy used such methods of influencing the politics of other countries as information propaganda, carried out through radio, film, television, through exhibition activities, etc., as well as providing educational opportunities for representatives of certain socio-professional groups of the population in order to form a loyal elite. The spread of the Internet has made it possible to influence foreign audiences by posting radio and television programs on this network, distributing literature about the United States in digital format, monitoring discussions in the blog space of foreign countries, creating personalized pages for members of the US government, and posting information via mobile phones.1 In the past five or six years, the United States has been particularly active in mobilizing protest moods in foreign countries through information technology. In a number of countries, the United States Government exercises special public diplomacy aimed at spreading pro-liberal and oppositional views, which in the future may lead to destabilization of the internal political situation. Iran is in the first place as an object of American public diplomacy. Washington's attention to this country is due not only to the fact, however, not definitively proven, of the implementation of the program for creating nuclear weapons in Iran, but also to its active activities to prevent the spread of American influence in the Persian Gulf, Central and Central Asian regions, as well as to the fact that the United States is acti ... Read more