The U.S. government is using social media technologies to reach out to the world, to start a dialogue, to influence foreign policy and to change the perception of the United Stated with the rest of the world.

With that the Department of State has set up Project Dipnote and created a YouTube Channel, a Blog, a Flickr photo album, a Twitter account, an account iTunes for podcast, RSS feeds and just recently launched a Facebook page.

Secretary of State Condi Rice has called the Internet “…possibly one of the greatest tools for democratization and individual freedom that we’ve ever seen.” People in countries such Cuba and Iran and others have used blogs, images and video to get their message out about restricitions to their personal freedoms and other oppressions placed on them.

“It may not be quite clear yet as to what impact social media will have exactly on foreign policymaking. What is evident, though, is that foreign policy does not operate in a vacuum, and it must incorporate or respond to changes in communications. We are interested in your thoughts on how social media — how these changes in communication — will affect foreign policymaking in the years ahead”, wrote Heath Kern Gibson is the Editor-in-Chief of DipNote.