[2][3] Rawnsley writes extensively on soft power, public and cultural diplomacy, propaganda, international broadcasting, media and democracy, and political cinema.

[4] Since 2023, he has been Professor of Public Diplomacy & Soft Power and Head of the School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Lincoln.

[6] In the early 1980s, when he was a teenager, Rawnsley began his career in public diplomacy, writing regularly for Shortwave Magazine.

[7] According to a BBC story, his father was a long distance truck driver who would regularly get up at 03:00 and 04:00 to start work.

He studied comparative politics and international relations in college and used shortwave radio receiver to follow world events.