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Digital diplomacy: Internet-based public diplomacy activities or novel forms of public engagement?

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Abstract

Digital public diplomacy or digital diplomacy can be viewed as an Internet-based amplification of public diplomacy activities or as a novel set of practices enabled by participatory communication technologies. This tension is addressed through thematic content analysis of the Facebook posts and tweets of six actors. Results indicate that although the vast majority of the digital diplomacy could be classified according to Cull’s taxonomy of public diplomacy activities (The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616: 31–54, 2008), several posts and tweets could not be well placed into the taxonomy. An exploratory technological affordances approach locates four novel activities: engagement–promotion, routine lifestyle diplomacy, personal reaction/reflection diplomacy and Internet meme diplomacy. These are proposed as a standalone public diplomacy activity classification, social digital media diplomacy. The study also supplies evidence for differentiating digital diplomacy actors prior to analysis of activities: two US, two Swedish and two Indian actors are distinguished according to perceived stance toward participatory digital culture and ostensible emphases placed on cultural diplomacy and establishing conversation with publics. Implications from the perspectives of communication and international relations are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The Israel Defense Forces, for example, has received scholarly attention for its attempts to utilize a dedicated YouTube channel to control the narrative in the immediate aftermath of international crisis situations (e.g., Allan and Brown 2010; Mazumdar 2012).

  2. The 13 central and eastern European nations are Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.

  3. The Digital 2020: Global Digital Overview (Kemp 2020) report finds that 99% of global social media users access these media via mobile devices.

  4. Notable exceptions that do consider incisively technological affordances in the context of digital diplomacy include Manor (2019), Hayden (2018), Pamment (2016), and Hayden et al. (2013). These do not, however, concentrate on the ability of affordances to engender novel activities.

  5. One notable example was the widely acclaimed, nearly 7-year-long, citizen-authored Curators of Sweden Twitter Initiative (Curators of Sweden n.d.).

  6. At the time of writing ShareAmerica describes itself on Twitter thusly: “a global conversation about U.S. policy and culture, and is moderated by the U.S. DOS. Share your voice!” (ShareAmerica, n.d.). The U.S. DOS, by contrast, introduces its Twitter page with only the following: “Welcome to the official U.S. DOS Twitter account!” (Department of State, n.d.). Indian Diplomacy describes its mission on Twitter as “Engagement through #digitaldiplomacy” (Indian Diplomacy n.d.). In comparison, at the time of writing the description on the Twitter page of the Indian MEA, on whose behalf the official spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweets, states only: “Official Spokesperson, Ministry of External Affairs, India” (Vikas Swarup n.d.). The Sweden.se property provides the following description on Twitter: “Hej! Welcome to Sweden's official account on Twitter. | Managed by the sweden.se team and a moose at @Sweinstitute” (Sweden.se n.d.). The Swedish MFA, by contrast, previews its Twitter account as follows: “MFA Communications Department, Stockholm. Developing #DigitalDiplomacy,” followed by a list of high-level ministers (Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs n.d.).

  7. Probability sampling was used as each Facebook post and tweet was equally informative with regard to the research questions and all posts and tweets from the 3-month period were known (Krippendorff 2013). Systematic random sampling ensured that all time increments from the 3-month time period were represented (Krippendorff 2013). Given the anticipation that tweets/posts displaying listening opportunities are rare, statistical sampling theory was used to determine the tweet and post sample sizes. A cautious estimate was that 1 in 100 posts/tweets from each account would display listening opportunities. According to the table in Krippendorff (2013), to achieve 95% certainty that at least 1 in 100 posts/tweets would contain listening opportunities, a sample of 299 for each account was needed (123).

  8. A tweet/post could contain more than one type of activity, but only one subcategory was coded for each unit to facilitate comparison. When two subcategories were present, the most prominent was selected. When the post/tweet introduced a video or linked to a separate website or PDF, only the posted text that introduced the video or linked content was coded. When the unit was a shared Facebook post, the new text was coded instead of the shared content. In attachment previews or thumbnails, only the headlines and titles were coded. Questions superimposed on embedded multimedia images were also coded.

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  1. California State University, San Bernardino, 5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA, 92407, USA

    B. Theo Mazumdar

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  1. B. Theo Mazumdar
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Correspondence to B. Theo Mazumdar.

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Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 2.

Table 2 Detailed public diplomacy activity by type of US property
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Appendix 2

See Table 3.

Table 3 Detailed public diplomacy activity by type of Swedish property
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Appendix 3

See Table 4.

Table 4 Detailed public diplomacy activity by type of Indian property
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Appendix 4

See Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4.

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Mazumdar, B.T. Digital diplomacy: Internet-based public diplomacy activities or novel forms of public engagement?. Place Brand Public Dipl 20, 24–43 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41254-021-00208-4

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