2017 marks a decade since the advent of “digital diplomacy”. What began as an experiment by a select number of foreign ministries has transformed into routine practice for diplomats and embassies the world over.
To mark this occasion, I will be publishing a series of working papers. The goal of this series is to reflect on the evolution of “digital diplomacy” over the past ten years, to stimulate debate among practitioners and scholars and to explore case studies that demonstrate the advantages, and shortcoming, of utilizing digital tools in the conduct of diplomacy.
The first working paper, published this week, argues that scholars have yet to put forth a term that fully encapsulates the impact digital technologies have had on diplomacy. In essence, scholars have created a state of “fractured terminology“ as some terms are to narrow, such as Public Diplomacy 2.0, while others are too broad, such as digital diplomacy.
The working paper thus advocates the adoption of a new term- “the digitalization of diplomacy”. It is argued that this term more clearly articulates the influence of digital technologies on diplomacy. Moreover, this term can aid scholars map the existing research corpus and identify new avenues of research.
The working paper is available here-
Working Paper # 1- The Digitalization of Diplomacy: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Terminology
Keywords: Diplomacy, Digital Diplomacy, Digitalization, Public Diplomacy, Narratives
Other working papers will be published over the following months.
Readers of the blog are encouraged to use these working papers as source material provided they cite both the author and the blog.
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 