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Winston Churchill famously stated that "Diplomacy is the art of telling someone to go to hell in a way that he actually looks forward to the journey". Yet diplomacy is also a subtle art. A diplomat must always decide on a message and the intensity of his message. High intensity messages are meant to be... Continue Reading →
Last week British consultancy firm Portland Communications published its yearly Soft Power Index. The Index soon garnered global media attention as France ranked first trouncing America which had to settle for third place. According to Jonathan McClory, author of the Soft Power 30 report, France advanced to the first place thanks, in part, to the... Continue Reading →
On April 5th 2017, the Australian Embassy in Israel and the Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group co-hosted a workshop on Digital Diplomacy. The workshop, which was attended by journalists, foreign diplomats and members of the Israeli MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), focused on three issues: utilizing digital tools for communicating with journalists, transitioning from digital... Continue Reading →
Note: This post originally appeared in Diplomat Magazine On 30 MARCH 2017, the Cyprus High Commission and Oxford Digital Diplomacy Research Group co-hosted London’s first Ambassador’s Forum on Digital Diplomacy. The Forum examined the varied ways in which digitalisation has impacted the function of ambassadors, be it in creating new challenges or fostering new opportunities. Notably,... Continue Reading →
Introduction- Narratives, Narratives, Narratives Several weeks ago I began watching a TV show depicting the lives of vampires in New York City. One of the greatest challenge facing these vampires is their lack of ability to gain acceptance from the human population. As the vampire leader summarized, “we lack a compelling narrative”. This week I... Continue Reading →
The US advisory commission on public diplomacy recently published a report titled "Can Public Diplomacy Survive the Internet: Bots, Echo-Chambers and Disinformation". As the title implies, this report takes the view that the threats of digitalization may soon outweigh its benefits. Actors employing digital technologies can now stifle internal opposition, fracture and manipulate the media ecologies... Continue Reading →
NOTE: This blog post originally appeared on the USC CPD Blog and was co-written with Professor Marcus Holmes In 2011, the U.S. State Department launched Virtual Embassy Iran, a web-based platform that aimed to promote American “values and culture” to Iranians. This embassy served as an example of how diplomats can use digital technologies to... Continue Reading →
Introduction The relationship between Israel and the European Union has been strained for some time. Indeed it is enough to review op-eds published in Israeli newspapers to sense the resentment Israelis hold towards Brussels. This is, in part, a result of three EU policies. The first is the EU’s ongoing critique against Israeli settlements and... Continue Reading →
Images & Diplomacy Images have traditionally played an important role in diplomacy. For instance, paintings were often used to bare testimony to diplomatic summits and conferences. Such is the case with Gerard ter Borch’s painting of the treaty of Munster. Additionally, political cartoons were used to narrate a nation’s foreign policy, frame its adversaries, manage... Continue Reading →
On February 2017, the editor of Foreign Policy magazine David Rothkopf published a podcast focusing on digital diplomacy. Titled “The Revolution will be Tweeted”, the podcast attempted to examine the manner in which digital technologies are changing the DNA of diplomacy. To do so, Rothkopf interviews several experts including Alec Ross, former innovation advisor to... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 