During the night of Friday the 15th of July, as Turkish soldiers attempted to stage a coup and oust the Turkish government, MFAs and diplomats were slow to comment on events. By the time official statements were issued by the State Department or Downing 10, social media networks were flooded with images and video of... Continue Reading →
Selfie Diplomacy- Analyzing Profile Pictures of World Leaders on Twitter
Last week I published an analysis of the Twitter profile pictures of MFAs (ministries of foreign affairs). I argued that such images may be a form of Selfie Diplomacy as profile pictures enable social media users to construct an online identity and communicate that identity to their networks. This week I endeavored to analyze the... Continue Reading →
How to contend with social media violence? Three challenges facing online diplomats
On June 9th 2016, Hillary Clinton's campaign shot back at Donald Trump. In a "tweet heard around the world", Clinton advised Trump to delete his Twitter account after the Billionaire attacked President Obama for endorsing Clinton. Many congratulated Clinton for this attack which was viewed as a testament to her determination and strength. Others saw... Continue Reading →
Selfie Diplomacy- Analysis of MFA Profile Pictures on Twitter
Last week, as news of Brexit broke, foreign ministries throughout the world took to social media to comment on the UK's decision to leave the EU. The German foreign ministry responded in two ways. First, it published a series of tweets from Chancellor Markel's press conference. Secondly, it changed its Twitter profile picture from an... Continue Reading →
Crisis Communication, Crisis Management & Digital Diplomacy
Crisis Communication as Crisis Management Crisis communication may be regarded as a field of inquiry that has benefited from numerous disciplines including international relations, diplomacy studies, psychology and communication studies. While each discipline focuses on a specific facet of crisis communication, all are in consensus that a crisis represents a major challenge to governments. This... Continue Reading →
On Social Media Information Dominance
Last week, the University of Southern California’s Centre on Pubic Diplomacy published a blog post by Mark Dillen titled "Battle of the Bots". In this post, Dillen cites a recent study which found that a large majority of Tweets originating from Russia were in fact written by automated Bots who may serve two purposes: cluttering... Continue Reading →
#AskNetanyahu- A Wasted Opportunity?
Scholars of digital diplomacy often criticize diplomats for not realizing the potential of social media to stimulate conversation with online publics. Indeed I have often advocated the use of Twitter, Facebook and other platforms for conversing with online publics that are opinionated, well informed and clamoring to be heard. One method of stimulating conversations between... Continue Reading →
Is NATO Sending Russia Mixed Signals on Social Media?
The majority of academic articles suggest that MFAs (ministries of foreign affairs) migrated to social media given a desire to converse and shape the opinions of online publics. However, recent studies also suggest that MFAs now use twitter to disseminate and gather information that may be of use to foreign policy makers and analysts. Indeed... Continue Reading →
Digital #Diaspora Diplomacy
Over the past three weeks, I have published posts concerning issues that arose during Israel’s 1st Digital Diplomacy Conference held earlier this year in Tel Aviv. This week’s post will be the last in this series and will deal the issue of using digital tools for diaspora diplomacy. New Patterns of Migration? The 21st century... Continue Reading →
The Rules of Engagement: Why MFAs Should Engage with Social Media Followers
Over the past two weeks I have published posts dealing with issues that arouse in Israel's 1st Digital Diplomacy Conference held earlier this year in Tel Aviv. This week's post offers insight into an additional issue that was debated by scholars and practitioners who attended the conference- diplomats' need to engage with social media followers.... Continue Reading →
