Sociologist Manuel Castells famously argued that digital societies relentlessly strive to annihilate time and space. Time is annihilated by the reversal of traditional roles and life experiences. Such is the case with a 30-year-old tech CEO that manages 50-year-old employees or in the view of retirement as a second adolescence, a period of experimentation, of... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Digital Diplomacy Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- Germany blames China for ‘serious’ cyber attack (The Financial Times) OpenAI’s Sam Altman is becoming one of the most powerful people on Earth. We should be very afraid (The Guardian) TikTok... Continue Reading →
The Old Man? Biden’s Digital Branding
A brand may be considered as a set of associations that are elicited by a product or company. For example, when people see the Apple company logo certain associations come to mind be it “slick design”, “innovation” or “expensive”. The logo of the clothing company H&M elicits a different set of associations including “young”, “affordable”... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- Israel escalates surveillance of Palestinians with facial recognition program in West Bank (The Independent)When Finnish researchers took on the Twitter trolls (Nature)North American companies rush to add robots as demand surges... Continue Reading →
Effective Government Communication During Covid19: What Governments Can Learn from Diplomats
A recent article in Nature, titled "Toward effective government communication strategies in the era of COVID-19", outlines communications policies that may help governments face the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors layout 9 guiding principles for "effective" government communication, including clarity, honesty and empathy. It is interesting that most of these principles are relevant to digital diplomacy,... Continue Reading →
In the age of Covid19, are Pharma companies diplomatic actors? A Twitter Analysis
Are tech giants diplomatic actors? This question has occupied scholars and commentators for several years. Some have argued that social media companies have obtained a form of digital statehood. Facebook, for instance, displays many trappings of a state including a citizenry, a currency and a diplomatic branch charged with managing relations with offline states. Others... Continue Reading →
Real Time Diplomacy: How Social Media Accelerates Diplomacy
In September of 1952, the world was shocked to learn that Israel and West Germany has signed an accord promising financial reparations to the Jewish victims of Nazi Germany. Until that month, Israel had vowed to never recognize, negotiate or interact with West Germany. The accord was made possible once German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, made... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- Why Is Beijing Micromanaging Its Technology Sector? (The Diplomat)Zoom reaches $85M settlement in ‘Zoombombing’ lawsuit (TechCrunch)Israel Aerospace Industries inks $237 million radar deal with German military (Times of Israel)Clubhouse Opens Its... Continue Reading →
How MFAs Celebrated International Women’s Day Online
Comment: This post about International Women’s Day was written from a man’s perspective. It is thus highly likely that the analysis in this post would benefit from the insight of women. I encourage women readers to comment on this post and offer their own analysis of the tweets analyzed below. This insight will be integrated... Continue Reading →
Monday’s #MustRead List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- State Department says Biden to ensure U.S. technology does not support China's 'malign activities' (Reuters)Beyond the digital cold war: Technology and the future of US-African engagement under Biden (Mail and Guardian)... Continue Reading →