On July 17, 2025, a kiss cam at a Coldplay concert captured Astronomer CEO Andy Byron and HR chief Kristin Cabot embracing, prompting viral speculation of an affair. The lead singer’s on-stage comment, "Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy”, as well as the couple’s obvious alarm at being caught on camera,... 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- The Delusion at the Center of the A.I. Boom (Slate) The AI Disaster Scenario (The Atlantic) Is Globalization Over? (Project Syndicate) ChatGPT is making up fake Guardian articles. Here’s how we’re... Continue Reading →
The Great Digital Paradox
A paradox, by nature, is hard to grasp. It is a self-contradictory statement that at first seems false, or misleading. George Bernard Shaw’s most famous paradox is that ‘youth is wasted on the young’. This is seemingly contradictory for how can youth be wasted on those who are youthful? Shaw was of course referring to... Continue Reading →
Is Digital Diplomacy A form of Liquid Diplomacy?
In the year 2000, Zygmunt Bauman introduced his theory of Liquid Modernity. Bauman argues that modernity (i.e., 18th-20th centuries) was characterized by solid social institutions such as nation states, with clearly marked borders, social classes, characterized by limited mobility, and fixed identities built around nations, religion or ethnicity. Late modernity, or the 21st century, is... Continue Reading →
Why is Public Diplomacy Data Driven? A Response to Bean & Comor
Note: A version of this post first appeared on the USC Center on Public Diplomacy's website Introduction: Data Driven Public Diplomacy Last month, All Azimuth published an article by Bean and Comor titled "Data Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment". The article focuses on a report published by the US Advisory Commission on... Continue Reading →
Is Digital Diplomacy Really Domestic Diplomacy?
On the 30-31 of March of 2016, the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the University of Tel Aviv co-hosted Israel's first digital diplomacy conference. Alongside representatives from 20 foreign ministries, and leading academics from the fields of communication, international relations and diplomacy, we endeavored to further investigate the term "digital diplomacy". Over the next few weeks,... Continue Reading →