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While digital diplomacy has become the "talk about town" in the corridors of ministries of foreign affairs, news organizations and academic departments, scholars and practitioners have yet to find an agreed upon definition of digital diplomacy. Upon searching for such a definition, I learned that some scholars view digital diplomacy as a force amplifier of... Continue Reading →
On July 17th, Israel's Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer held a Q&A session on twitter aimed at answering questions relating to the current outbreak of violence between Israel and Hamas which now includes a ground offensive by the Israeli Army into the Gaza strip named Operation Protective Edge. Twitter followers were asked to... Continue Reading →
I have often wondered if a foreign ministry's decision to follow another foreign ministry on twitter or Facebook is regarded as a political decision. In attempt to answer this question, I decided to search for "follow-mies", countries that are enemies in the go-political world but that follow one another on twitter. This was made possible... Continue Reading →
For some years now, foreign ministries throughout the world have been experimenting with virtual embassies. In 2007, Sweden established a virtual embassy in the popular virtual world Second Life. Meant to serve as a cultural embassy, visitors could learn about Swedish culture, view Swedish art and even participate in seminars hosted by the virtual embassy.... Continue Reading →
Last week I attempted to visualize world embassies to the United Nations in New York as a social network. Using a sample consisting of the twitter accounts of 56 embassies to the UN, my analysis explored which embassies are the most popular in this network, which embassies are most connected to other embassies and which... Continue Reading →
Several weeks ago I wrote a blog post in which I attempted to illustrate and analyze the social network of the world's foreign ministries. This analysis was the result of a series of interviews I have been conducting with foreign policy practitioners at the Israeli foreign ministry who told me that they use social media... Continue Reading →
Like most nations and international organizations, the European Union has eagerly adopted social media over the past two years. And like most foreign ministries, the E.U.'s digital diplomacy apparatus amounts to a social media empire consisting of countless twitter channels and Facebook profiles. On twitter, one can choose to follow the E.U.'s Foreign Policy Service,... Continue Reading →
Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to further my study of Israel's Digital Diplomacy by interviewing Gal Rudich, Head of New Media Section at the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Gal spoke to me about the Israeli digital diplomacy model, how the ministry coordinates digital diplomacy messages at the ministry and embassy level, how the ministry... Continue Reading →
Two months ago I concluded a three week exploratory study of Digital Diplomacy channels operated by foreign ministries. The study aimed to explore differences between official twitter channels and Facebook profiles and answer the age old question- are different messages used in different mediums? While three weeks are a relatively short period in the physical... Continue Reading →
Israel has one of the most active Digital Diplomacy units in the world. In a recent survey I conducted of 86 countries spanning the globe, Israel's MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) was found to be the tenth most active MFA on twitter. It was also the fifth most popular MFA in the sample. Yoram... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 