Susan Sontag famously argued that photography was violent in nature. Photographs, according to Sontag, are violent as they fracture linear time. Each photograph is like an atom torn from linear time and forever frozen. The more photographs one takes, the more he or she rips linear time into fragments that can longer form a coherent... Continue Reading →
The Drone Wars: How Ukrainian Drones Are Reshaping War Coverage
In the early 1990s, scholars coined the term “The CNN Effect” referencing the impact that CNN had on American foreign policy. Scholars asserted that issues which rose to prominence in CNN were soon addressed by American policy makers. In this way CNN shaped the priorities of the White House and the State Department. CNN was... Continue Reading →
Is Digital Diplomacy Disruptive?
In a classic episode of the television show “Yes Prime Minister”, the Civil Servant Humphrey Appleby explains the logic of British diplomacy saying: “The Foreign Office is pro-Europe because it’s really anti-Europe. The civil service was united in its desire to make sure that the Common Market didn’t work. That’s why we went into it.... 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- White House will fight deepfakes with cryptographic verification (Cyber News) Russia using Elon Musk’s Starlink on Ukraine front line, says Kyiv (Financial Times) France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in... Continue Reading →
Practicing Diplomacy in the Attention Economy
Advertisers argue that attention is a finite resource. According to one study, individuals in the digital society are exposed to 8,000 advertisements a day. Given humans’ limited capacity for information processing, this barrage of advertisements is mostly ignored or forgotten within seconds. This means that if commercial brands are to compete successfully for the attention... Continue Reading →
The Twitter Prisoner Dilemma and the Future of Digital Diplomacy
Note: This post was originally published as an Op Ed at E-International Relations. It was co-authored by Ilan Manor, Corneliu Bjola and Bar Fishman. On November 23, 2023, the mayor of Paris announced that she was leaving X, the network formerly known as Twitter. Citing a rise in a disinformation, hate speech, racism and “vicious... Continue Reading →
A China-First Approach to Digital Policy Making
The digital world is presently marked by an exceptional contradiction. On the one hand, a digital and interconnected world necessitates various forms of global governance. Global agreements, institutions and frameworks are what enable the free flow of information, capital, and resources across borders. Moreover, global institutions are essential for crisis management in an interconnected world... Continue Reading →
Towards the Strategic Use of AI in Diplomacy
Whatever happened to the Metaverse? In June of 2022, Facebook officially changed its name to Meta reflecting a strategic decision to develop applications for the Metaverse. Hailed as the future incarnation of the internet, the Metaverse was described as a digital plane that would exist alongside the physical plane. Generated by advanced augmented and virtual... Continue Reading →
Is Humor an Effective Digital Diplomacy Strategy?
Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine has relied on its social media channels to obtain foreign policy goals. Through its use of Twitter, Facebook and Telegram Ukraine has crowdfunded humanitarian aid, raised funds for the purchasing of weapons, negotiated agreements with tech magnets such as Elon Musk, managed a cyber army and obtained... 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- Elon Musk vs Mark Zuckerberg fight will be streamed on X, according to Musk (CNN) Ukraine’s elite forces rely on technology to strike behind enemy lines (The Washington Post) U.S. company... Continue Reading →