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 →
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 →
#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 →
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 →
Digital Diplomacy in the Age of Algorithms
Last week I published the first in a series of posts dealing with issues that arose in the recent Digital Diplomacy Conference held in Tel Aviv. While last week I blogged about digital diplomacy that is targeted at domestic populations, this week's post will deal with another issue that arouse at the conference- diplomacy in... 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 →
How Russia Practices Digital Diplomacy- Interview with Press Attaché at Russian Embassy In London
Over the past year, much has been written about Russian digital diplomacy. While some have argued that Russia uses social media for propaganda, analysis has shown that the Russian MFA is one of the most active and dominant foreign ministries on twitter. Moreover, the Russian MFA is one of the most central ministries among the... Continue Reading →
How the UK & US Are Fighting ISIS Online
Much has been written over the past year about ISIS' use of social media to recruit young Muslims to its ranks. The use of the internet, and social media, in order to recruit members to extremist groups is by no means a new occurrence. A 2008 estimate asserted that the internet was responsible for 80%... Continue Reading →
A Model for Digital Diplomacy Training
In the early days of digital diplomacy nations placed an emphasis on developing an online presence with little regard to what that presence achieved or enabled. That is no longer the case. Nowadays digital diplomacy is used in all core functions of diplomacy. At the ministry level, social media is used to promote a national... Continue Reading →
The State of Palestinian Digital Diplomacy
Throughout my exploration of digital diplomacy, I have found time and again that smaller nations can use social media in order to leverage their diplomatic standing. I refer to this phenomenon as social media mobility. This week I was interested in examining if Palestine is using social media to increase its visibility, promote its foreign... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 