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Now is the age of nostalgia. Throughout the world we are witnessing an insatiable longing for the past. In the post-Brexit haze, the UK craves the influence and power of its defunct empire; in Turkey neo-Ottoman sentiments have transformed a President into a Sultan; In America, many still hope to Make America Great Again while... Continue Reading →
In the early days of digital diplomacy research, scholars were enamored by “engagement metrics”. Given that digital diplomacy was closely associated with public diplomacy, and seeing as how public diplomacy mandated that diplomats “engage” with foreign populations, counting likes, Re-Tweets and comments seemed fruitful. By measuring “engagement metrics” one could finally measure the outcome of... Continue Reading →
Note: This post was co-authored by Bar Fishman and Ilan Manor and was originally published on the USC CPD Blog. In recent years, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and now rebranded X, has lost millions of users. This process began following X’s acquisition by tech mogul Elon Musk during 2022. Musk’s contentious policies, which... Continue Reading →
The rapid and consecutive launch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools over the past two years has generated a global frenzy. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini have already amassed hundreds of millions of users and have been hailed as ushering in a new technological era marked by limitless data-driven insight and creativity. Global... Continue Reading →
On July 21st, Elon Musk shared a tweet featuring an AI-generated fashion show of world leaders. The AI fashion show soon went viral, given the satirical depiction of world leaders and due to its realistic appearance. Although the fashion show was clearly generated by AI, the video did demonstrate the extent to which this technology... Continue Reading →
The 'middle-ground' is as important to diplomacy as it is to society. It is in the middle-ground where diplomats can meet and resolve differences. It is in the middle-ground where different citizens, with different opinions, can meet to discuss issues of shared concern. It is therefore in the middle-ground where action may be initiated. In... Continue Reading →
Acknowledgement: This blog post is part of a paper that I presented at a recent workshop on humor and global politics at the University of Sheffield. I am thankful to all participants and to the organizer, Dr. Dmitry Chernobrov. Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine has used social media to rally online and... Continue Reading →
Every few years, a new word seems to dominate societal discourses. In recent years the dominant word was “narrative”. New pundits depicted politics as a clash of narratives, diplomacy was understood as the practice of constructing appealing narratives, fake news and conspiracy theories were viewed as disruptive narratives that undermine trust in national institutions while... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 