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On Thursday, the 29th of December 2016, President Barack Obama announced the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats from the US as well as new economic sanctions targeting Russia's intelligence agencies. Both measures were part of the American response to Russia's alleged interfering in the 2016 Presidential elections. Russia's digital response was immediate. Within an hour... Continue Reading →
On the 23rd of July, Donald Trump accepted the Republican nomination for the Presidency of the United States. This week Hillary Clinton is likely to be chosen at the Democratic nominee for the Presidency. While it is true that national elections often draw attention from foreign countries and governments, no election is as closely monitored... Continue Reading →
Last week I published an analysis of the Twitter profile pictures of MFAs (ministries of foreign affairs). I argued that such images may be a form of Selfie Diplomacy as profile pictures enable social media users to construct an online identity and communicate that identity to their networks. This week I endeavored to analyze the... Continue Reading →
The majority of academic articles suggest that MFAs (ministries of foreign affairs) migrated to social media given a desire to converse and shape the opinions of online publics. However, recent studies also suggest that MFAs now use twitter to disseminate and gather information that may be of use to foreign policy makers and analysts. Indeed... Continue Reading →
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 →
This month, public diplomacy scholar Bruce Gregory published a new article in the Hague Journal of Diplomacy titled “Mapping Boundaries in Diplomacy's Public Dimension". In this article, Gregory explores the need to better define the boundaries between public diplomacy and other forms of diplomatic practice. Gregory makes an important point when asserting that “boundaries are... Continue Reading →
One of the major questions arising from the study of digital diplomacy deals with its practical application. In other words, what can we really learn from digital diplomacy? In the past, I have conducted several analyses which suggest that MFAs now routinely follow one another on twitter. As such, MFAs may be using social media... Continue Reading →
Over the past two weeks, I have published two posts dealing with Russia's digital diplomacy apparatus. While the first post focused solely on Russia's digital diplomacy reach, the second post compared between the social media reach of the US and Russia. However, both posts dealt primarily with the extent to which the US and Russia... Continue Reading →
Recent moths have seen an abundance of articles dealing with Russia's use of trolls in order to shape online public discourse regarding its foreign policy. According to one article, the Kremlin now manages a troll army used to promote Russia's stance on numerous issues (e.g., Ukraine, Syrian Civil War, Iran nuclear agreement) and discredit Russia's opponents.... Continue Reading →
Last week I published the results of an analysis that focused on ambassadors who are active on twitter in addition to their embassy. My results indicated that some ambassadors add to their embassy's digital diplomacy impact by publishing engaging content. This week I decided to return to my database in order to identify best practices for ambassadors on twitter.... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 