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Digital Public Diplomacy

Business as Usual or a Paradigm Shift?
Corneliu Bjola, Jennifer A. Cassidy, and Ilan Manor

Introduction
Digital platforms have promised to revolutionize the practice of public diplomacy (PD) by
making it possible for ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) and embassies to reach and engage with
foreign publics directly, in large numbers, in real time, and with greater impact. Intriguingly, but
not entirely unpredictable, the features that have enabled the “digital turn” in PD, have also gen-
erated a number of challenges for its practice. The access costs to the public space have been
dramatically decreased by the arrival of digital platforms to the extent that MFAs need now to
compete for the public’s attention with a wide range of state and non-state actors, not all of
them friendly. Digital tools facilitate engagement between MFAs and embassies and foreign pub-
lics, but, at the same time, their adoption and use without a strategic compass runs the risk of
digital PD becoming decoupled from foreign policy. Digital platforms also create conditions for
more rigorous assessment of the online impact of PD strategies, but that may prove misleading
for understanding the broader implications and levels of success of PD.
As the Internet population steadily approaches the 4 billion people mark1 and the influence of
digital power houses such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter keeps expanding, we should begin
to question, among an array of tangential themes: How do MFAs, and under what contextual
factors, now form their PD goals and objectives? What tactics and strategies do they use to project
and achieve their desired aims? And by what mechanisms do they seek to capture or, at the very
least, attempt to quantify the success or achievement of PD goals and objectives in the online
sphere? Building on these questions, the chapter will argue that digital technologies have the
potential to reframe the conduct of PD in an exciting new direction, which is defined less by
elusive quests for building and asserting “soft power” and more by creating spaces for meaningful
engagement and relationship building. To this end, the chapter will pursue three lines of inquiry
regarding the aims, methods, and results of digital PD: what relationships of influence mean in
the digital context, why the balance between digital tactics and strategy needs to be carefully
considered, and what type of outcomes digital PD can pursue in the short and long term.

Relationships of Influence
As we dive into our discussion on the changing nature of PD, while also seeking to make
informed predictions on its practice and evolving relationships of influence during the decade

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and beyond, three particular concepts appear to hold substantial analytical value for making sense of
the changing “dynamics” of government–society relations and the potential ramifications of this
transformation for the MFA institution itself. The first concept points to the changing configuration
of the new public sphere as a space for discussion and engagement in the online sphere, the second
highlights the importance of institutional and professional adaptation of MFAs to the new digital
landscape, and the third concept speaks to the issue of collaboration as a critical method of engage-
ment with global publics, in addition to traditional monologic and dialogic layers of PD.
Although written over a decade ago, when digital tools of PD purposes where few and far
between, and when the majority of MFAs were openly apprehensive of evolving their historic
communicative practices—Manuel Castells’s concept of the new public sphere that is, the space
of communication of ideas and projects that “emerges from the processes of the formation of
a global civil society and a global network state,”2 provides a worthy lens in which to view these
changing relationship dynamics ushered in by the digital age. While Castells merely hypothesized
about how the gradual shift of twenty-first-century networks of communication from one-to-
many to many-to-many configurations might define the new public sphere, the arrival of social
media platforms has seen the concept taking shape in the most visible form possible.
Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony in front of the US House of Representatives in April 2018 was
watched and commented on live by millions of people, the #MeToo hashtag made waves across
the globe in October 2017 as a rallying cry against sexual harassment, and the picture of the
3-year-old Alan Kurdi on the Turkish beach in September 2015 quickly spread online around
the world, prompting changes in the refugee policy of European governments. At the same time,
the rise of “fake news” and “post-truth” politics that digital technologies have been accused of
fostering seems to suggest that Castells’s hope for the new public sphere to gradually induce
a positive environment for dialogue, sharing meaning, and understanding might have been too
optimistic. However, his observation that PD now intervenes in the global space equivalent to
what has been traditionally conceived as the public sphere in the national system3 carries analyt-
ical currency and must inform considerations of how PD should be conducted in the context of
the new public sphere.
The second concept of adaptation addresses squarely the issue of how MFAs and embassies
need to adapt themselves to the digital context of the new public sphere in order to stay relevant.
Creating sustainable working environments where adaptable structures can develop and maintain
relationships with nongovernmental actors and networks outside government is increasingly turn-
ing into an indispensable condition for retaining and amplifying influence as a digital public dip-
lomat. From a professional perspective, MFAs also need to review the spectrum of skills that
public diplomats require in order to be successful in their work in the digital age. Data analytics,
visual reasoning, and adaptive thinking would be particularly valuable for reading patterns of
online behavior, projecting messages effectively and reacting successfully to online events in real
time. However, as Pelling notes, the crux and the challenge for MFAs, where access to influence
is key, particularly in terms of achieving their PD goals, is that their historic institutional makeup
is “mainly designed to maintain structures and systems, rather than to allow for change and adap-
tation through improvisation and learning by doing.”4 On top of this, digital tools inform and
shape the norms of communication, engagement, and decision making on the basis of which dip-
lomats conduct their work. Transparency, decentralization, informality, interactivity, and real-
time management are critical norms for ensuring the effectiveness of digital activity, but they
may not sit well with MFAs’ institutionally entrenched preferences for confidentiality, hierarchy,
instrumentality, and top-down decision making.5 Therefore, as one looks to the future of PD,
there is a pressing need to reframe, reconstruct, and drive home the narrative that adaption,
whether difficult or not, historic or modern, is now central to the effective workings of an MFA,
and in particular, the PD goals they seek to achieve.

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The third concept of collaboration speaks to the horizontal dimension of the process of building
relationships of influence in the digital context. As Melissen points out, the idea of PD serving mainly
as a one-way information flow is no longer credible, as dialogue and two-way communication is essen-
tial to achieving meaningful results.6 Cowan and Arsenault go a step further and argue that besides
monologic and dialogic communication, a third layer of PD, collaboration, defined as initiatives in
which people work together on a joint venture or project, provides an equally critical and, in certain
cases, more effective approach to engaging with foreign publics.7 Tying this back to Castells’s new
public sphere, one can structure collaboration around the idea of creation of relationships with like-
minded MFAs, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), academics, or
individuals of prominence. The Stockholm Initiative for Digital Diplomacy8 or The Hague Digital
Diplomacy Camp9 are two illustrations, for instance, of how MFAs can encourage alliances between
actors capable not only of responding to global challenges, but also of anticipating and embracing them
using digital tools and technologies. In contrast to monologic and dialogic layers of PD, collaboration is
less driven by an instrumental logic of maximization of predefined interests. As Pelling notes, “doing is
the message” in this case, as doing something in new ways can become the message in itself, thus initiat-
ing change and enabling further relationship building.10

Tactics vs. Strategy

The possibility of engaging millions of people, in real time, and at minimal costs, has driven
MFAs, embassies, and diplomats to embrace digital tools in their PD activities with minimal
reservations, but most of these efforts have focused on the tactical, short-term benefits of digital
engagement rather than on the more strategic dimension of foreign policy. Digital tactics may be
understood as diplomats’ attempts to wield digital tools in a trial-and-error fashion, so that they
can reach large online audiences, author online content that may go viral, and amass a sizable
online following. Digital strategies, on the other hand, aim to achieve a predefined and measur-
able goal. The goal determines the target audience, while the target audience determines the plat-
form to be used (i.e., social media, messaging application, augmented reality).11 The distinction
between digital tactics and strategy builds on prior debates in the literature12 about whether PD
mainly serves as an advocacy (the interest-driven approach) vs. a relationship-building tool (the
value-driven approach). At the same time, it adds a novel angle to the debate by exploring what
influence means in the digital context (tactics) and how it can be converted into offline influence
(strategy).
Three questions are particularly important to explore in order to disentangle the relationship
between digital tactics and strategy. First, what exactly is the nature of the gap between digital
tactics and strategy? There is growing empirical evidence, for instance, showing that despite the
promise of social media to facilitate a two-way interaction between diplomats and their online
audiences, embassies and MFAs still prefer the one-way, broadcast mode of communication.
Strauss et al. found, for instance, little use of interactive, personalized, and networking styles of
communication by Western embassies in countries from the Gulf Cooperation Council.13 Bjola
and Jiang also demonstrated that digital tools were mainly used by the European Union (EU)
Delegation and the US and Japan embassies in China as an instrument of information dissemin-
ation rather than for engaging the audience in a two-way dialogue,14 a finding also confirmed by
Collins and Bekenova’s study of the use of digital platforms by European embassies in
Kazakhstan,15 and Manor’s similar examination of the digital activities of the Israeli, Polish, Nor-
wegian, and Finish MFAs.16 On a more optimistic note, Zhang found that the tactical use of
digital tools might help reveal and even generate opportunities for strategic engagement in sup-
port of long-term foreign policy goals.17 Interestingly, Pamment associated the impact of digital
advocacy campaigns to the disciplining role they would perform on stakeholders, which might be

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linked to theories of surveillance and bio-politics.18 In sum, digital tactics of PD are yet to move
beyond one-way communication, but when they do, the results may only randomly align them-
selves with predefined strategic goals.
Second, is the gap between digital tactics and strategy worth bridging? From a practical
perspective, the transition from digital tactics to digital strategies can help MFAs or embas-
sies demonstrate “value for money” by better tailoring their PD activities to specific foreign
policy priorities. For example, if the strategic objective of an embassy is to improve educa-
tional exchanges with students from the host country, the online profile of the intended
audience first need to be pieced together; a set of narratives about the educational system
in the home country must then be designed and tailored to the digital profile of the
intended audience; the return on investment value of alternative digital strategies needs to
be compared and assessed; and finally, an action plan has to be developed for implementing
and monitoring the online and offline impact of the agreed digital strategy. On the critical
side, the idea of using digital tools in a strictly instrumental fashion may run against cultur-
ally ingrained conceptions of relationship-oriented communication19 and undermine the
intersubjective criteria of credibility20 of the online message in front of the intended audi-
ence. One should also bear in mind that the network configuration of digital platforms
makes it much more difficult for embassies and MFAs to stay in control of the message and
hence the possibility of digital tactics deviating from predefined strategic goals is reasonably
plausible, especially in the context of the rise of post-truth politics. In short, there is legit-
imate interest for MFAs to “go strategic” in their digital PD efforts, but one should be
mindful of the obstacles ahead and of the fact that a strategic approach comes with inbuilt
instrumental biases that may prove counterproductive for PD long-term objectives.
Third, how to bridge the gap between digital tactics and strategy? Transitioning from digi-
tal tactics to digital strategies rests on four elements. The first is greater collaboration between
MFAs and non-state actors. Joint online campaigns with non-state actors can increase the
reach of an MFA, make it more competitive in relation to other actors and enable it to
reach specific audience groups. For instance, through non-state actors, MFAs can interact
with and mobilize audiences that are passionate about a specific policy area (e.g., drilling in
the Arctic, Internet freedom).21 Second, the type, size, and reach of the “network of net-
works” that MFAs (or embassies) build and manage online can make a significant difference
for their ability to amplify and protect their digital influence. The more diverse, the larger,
and the more connected these networks are (e.g., policy makers, journalists, academics, diplo-
mats, and diaspora leaders), the stronger their ability to extend themselves in multiple config-
urations and, by extension, the greater the digital influence of the MFA or embassy. Third,
big data analytics creates a good opportunity for MFAs and embassies to develop a better
understanding of the target audiences and the local conditions in which they operate as long
as they have the right tools for reading patterns of online behavior, tailoring messages effect-
ively, and reacting successfully to online events in real time.22 Fourth, digital strategies
require a link between the MFA’s “front-end” activities and its “back-end” architecture. The
“front end” is comprised of those individuals authoring and disseminating online messages.
The “back end” is comprised of those designing, monitoring, and evaluating the efficacy of
public diplomacy. The link between the front and the back end of digital PD should be
mediated by “digital champions” through dedicated channels and drawing on knowledge
hubs of best practices including data-driven simulation, scenario building, and social network
analysis. In sum, an adaptive institutional setting using big data analytics and flexible network
configurations should be able to ensure that digital tactics stay as close as possible to pre-
defined PD strategic goals.

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Impact and Evaluation

The question of impact evaluation constitutes for many scholars and practitioners the “Achilles’
heel” of PD,23 a goal that becomes the more elusive the closer one gets to it. It is this thorny
problem that the arrival of digital platforms has promised to correct. Online platforms such as
Facebook and Twitter now enable diplomats to use quantitative measurements in order to assess
and demonstrate their impact. Numbers of social media followers are used to illustrate an MFA’s
potential ability to shape online discussions, levels of engagement with social media content attest
to an MFA’s ability to alter the opinions of online publics, whereas Likes and retweets are seen
as direct forms of measurement of one’s reach and influence online. Notably, these evaluation
parameters are used to assess both short- and long-term impact. The reach of a tweet is, for
instance, a short-term output, while the annual growth in social media followers is a long-term
measurement.
However, scholars and practitioners have now realized that social media engagement param-
eters are flawed, at best, or serve as vanity metrics at worst.24 Getting digital diplomacy “right
requires careful conceptual reflection of what impact means in the digital context, how to capture
it, and how best to make use of it.”25 For example, the overall number of one’s online following
says little about his/her ability to shape public discourse in another country as he/she may fail to
attract opinion makers, journalists, parliamentarians, and civil society leaders. Similarly, retweeting
an MFA’s message says little about how that tweet was received as followers may attach negative
sentiments to the retweet. In their critique of data-driven PD, Bean and Comor assert that digital
technologies have actually obscured the ability to assess PD activities due to a technological fetish
that views quantitative metrics as proof of influence.26
It thus becomes evident that engagement metrics offer only limited insight for assessing the
impact of PD activities, and that a dual framework that combines quantitative and qualitative
measurements is more suitable for the task. Drawing on Sevin, we suggest that PD can be
viewed as a compound practice that consists of three core activities.27 The first PD activity
focuses on shaping the public opinion of foreign populations. This is achieved by using soft power to
increase the attractiveness of a country among a foreign population. Influencing public opinion,
however, is but a stepping-stone towards influencing a foreign government. As such, opinion
change is the short-term goal while policy change is the long-term goal.28 Digital tools such as
big data analysis can enable one to measure changes in public opinion.
For instance, big data analysis may be used to examine the words most commonly associated
online with another country. Sentiment analysis may be used to examine if such associations are
negative or positive and, in turn, if the country is viewed as attractive or unattractive. For
instance, such an analysis may reveal that among French Twitter users, the word “America” is
commonly associated with negative terms, such as “populism” and “gun violence,” or with posi-
tive terms, such as “democracy” and “civil rights.” Based on this quantitative and qualitative ana-
lysis, the US Embassy in France may launch a social media campaign meant to alter public
perception of America by highlighting positive policies, such as foreign aid, peacekeeping mis-
sions, or development projects, as well as joint US and French diplomatic initiatives. At the end
of the campaign, the embassy can once again use big data and sentiment analysis to analyze
whether the terms associated with “America” have changed and become more positive.
Notably, evaluating possible changes in a foreign government’s attitude towards another coun-
try may be achieved by analyzing the sentiment of news articles. This is because traditional
media’s coverage of world events can influence a government’s stance towards foreign countries
and leaders.29 Thus, the American Embassy in Paris may use big data and sentiment analysis to
identify the policy issues addressed in articles mentioning America (e.g., climate change, the
Syrian Civil War, intellectual property rights) and the positive or negative sentiment of such

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articles. The embassy can then launch a social media campaign targeting journalists. This cam-
paign can focus on altering journalists’ perception of America’s policies by linking policies to
values and norms, providing a broader context for understanding policies, or demonstrating the
positive outcomes of these policies. Following the campaign, the embassy can measure whether
the sentiment of newspaper articles about America has become more positive or less negative.
Importantly, communication scholars have for some time employed such big data and sentiment
analysis to evaluate news stories.30
As mentioned by Sevin, a second important activity of PD is fostering relationships with non-state
actors. The goal of such activities is to take an active part in the social and daily life of a foreign coun-
try by engaging with civil society organizations, cultural institutions, and even scientific organizations.
While becoming immersed in the social fabric of another country is the long-term goal, the short-
term goal is changing another country’s policy by socializing with elites and policy makers. Socializ-
ing with non-state actors can be achieved by creating goal-oriented online networks that include
embassies, civil society organizations, and citizen groups. Goal-oriented networks have been shown
to stimulate collaborations and offer innovative solutions to complex policy issues ranging from ban-
ning the use of landmines to renewable energy.31 Using social network analysis, embassies can evalu-
ate their centrality within these networks. Such a measurement is relevant given that the more central
an actor, the greater his ability to influence the processes and outcomes of networked collaborations.
Moreover, embassies can adopt digital practices to increase their network centrality including
frequent sharing of information with the network, facilitating the flow of information from the
network core to the periphery and establishing external links to other members in the network.
Qualitative analysis may be used to determine how far the embassy’s messages travel within the
network and whether the embassy is able to shape the discussions and solutions proposed by the
network. The long-term goal of socializing with policy makers and elites can be assessed by
measuring the extent to which elites disseminate, quote, or interact with embassy or MFA online
content. From a qualitative perspective, embassies may also evaluate the manner in which elites
frame, or portray, a foreign country and its policy priorities both before and after online engage-
ment between diplomats and elites.
The third and final PD activity identified by Sevin is influencing public debates. The short-term
goal of this activity is agenda setting, or influencing what issues are discussed by a foreign
public.32 The long-term goal is framing, or influencing, the manner in which such issues are
debated by a foreign public. Agenda-setting activities may be evaluated through hashtag correl-
ations. Hashtags are a means for organizing discussions on social media platforms. By analyzing
correlations between hashtags, one may gain insight into correlations between issues discussed by
online publics. For instance, Manor found that the Twitter hashtags employed by the United
States and United Kingdom in relation to the struggle against terrorism were closely correlated
with the hashtags: Iraq, Daesh, ISIS, and Syria. This suggests that the United Kingdom and
United States became an integral part of online discussions regarding Daesh and the future of the
region. Embassies and MFAs may use hashtag correlations to assess what issues are being discussed
online within a policy area (e.g., struggle against terror) and to measure their ability to increase
correlations between hashtags as a result of social media campaigns, as was the case with the
United States and United Kingdom. Here again qualitative analysis of hashtags is complemented
with quantitative correlation measurements.33
Measuring the ability to influence the framing of issues may be achieved through another
form of big data analysis, which examines the terminology used online in reference to a specific
policy or issue. For instance, studies have found that the Iranian, US, and Israeli MFAs all
adopted different terminology when referring to the 2015 Iran Deal. While Israel used termin-
ology related to defence and security, Iran used economic terms relating to sanctions and eco-
nomic growth, and the United States focused on diplomatic terminology such as soft power and

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avoiding the cost of war. As such, each actor framed the Iran Deal in a different manner.34
Qualitative analysis of terms used in reference to specific issues may enable an embassy to under-
stand how online publics frame an issue and measure its ability to alter this framing through PD
activities, whether online or offline.

Conclusion
Soft power and PD are often seen as two sides of the same coin: the first refers to institutional, cul-
tural, or policy sources that enable a state to exert attraction on foreign publics, while the second
seeks to maximize the impact of these resources. However, in the digital age, the close connection
between the two concepts can no longer be taken for granted. Digital technologies have the potential
to transcend the soft-power/PD nexus by downplaying the strategic focus on interest and policy pro-
motion in favor of more symmetrical approaches of relationship building. The fact that digital tech-
nologies have this potential, does not mean, of course, that they will actually manage to steer PD in
this direction. MFAs are traditional institutions with deeply entrenched norms and rules of conduct,
motivated by organizational interests to demonstrate “value for money” for their policies, and they
currently face an international environment beleaguered by challenges rather than opportunities for
collaboration.
As we look forward to the transformation of PD in the next decade, it is also important to keep in
mind the technological context in which MFAs are expected to operate. The 3G mobile technology
made possible, for instance, the development and spread of social media networks. The 5G technol-
ogy, which is due to arrive in just a few years, will likely usher in a whole new level of technological
disruption, which could lead to the mass adoption of an entire range of tech tools of growing rele-
vance for PD, such as mixed reality, satellite remote sensing, or artificial intelligence.35 To a certain
extent, the future is already here, as the appointment of the first ever ambassador to the Big Tech
industry by Denmark in 2017 signals the arrival of a new form of diplomatic engagement between
state and non-state actors and the key role that technology is playing in this transformation.

Notes
1 Tom Hale, “How Much Data Does the World Generate Every Minute?” IFL Science, www.iflscience.
com/technology/how-much-data-does-the-world-generate-every-minute.
2 Manuel Castells, “The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global
Governance,”Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, no. 1 (2008): 89.
3 Ibid., 91.
4 Jon Pelling, “Public Diplomacy in the Age of Networks: Midwives4all,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
12, no. 2 (2016): 202.
5 Corneliu Bjola, “Adapting Diplomacy to the Digital Age: Managing the Organisational Culture of Min-
istries of Foreign Affairs,” www.swp-berlin.org/fileadmin/contents/products/arbeitspapiere/WP_Diplo
macy21_No9_Corneliu_Bjola_01.pdf.
6 Jan Melissen, The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (Basingstoke, UK and
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 13.
7 Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault, “Moving from Monologue to Dialogue to Collaboration: The
Three Layers of Public Diplomacy,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, no.
1 (2008): 11.
8 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, “Stockholm Initiative for Digital Diplomacy,” www.diplohack.
org/stockholm-sidd.html.
9 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, “The Hague Digital Diplomacy Camp,” www.diplomacy
camp.org.
10 Jon Pelling, “When Doing Becomes the Message: The Case of the Swedish Digital Diplomacy,” in Digi-
tal Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, ed. Corneliu Bjola and Marcus Holmes (Abingdon, UK and
New York: Routledge, 2015), 164–180.

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11 Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor, “From Digital Tactics to Digital Strategies: Practicing Digital Public
Diplomacy,” USC Center on Public Diplomacy, https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/digital-tactics-digital-
strategies-practicing-digital-pd.
12 Guy J. Golan, “An Integrated Approach to Public Diplomacy,” American Behavioral Scientist 57, no. 9
(2013): 1251–1255; Martin Löffelholz, Claudia, and Alice Srugies, “Strategic Dimensions of Public Diplo-
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tal Diplomatic Strategies of the EU, U.S. and Japan in China,” in Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice,
ed. Corneliu Bjola and Marcus Holmes (Abingdon, UK and New York: Routledge, 2015), 71–88.
15 Neil Collins and Kristina Bekenova, “Digital Diplomacy: Success at Your Fingertips,” Place Branding and
Public Diplomacy 15, no. 1 (March 2019): 1–11.
16 Ilan Manor, “Are We There Yet: Have MFAs Realized the Potential of Digital Diplomacy?” Brill
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Assumptions in the Concept of ‘Relationships,’” Communication Theory 26, no. 2 (2015): 103–211.
20 Ben D. Mor, “Credibility Talk in Public Diplomacy,” Review of International Studies 38, no. 2 (2012):
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21 Bjola and Manor, “From Digital Tactics to Digital Strategies.”
22 Amir Gandomi and Murtaza Haider, “Beyond the Hype: Big Data Concepts, Methods, and Analytics,”
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23 Efe Sevin, “A Multi-Layered Approach to Public Diplomacy Evaluation: Pathways of Connection,” Pol-
itics & Policy 45, no. 5 (2017): 879–901; James Pamment, “Articulating Influence: Toward a Research
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Relations Review 40, no. 1 (2014): 50–59; Bruce Gregory, “American Public Diplomacy: Enduring Char-
acteristics, Elusive Transformation,” Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6, no. 3–4 (2011): 351–372.
24 Richard Rogers, “Otherwise Engaged: Social Media from Vanity Metrics to Critical Analytics,” Inter-
national Journal of Communication 12, no. 1 (2018): 450–472.
25 Corneliu Bjola, “Getting Digital Diplomacy Right: What Quantum Theory Can Teach Us About Meas-
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26 Hamilton Bean and Edward Comor, “Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive
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27 Sevin, “A Multi-Layered Approach,” 887–889.
28 Seong-Hun Yun and Elizabeth L. Toth, “Future Sociological Public Diplomacy and the Role of Public
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29 Paul R Brewer, “National Interest Frames and Public Opinion about World Affairs,” Harvard Inter-
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Dynamics of Foreign Policy Agenda Setting,” American Political Science Review 92, no. 1 (1998): 173–184;
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and Blogs,” Icwsmi 7, no. 21 (2007): 219–222.
31 Anne-Marie Slaughter, “America’s Edge: Power in the Networked Century,” Foreign Affairs, (2009): 94–
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32 Bjola and Jiang, “Social Media and Public Diplomacy.”
33 Ilan Manor, “How the UK & US Are Fighting ISIS Online- Part 2,” Exploring Digital Diplomacy,
March 7, 2016, https://digdipblog.com/2016/03/07/how-the-uk-us-are-fighting-isis-online-part–2.
34 Philip Seib, The Future of #Diplomacy (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2016): 101–119.
35 Corneliu Bjola, “Digital Diplomacy 2.0 Pushes the Boundary,” Global Times, www.globaltimes.cn/con
tent/1073667.shtml.

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