Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age: By Nalaka Gunawardene - 14 nov 2015

nalakagunawardene.com
Diplomacy &
Foreign Relations
in the Social Media Age
Talk by
By Nalaka Gunawardene
Science Writer & New Media Researcher
Course on Creative Diplomacy
Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS)
Colombo: 14 Nov 2015

New Media and Society:
My own approach as…
 New Media watcher and analyst since
early 1990s (writing as science journalist)
 Chronicling and critiquing mobile phones’
& Internet’s impact on Lankan society,
culture, economy and politics
 Researching rise & impact of digital
technologies on Lankan media
 Contributing Editor, Digital Review of Asia
regional review publication (2003-2009)

Dedication to an Esteemed Mentor:
Dr Harlan Cleveland (1918-2008)
 US diplomat, journalist,
educator and scholar
 Asst Secy of State (for Int Orgs),
1961-65 JFK Administration
 US Ambassador to NATO, 1965-
69
 Founding dean, University of
Minnesota's Hubert H.
Humphrey Inst of Public Affairs

Anticipating Info & Comm Tech
(ICT) impact on society, politics
 Quick to anticipate the implications
of information revolution
 predicted arrival of the knowledge
worker in the global marketplace.
 Believed "flexible, uncentralized
systems work best," whether that
system is a govt, business or charity
 Washington Post obit (6 June 2008)
http://goo.gl/aUcQGb

Cleveland, 65, meets IBM…
 1983 (aged 65): At an IBM store in
Minneapolis, a young clerk asks: "You're
not buying this for you, are you, sir?"
 "He proceeded to buy everything in the
store, and became a philosopher of
what it meant to have all this
information flowing around the world.“
- daughter, Melantha Cleveland
http://goo.gl/aUcQGb

The Knowledge Executive:
Leadership in an Information Age
 Pub: 1985 (5 years before WWW)
 Info revolution would make it
impossible for leaders & “experts”
to hoard information.
 Leadership would increasingly
“bubble up” from new sources
rather than trickle down from
established leaders
 Change nature of diplomacy &
trade forever

Traditional structures vs. Web 2.0 structures
Formal
Clear Hierarchy
Tries to maintain traditions
Exclusive clubs
Rigid entry barriers
Personal profile (age, education,
gender, wealth, etc.) matters
Strong relationships
Long term relationships
Strict exit barriers
Informal
“The world is flat”
“Break all traditions!!”
‘Open door’ groupings
Flexible entry barriers
Everybody wins the same
respect
Weak relationships
Long or short term relationships
Flexible exit barriers
Courtesy:
Chanuka
Wattegama

Evolution of World Wide Web
1990 - 2015

Social Media:
Billions of conversations, 24/7
Online media with 2 key
characteristics:
 conversations
 Collaborations between
users who maybe anywhere
May involve any or all of this:
digital words/sounds/images,
video/combination

SM: A highly diverse, fast-evolving
and dynamic ‘ecosystem’

http://wearesocial.net/blog/2015/08/global-statshot-august-2015/

Social media:
Many categories/functions
 Networking
 Collaborating
 Blogging/microblogging
 Image sharing
 Video sharing
 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
 Combination of above
 Other

Social Media:
Key qualities in interactions
 No permissions: open expression of
ideas, no authorisations needed!
 Short: few words; many abbreviations,
emoti-cons & images used
 Spontaneous: inspired by what’s
current locally/globally
 Relaxed & easy going: not formal, stiff
or deferential (no Holy Cows here!)
 Fleeting: much of it transient (but can
be aggregated, analysed & data-mined)

Mapping cyberspace connections…
Visualising Facebook friendships: Map by Paul Butler, Dec 2010
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=469716398919

How are ICTs and social media
changing foreign relations?

 “The key to successful foreign
policy in today’s world is
networked diplomacy. Managing
international crises requires
mobilizing international networks
of public and private actors.” –
Anne-Marie Slaughter, former
Princeton Academic and ex-Dir of
Policy Planning, US State Dept
 This interconnected world is
increasingly relying on social
media!

Social Media and Foreign Relations:
Diplomacy in a Networked World
Multiple terror
attacks in Paris
on 13 Nov 2015
night  France
in Emergency
mode. Govts &
people express
Solidarity…

Gérard Araud, France’s Ambassador to the US, tweeted as
multiple terror attacks unfolded in Paris on Nov 13 night

 Shares
breaking
news repts;
 Reacts to
unfolding
media
coverage;
 Thanks the
public…

Diplomacy in the Global Village
 Events unfold 24/7
 TV news networks & web cover them
almost in real time
 Govt spokespersons, incl diplomats,
now have to respond at same speed
 Diplomacy on the run: no time for
checking with centres of power
 Gaffes can and do happen!

Diplomacy 2.0
UNTIL RECENTLY:
“Club Diplomacy”
 based on a small
number of players
 a highly hierarchical
structure
 Closed, written
communications
 low public transparency
UNFOLDING NOW:
“Network Diplomacy”
 based on a much larger
number of players
(particularly of civil
society)
 a flatter structure
 a more significant oral
component
 greater transparency.

Foreign Relations fast-tracked
 1980: CNN launched
 1985: CNN International
 First Gulf War: Aug 1990-Feb 1991
 CNN Effect: News channel just reporting,
but also INFLUENCING some events
 ‘CNN is the 16th
member of the (UN)
Security Council.’– UN Secretary-General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

Move over CNN,
Enter digitally-armed citizens!
 As social media spreads:
more citizens capture
unfolding events, comment,
share and agitate
 Socio-political experiment!
 Real-Time Diplomacy: Politics
and Power in the Social
Media Era

http://twiplomacy.com

Twiplomacy:
The Good and Bad
“Overall, Twiplomacy helps reduce
barriers between (foreign)
policymakers and those affected by
policy. This is useful, but it profoundly
alters the DNA of diplomacy, and that
deserves far more study than it has so
far received.”
- Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism
and Public Diplomacy, University of
Southern California, USA. In 2012

Philip Seib on Twiplomacy…
 Govts remain hierarchic in structure,
and often do not recognize the paths
that information may take and the
transformations that may occur to it
within networks
 Govts using Twiplomacy need to better
understand where their information is
going. Only with that knowledge can
policymakers comprehend the effects
their social-media products may have.

Diplomacy’s boundaries
extended
“One of the most powerful tools of
networked diplomacy…is the existence
of strong, vibrant and successful
diaspora communities spread across
the influential countries of the world
today.”
- Ramesh Thakur, Professor, Crawford
School of Public Policy, Australian
National University (ANU)

Twiplomacy Top 20 Twitterati:
April 2015
http://twiplomacy.com/blog/the-twiplomacy-
top-twenty-twitterati/

http://twiplomacy.com/blog/twipl
omacy-study-2015/

Diplomacy 2.0 advancing in 2015
 During Iran talks in Lausanne in March/April 2015,
Twitter was preferred social media channel for all
negotiating parties to update media + public state
of the negotiations.
 Twitter was essential to spread historic handshake
between Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul
Castro at 7th Summit of the Americas in Panama
in April 2015
 In April 2015 former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton chose exclusively Twitter and YouTube to
announce her 2016 presidential bid.

https://www.opencanada.org/inde
pth/twitter-and-diplomacy/
“State leaders and diplomats are in the
process of negotiating a working relationship
with social media. There’s a lot on the table –
a variety of tools and platforms, each with
their own advantages and limitations, and a
range of actors using them to connect.
Twitter is proving to be the most contentious
negotiating point – how to use it most
effectively, and to what end…”

New media reality:
A rude awakening to some govts!
 Social media demands transparency.
 Officials cannot have total control
over info flows
 Politicians & diplomats have to be
flexible, fast, and nimble to easily
adapt to new technologies.
 Success needs public trust, good
judgment, and quick thinking for rapid
response and crisis management

Case study:
India’s MEA using Twitter
 July 2010: MEA becomes India’s first
govt entity to use Twitter as part of its
communications strategy.
 Feb 2011: Nirupama Rao (Foreign Sec)
1st
senior Indian diplomat using Twitter
for official use
 March 2011: Twitter played a crucial
role in rescue of 18,000 Indians
trapped in deteriorating Libya

India’s MEA using Twitter…
 MEA used Twitter to communicate
timely info about evacuation
schedule (air and sea) from Tripoli,
Alexandria, Benghazi & elsewhere
 300+ official tweets kept the
trapped Indians updated of plans
and progress over a few weeks

Source: PPT by Navdeep Suri, MEA. 12 May 2012
http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoIndia/public-diplomacy-soft-
power-and-new-media

India’s twitter use during Libya
evacuations…
 “A useful case study in the utility of social media
tools in connecting the government with people who
are normally well outside their range, but who can
be a useful channel to send out time-urgent critical
information and to receive equally valuable
information from sources on the ground.”
 Effective diplomacy in the age of social media by
Ramesh Thakur, The Japan Times, 12 June 2012.
http://goo.gl/jXVNiq

Indian MEA reacts to Fukushima
triple disaster, 11 March 2011

@NMenonRao
Retired, still has large following…

Unresolved issues…
 Are SM remarks strictly official?
 Who really “owns” social media followers
acquired by high profile diplomats or
other senior officials during office?
 Do they get to “take followers” and move
on to other postings or retirement?
 What policies should govts adopt on
officials tweeting and Facebooking?

Undiplomatic tweet? How else to
respond to such provocation?
Just after Charlie Hebdo shooting in January 2015

Sri Lanka: networked, chatty and
coming to terms with social media!
Map by TeleGeography. http://www.submarinecablemap.com

Internet Use in Sri Lanka
(1996-2014)
Source: Telecom Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka (TRCSL)
0
2,00,000
4,00,000
6,00,000
8,00,000
10,00,000
12,00,000
14,00,000
16,00,000
18,00,000
20,00,000
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Mar
I& E-mail
Mobile BB

Internet coverage and influence
spreading in Sri Lanka
 22-25% of LK pop using web
 82% thru mobile devices
 National (Fibre-optic)
Backbone Network being laid
by Sri Lanka Telecom: will
cover all 329 admin divisions
within 5 years (by 2018)
 Map from: http://www.slt.lk

Sri Lanka’s Facebook connections
mapped: 2015
http://www.facebookstories.com/stories/1574/#color=continent&story=1&country=LK

Sri Lanka: Facebook ‘brands’ with
highest No of followers (14 Nov 2015)
http://www.socialbakers.com/statistics/facebook/pages/total/sri-lanka/

As at 14
Nov 2015

LK: Top Political Pages on FB
As at 14
Nov 2015

In Sri Lanka, maligning and
demonising Facebook is common!
 Social media still new, unfamiliar
 Global platforms = ‘foreign’
 Looked upon by many people and
some media with suspicion
 Some blame social ills (suicides,
child abuse, etc) on social media
 Those who never use social
media are quick to condemn it!

Govts concerned: can SM be
used for ‘political subversion’?
Daily News, 22 May 2014

As Social Media use increases,
some challenges arise…
 Hate speech on SM  spread of racial,
religious & other abuse (easy to share)
 Anonymity/psendonymity means users can &
do express without much/any restraint
 SM addiction  social & psychiatric problems
for some (not all) individuals
 Identity theft: growing problem in LK  FB
account hijacking is 70% of all complaints
received by authorities (CERT/Police Dept)

My response to Social Media (SM)
ethical challenges…
 Don’t blame the platform!
 Study and reflect more: need social
science research to understand what is
going on, how & why
 Generalisations not possible, nor good
 Misuses always get disproportionately high
publicity  distorts total picture
 Let us NOT throw SM ‘baby’ out with
bathwater!

LK Foreign Minister on Twitter:
But not active enough…

An Ambassador of Sri Lanka
who tweets!

LK Foreign Ministry Spokesperson
Warming up to social media!

Watch this Space…
Email:
alien@nalaka.org
Blog:
http://nalakagunawardene.com
Open on Twitter (5,550+): @NalakaG
Restricted to less than 500 on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/nalaka.gunawardene

Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age: By Nalaka Gunawardene - 14 nov 2015

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (20)

Similar to Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age: By Nalaka Gunawardene - 14 nov 2015

Similar to Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age: By Nalaka Gunawardene - 14 nov 2015 (20)

More from Nalaka Gunawardene

More from Nalaka Gunawardene (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Diplomacy and Foreign Relations in the Social Media Age: By Nalaka Gunawardene - 14 nov 2015