Digital Diplomacy and the Distance Between Us

This week, PD News headlines focused on global reaction to the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris. Social media featured prominently in many of the articles collected below, highlighting both the possibilities and the perils of real-time communication. While sites such as Facebook and Twitter allowed users to disseminate messages of sympathy and solidarity to friends and family across the world, those same sites sparked an international backlash for their ability to not only “tell us how to sympathize, but also which tragedies we should direct our sympathies towards and, implicitly, which we should ignore.” Yet despite criticisms of both the perceived shortcomings and rhetoric of digital media, headlines suggest that if terrorist organizations such as ISIS are to be stopped, global publics need to “connect with a generation of young Muslims who see much of the world as hostile to them and their faith” and forge a new way forward, together, both on and off line.

• Anonymous vs. ISIS: Netpolitik After the Paris Attacks –Huffington Post
• Facebook Activates ‘Safety Check’ for Tuesday’s Bomb Blast in Nigeria—Good Magazine
• Homeland Hacker Challenges Media Portrayals of Muslims—Al Jazeera
• Muslims Around The World Condemn Paris Attacks Claimed By ISIS—Think Progress
• The Truth Campaign and the War of Ideas: 'Un-Selling' the Islamic State—Ad Age
• When Will It End?—CPD Blog
• Why ISIS Is Waging a Pop Culture War—Esquire 

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Photo by Esther Simpson | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0