Digital Diplomacy CRAIG HAYDEN American University, School of International Service, USA Digital diplomacy describes a moment, capturing the novelty of information and communication technologies put to use for diplomacy. The term conveys a concurrent set of issues at the intersection of technology and diplomacy: how the practice and context of diplomacy is influenced by the availability of digital platforms for communication, information gathering, and analysis. Technology has catalyzed change for both policy-makers and practitioners. Information and communication technologies have created emergent challenges for foreign policy decision-makers, who must contend with how digital platforms have enabled new forms of public engagement, commerce, and warfare. Diplomats and foreign ministries, those charged with supporting the objectives of policy-makers, are likewise presented with new opportunities to communicate interests, represent their respective governments, and otherwise leverage the availability of information afforded by such technologies. Digital diplomacy asserts a pivot point in the evolution of diplomacy as much as the broader context of international relations (Ross 2011; Bjola and Holmes 2015; Owen 2016). But the underlying lack of specificity in the term invites further investigation as to whether the fundamental institutions of diplomacy are being challenged by the ubiquity of technology and its digital platforms – the ecology of social media networks, the analytical capacity of big data, and the growth of applications that enhance transparency, connect global publics, and create new avenues to shape the global flow of information. Where is the impact of digital diplomacy most apparent? As Corneliu Bjola suggests, “questions persist about the extent to which digital diplomacy makes a significant difference in how states pursue their foreign policy objectives and how they manage the relationships between them” (Bjola 2016a: 298). The term needs to be unpacked for both its meaning and its implications. Only then can we begin to make reasonable claims that the “DNA” of diplomacy has been altered through digital diplomacy (Sandre 2015: xix). Digital diplomacy, as a concept, is a logical extension of well-recognized, global social and political transformations catalyzed by the growth of information and communication technologies (Castells 2009). From the upheavals associated with the Arab Spring, to the growing recognition that social media networks and information flows can be hacked by international actors – it is clear that the term “digital diplomacy” taps into a broader sense that the availability of communication and computational technology affords new practices for state actors, as much as provides new strategic choices and opportunities (Hayden 2011). Technology is therefore both an inevitable context as much as a defining feature of how states imagine and implement their foreign policy strategy. Yet, where does this scenario leave diplomacy – a well-established institution of practices, roles, and responsibilities crucial to the maintenance of the international system? While “digital diplomacy” may connate a broader sense of disruption in the norms and practices of international actors – what does it mean for diplomacy and for diplomats? The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy. Edited by Gordon Martel. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2018 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. DOI: 10.1002/9781118885154.dipl0068 2 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y This entry identifies how the term digital diplomacy has been used to describe the intersection of technology with the practice of diplomacy. It provides an overview of how the term is manifest across discussions of diplomacy, foreign policy, public diplomacy, and cognate concepts. It also builds on existing scholarship, to identify where digital diplomacy may signify change in contemporary understanding of diplomatic practice, agency, and its enduring role as an integral institution of the international system. Finally, it provides an argument for how digital diplomacy can represent a basis for productive interdisciplinary scholarship that may re-energize academic attention towards the practice and necessity of diplomacy. The implication presented here is not that digital diplomacy hearkens a new age of “tweeting Talleyrands” (The Economist 2012), but that it provides an analytical frame through which to consider the intercession of technology on the practice of diplomacy. Digital diplomacy remains a relatively contemporary term, though there have been previous analogous hyphenated constructs such as “cyber diplomacy” or “e-diplomacy” (Burt et al. 1998; Dizard 2001; Potter 2002; Hanson 2012). Such studies acknowledged the emergent relevance of technology to diplomacy, though the transformative potential remained to be fully articulated. In the wake of social media’s rapid entrenchment into the fabric of social and cultural life around the world, the intersection of technology and diplomacy seems largely encapsulated by the term “digital diplomacy.” Yet digital diplomacy could use some conceptual refinement. It implies some degree of transformation in both the practices of diplomacy, how diplomatic functions are carried out, as well as structures, or how organizations adapt (Hocking and Melissen 2015: 6). Likewise, the term may invite analysis of potentially new categories of diplomacy that do not simply carry forward diplomacy’s historical institutions into new technological contexts, but may provide distinctly new opportunities for diplomatic agency and its role as an instrument of state power. Digital diplomacy is described as accounting for the influence of technology on the institutions of diplomacy. Institution is used here to convey diplomacy as a set of practices, norms, and traditions that inhere in the profession (Holmes 2015). But clearly digital diplomacy also captures a larger component of the imagination about technology-driven international relations. It is both context and practice, as Tyler Owen argues: The practice of digital diplomacy, then, can be seen as one of two things: an addition to the toolkit through which the state seeks to influence other states; or, more radically, a strategic extension of the objectives of diplomacy to seek to influence digital actors themselves, rather than just states. (Owen 2016: 305) The term conveys an encroaching context, an evolving set of organizational practices, and a potentially pivotal transformation in the profession itself. Yet digital diplomacy writing and scholarship is not always specifically about diplomacy in practice – an issue that often emerges in studies that claim to be about diplomacy, but are most often about foreign policy (Hutchings and Suri 2015). Claims about the growth of Twitter followers for heads of state raise questions about the diplomatic value of such online networks to the practice of statecraft and thus, whether they qualify as diplomacy (Pamment 2014). Nevertheless, it is not the purpose of this entry to police conceptual boundaries when the status of diplomacy itself is in flux – given the rise of non-state actors, the growth of strategic communication efforts as central to statecraft, and the complicated nature of global problems. Digital diplomacy, in other words, DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y may be symptomatic of a broader change in who gets to practice diplomacy, how diplomatic responsibility is effectively diffused, and how non-state actors (from publics to networks) end up practicing a kind of de facto diplomacy of international engagement, relation-building, and representation (Kelley 2014). Digital diplomacy, as Holmes and Bjola argue, provides an important conceptual frame through which to assess the nature of change within an institution that is arguably about managing change (Bjola and Holmes 2015). How does diplomacy adapt in ways that enhance or hinder the agency of diplomats, their relevance in relation to other government agencies, and the ability of organizations to effectively capitalize on the affordances of technology to forward foreign policy objectives? The term itself suggests a form of diplomacy that is distinctly located and enabled within a communication platform. It conveys novelty – that the practice of diplomacy is somehow implicated, constrained, or otherwise enabled in qualitatively new ways through the communication medium. This is not an entirely new proposition. Studies have illustrated the impact of communication technologies on the practice of diplomacy, noting celebratory and cautionary discourse surrounding the rise of the telegraph, the television, and the internet (Nickles 2009). It would be premature, however, to dismiss digital diplomacy as faddism. As Bjola and Kornprobst and others have argued, diplomacy is arguably a form of institutionalized communication (Bjola and Kornprobst 2013). Diplomats face the demands of interpersonal communication in support of relationships with interlocutors in bilateral and multilateral contexts. They must work with communication strategies on display in the work of negotiations. They must also contend with the broader sweep of media used to 3 advocate foreign policy interests. Therefore, attention to the material substrate of diplomacy – communication technology – is both warranted and necessary (Hayden 2013). Iver Neumann argued that diplomacy is never wholly isolated from social and cultural change (Neumann 2003). It is inevitably impacted by changes wrought outside the traditional halls of diplomatic practice. Digital diplomacy directs attention back to what has likely always been true to some degree – diplomacy is never outside of communication. As Hocking and Melissen suggest, digital diplomacy invites consideration of diplomacy’s “hybridity” – what aspects of diplomacy remain offline, while other practices and responsibilities shift increasingly online (Hocking and Melissen 2015: 11). CONVERGING CONCEPTS Digital diplomacy reflects the ways in which international actors – typically states – employ digital platforms to achieve policy outcomes. Yet, this sweeping definition also shares some conceptual territory with other terms that describe similar practices and strategy. The most obvious is public diplomacy. Digital diplomacy scholars have noted that there are indeed differences between the concept of digital and public diplomacy, yet the focus of many digital diplomacy cases studies (outside of consular and crisis communications) deal with the domain of public diplomacy (Owen 2016). Public diplomacy is an expansive term that cobbles together the methods through which international actors engage foreign publics to achieve strategic objectives – through cultural exchange, education programs, advocacy, and international broadcasting efforts. Considerable overlap between digital and public diplomacy is visible in studies that highlight the role of digital platforms 4 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y in counter-terrorism efforts, in audience analysis, mediated issue advocacy campaigns, and efforts to monitor and connect with foreign publics online. Examples of early adopters of digital diplomacy, such as social media activities of pioneer Swedish minister Carl Bildt, and advisers for digital diplomacy at the US Department of State, Alec Ross and Jared Cohen, reflect the tacit convergence of public diplomacy and digital diplomacy – where the sphere of diplomacy practice is enlarged to necessitate engagement with connected publics, that amplify the agency of diplomats to effect change in a time where transparency is enhanced through the sharing of news and information (Lichtenstein 2010; Sotiriu 2015). At the same time, the connectivity afforded by digital diplomacy suggests the possibility of a more collaborative and inclusive foreign policy that is responsive to the networks of global policy stakeholders. Noted digital diplomacy author Andreas Sandre goes so far as to suggest that the digital diplomacy represents “a space where technology and tradition meet; where nodes and links are components of networks that transcend government as we know it; where all actors interact and collaborate” (Sandre 2015: xxviii) Digital diplomacy embodies not just a practice, but an ethos derived from the cultural practices and values associated with the technology itself (Pamment 2014). Yet the difference between many digital diplomacy descriptions and public diplomacy is mostly rhetorical. Public diplomacy invites comparisons to propaganda and more stilted efforts at message management. Digital diplomacy, in contrast, draws on a shared cultural imaginary about social media and technology – yet arguably both deal with platforms for communication and their role in enabling the connectivity of diplomats to interlocutors and foreign publics. Digital diplomacy is also used interchangeably with the discourse of international public relations and technology, most often in studies of social media engagement. In these cases, the term “digital diplomacy” overlaps with the so-called “public diplomacy 2.0” phenomenon that captures how diplomatic missions and foreign ministries turn to social media platforms to increase engagement with specific publics. In these cases, digital diplomacy connotes the kinds of communication efforts used to shape audience opinions and beliefs, how diplomatic representatives serve as gatekeepers for information, and how missions can effectively boost advocacy through strategic connections to other actors, like NGOs and advocacy networks (Kampf et al. 2015). Digital diplomacy, in this view, embodies the campaign of nation-states that seek to cultivate and shape communities online around particular images and views related to the promoting country. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s significant push across social media platforms to reach populations around the world embodies this approach – which draws together appeals to cultivate soft power with relation-building and image management ambitions through outreach to broader social networks in targeted countries. Digital diplomacy scholarship, however, reflects an interdisciplinary community of study. Public diplomacy, public relations, branding, international studies, and media studies are all represented in the nascent literature. The scholarship has tracked how the concept has moved beyond discussion of social media platforms as a necessity – where diplomatic presence is the primary indicator of influence – to follow up questions of impact and meaning for policy-makers and diplomats. So programs like the Twiplomacy project, connected with the public relations industry, infer that digital diplomacy DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y is synonymous with the reach of world leaders, international organizations, and other prominent international actors (e.g., the pope) within social media networks and related platforms. In this earlier view, states should conduct digital diplomacy in order to establish presence. Yet this trend has given way to less superficial and more substantive engagement with the capacities of social media and related platforms. Some campaigns to garner attention through Twitter hashtags, such as the US attempt to leverage the #UnitedforUkraine tag, met with mixed results. Nevertheless, the US Department of State, which was recognized as an early adopter for social media engagement, has developed other programs that embody some of the potential that digital diplomacy affords (Hanson 2012). For example, the US Department of State has leveraged crowdsourcing technologies to launch a collaborative mapping platform, “Mapgive,” to identify critical resources for populations in need. In 2014, the department launched the Global Development Lab to identify data-driven solutions to complex development challenges. As part of the department’s educational diplomacy, it launched the “MOOC Camp” initiative that brought asynchronous online course offerings to US embassies around the world. The US-based examples are arguably not exhaustive, but demonstrate how the integration of technology can penetrate beyond the domain of public engagement. Not surprisingly, the domain of digital diplomacy is arguably being redefined in real time. With the emergence of significant intervention by foreign actors in news flows sustained by social media, it is possible to locate this development within the ambit of digital diplomacy, especially if we conceive of digital diplomacy as more closely related to international strategic communication and persuasion. The rise of automated bots and 5 the potential role of hackers and disinformation providers in effecting political change suggest an expanding definition for what may constitute digital diplomacy. While diplomacy itself is not information warfare, efforts to leverage or contain the effects of such digital aggression and intervention have become a matter of diplomatic concern (Bjola and Pamment 2016; Woolley and Howard 2016). TRADITIONAL DIPLOMACY There is considerable attention in digital diplomacy studies on public engagement, yet what does it signify for the more enduring aspects of diplomatic traditions? How does digital diplomacy challenge the conventional understanding of diplomacy? Looking across theoretical and conceptual treatments, the inclusion of the digital prefix to diplomacy suggests at the very least a new terrain for diplomatic practice, but not necessarily a fundamental challenge to diplomacy itself. Various definitions of diplomacy tend to revolve around integral practices and responsibilities that have been observed for centuries, and preserve an institutional space for diplomats to serve the interests of the sovereign state (Sharp 2009). The early traditions in diplomatic studies focused on the tradecraft of negotiations and the qualities of the ambassador. Noted British diplomat Harold Nicolson’s definition of the diplomatic responsibility as the “management of international relations by negotiation; the method by which these relations are adjusted by ambassadors and envoys” or Adam Watson’s “dialogue between states” suggests a broad canvas to depict how interpersonal and organizational activities sustain relations and advance the interest of states (Sofer 2013). Even in these treatments, diplomacy is not explicitly about technology, but is very much located in communication. 6 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y Building on these kinds of foundational definitions, the study of diplomacy very often distills the concept to some form of negotiation, communication, advocacy, and representation. These are broad categories that are not entirely mutually exclusive, nor do they preclude the advent of something like digital diplomacy. Martin Wight’s “master institution” of global politics seems like a flexible signifier for how practitioners advance the will of policy-makers across different contexts and circumstances, through adaptation, skill, and analytical acumen (Sending et al. 2015: 20). Digital diplomacy could easily be used to describe those tools through which the enduring practices of diplomacy are implemented. From a theoretical perspective, the necessity of diplomacy as an institution (or set of institutions) is fundamentally rooted in the persistence of political and social entities committed to living apart (Sharp 2009). Diplomacy is therefore required to mediate and manage difference, to deal with the fundamental condition of estrangement that describes the international system. The sweeping impact of technology on social relations and by extension, the mediatization of politics suggests a tectonic shift in the relationship of diplomacy to the broader sweep of international politics that it must navigate. For example, some argue that the role of diplomats has grown from managing bilateral and multilateral relations to playing significant roles in the governance of global public goods (Sending et al. 2015). Diplomats, in other words, are uniquely poised to play both intermediary and managerial roles in the promotion of rules and norms related to transnational issues of human rights, environmental change, and democratic governance. Diplomacy is not just multilateral As Geoffrey Wiseman has argued, diplomacy is defined by polylateral configurations of public, private, and commercial actors and interests (Wiseman 1999). Recognizing the impact of context, therefore, is crucial to unpacking the significance of digital diplomacy to international relations (Holmes 2015). Hocking and Melissen note the progression of diplomacy from a statist perspective, through its reaction to global and multilateral challenges, to ultimately an “integrative” enterprise. Integrative diplomacy captures the manner in which diplomacy must deal with the complex networks of policy stakeholders, the proliferation of other international actors wielding agency, both within interagency contexts and outside of governments, and the significance of publics, empowered by technological tools (Hocking and Melissen 2015: 43). Arguments about the changing nature of diplomacy are very often warranted by observations that at some level implicate the transformative impact of digital technology – on either the context of diplomacy, or, the way this context changes the foreign policy requirements that diplomats must ultimately support or advance. Whether we describe the state of contemporary diplomacy as digital or not, it is hard to isolate the practice of diplomacy from the consequences of information and communication technologies, and the downstream effects of digital platforms. Perhaps one of the largest theoretical challenges to the concept of diplomacy that might be mitigated by the advantages of digital diplomacy is understanding how diplomacy manages its fundamental responsibility to mediate estrangement within a complex media ecology. International relations is increasingly intermediated by diffuse relations among and between publics, with cultural and social boundaries effaced through the sharing of stories, information, and data in ways that diminish the distinctive gate-keeping role that diplomats have historically played (Miskimmon et al. 2013). DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y Not only are diplomats less privileged actors in terms of their monopoly on information for their respective governments, but individuals, transnational advocacy networks, and indeed other international actors leverage the capacity of digital platforms to inform, engage, and relate to foreign publics in ways that circumvent traditional diplomatic channels. This is not to say that traditional relations among diplomats in bilateral or multilateral settings are not necessary. Rather, the sphere of relevant and interested actors that have influence over the outcomes of diplomacy has grown. This argument underscores the integrative diplomacy model proposed by Hocking and Melissen, but also figures at the core of Holmes and Bjola’s question about the significance of digital diplomacy. If diplomacy’s chief responsibility is to manage change in the international space, how does digital diplomacy reflect that pace through which diplomacy is itself adapting to meet the challenges imposed by technology? The most obvious category of diplomacy that is changing in the face of circumstances wrought by digital technology is public diplomacy. This manifests in a number of ways. First, embassies and MFAs around the world have invested in online and social media presence, through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and regional applications such as the Russian Vkontake and China’s Sina Weibo. The growth of social media outputs by diplomatic organizations illustrates the rapid normalization of social media-based diplomacy, the kind of network relations established, and the limits of contemporary messaging strategies through such platforms. What is evident across most content analytic and network analysis of social media engagement with foreign publics is that usage is not uniform (Manor 2016). Put differently, embassies and ministries deploy digital platforms for a variety of purposes – to assist with branding efforts, promote particular 7 policies, amplify the voice of the ambassador, or increase awareness of other kinds of diplomatic programs. More “traditional” aspects of diplomacy, however, reflect a growing if less visible aspect of digital diplomacy. Crisis communications, and the ability to connect embassies with local authorities and wardens in order to protect citizens in a host country has been a path-breaking development in the expansion of digital platforms for diplomacy. Consular services now utilize social media to stay connected and provide citizen services (Hocking and Melissen 2015). Likewise, information technology increases the capacity of consular diplomacy to handle increased processing loads for visa applications and other services. By necessity, consular diplomacy has benefited from the data analytic capacities of digital technology, as well as the ability to remain connected to relevant citizen networks. Digital diplomacy is also manifest in commercial diplomacy, where the role of the embassy and commercial services to promote business in the host country relies not only on traditional diplomatic skills related to persuasion and negotiation, but on the availability of open and transparent information and data. At the same time, nation and place branding efforts feature governments actively deploying digital diplomacy programs to increase the scope of their campaigns (Sevin and Dinnie 2015). The role of diplomats as reporting officers is also impacted by the consequences of digital diplomacy. The ability of diplomats to effectively engage their counterparts and other potential interlocuters – within the foreign ministry and beyond the capital – is clearly augmented by the capacity of social media platforms to establish connections, especially when security considerations limit the ability of political officers to get outside the capital or even the walls of the embassy. Effective reporting officers can use digital media to 8 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y establish relations with non-government individuals and organizations, diasporic groups, and other advocacy or policy-related networks – to gather insight and to establish credibility. In this regard, the advent of digital diplomacy may signal – at least in some circumstances – the convergence of traditional political and public functions for diplomacy. MFAs and embassies increasingly connect with each other through social media platforms, forging linkages on substantive issues, regional affiliation, and membership in international agreements. This connection also provides opportunities for informal communication, another channel for dialogue that may strengthen the capacity of formal diplomatic institutions to sustain their more fundamental responsibly to manage change in the international system. DIPLOMACY AND PRACTICE The further MFAs and embassies become enmeshed within digital platforms, the more normalized the concept of digital diplomacy becomes as part of the routines of diplomacy. This phenomenon is probably best captured by the growth of “practice theory” perspectives in diplomacy studies, that have sought to describe how diplomats actively work to define the contours of diplomatic culture and institutional development (Holmes 2015). Practice theory perspectives are particularly insightful, because they strive to capture the emergent discourses and routines that reflect how diplomats themselves make sense of their identity, role, and profession. This kind of scholarship is increasingly necessary to understand digital diplomacy, in order to ascertain how diplomats and the organizations they serve are actively reconstructing the “art of the possible” for diplomacy – not just through increased “outputs” of tweets and Facebook posts, but also through sophisticated metrics and attempts to link digital engagement efforts to broader foreign policy objectives. Digital diplomacy has the potential to redefine and expand the nature of diplomatic agency – by enabling new avenues for leverage in complex negotiations, new opportunities for representation in digital fora, and additional channels through which to advocate diplomatic interests. Clarifying the evolving notion of agency for diplomats is important, in part, because diplomats have played a historical role as gatekeepers of information. Diplomats are one of the primary sources for advice and counsel to policy-makers threatened by the proliferation of information and norm entrepreneurs empowered by information and communication technology. The terrain of diplomatic activity through digital platforms – specifically on social media – suggests that there is a more inclusive arena for action in international affairs. Put simply, more kinds of actors, from individuals to collectives acting as advocacy networks or extremist groups, exert a well-documented form of agency that yields real effects within international relations. Because this activity is effectively grounded and enabled in networked communication (and technology), does it efface the traditional boundaries that separated diplomats from non-diplomats? Does digital diplomacy herald a diminished role for diplomats, who must share the stage with a range of activities, extremists, and corporate advocates? John Robert Kelley’s argument seems to affirm the notion that diplomacy’s purview is no longer an exclusive club (Kelley 2014). The capacity to effect change enabled by technology, through mediated politics and networked organizing, presents real challenges to the exclusive status of diplomats. While this kind of claim is a thread that underscores much of the more sweeping claims about digital diplomacy as profoundly DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y transformative, there is also an argument to be made for the distinct position of diplomats to capitalize on their location within MFA and embassy networks that span the world (Ross 2011; Causey and Howard 2013). Diplomats serve in a distinct capacity as boundary spanners and network hubs – connecting various constituencies and stakeholders. Diplomats work to balance the interests of their government with an expanding role as providers of global public goods – around issues of rights, transnational issues like migration and human trafficking, and on trade, technical standards, and intellectual property regimes. Diplomats – and by extension diplomacy – provide a distinct convening function to maintain the international status quo. The question remains whether digital diplomacy reflects more of a challenge or an adaptation to current circumstances. Corneliu Bjola emphasizes an expanded list of practices that illustrates how digital diplomacy augments the work of diplomacy, through listening, agenda-setting, hybridization (the blending of offline and online practices), engagement, and adaption (Bjola 2016a). Bjola, and other digital diplomacy scholars, point to new practices that make the digital technology visible in what diplomats do, as indicative of change. However, as Cassidy and Manor observe, there are persistent issues that plague the significance of this change. The use of digital platforms for diplomacy, when considered across various countries and MFAs, appears to be: primarily focused on presence rather than strategy; meaning that MFAs are arguably more concerned with whether or not they are being seen to use their online accounts, as opposed to whether or not they are actually using them to attain diplomatic goals. (Cassidy and Manor 2016: 332) Likewise, James Pamment has argued that the increased reliance on performance metrics 9 tilts diplomatic practices towards objectives that are more readily quantifiable (Pamment 2012). This is consistent with Bjola’s observation about the tension between outputs and outcomes in digital diplomacy. In the absence of established metrics for the impact of digital diplomacy, a default position for diplomacy has been to demonstrate its use (Bjola 2016b). Put differently the use of the technology stands in for the strategy (Hayden 2013). Pushing the argument even further, Pamment makes the broader sociological claim that the logics associated with information and communication technology – including the norms that govern such technology outside of diplomacy – have begun to manifest in the practice of diplomacy itself. Thus, expectations for how diplomacy should perform in the service of statecraft may be yet defined by criteria established in the media and cultural industries. CONCLUSION The definitions and examples identified in this chapter are not an exhaustive treatment of the digital diplomacy concept. There is undoubtedly a growing list of examples where diplomats have turned to ICTs to achieve objectives and push the boundaries of diplomatic innovation. For scholarship, there are also larger questions about the significance of digital diplomacy to the broader concept of diplomacy itself – outside of “big picture” debates over the diffusion of power and macro-challenges that technology poses for the calculus of cyber-security and information warfare (Owen 2016). Indeed, there are other examples where digital technology intersects with the domain of diplomacy and international relations. Largely missing from this digital diplomacy conversation is the ongoing and complicated process of managing the global governance of the internet. The architecture of internet 10 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y standards and governance mechanisms are themselves maintained through an evolving multi-stakeholder balancing act of diplomacy and engagement with a variety of state, civic, and commercial actors. In many respects internet governance is a significant and revealing example of the diplomacy of the digital, as much as digital diplomacy. More attention is needed to the unfolding political economy of the cyber domain, where diplomats will continue to play a role in debates that have direct impact on issues of access, surveillance, and civil liberties (Powers and Jablonski 2015). The next steps in digital diplomacy studies will likely follow two trajectories. First is continued engagement with the practice of digital diplomacy – cataloging efforts, assessing organizational attitudes towards technology, and identifying how digital platforms are more firmly ensconced in foreign policy strategies that diplomats must ultimately support. This might also involve a more robust engagement with the ethnographic dimension of institutional analysis of diplomatic sense-making. But it may also mean more culturally revealing analysis of the audiences constructed through the acts of digital diplomacy – networks of diplomatic stakeholders called into being by strategies of appeal online. Perhaps what is most needed in digital diplomacy scholarship is a theory of diplomatic agency – that illustrates how impacts are constructed and maintained. This may inevitably involve an interdisciplinary dialogue with terms and theories outside the canon of diplomatic studies and history. The good news for digital diplomacy researchers is that digital diplomacy very often is public in nature, and leaves traces of effort accessible to research. The signatures of digital diplomacy may illustrate the extent of engagement – the web of relations sustained through social media. These are measures of output, which in turn must be matched with a conceptualization of impact. For example, there may be opportunities to link diplomacy to questions in the study of press–state relations, such as the “CNN Effect” which posits that the process of foreign policy is influenced by the content and pace of news flows. Just as media cycles challenge the ability of foreign policy decision-makers to “control the narrative,” how might we extend this concept to the work of diplomats who seek to deploy information and build relationships in ways that foster stories that chain out to publics. The United States effort to build on shareable media stories, “Share America,” embodies this kind of strategy (Livingston 2011). But any attention to refine the notion of impact and outcome should be matched by studies that attend to the concept of power in digital diplomacy. Melissen and de Keulenaar suggest the need for a “critical digital diplomacy” (2017). The benefits of technology’s affordances are not evenly distributed across the world’s foreign ministries. What does it mean when some countries can mount significant campaigns on social media, while others are left less capable of shaping the narratives that define their place among other international actors? Digital diplomacy also presents an important bridge to well-established research in Media Studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS). This is important, in order to better understand the relevance of materiality to the concept of diplomacy. These fields have an established conceptual vocabulary to address the significance of technology as an impact on social institutions (Hayden 2013; Pamment 2014). Finally, digital diplomacy is an opportunity to revitalize the concept of public diplomacy – which has hitherto been sequestered between history, communication, and DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y international studies. This opportunity exists, because public diplomacy itself is in need of redefinition – in ways that account for how its mission and purpose more directly serve the institutional requirements of diplomacy. As diplomacy (re)discovers technology, so too must it recognize its “public dimension” (Gregory 2016). The advent of digital diplomacy may ultimately reflect a transition in practice that is not so much transformative as it is descriptive and inevitable, given the broader reach of technology into society. As nation-states seize upon the capacity of digital platforms to shape media agendas and expand their presence in the optics of crucial publics, their diplomatic representatives also gain new methods to connect with the constellation of international actors that exist beyond their foreign ministry counterparts, that may ultimately be involved in the resolution of complex diplomatic agendas and problems. Digital diplomacy proceeds from testing the waters of being online to the broader spectrum of engagement: from forging collaborative linkages to manipulating the algorithmic architecture of social media content. The question remains whether diplomats and the organizations they serve can seize the opportunities afforded by the technology that defines their world, while remaining intentional professionals committed to the demands of diplomacy as managers of change. The views expressed by the author of this entry are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of the US government. SEE ALSO: Consular Affairs; Globalization and Diplomacy; International Relations Theory and Diplomacy; Non-State Actors and Diplomacy; Public Diplomacy REFERENCES Bjola, C. (2016a) “Digital Diplomacy – The State of the Art.” Global Affairs 2 (3): 297–99. 11 Bjola, C. (2016b) “Getting Digital Diplomacy Right: What Quantum Theory Can Teach Us About Measuring Impact.” Global Affairs 2 (3): 345–53. Bjola, C., and M. Holmes (Eds.) (2015) Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Bjola, C., and M. Kornprobst (2013) Understanding International Diplomacy: Theory, Practice and Ethics. 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The Economist (2012) “Virtual Relations: Foreign Ministries Are Getting the Hang of Social Media.” Online at: http://www.economist.com/ node/21563284. Accessed May 2017. Gregory, B. (2016) “Mapping Boundaries in Diplomacy’s Public Dimension.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 11 (1): 1–25. Hanson, F. (2012) Baked in and Wired: eDiplomacy@State. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Hayden, C. (2011) The Rhetoric of Soft Power: Public Diplomacy in Global Contexts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Hayden, C. (2013) “Logics of Narrative and Networks in US Public Diplomacy: Communication Power and US Strategic Engagement.” Journal of International Communication 19 (2): 196–218. 12 DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y Hocking, B., and J. Melissen (2015) Diplomacy in the Digital Age. The Hague: Clingendael Institute. Holmes, M. (2015) “Digital Diplomacy and International Change Management.” In C. Bjola and M. Holmes (Eds.), Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, 13–32. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Hutchings, R. L., and J. Suri (Eds.) (2015) Foreign Policy Breakthroughs: Cases in Successful Diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press. Kampf, R., I. Manor, and E. Segev (2015) “Digital Diplomacy 2.0? A Cross-National Comparison of Public Engagement in Facebook and Twitter.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 10 (4): 331–62. Kelley, J. R. (2014) Agency Change: Diplomatic Action beyond the State. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Lichtenstein, J. (2010) “Digital Diplomacy.” The New York Times, July 16. Online at: http://www. nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18web2-0t.html. Accessed May 2017. Livingston, S. (2011) “The CNN Effect Reconsidered (again): Problematizing ICT and Global Governance in the CNN Effect Research Agenda.” Media, War and Conflict 4 (1): 20–36. Manor, I. (2016) Are We There Yet: Have MFAs Realized the Potential of Digital Diplomacy? Leiden: Brill. Online at: http:// booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/ books/9789004319790. Accessed May 2017. Melissen, J., and E. V. de Keulenaar (2017) “The Case for Critical Digital Diplomacy.” Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)/German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Online at: https://www.clingendael.nl/sites/ default/files/WP_Critical_Digital_Diplomacy. pdf. Accessed May 2017. Miskimmon, A., B. O’Loughlin, and L. Roselle (2013) Strategic Narratives: Communication Power and the New World Order. New York and London: Routledge. Neumann, I. B. (2003) “The English School on Diplomacy: Scholarly Promise Unfulfilled.” International Relations 17 (3): 341–69. Nickles, D. P. (2009) Under the Wire: How the Telegraph Changed Diplomacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Owen, T. (2016) “The Networked State and the End of 20th Century Diplomacy.” Global Affairs 2 (3): 301–7. Pamment, J. (2012) “What Became of the New Public Diplomacy? Recent Developments in British, US and Swedish Public Diplomacy Policy and Evaluation Methods.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 7 (3): 313–36. Pamment, J. (2014) “The Mediatization of Diplomacy.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 9 (3): 253–80. Potter, E. H. (2002) Cyber-Diplomacy: Managing Foreign Policy in the Twenty-First Century. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press - MQUP. Powers, S. M., and M. Jablonski (2015) The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Ross, A. (2011) “Digital Diplomacy and US Foreign Policy.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 6 (3–4): 451–55. Sandre, A. (2015) Digital Diplomacy: Conversations on Innovation in Foreign Policy. Lanham, MD, Boulder, New York, and London: Rowman and Littlefield. Sending, O. J., V. Pouliot, and I. B. Neumann (2015) Diplomacy and the Making of World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sevin, E., and K. Dinnie (2015) “Digital Channels and Technologies for Commercial Diplomacy: Conceptualisation and Future Research Propositions.” International Journal of Diplomacy and Economy 2 (4): 266–77. Sharp, P. (2009) Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sofer, S. (2013) The Courtiers of Civilization: A Study of Diplomacy. Albany: SUNY Press. Sotiriu, S. (2015) “Digital Diplomacy: Between Promises and Reality.” In C. Bjola and M. Holmes (Eds.), Digital Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, 33–51. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Wiseman, G. (1999) “‘Polylateralism” and New Models of Global Dialogue.” In C. Jonsson and R. Langhorne (Eds.), Diplomacy, Volume III, 36–57. London: Sage. Woolley, S. C., and P. N. Howard (2016) “Automation, Algorithms, and Politics: Political Communication, Computational Propaganda, and Autonomous Agents – Introduction.” International Journal of Communication 10: 9. DIG I TAL DI PLOM AC Y SUGGESTED READINGS Manor, I. (n.d.) “What Is Digital Diplomacy.” Exploring Digital Diplomacy. Online at: https:// digdipblog.com/. Accessed May 2017. Oliver, A. (2016) “The Irrelevant Diplomat: Do We Need Embassies Anymore?” Foreign Affairs, March 14. Online at: https://www.foreignaffairs. com/articles/world/2016-03-14/irrelevantdiplomat. Accessed May 2017. Owen, T. (2015) Disruptive Power: The Crisis of the State in the Digital Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 13 Stanzel, V. (2016) “Diplomacy in the 21st Century.” Diplomacy in the 21st Century Project. Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP)/ German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Online at: https://www.swp-berlin.org/ fileadmin/contents/products/arbeitspapiere/ WP_Diplomacy21_No1_Volker_Stanzel_01. pdf. Accessed May 2017.