digital diplomacy

‘The higher the budget often the lower the impact of e-diplomacy projects,’ was the first counter-intuitive insight by Ambassador Alexandre Fasel, Swiss Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. Combining his rich experience from corporate and government sectors, he outlined a few e-diplomacy law/principles.

November 6, 2012

Future prejudices of China will be born not in the columns of the print media and in the radio and TV reports, but in the mushrooming blogs and micro-blogs of the digital world... Future stability will depend not only on what happens in the real world, but also on what happens in the digital world.

What the people think of their leadership and government will be increasingly reflected not in the traditional print and TV media, but in the digital media and in the blogs and micro-blogs of the digital world. The digital image of China in the international net community will increasingly influence governmental and non-governmental perceptions of China.

My Brookings paper which launched today, Baked in and Wired: eDiplomacy @ State, tracks State’s remarkable emergence as the leading innovator in its field. It drills into three areas where its use of ediplomacy has been particularly striking: public diplomacy, internet freedom, and knowledge management.

“This is a key point for digital diplomacy – the importance of reaching a broader audience, not just the same old people who usually follow foreign affairs.” As such, top diplomats are increasingly holding live, virtual chats on social networks to engage with people whom they would otherwise never meet.

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