The success of Obama, Modi, and others has been particularly good for digital diplomacy, which is the use of new communication technologies to help achieve diplomatic goals. It is hard to even imagine how many countries and heads of state didn't have a Twitter or Facebook account not that long ago.
Despite the widespread adoption of digital diplomacy, few studies have investigated how governments use SNS in order to frame foreign countries and themselves. Self-framing is practiced by countries as part of nation branding activities.
A hashtag expressing solidarity for the Jewish population of France is gathering traction on Twitter. #JeSuisJuif began trending shortly after it was revealed a second siege was unfolding at a Jewish supermarket in Paris.
Manor & Segev's study on self-framing by Russia, Iran and the U.S. in Social Networking Sites
Governments around the world are using stealthy strategies to manipulate the media. Censorship is flourishing in the information age. In theory, new technologies make it more difficult, and ultimately impossible, for governments to control the flow of information.
As social media has emerged as a key communications tool, the External Affairs Ministry has come on the top among various ministries and government departments in terms of its presence on digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.
This video highlights some of the key findings of Burson-Marsteller's Annual Twiplomacy Study which was recently updated to look more specifically at the connections between heads of state and governments and foreign ministers, covering a record 161 countries and 643 Twitter accounts.
“[Twitter] has become a very powerful tool to conduct public diplomacy,” Sarukhan says. “Public diplomacy is about engaging and about winning hearts and minds.”