Digital diplomacy is the new radio

Vidya Subramanian, hindustantimes.com; via

Image from article, with caption: Digital diplomacy gives politicians the ability to speak directly to people without having to go through the media.

Excerpt:

Digital Diplomacy is the new radio. Ever since politicians figured out that they could speak directly to ‘the masses’, we have had the phenomenon of public diplomacy. It became possible, via radio, to speak directly to people without having to go through official government channels. In the early 20th century, the Nazis and the Bolsheviks effectively used the radio to stoke revolutions in neighbouring countries. A hundred years later, with the advent of social media, public diplomacy has taken a new leap, to 140-character policy frameworks, thanks to Twitter. ...

Twitter diplomacy (or twiplomacy) gives politicians the ability to speak directly to people without having to go through the media. And that, by itself, is not a problem. It only becomes problematic when a leader’s social media feed becomes the news itself. ...

Digital diplomacy can be as effective a tool to implement democracy as to subvert it. What would really make a difference is not how much leaders can communicate (with the masses or with each other) but, as it has always been, how effectively. It would be foolish and foolhardy to ignore the power of digital diplomacy. With its vast reach and potential for immediate results, it is a useful and effective tool. But there is yet another bothersome factor: All of this – the Tweets, the Facebook posts, the Instagram images, all of it – is communicated through for-profit corporations. Public it may be, but how effective and sustainable can any diplomacy be that relies on profit making corporations for its dissemination?