On January 16th and 17th, Sweden's Ministry for Foreign Affairs sponsored the Stockholm Initiative for Digital Diplomacy (SIDD). The 24-hour conference invited participants from Sweden, Finland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, France, Brazil, Turkey, the UAE, Kosovo and the European External Action Service (EEAS) to discuss the "current state of
play" and the role of social media in public diplomacy. The participants ranged in occupation from diplomats to digital diplomacy practitioners, academics, researchers, and
business and media executives to generate ideas and to identify public diplomacy challenges in the 21st century.
The brainchild of Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, SIDD was created as a way for delegations from multiple countries to collaborate on new digital diplomacy ideas and ways to perform public diplomacy using new technology and social media. Although social media was not the main purpose of the conference, the ideas generated were meant to be used in conjunction with social media. SIDD is considered a "diplohack", a meeting of diplomats and public diplomacy leaders, which was conducted in two sessions. The first, Diplomacy and the Culture of Digital Participation, explored the implications of using digital technology in public diplomacy and how "being your own diplomat" will change how public diplomacy is conducted. The second, Creative Diplomacy: Co-creation Between States to Enhance Diplomacy in a Networked World, addressed the expectations of future diplomats given new technology, and how creating networks of diplomats from around the world will be beneficial to international communication. The conference also utilized TedTalks to generate discussion and ideas.
As technology keeps developing, it will be imperative that every nation will have to change its public diplomacy strategy. Digital diplomacy is becoming one of the best ways for a state to extend its ideas and influence, especially through social media use. New actors are entering the scene to include non-state actors and the public. Sweden has been one of the first states to embrace the new age of technology. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt maintains a very active Twitter account, and even tweeted at a Bahraini colleague who would not contact him. He was even voted "best connected [world] leader" on Twitter. However, Bildt insists that Twitter is a good opportunity for listening and paying attention to what others are posting, which is one of the main components of Cull's five core components of public diplomacy. Cultural diplomacy and exchange diplomacy were also major components of SIDD. While Sweden led the discussions, exposing other nations to Sweden's culture and ideas, the other delegations were also able to offer their ideas and opinions, furthering cultural exchange. The conference served as a massive international collaboration that can propel each state's public and digital diplomacy forward in the 21st century.
Bildt, who personally took part in SIDD, said, "We are
continuously modernizing and improving our Foreign Service, and a modern
Foreign Service must be ready to meet people in the arenas where they
are present." After the conference, it was agreed upon that the group will continue as an ongoing working group to develop digital diplomacy, and that it will expand to include more members.
The full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andreas-sandre/digital-diplomacy-stockholm_b_4592691.html
For more information on SIDD: http://www.government.se/sb/d/18138
More on Carl Bildt: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-01/17/carl-bildt-digital-diplomat
I totally agree with argument that says Digital Media, especially Social Media, has become necessary element in the Public Diplomacy.
ReplyDeleteCultural Diplomacy and Exchange Diplomacy, the factors mentioned in this post, are significantly influenced by Digital Media since it send mobile visible and audible information to targets and affects them, which might result in people’s willingness to go to study abroad as exchanging program or having interests in the country.
As Cowan and Arsenault argue, Dialogue is an important type of Public Diplomacy, which means sending information each other and listening another’s reaction from it, that is, 2-way conversational communication.
As we discussed in class, Public Diplomacy looked like information battle between countries, and they competed about which story is the most interesting or effective to targets. However, after 9.11, the important factors in Public Diplomacy altered into network and relationship with other countries.
Therefore, one-way communication that Cowan and Arsenault called Monologue, is certainly important in specific situation, but dialogue has significant effect on recent Public Diplomacy. In this aspect, Social Media affects not only state actors but also non-state actors and helps actors have dialogue with other actors because in Social Media, actors can immediately update and spread their new information, ideas or points spread those to the world, and audiences can check and make comments on those information.
Moreover, it was very interesting that, when students made the plans to promote positive public diplomacy for countries including Egypt, Iceland and Greece, all group made their plans by using and digital media such as Internet and TV, and some of them made plans by using Social Media such as YouTube and Facebook. This result also shows that Digital Media and Social Media are both significantly effective on Public Diplomacy. In Stockholm Initiative for Digital Diplomacy, it has been proved that Social Media has already been the key component of Public Diplomacy.