The Digitalization of Public Diplomacy

Book excerpt: This book addresses how digitalization has influenced the institutions, practitioners and audiences of diplomacy. Throughout, the author argues that terms such as ‘digitalized public diplomacy’ or ‘digital public diplomacy’ are misleading, as they suggest that Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) are either digital or non-digital, when in fact digitalization should be conceptualized as a long-term process in which the values, norms, working procedures and goals of public diplomacy are challenged and re-defined. Subsequently, through case study examination, this book also argues that different MFAs are at different stages of the digitalization process. By adopting the term ‘the digitalization of public diplomacy’, this book will offer a new conceptual framework for investigating the impact of digitalization on the practice of public diplomacy.