IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/pbapdi/v15y2019i2d10.1057_s41254-019-00119-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hashtag diplomacy: twitter as a tool for engaging in public diplomacy and promoting US foreign policy

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen D. Collins

    (Kennesaw State University)

  • Jeff R. DeWitt

    (Kennesaw State University)

  • Rebecca K. LeFebvre

    (Kennesaw State University)

Abstract

While national governments increasingly deploy digital diplomacy communication strategies to harness the power of social media, political scientists have paid sparse attention to certain aspects of this development. Our study endeavors to address this lacuna by employing content analysis and data-analytic methodologies to examine U.S. Twitter diplomacy. We leverage a robust dataset of tweets posted by leading foreign policy officials in the Obama administration to determine whether Twitter diplomacy exhibited a coherent communication strategy (per the rational actor model of foreign policy), or a more ad-hoc and disjointed practice (per the pluralist and bureaucratic politics models). Furthermore, this study assesses several variables relating to the efficacy of Twitter statecraft, including the formatting of tweets, and the resonance and geographic reach of tweets. We find that Twitter diplomacy under the Obama administration was largely rational; that is, it reflected the rational actor model, as the topic focus of tweets was proportional to stated U.S. foreign policy priorities.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen D. Collins & Jeff R. DeWitt & Rebecca K. LeFebvre, 2019. "Hashtag diplomacy: twitter as a tool for engaging in public diplomacy and promoting US foreign policy," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 15(2), pages 78-96, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:15:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1057_s41254-019-00119-5
    DOI: 10.1057/s41254-019-00119-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41254-019-00119-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41254-019-00119-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Allison, Graham T., 1969. "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 689-718, November.
    2. Jon Pelling, 2016. "Public diplomacy in the age of networks: Midwives4all," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(2), pages 201-209, August.
    3. Allison, Graham T., 1969. "Conceptual Models and the Cuban Missile Crisis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 63(3), pages 689-718, September.
    4. Moran Yarchi & Tal Samuel-Azran & Lidor Bar-David, 2017. "Facebook users’ engagement with Israel’s public diplomacy messages during the 2012 and 2014 military operations in Gaza," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(4), pages 360-375, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nisha Garud-Patkar, 2022. "Is digital diplomacy an effective foreign policy tool? Evaluating India’s digital diplomacy through agenda-building in South Asia," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 18(2), pages 128-143, June.
    2. Ricardo J. Valencia & Derek Moscato, 2021. "Navigating #ObamainCuba: how Twitter mediates frames and history in public diplomacy," Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 17(2), pages 168-179, June.
    3. Julia Gray & Philip Potter, 2020. "Diplomacy and the Settlement of International Trade Disputes," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 64(7-8), pages 1358-1389, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miriam Hartlapp & Julia Metz & Christian Rauh, 2010. "The agenda set by the EU Commission: the result of balanced or biased aggregation of positions?," LEQS – LSE 'Europe in Question' Discussion Paper Series 21, European Institute, LSE.
    2. Paul Cairney & Federico Toth, 2023. "The politics of COVID-19 experts: comparing winners and losers in Italy and the UK," Policy and Society, Darryl S. Jarvis and M. Ramesh, vol. 42(3), pages 392-405.
    3. Ade Muhammad & Utomo S. Putro & Manahan Siallagan & Kyoichi Kijima & Meditya Wasesa, 2021. "System of Diagnostic Systems framework and its application to the disharmony in Indonesian national security," Systems Research and Behavioral Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(1), pages 31-49, January.
    4. Eben J. Christensen & Steven B. Redd, 2004. "Bureaucrats Versus the Ballot Box in Foreign Policy Decision Making," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 48(1), pages 69-90, February.
    5. Michael Brecher & Patrick James, 1988. "Patterns of Crisis Management," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 32(3), pages 426-456, September.
    6. Michal Parízek, 2017. "Control, soft information, and the politics of international organizations staffing," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 559-583, December.
    7. Arkadiy V. Sakhartov & Timothy B. Folta, 2013. "Rationalizing Organizational Change: A Need for Comparative Testing," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(4), pages 1140-1156, August.
    8. Thomas J. Volgy & Jon E. Quistgaard, 1975. "Learning About the Value of Global Cooperation," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 19(2), pages 349-376, June.
    9. Niittymies, Aleksi & Pajunen, Kalle & Lamberg, Juha-Antti, 2022. "Temporality and firm de-internationalization: Three historical approaches," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(6).
    10. Nutt, Paul C., 2000. "Context, tactics, and the examination of alternatives during strategic decision making," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 159-186, July.
    11. David Davis, 1972. "Consensus or conflict: Alternative strategies for the bureaucratic bargainer," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 21-29, September.
    12. Mario Levorato & Rosa Figueiredo & Yuri Frota & Lúcia Drummond, 2017. "Evaluating balancing on social networks through the efficient solution of correlation clustering problems," EURO Journal on Computational Optimization, Springer;EURO - The Association of European Operational Research Societies, vol. 5(4), pages 467-498, December.
    13. Karen Guttieri & Michael D. Wallace & Peter Suedfeld, 1995. "The Integrative Complexity of American Decision Makers in The Cuban Missile Crisis," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 39(4), pages 595-621, December.
    14. Lisa J. Carlson & Raymond Dacey, 2014. "The use of fear and anger to alter crisis initiation," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 31(2), pages 168-192, April.
    15. Patrick James & John R. Oneal, 1991. "The Influence of Domestic and International Politics on the President's Use of Force," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 35(2), pages 307-332, June.
    16. Bozeman, Barry, 2011. "The 2010 BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill: Implications for theory of organizational disaster," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 244-252.
    17. Christian Göpfert & Christine Wamsler & Werner Lang, 2019. "A framework for the joint institutionalization of climate change mitigation and adaptation in city administrations," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 24(1), pages 1-21, January.
    18. Jie Yu, 2018. "The belt and road initiative: domestic interests, bureaucratic politics and the EU-China relations," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 16(3), pages 223-236, September.
    19. Staudenmayer, Nancy A. (Nancy Ann), 1997. "Interdependency : conceptual, empirical, & practical issues," Working papers 162-97. Working paper (Sl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan School of Management.
    20. Ole R. Holsti, 1980. "Historians, Social Scientists, and Crisis Management," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 24(4), pages 665-682, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:pbapdi:v:15:y:2019:i:2:d:10.1057_s41254-019-00119-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.