Public Diplomacy and the Digital Society

When examining how digital technologies influence the practice of public diplomacy, scholars often explore how technology facilitates or disrupts diplomatic activities. This book offers a different departure point by arguing that one cannot understand the influence of digital technologies on public diplomacy without first characterizing the digital society. This is because diplomats are social beings and foreign ministries are social institutions. Events and processes that impact society invariably shape diplomats and their institutions. Presently, diplomats are members of digital societies or societies that have been fundamentally reshaped by digital technologies. Thus, understating contemporary public diplomacy calls for analyzing the norms, values and behaviors that are celebrated by the digital society. This chapters reviews these norms and values, and demonstrates how they come to shape public diplomacy activities.