Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
Managing knowledge
Part of the broader sweep of the 'digital age', as noted in Chapter 2s, is the exponential growth of the 'big data' phenomenon. Historically, a key function of diplomacy has been the generation, management and utilisation of knowledge. As we have seen, the changing character of the international policy agenda has assigned growing importance to ideas and their insertion into the global agenda. In the broader setting of networked diplomacy, 'thought leadership' depends on access to and utilisation of knowledge in establishing and defining agendas and framing the discourses that develop around them. But if knowledge is (potential) power then it poses a number of problems, including efficiency issues and legitimacy aspects of knowledge management. These concerns have long standing in the practice of diplomacy and a history in the longer-term evolution of ICT before digitalization arrived on the scene.
What kinds of information are needed and how can these best be generated? This question was traditionally fashioned around the need for traditional structures of intelligence gathering through diplomatic missions' reporting to the MFA. Arguments concerning the so-called 'CNN effect' were predicated on the belief that these forms of diplomatic reporting were now redundant. In reality, rather than supplanting diplomatic intelligence gathering, the mass media changed its objectives and forms. There was and remains a continuing role for deep and focused analysis on the ground rather than generalized information transmission. The rise of digitalization has added to the complexities of this picture. Social media have enhanced resources for policy management and, at the same time, created an increasingly dense and fragmented information environment which has to be 'managed'. This offers diplomats added resources – as in the public diplomacy sphere. Yet, it also strengthens the hand of others now able to gain an effective voice in the global arena.
Digitalization has also impacted on the legitimacy aspects of diplomatic knowledge management processes. This takes us to a key question confronting the contemporary diplomat: if transparency is now a key principle underscored by demands for enhanced participation, how does this relate to the principle of confidentiality which has been central to the practice of much diplomatic activity? The 2011 WikiLeaks episode did not offer any definitive answer to the conundrum of the limits of the domain of the confidential in an era where the demands for openness frequently trump other considerations. The emergence of twiplomacy, i.e. the use of Twitter and other social media platforms by political leaders, seems likely to confuse the picture even more as the roles of diplomats and politicians become even less distinct.
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