Adjust font size:

What are the responses to the problems and opportunities of digitalization by government as a whole? A recent OECD study paints an uneven picture of the responses of member governments to social media use, particularly the lack of an overall strategy:

        …few national governments in OECD countries have a dedicated strategy or overarching plan for institutional use of social media. Among those governments that do, most consider social media as being mainly an additional tool to improve public communications. Only a few governments try to genuinely leverage social media for more advanced purposes like involving citizens in public policy processes of transforming and redesigning public service delivery.

The problems of foreign policy management in a digital age reflect those confronting government as a whole. One of the accepted mantras of contemporary diplomacy – echoed in a paper from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see Box 4.7) – is that it is increasingly a 'whole of government' activity. Consequently, digitalization carries with it implications for the relationships between the component elements of the NDS – not least diplomacy, development and defence. One issue for the MFA in its national setting is, therefore, its relationship with other components of government – an issue that predates digital agendas – and the impact that new communications technologies have on them. Digital tools facilitate linkages between key parts of the NDS, but in a fragmented foreign policy bureaucracy they also pose a more fundamental question: Who are the 'leaders' in deploying them to control global narratives. The Israeli Defence Forces, for example, have pioneered state engagement with social media, a position echoed in the US where the Defence Department is often portrayed as a more muscular and more effective player than the State Department. In the UK, the army has recently created a 'special force of Facebook warriors skilled in psychological operations and use of social media to engage in unconventional warfare in the information age.'

Print E-mail

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)

Add your comments...

• User Name Required
• Your Comment
• Enter the words you see:   
  Racist, abusive and off-topic comments may be removed by the moderator.