Diplomacy in the Digital Age
- By Brian Hocking and Jan Melissen
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 26, 2015
• Treasure: the possession of financial resources employed in exercising influence and/or buying information
• Organization: a set of human skills and materials (buildings and equipment) related to the roles of government generally and its specific subsections.
When applied to the MFA subsystem, we can see that it is characterised by a particular configuration of 'effectors' and 'detectors' (see table 4.1). Nodality is the most important as the subsystem relies on its location within social and informational networks – both within the broader NDS and across the world – for acquiring information and exerting influence. Of the remaining three tools, organisation is the most significant: human and physical resources clearly determine the MFA's ability to capitalise on nodality.
The MFA as node and digitalization
How does digitalization impact on nodality? The first general point to make is that the state of digital diplomacy is, to use the term applied by one of its practitioners, 'messy'. Diplomacy is passing through one of its continuing transformational phases as it responds to exogenous and endogenous forces and digitalization is part of this picture.
The first, and obvious, point to be made is that digitalization is a two-edged sword. Claims that MFAs may have the role of information 'gatekeeper' can no longer be taken seriously. At the same time, digitalization in the shape of access to big data, crowdsourcing ideas and the development of knowledge management tools can strengthen MFA nodality in both its detector and effector roles. Furthermore, the current explosion of information and disinformation potentially enhances the value of the MFA's nodality in terms of its analytical capacity - that is using the skills of diplomacy to interpret data. In this light, it is not surprising that knowledge management was the earliest manifestation of digitalization in the US State Department.
Knowing how and where to utilise and 'package' online and offline strategies is becoming a more telling task. Taking the Prevention of Sexual Violence issue discussed above as one example, British diplomats both in London and in posts experimented with different forms of social media blended with more traditional media-focused strategies – and found that Twitter provided an immediacy and a 'buzz' in relating to audiences whilst it was more challenging to find an audience through Facebook. Digitalization offers the opportunity to strengthen general 'broadcast' messages whilst also providing the opportunity to target specific groups. The trick is to select the appropriate nodal tools and strategies for the job in hand.
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