By Julian Dierkes

I write this more as a social media practitioner than an academic or researcher. But I do believe that individual diplomats face similar challenges to academics in exploring and maximizing the possibilities of Digital Diplomacy/Scholarship. We are often not used to writing to general audiences whose attention span is limited – especially given the great variety of writing that is available to them – and whose focus may not be precision, but rather an opportunity to learn and understand.

For academics that means a different kind of language and the foregoing of some of the typical trappings of academic publishing like peer review, notions of cumulative knowledge, and citations. Instead, blogging focus on single or few empirical insights that are placed in a network of knowledge.

Likewise, diplomats might have to throw to the wind the tremendous care that they devote to specific phrases in negotiations, for example, and the convoluted rhetoric that is meant to sound like they speak for a unified and decisive government.

If we can overcome some of our inhibitions and embrace opportunities to develop our social media voices, I do think that academics as much as diplomats have an opportunity to maintain their relevance and to contribute to generalized well-being.

For these purposes, the blog strikes me as the optimal vehicle.

In short, a White Paper and other formal writing is too long and too academic, while a micro-blog is too short to even hint at nuance and allow for an extensive discussion. Thus the blog as the core tool of Canadian Digital Diplomacy!

What are some aspects of blog posts that would apply to Digital Diplomacy blogging?

• short (< 1,000 words, no more than two-scrolls even on laptops)
• to a single or only few points
• intelligible to an informed general audience
• open to comments
• part of larger conversation through hyperlinks
• chronologically displayed, but tagged and categorized to allow for thematic reading
• a distinct voice for the blog created by some kind of editorial oversight, but identified individual authors
• formatting to facilitate quick, but informed reading (subheadings, images where appropriate)
• possibility of embedding multimedia files

[Question to self: Does this post match these characteristics?]

Content

Elsewhere I have written about the strategic choices the Liberal government and Global Affairs might make. Over a year into the Trudeau government with its (initial) excitement about more openness, we still don’t see anything like a substantive engagement with stakeholders on line.

If a few or many themes were selected for Digital Diplomacy initiatives, than these would be interlinked across a Global Affairs blog site. For example, a blog focused on a reorientation of foreign policy around climate change might cross-post with another blog that examines Canada’s contributions to and participation in multi-lateral fora. Or a post that discussed implications of TPP ratification for trade with SE Asia could be cross-posted to a blog focused on CETA, and on ASEAN. Such interlinking could foster collaboration across departmental silos within Global Affairs if blog authors were explicitly encouraged to seek such connections.

Process

Once a theme had been selected as an initiative, a team would be built around this theme. I would imagine it to be a larger team than would be the case without a Digital Diplomacy plan, but it would be staffed in a similar way, i.e. with FSOs who would be assigned to this team for a regular 3-year rotation. They might be supported by some social media specialists, but this support would be on-demand, technical in nature, rather than strategic.

As the team works its way into the thematic priority, they would begin writing notes for themselves as blog posts on an internal-readers-only blog. Such an internal-only blog could be useful as “practice” but also to generate organizational schemes using typical blog tools such as tagging and categorizing, but also to build up a back library and experience with the labour required per post, the regulatory of posting, etc.

Existing Blogs

There are actually a good number of MFA blogs once searched, but many of them look like they were started at some point, but then petered out, or they are primarily yet another broadcast channel, i.e. like most of Twiplomacy, stuck on notions of making diplomacy more approachable and interesting, but not on engagement of stokeholds, yet.

Official Blogs

I’ve ordered these alphabetically by country’s English name. I’ve based this on a quick search using typical search tools, but will continue to see if I can find more blogs like this to perhaps start a catalogue of sorts, especially if this seems useful to reader. Let me know!

Minister of Foreign Affairs Blog on Human Rights (Canada) [2016, likely defunct]

Carnet Diplomatiques (France) [Jan 2014 – current]

MFA Blog (Egypt) [Aug 2015 – current]

MFA Ethiopia [Apr 2016 – current]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia [2008, seems defunct]

Minister’s Blog (Kazakhstan) [April – Oct 2014, seems defunct]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Somaliland [Aug 2016 – current]

Ambassador’s Blog (Sweden) [Aug 2011 – current]

Foreign Affairs Blog (Tanzania) [Feb 2017 – current]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine [Sept 2015 – current]

Digital Diplomacy (UK) [Aug 2011 – current]

Other Blogs

The American Foreign Service Association maintains a listing of U.S. foreign policy blogs of various kinds, but official US State Department blogs are absent (except for DipNote, more of a broadcast effort, and the diplomatic family-oriented Foggy Bottom Rambles).