Data-Driven Public Diplomacy: A Critical and Reflexive Assessment (original) (raw)
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Despite seven years of experiments, U.S. public diplomacy against international terrorism has largely failed. What is most needed is a strong infusion of fresh ideas. The rhetorical branch of the offensive against terror has been utterly neglected. U.S. spokesmen should reopen the argument about terrorism's rank immorality; amplify the voices of Muslim critics of terrorism; publicly deconstruct the ideas of outspoken terrorists; and point to such weaknesses as their lack of credentials in theology. Secondly, there is much room for vigorous and thoughtful defense of evident political alternatives to terror, especially moderation and the rule of law.
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Data is often described as a critical resource of modern society, or even the oil of the new economy. Vast amounts of data are generated every day through the use of electronic devices and the Internet. The private sector has begun to harness big data sources to improve their products and services, streamline procedures, and ultimately increase revenues. Big data analysis is said to create insights that were hitherto unavailable. What is the position of diplomats, who rely on data and information in their everyday work, in this changing environment? Some ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) and international organisations are tentatively exploring the uses of big data for policy planning, knowledge management, development, humanitarian action, and emergency response, recognising the potential benefits. Yet, there is still a large number of perceived obstacles that prevent others from stepping on board the big data train. This report aims to increase the awareness of the opportunities, limitations, and challenges of the big data trend, and to understand how MFAs could adapt their work, procedures, and organisational structures to the big data era. In this report, we provide a broad overview of the main opportunities of big data in different diplomatic fields and functions, and highlight the key issues that need to be addressed for big data diplomacy to flourish. This framework of possibilities and constraints opens up a diversity of applications and implications that can be explored in further detail, and is meant to inform MFAs that are exploring big data to adapt diplomatic practice to the data- driven era where possible and feasible.
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International Journal of Communication, 2019
Public diplomacy is a fast-growing area of study with little agreement on its boundaries. In support of the subject’s development as a field of academic inquiry, we present a content analysis of English-language peer-reviewed articles on public diplomacy since 1965 (N = 2,124). We begin with analysis of bibliographic data to establish the field’s institutional boundaries by highlighting trends in scholarship over time and identifying prominent disciplines and journals. We then sketch the field’s conceptual boundaries by analyzing the concepts and topics that appear most in the literature. This process allows us to characterize decades of scholarship on public diplomacy and offer recommendations for future work. Keywords: public diplomacy, soft power, meta-analysis, topic modeling, text mining