Description
Ministries of Foreign Affairs (MFAs) have traditionally been regarded as institutions that face the world with their backs to the nation. It is thus not surprising that digital technologies such as social media were originally employed by diplomats to communicate with foreign populations. However, recent studies suggest that that much of digital diplomacy is actually domestic diplomacy, as MFAs launch smartphone applications and social media campaigns that target the national citizenry. Diplomats’ growing use of social media to target the domestic population, also referred to as domestic digital diplomacy, suggests that MFAs may now use social media to create a prism through which domestic audiences can make sense of the world around them and their nation’s role in that world. Therefore, the emergence of domestic digital diplomacy could represent an important shift in the conduct of international relations as diplomats actively seek to shape their citizens’ worldviews, beliefs, values and perceptions of local and global events. Even more importantly, diplomats may now use social media to rally support for a nation’s foreign policies. Despite the emergence of domestic digital diplomacy, few studies have examined how MFAs target their national citizenry and how they create a prism through which domestic audiences can make sense of the world. This is a substantial gap as citizens may be unable to make sense of today’s world which seems to be in a perpetual state of crisis. Diplomats’ practice of domestic digital diplomacy may especially be evident in countries which have experienced political shocks or who have decided to alter their foreign policy in a profound way. For it is in these instances, when a nation’s future is riddled with uncertainty, that MFAs may seek to interpret the world for their citizens.
This study sought to examine diplomats’ new practice of domestic digital diplomacy. To do so, it evaluated 100 images shared on Twitter by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in December of 2016. This case study was selected as it was assumed that the FCO would be engulfed in the task of helping British citizens make sense of the UK’s place in the world following the Brexit referendum. Images were analyzed given that diplomats are now visual narrators. Indeed, diplomats share a host of images on social media through which they narrate a nation’s policies and actions on the world stage.
Using Barthes’s semiotic approach to image analysis, this study found that the FCO relied on iconic images, or images that resonated with iconic moments in British history, to narrate Britain’s role in a post-Brexit world. Specifically, the FCO employed images that resonated visually with images of World War II such as the Blitz, the evacuation from Dunkirk and the Home Guard. In this manner, the FCO used World War II as a historic template through which the present world may be understood. Iconic images were used to narrate the UK’s foreign policies, in Syria, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Asia as well as the UK’s actions in global arenas such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Iconic images were also used to explain foreign crises such as the Syrian Civil War, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the paralysis in the UN Security Council.
