What I consider to be the most significant change in the nature of diplomacy is the use of modern technology such as the Internet. The heavily increased use of the internet in politics has caused the speed of communication between two parties to heavily increase, this has the knock on effect meaning although politicians can now communicate themselves more quickly it also means negative information can be released and spread about them at a faster rate meaning they have to spend a lot more time on their image using more media outlets including the internet.
e.g. www.number10.gov.uk uses facebook, twitter and youtube to communicate with people .
The official Barack Obama website www.barackobama.com has 16 different outlets of information including facebook, blackplanet, myspace, youtube, flickr, twitter to name 6 of them This new way of using diplomacy aims to commiunicate with vast amounts of people cheaply and quickly meaning that should a problem occur such as footage of american soldiers abusing afghan prisoners being released to the worlds press. American leaders can cool the situation far quicker than ever before. The internet also means political negotians can be more efficient as it is clearer to find out how many people believe a certain situation is right and how many believe it is wrong through tghe use of Polls, blogs etc, check http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm
Very good opinion indeed, I just have a bit of confusion I want to share with you and Professor Steven Curtis.
ReplyDeleteIt is true that the use of internet can lead to many things as you said and it is a significant change but I am just wondering if the use of internet is significant in the developing countries diplomacy as diplomacy itself is broad. But let’s say for example an embassy that is based in a foreign country, do they all use facebook, twitter or YouTube? Some popular embassies such as France or the USA may use to give information about renewing a passport for example but not all embassy have use internet, also let’s not forget that internet in the developing countries is not easy to get access.
When we talk about diplomacy, I see it in a different way such the use of diplomacy/charisma of political party, diplomacy as an ambassador or a consul whom deal with different types of things. Also I understand the way NGOs are included in diplomacy as this lead to many other things but I think that diplomacy should be differed to political party campaigning as it is a very different type of diplomacy so it really depends what kind of diplomacy we are talking about here, if it is either diplomacy in general or diplomacy in embassies sector so my questions then go for our professor.
And this question is for Dr Steven Curtis
When we talk about diplomacy, do we talk about the representatives of a country in another country or do we talk about party political campaigning through internet? Or is diplomacy all about negotiation between two countries to overcome to their own interest? To me it is all about two countries negotiating for the best interest of their countries which of course include different types of interests. I am a bit confused with the party political involving in this matter.