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To Tweet or Not to Tweet: The State Department’s Digital Revolution

The U.S. State Department has jumped into the world of online communication with a vengeance. January 2012 has been designated 21st Century Statecraft month, and Administration officials have been busy tweeting, blogging, doing online Facebook chats, streaming video, and just about every other social media platform imaginable.

As a public diplomacy tool, the Internet has become a heaven-sent gift for Foggy Bottom. Clearly, there is a very determined effort underway to upgrade the image of the State Department from a rather staid and slow-pokey bureaucracy to a hopping, hip, and super-connected organization.

“Stay tuned to www.state.gov, the DipNote blog, @StateDept on Twitter and the U.S. Department of State’s official Facebook page for additional engagement opportunities on our social media platforms throughout 21st Century Statecraft month,” exhorts the State Department’s press release.

Well, good for State. In an interconnected world, we should certainly take advantage of every tool to push the message out about U.S. diplomacy and statecraft. Today, according to InternetWorldStats.com, about one-third of the world’s 6 billion people are now connected to the Internet, with an explosive growth of 480 percent over the past year. We are in many ways getting closer to Marshall McLuhan’s vision of an electronically connected global village.

A couple of questions present themselves, though: How many of these 2 billion users really want to be connected to the U.S. State Department? If we are reaching the right elite audiences, we are doing the right thing with our Web sites, but other media might well be more suitable to reach a broader audience. How many countries allow their citizens to access State’s Web sites? Iran lost no time blocking the State Department’s virtual embassy site set up to reach Iranian audiences. Is our messaging getting through? What happens during the other 11 months of the year when it is not “21st Century Statecraft Month” anymore?

And a final word of caution: For all the activity that Twitter feeds and Facebook postings seem to reflect, in the greater scheme of things, they represent only a miniscule fraction of the activities undertaken by State. Diplomacy is about a vast range of government-to-government and people-to-people interactions that take place outside the digital realm.

For those who want a taste of what U.S. cyber diplomacy looks like, these were the events of the week January 23–27 available online:

Click here to view this post in Spanish on Libertad.org

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