Deep-lomacy #3

Tweeting Diplomacy during Covid-19

Social media changed the way we connect in our days, it also had a major impact on the way we perceive and operate on cultural diplomacy related issues and more precisely on the tools that states use. In this digital era, you can mistakenly assume that every day is an international social network day. We are constantly connected, often to more than one social network, no matter the situation - anytime, everywhere, always. Officially the International Social Network Day was marked recently and for this occasion, we will dive into a brief analysis of how social networks assist countries in their external relations (direct and indirect- with other countries and its citizens). The analysis was conducted by Yasmin Kremer, a researcher at the Simone Veil Research Centre for Contemporary European Studies. Yasmin's main research focuses on the role of the Eurovision Song Contest in the context of cultural diplomacy theory. Recently Yasmin participated in an international study that examines embassies use of the 'Twitter' network before and during Covid-19, led by Professor Francesco Olmastroni from the University of Siena. Yasmin examined the United States delegation to the European Union Twitter account also known as @US2EU and this is her fascinating findings:

What was the effect of Covid-19 on the behavior of the United States Embassy to the European Union user on Twitter? During the first outbreak, the Twitter account barely published original tweets and mostly posted re-tweets. It was also noticeable that more and more tweets were characterized by a personal and direct appeal to the member states of the European Union. In comparison, the pre-COVID-19 period was more about general tweets directed to the EU member states as a whole.

During the pandemic outbreak, the tweets of the American delegation can be identified by United States image promotion. In comparison, in the previous period, the American delegation tweets dealt with external relations and less with glorification. It can be explained by the uneasy situation the United States dealt with in mid-April, leading the chart with the largest number of COVID-19 cases. Therefore, The United States made efforts to show the world and the European Union in particular, that it is still a leading and influential force.

Incidentally, the findings of the study show that the United States Embassy to the European Union Twitter account is not very popular and does not receive much attention. It has only 24,000 followers even though the account opened in 2011 (for comparison, the corresponding Twitter account of the United States Embassy to The United Kingdom has three times as many followers). Moreover, the United States Embassy to the European Union tweets do not receive many likes, comments, or re-tweets. Thus it can be assumed that they do not have a significant distribution. An intriguing anecdote that emerged from the study shows that President Donald Trump, who has considered to own an active Twitter account, is not among the top ten most retweeted people, compared to the often re-tweeted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

To sum up, I would like to recommend a great website that gathers statistics on Twitter accounts for your free use: http://www.twitonomy.com